If not affection, then not even the slightest twinge of the baser, more animal emotions? “One can’t cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. I had hoped that I could avoid you as much as possible, while still accepting. It would have broken Mama’s heart to deny her at least a shred of optimism. She’d rather live on hope than face the truth.”
Adela was steely, but for a few fractions of a second, the way she bit her full, pink lower lip betrayed her. Likewise her narrow white hand twisting a fold of her gown. The contrast between the creamy pallor of her skin and the dull sheen of the black fabric was intoxicating. Unable to stop himself, Wilson imagined her in the kind of black satin boudoir garments that Coraline had so favored, and his wayward cock kicked again, hard, in his trousers.
Anger kicked, too, but not at his cousin. He actually felt enraged at the memory of Coraline for distracting him, as if she’d stepped into the room and interrupted this sparring match. Yet her presence seemed strangely indistinct.... He should have felt regret over his former mistress, but her image was blurred, like an inexpertly developed photograph.
The vision of his second cousin twice removed, however, was sharp as a razor. And despite the fact that the real woman was still scowling at him, the mental image of Adela Felicia Ruffington clad in a black corset trimmed with red lace and ribbons was delectable, and made him want to touch himself. And her.
Yes, you’d look very handsome in a few scraps of expensive frou-frou, Della. Very handsome indeed.
“You should be out in society, Della. Just because your mother’s prepared to sacrifice you to me in order to save her fortunes and those of your butterfly sisters, that shouldn’t stop you from having a little fun.”
Adela drew in a slow deep breath, clearly sifting through a selection of sarcastic words with which to lash him. The action made her bosom lift, pushing her delicate curves against the confines of her hidden corset. Wilson’s private fantasy of ribbons and black satin grew yet more agonizing in the area of his loins.
Adela was a slim woman, but she had a shape. A beautiful wood nymph’s shape, and just once, for one blessed idyllic afternoon, he’d had his eager hands on it.
“Well, I thank you for your sage opinions on the subject of my welfare, Wilson.” She inclined her head like some wily bird, assessing him. And not with favor. Wilson could see columns and tallies, and far too many negative ticks stacked up against him. Suddenly his own affected eccentricity, which usually secretly amused him, wasn’t quite as satisfying anymore. He clenched his fists in the folds of his dressing gown, to stop his fingers from raking through his unruly hair in an effort to tidy it. He wished he’d made an effort to conform, and that he could change his lurid waistcoat for something more elegant and sober, and his silk dressing gown for a well-cut frock coat. His maverick attire did not find favor with his cousin. Her perfectly arched eyebrows spoke volumes.
“But for my part,” she went on, her exquisite hauteur and proud deportment making her appear far more entitled to a deluxe life and aristocratic status than he’d ever be, “it’s not the end of the world if the Ruffington assets go to you on the Old Curmudgeon’s death. Grandfather has his reasons, and we’ll make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt. Mama and the girls and I will manage, even if we have to take in washing. And if the worse did come to the worst, I can’t believe that even you would throw us out on the street. Our parasitical status notwithstanding.”
Will I never be allowed to forget that?
Certain ill-thought remarks, made on the occasion of their last meeting, were impossible to expunge. Adela still hated him for them, and he couldn’t blame her. He had been nasty. With much on his mind at the time, a moment’s lapse of concentration had led him to say vile things about Mrs. Ruffington, and all subsequent halfhearted attempts to retract had only made things worse.
But being instructed—in a letter from her mother—that he really ought to marry Adela, because the assets and riches of her grandfather, Augustus Ruffington, Lord Millingford, were rightfully hers, had made him see red. In cooler moments, he knew that the Old Curmudgeon was being callous and cruel to his daughter-in-law and granddaughters. But receiving this commandment while Coraline was being particularly capricious, and with memories of his own mother’s emotional manipulations still keen, Wilson had lashed out at Adela when they’d encountered each other at the New Gallery not long after.
No, calling her mother “a presumptuous, overbearing parasite with ridiculous notions of entitlement” had not endeared him to Adela, making an already prickly relationship into a veritable porcupine of resentment and enmity.
Still, he opened his mouth, not knowing how, but hoping to make things better. “But that’s not quite what I meant, and you must admit I didn’t say it to her face. I—”
His cousin raised a hand and silenced him before he could get another word out.
My God, she’s impressive. Wilson’s cock lurched again, the weight of desire almost making him double over.
“No, you fobbed her off with some pretentious taradiddle of a reply. What was it...something about being ‘married to your work’?” Adela paused, her eyes narrowing, but still brilliant. “When we all know that your objection is to me, and that you were already involved in a romantic liaison elsewhere. How is the beauteous Coraline, by the way?”
For a hundredth of a second, Wilson reeled. Oh, how she wielded the knife. “Still beauteous, as far as I know,” he said, affecting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “And please don’t tell me you don’t know she’s split from me. I’m sure the jungle drums of society have thundered out all the juicy details.”
“Ah, yes, her duke. How does it feel to be thrown over for a seventy-five-year-old in a bath chair?”
Wilson wasn’t a violent man. In fact, strange as it seemed, considering his work for the War Office, he was a pacifist. But right now he wanted to box his cousin’s ears.
“How does it feel to be out for upward of four seasons and not snare a husband?”
Adela remained impressive. Even more so now. Yet there was a flash of pain in her eyes, and he half expected her to demand, “Whose fault is that?”
And he half expected something else, too. The little gesture that more repercussions of his incautious tongue had initiated, the involuntary, yet graceful raising of her hand to her face, to shadow the slightly crooked bridge of her nose.
But she yielded to neither. She didn’t even say, “Touché.”
“I don’t think I care to discuss these matters any further, Wilson. I came here to enjoy a pleasant weekend in the country, and I’d be grateful if you’d kindly leave me alone now to do just that.”
No!
Irrationally, no, no, no! He couldn’t leave. Not with fire in Adela’s eyes and her blood up. Despite what she said and what he knew she felt, he’d never lusted for her harder than he did right now.
“Ah, but this is my pleasant weekend, too, Della. Can’t you enjoy your explorations while I’m here? This room interests me. And it must interest you, too, or you wouldn’t have employed the skills I taught you in order to gain entrance.”
He wasn’t lying when he said the room interested him. Under normal circumstances, he’d have been nose deep in one of the many, many choice volumes by now. But it was Adela he wanted to explore. After weeks of feeling sorry for himself, his cousin’s delicate flower scent and her determination to spar fired
