Always the Wallflower (Never the Bride Book 5) Page 4

The attempt to avoid questions about him had led her right to him.

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Harry said in the silence. “And are you here for a specific book, Viscount Wynn, or perusing to see the latest delivery?”

  “Neither,” he replied with a smile at Letitia. “Far more selfishly, I am here to see who I may meet.”

  Letitia’s cheeks burned, and she wished for the courage to step outside and go home—but social decorum dictated, now that they were in a conversation, that it was not so easily abandoned.

  “Well, I am in hunt of Lord Byron,” said Harry with a laugh. “His poetry, that is, rather than his person. I will leave you to converse with Lady Letitia, Viscount Wynn. And if the two of you decide to take a walk together, I can find my own way home.”

  Before Letitia could say anything, the duchess had wandered down a different aisle.

  She could feel Viscount Wynn’s gaze on the back of her neck.

  This was intolerable. She could not possibly stand in public and have a conversation with him. He was too knowing, too teasing, too attractive.

  As though unable to resist, she turned to face him. There was a broad smile on his face, but it was not unkind.

  “What a pleasure to meet you here, Lady Letitia,” he said in a low voice. “Just the person I had wished to see.”

  She would not allow herself to be mocked, not by this ingrate who had offended her the night before.

  “I am sure you were just as eager to see me.”

  “No,” Letitia said. She hardly knew the word was going to escape her lips, but she had thought it so determinedly that her mouth obeyed.

  She saw the look of surprise in his face as he moved closer to her. Letitia took a step back and found a bookshelf impeding her way.

  “Is there an author whom you greatly enjoy?” he asked, his dark brown eyes not wavering from hers. “Lord Byron, perhaps, like your friend, the Duchess of Devonshire?”

  She swallowed. He was charming, and there was no point in denying it. His presence alone was enough to make her knees feel weak, and that smile…it made her want to rush toward him.

  The attraction was so deep she could almost see it. She wanted to be closer to him, to hear him speak, to laugh at his jokes.

  Was this what prey felt like while entrapped in the gaze of its predator?

  “No one in particular,” she managed. Her words sounded hollow, almost bored, and she saw with a flicker of delight that Viscount Wynn looked a little affronted.

  “No one in particular,” he repeated softly. “Well then, what book have you read most recently?”

  Letitia’s heart was starting to flutter. Why was he paying attention to her? She was not pretty, nor charming, nor desirous of his attentions. She was not one of the célèbres of town, nor was she an exciting conversationalist like Miss Emma Tilbury, nor a great beauty like the Duchess of Mercia.

  What did he want?

  She swallowed. “A New Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary. And you?”

  Viscount Wynn smiled. “I cannot make you out, Lady Letitia. And I want to.”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, sir,” she said coldly. “Good day.”

  She had bobbed a brief curtsey and stepped out of the lending library before Viscount Wynn had realized what was happening, but Letitia was not so fortunate to lose his attention.

  If anything, she had piqued it. Before she had taken ten steps along the pavement, a voice sounded at her side.

  “Lady Letitia, you walked away from me. Why?”

  Viscount Wynn’s long legs had the advantage of her. She knew no matter how fast she attempted to escape him, he would always keep up.

  “I have no interest in being the object of your pity, Viscount Wynn, and I will thank you for leaving me alone.”

  “Leave you alone? When I am escorting you home?”

  His words had barely finished when Letitia gasped. He had taken her hand and placed it on her arm.

  She stopped dead, staring. He had a serious look on his face.

  “You know, you are most intriguing, Lady Letitia,” he murmured.

  Letitia tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. People were rushing by, impossibly fast, as though time had slowed.

  “I am not,” she managed to gasp.

  Viscount Wynn smiled without mockery. “You know, I have never been more interested in a young lady before this moment—and I am serious. You know what they say, I always Wynn.”

  Letitia pulled her arm away half-heartedly, but the viscount had a firm grip. His strength was overwhelming.

  Viscount Wynn leaned a little closer, and she breathed him in. “I am going to court you, Lady Letitia.”

  His words did not make sense.

  “No, you—you must not do that,” she whispered, her eyes unable to leave his own.

  “Why not?” he countered. “Do you not want me to?”

  She had never felt like this before, for a tingling heat spread throughout her body, and she wanted nothing more than to lean closer and breathe him in again—perhaps so close that their lips would touch.

  His lips turned upward in a smile. Was this all a game to him? Was this a way of passing the time when bored in a lending library, choosing a helpless girl to flirt with?

  “Lady Letitia, I do believe you are frightened of me.”

  Viscount Wynn’s words were almost a whisper, more breathed than spoken.

  Letitia could not help it. She nodded.

  His other hand covered hers on his arm. “I will make it my mission to make you comfortable around me.”

  “Y-You must not,” she managed to blurt. “Why…why would you want to do that?”

  He smiled. “Because I am going to pursue you, Letitia, and it is far more convenient for both of us if you are not terrified of the sight of me.”

  Letitia stared, fascinated. Was he in earnest? Why on earth would he be? What could he gain by wishing to court her?

  “Come now,” Viscount Wynn said smartly in a louder voice, breaking the spell between them and making Letitia jump. “You should be at home, Lady Letitia, ’tis almost luncheon, and your parents will undoubtedly be wondering where you are.”

  Her arm still in his, he started walking, and she had no choice but to walk with him. She did, however, manage to find her voice.

  “I am having luncheon with the Devonshires,” she said timidly.

  Viscount Wynn smiled and took the next left. “A charming couple. I do hope to get to know them better, as I spend more time with you.”

  Was he truly going to attempt to court her?

  Words utterly failed her. It was impossible to speak to such a man. He was everything she wanted in a husband, but she was too accustomed to being a wallflower than a young lady with whom a gentleman actually wanted to converse.

  “Here we are.”

  Letitia blinked. Somehow, they had arrived at Cavendish Square.

  “And now,” Viscount Wynn said quietly, “I would like you to thank me for accompanying you all this way.”

  She looked up and saw a sparkle of laughter in his eyes. Something emboldened her, something she did not understand.

  “I do not see why,” she said, feeling nowhere near as calm as she sounded. “You have merely walked with me. If anything, you should be thanking me.”

  The viscount dropped her arm. “Why, there is more to you than I originally—”

  “There you are!”

  Both Viscount Wynn and Letitia turned to see Harry at the open front door.

  “I took the carriage when I realized you had both left without me,” said Harry, “and thought you would not take too long. Thank you for accompanying my friend, Viscount Wynn.”

  “The pleasure was truly all mine.”

  He bowed, and Letitia could not help but stare. What did he want—and what did she want from him?

  “Nevertheless,” Harry smiled, “I must make amends. Join us for dinner. Sunday, seven o’clock.”

  This wa
s all too ridiculous. First a forced introduction at Almack’s, now an unwelcome walk home together, next, a dinner with her most intimate friends?

  Was Viscount Wynn going to be everywhere she went?

  She turned to him, hoping he could sense her discomfort and do the gentlemanly thing and decline.

  His dark brown eyes darted to her, and there was that smile again. “My dear Lady Harriet, I accept.”

  Chapter Four

  Wynn’s mouth fell open in an undignified manner as a trail of footmen swept into the dining room, holding the sixth course of the evening.

  Groaning under his breath, he wondered whether it would be uncivilized to undo a few waistcoat buttons. A glance up and down the table told him no one else had stooped so low, and he sighed heavily.

  He was unaccustomed to such finery, such levels of gluttony. It was usually bread and cheese for him, along with whatever meat his cook could find.

  Not at the table of the Duke of Devonshire, of course.

  Wynn smiled weakly. When the Duchess of Devonshire had invited him to dine three days ago, he had eagerly accepted. What fool would not want a seat at the Devonshire’s table?

  He had pictured Letitia and himself seated around a quiet table as conversation flowed.

  A chance to finally put his ridiculous obsession with her to rest.

  A chance to get to know her, see her in her natural and awkward setting, and attempt to understand why she captured his interest in such an intoxicating way.

  And then move on. That had been his intention.

  But he could not have imagined the countless faces which he did not recognize, or Lady Letitia in conversation with an older gentleman, who looked like he could have been her grandfather.

  Now they were seated around the huge dining table, over twenty of them, and while Wynn attempted to eat through the numerous and never-ending courses, he had not managed a single word of conversation with Letitia.

  Wynn wondered whether it was fate that had kept him seated so far from Letitia or his hostess.

  “Are you not going to eat that?”

  Wynn started. The gentleman opposite him was staring at his plate—covered, now he looked at it, with a strange sort of dumpling he did not recognize and a smear of meat—with unbridled covetousness.

  Wynn smiled weakly. “Please, sir, help yourself.”

  The gentleman leaned forward. Wynn attempted not to smile. London truly was different from the country. Everyone had told him so, even Mariah, and he rarely listened to her on any subject. Even Axwick had warned him, and he had ignored him.

  “Oh, Letitia, you jest, surely!”

  Wynn’s stomach contracted as his gaze went unwillingly to Letitia. She sat at the right-hand side of the Duchess of Devonshire—a woman he simply could not call ‘Harry,’ despite her request—looking utterly radiant.

  Her fiery red hair was pinned back with an assortment of diamonds, and her gown, plain and simple, suited her perfectly. It sought neither to flatter nor to hide. It was functionality itself, and Wynn had never seen a young lady so perfectly dressed.

  She laughed, and his stomach contracted painfully.

  Damnit, was he so weak? He had wooed, courted, and bedded more women than there were people around this dinner table, and yet Lady Letitia Cavendish—the wallflower of the ton—was catching his eye in a way he could not explain.

  This chit of a girl he did not even know a fortnight ago. How did she have such a hold on him?

  “Perhaps you will enjoy the fish course more,” said a dry voice.

  Tabitha St. Maur, the Duchess of Axwick, smiled. “Do not worry. You are not the first to be a little overwhelmed by Monty’s eagerness to feed.”

  “I-I…” stammered Wynn. Damnit, he was a Viscount! Why did he have to be so easily overwhelmed by a title?

  He swallowed, then allowed the charming smile he had cultivated so well to spread across his face.

  “Why, Your Grace, you would not betray me? I am, I admit, more accustomed to a simpler fare—but the soup course was truly delicious. I have not tasted better, I think, not even after visiting St. James’s.”

  The Duchess of Axwick smiled, but Wynn was not fooled. There was a knowingness in that smile, which only a lady could have, and tension seeped into his shoulders.

  In a softer voice so only he could hear her, she murmured, “My husband mentioned your dance with Lady Letitia a week ago. Do you not think she is quite beautiful? Not perhaps in society’s eyes today, but I certainly think so.”

  Wynn’s eyes drifted over to Letitia, now conversing quietly with the Duchess of Devonshire. There was something about her, as though a candle had been lit from within.

  Something lower than his stomach contracted this time, painfully so. Wynn shifted in his seat and tried to think of the freezing cold baths he had endured when living at Redmont.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Very beautiful.”

  Letitia was like a piece of amber, wild red hair notwithstanding, she needed to be polished and placed in the proper setting for her beauty to be admired.

  Almack’s was no place for her. Forced into finery and dragged to be introduced to a stranger? No one would ever see Letitia in the best light there.

  But here?

  Letitia Cavendish was radiant, and no one else seemed to notice. Wynn swallowed. If he was not careful, he was at risk of making a fool of himself.

  “I think she is probably one of the most beautiful young ladies in my acquaintance,” Tabitha said quietly. “Of course, she is often underappreciated when in public. She does not perform in the way young ladies are expected to nowadays. But here…”

  Her voice trailed away delicately, and all Wynn could do was nod. He could not take his eyes from Letitia.

  “I had hoped her parents would join us, but then,” Tabitha said delicately, “we would not see her at her best.”

  “I had thought her shy,” he managed to say gruffly. “And yet, here she talks and laughs…”

  “They call themselves ‘the gang,’ and never a truer name was given,” smiled Tabitha. “There are nine or ten of them, I believe, all who grew up together. They are more siblings than friends. ’Tis the only place she has the comfort to speak her mind on occasion.”

  Letitia was leaning forward, wide-eyed, a smile across her face.

  “And then he said,” Letitia offered, “my dear Madam, I am not the butler, I am your lawyer!”

  The bottom end of the table erupted into laughter at her joke. Wynn stared at the bright eyes and joy on her face.

  “Letitia, you must not say such things!” The Duchess of Devonshire giggled.

  Wynn leaned forward, his desire to be close to Letitia so all-encompassing that he knocked into his plate and was forced to stretch with a yawn to cover the strange movement.

  God’s teeth, but this was ridiculous. He had seduced beauties and minor royalty. He should not even be interested in such a woman, and if so, he should have been able to charm her immediately.

  But she did not want to be seduced—at least not by him. Something in her resistance fired his determination. The last three days had been torturous, raking over every memory, every encounter with her, however brief. But now he could see how much he had underestimated her. She was not the simple girl he had assumed.

  She was still giggling at her own jest, but as she picked up her glass of wine, her gaze caught his.

  The change was immediate. Laughter gone, a deep blush colored her cheeks, she appeared to wilt under his eyes, and she became physically smaller, desperate not to take up any more room than necessary.

  It was astonishing.

  “That,” the Duchess of Axwick murmured, “is Letitia Cavendish. Never more afraid than when in the limelight.”

  Wynn smiled but did not say anything else. It was highly arousing, seeing the effect one look of his had on her. Her face was still pink as she sipped her wine, and when she placed the glass back on the table, her gray eyes darted over to him agai
n.

  He could feel himself become hard and shifted again in his seat. Was Letitia so unaccustomed to the admiring stares of gentlemen, for that was what it was, that she blushed?

  Or perhaps she was fighting her own feelings for him. Wynn smiled at the thought. Perhaps she was flushed with desire, too.

  Maybe she wanted him as much he was starting to want her?

  “Ah, and here is another course,” said Tabitha softly.

  Wynn groaned. “Your Grace, how many courses do you think there will be? If I do not slow down soon, I will be unable to keep this waistcoat on.”

  She smiled. “Three more, perhaps—or four? After this one, that is. Monty always requires his cook to do more courses than is good for any of us. You will have to accustom yourself if you are to come again.”

  Again? Wynn had not considered whether the honor of the invitation would be repeated, he was so fixated with Letitia.

  He coughed as he looked down at another platter of food before him. This was ridiculous. He had to stop thinking—obsessing!—about Lady Letitia Cavendish.

  Ignoring the fact she evidently had no interest in returning his advances, there were plenty of other young ladies who were desperate for his overtures.

  Who did not want to be pursued by the most notorious rake of London?

  If he was not mistaken, there were a few such ladies around this dining table alone. Their finery looked overdone, much like the meat before him. Too many diamonds, too much rouge, and a rather intriguing way of leaning forward so their breasts heaved toward him.

  But they were not Letitia. Her gentleness, her awkwardness even, were more beguiling than any beauty ever had been.

  Wynn looked to her end of the table. She was talking again with the Duchess of Devonshire, who laughed.

  Suddenly, both of their heads turned to him, and Harry laughed even harder. Letitia did not. She merely stared coldly.

  Wynn inclined his head, causing Harry to lean back in her chair in fits of laughter.

  He wanted her. He wanted not just to bed her, but to make love to her. He wanted her to cry out his name as he plunged into her. He wanted to hold her close afterward, to kiss her, to hear all her thoughts, her worries, her hopes for the future.