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“Miss Middleton.”
Holly jerked at the sound of her name and glanced up to Warton, who had appeared in the doorway. She was sitting curled up in his parlor, enjoying the warm glow of a fire crackling in the hearth, lost in thought. A sense of awareness stole over her.
He was leaning with his hip against the threshold, studying her with hooded green eyes. His dark hair, windswept and overlong, reminded her of a barbarian more than a proper lord. Like most gentlemen, he preferred to keep his face cleanly shaved. Unlike for most men, it did nothing to soften his features.
It was impossible to look away.
“You are worried about your sister.”
Oh, Lord, and that voice. Butterflies fluttered up against her spine every time his deep, throaty baritone blended with concern.
She nodded. “I’m wondering whether Willow will be able to slip away tonight.”
“I have a coach waiting for her should she succeed.”
“Thank you.”
He pushed away from the door. “Why did you not marry St. Ives?” he asked, settling into the empty chair across from her. “You would have been a duchess.”
But she would not have been loved. Neither would she have loved her husband. For her, that was the most important thing. Unfortunately, it seemed also the most impossible thing.
“I made a mistake,” she admitted.
He spread his long legs. “There are worst mistakes than wedding a duke.”
“Spoken like a true nobleman.”
“Indeed.” He lifted a brow. “Yesterday I would have claimed there is no motivation good enough to cause one to desert a betrothal agreement.”
“And today?”
“Today I am curious.”
She gave a tired smile. “I believed he loved me. I believed a lot of things.”
“What changed?”
“He revealed his true character, and well, I fell out of love with him.”
His head tipped to the side. “I may not be practiced in all this nonsense of romance but how does one fall in love with a person without any awareness of their true character?”
When he put it that way . . .
“With a dramatic sense of flair, my lord, and an impractical amount of foolishness.”
She thought his lips quirked and tried not to think how dangerously attractive she found Warton. Or how enticing was the scent of soap clinging to his skin. In all of her past dealings with him, she had never taken notice of him in such a way. And considering she had imagined an entire romance that hadn’t existed, this was perilous territory indeed.
Get hold of yourself, Holly. You just jilted a duke.
It still stung that Holly had been so impressionable and over-eager to grasp onto the cock- and- bull fiction St. Ives had presented to her.
“St. Ives must have been desperate for a wife,” Warton said.
“I never thought to ask.”
“Considerate of you—or more foolishness. What did St. Ives reveal that caused you to run away?”
She shrugged. “He handed me a set of rules to be followed once we were married.”
Something blazed in his eyes. She felt his scrutinizing stare all over her. Gooseflesh fanned out over her skin. And try as she might, she could not break his gaze.
And Holly did try.
“What manner of rules?” he asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees.
“Restricted eating plans, prescribed sleeping hours, and such rot.”
“That is bloody ridiculous.”
“Agreed. I stopped reading when I came to the clause that stated breakfast includes one slice of toast.”
“You enjoy toast?” Amusement colored his eyes.
“I love toast.”
“I never imagined St. Ives as a controlling—”
“Tyrant?”
“Dictator.”
“He is certainly that. There was even a mark on wifely duties.”
“Wifely duties?”
Her cheeks warmed. “You know . . . marital relations.”
“I see.” He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.
Holly wasn’t certain she saw the humor, but she was not going to express any further remarks on the topic of intimacy—the very dangerous, all much too tempting topic.
“Of course, women are not above certain rules,” Holly murmured. “I am aware we cannot just do as we please. By all accounts we are at the mercy of our husbands. But a three-page set of rules dictating my life—that is stretching even my limits.”
Warton whistled. “Three pages, eh?”
She nodded. “And now Willow must deal with the beast. I still cannot believe she took my place.”
“I imagine your sister only wished to do what is best for your family.”
“At least she is a duchess. However much comfort she can draw from that.”
“And you get a second chance.”
A second chance.
“I probably shouldn’t set my sights on a duke again,” she said with a small smile. “I imagine I burned that bridge to the ground.”
Warton leaned back in his chair, chuckling. “I imagine you did.”
“Perhaps I shall become a pirate.”
He raised a brow. “I doubt the life of a pirate is as romantic as the picture in your head, Miss Middleton.”
He was probably right.
“I am still in possession of all my teeth,” she agreed. “A life of a famous painter or infamous writer shall suit me better.”
“Both noble and brazen pursuits, I think.”
Her gaze slid to the burning embers in the hearth. The thought of having another chance, a do-over, so to speak, held a startling amount of intrigue. What would she wish to do, then, now that she would not be the wife of some duke or another lord?
“May I remark upon something, Miss Middleton?”
“Of course,” Holly murmured.
“You are not the same woman you were since your last trip to London. Granted, you are still a small bundle of trouble, but there is something different about you.”
She lifted her eyes to his.
Oh, lord. She had been in far too much danger of liking him already, and now he had gone and said that. And there was something different about her, in so far as she had just gone through her first love disappointment.
But she doubted that was what he meant.
Did he feel this newfangled awareness between them too? Or was this yet another fancy she had constructed in her mind?
“I suppose, with time, we all endure a fair degree of reform.”
***
THE PUNCH BRAHM FELT to his gut drew the breath from his lungs. He stared into the shimmery blue eyes of Holly Middleton, aware of every pulse pumping through his veins. She looked so young, so innocent, so entirely intoxicating. There was something about her impish grin and the way it brightened her delicate features. Something had changed about her. She was so unlike the girl always making a spectacle of herself. Something had shifted. Grown.
He noticed her.
A bloody disconcerting fact.
The thought circled his head until his muscles stretched taut beneath his clothing. Even his relaxed posture could not settle the tension gripping him.
He managed to tear his gaze away from her and glanced broodingly into the fire.
Brahm had never thought there would come a day when he would aid a woman with any scheme—and certainly not Holly Middleton. His actions today were shockingly out of character for him. He should have handed her over to her guardian, as was his first instinct.
So why the hell hadn’t he?
Brahm wasn’t ready to delve into that question yet.
Furthermore, he was now firmly invested in helping her, for one simple reason—if anyone ever discovered Miss Middleton had been alone with him, in a hidden passage, in his home, in a carriage, there’d be hell to pay. Especially since it wasn’t in the spirit of holy matrimony.
“I’m curious, what would you have done if I hadn’t found you?”
“I don’t quite know.” She gave him a self-deprecating grin. “I didn’t have time to come up with a master plan.”
“Of course,” he muttered. “Master plans take days to set in motion.”
“Do not mock, they do take days to put in place.”
“That you even think in such terms terrifies me.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“Because you are a Middleton.”
She laughed, and he could not help it. His gaze dropped to her lips. A jolt of fire bolted through his body.
Sweet Christ, this was not happening.
“I suspect, if St. Ives has a mind to search for me, he will cast his net as wide as the country,” she said. “But he will not expect that I am traveling with you. I reckon he will comb the landscape for a woman journeying alone.”
Brahm blinked a few times.
Oh, yes. They were traveling together. Unchaperoned. For days.
God help him.
“That is, unless someone recognizes us and points the duke in our direction, in which case I suggest you pack your dueling pistols.”
Brahm sat up.
“Miss Middleton, I have no intention of firing a pistol. Nor do I plan on us getting caught.”
“I am only jesting.” She pulled a face. “But, and you may take my word for it, pistols do come in handy in the country.”
He just bet it did. Already his mind imagined her wreaking all sorts of havoc with a pistol in hand. Fending off highway robbers, hunting deer—he put nothing past her.
“Why have you not married?” Miss Middleton asked.
He quirked a brow at the question.
“I mean, you are a marquis.”
“Good of you to notice.”
“So you must sire an heir.”
“You sound like my sister,” he muttered.
He felt her eyes probing him, and prickles of awareness sparked to life on his skin.
“So you are holding out for love, then?”
Brahm snorted. It was a loud, derisive sound. How the hell had the conversation gone from St. Ives to pistols to this?
“Then you have not married out of sheer stubbornness?”
For the love of Christ.
She was like a dog with a bone.
“I prefer solitude over the incessant chatter of a woman.” There, let her gnaw on that.
“Well, it’s curious, then, that not only did you decide to assist me today, but you are also the one who began this conversation.”
“A fact I am starting to regret.”
“You know, it’s this moodiness of yours that prevents you from attracting the right woman. You ought to smile more.”
“And what woman would that be?” He did smile. He smiled just the right amount of smiles.
“Why, a woman capable of managing your capricious moods.”
“I don’t need to be managed,” he spit out.
She cocked her head to the side. Her blue eyes sparkled as though she was privy to some mysterious knowledge he had yet to stumble upon.
“If today is anything to go by, it is women who require managing,” he said, lifting one dark brow.
“Then let us both hope we find suitable matches one day.”
Brahm watched her features light up with momentary wistfulness. By all accounts, he should be grunting and groaning in displeasure at the role of protector he’d been cast into. Instead he was fascinated by the woman sitting across from him—more precisely, her lips.
He shook his head to clear it.
“I do hate waiting,” Miss Middleton remarked. “Especially the suspenseful kind. I have never been any good at twiddling my thumbs.”
Brahm cast a bemused glance her way. Sure enough, her brows were knitted together, and her lips were pulled into a small pout. He was about to suggest she read a book when a loud knock echoed through the parlor.
Someone was at his door.
Miss Middleton’s scrambled up from the sofa.
Their eyes locked. Brahm shook his head, indicating for her to be silent and to remain rooted to her spot. It was unlikely that St. Ives would ever suspect him. But someone might have seen them slip out of the church or noted Holly’s sister’s departure from his carriage.
A cloaked figure sailed into the room.
“Do you always leave your front entrance unlocked?” the woman said, removing the hood from her head.
“Willow!”
“Only when I’m forced to give my servants the night off,” he replied in an abrupt, rude tone. He wanted the lengths he had gone to, including sitting tight for her, to be clear. “Were you followed?”
“Do not be daft; I am a master of sneaking away undetected.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
Brahm turned to Holly, and his heart nearly leaped from his chest. She stood staring at her sister, her face as white as a sheet of snow.
“Holly?”
The soft whisper of her sister’s voice was enough to set her in motion. The sisters rushed to each other and embraced as if they’d been separated for years and not merely a few hours.
“I thought I wouldn’t see you again,” Holly said.
“Nothing could keep me away,” Willow said, a sharp edge to her voice. “However, my husband made it slightly more difficult when he stationed two footmen outside my bedchamber. To keep me in or to keep you out, who is to say? It seems he does not believe I would risk scaling down the side of a house to see you.”
Brahm inwardly groaned. Swapping places at a wedding, hiding in secret passageways, scaling down the sides of houses?
A guardian’s worst nightmare.
His gaze slid to Holly, who drew her sister in for another hug. He had not anticipated attending the wedding today would result in acquiring two new charges.
And he also could not have dreamed in a thousand years that one would be the bride. To be truthful, he needed a moment to recover his composure. But not because of any nightmarish misgivings. Instead a peculiar sense of warmth uncoiled inside him.
And Brahm most surely did not welcome it.