Page 3 of Not a Chance in Hell (The Chances #6)

March 6, 1840

I t was, all in all, not a night to remember.

Lilianna groaned as her maid pinned up the last of her curls. “What a night.”

“I am sorry to hear that you did not have a good evening yesterday, my lady,” said Clarke placidly.

Just three years older than herself, Clarke had been a stalwart guide through the complexities of Society when Lilianna had first come out, and she would be lost without her.

Her talent for hair would certainly look better, though.

“Have you… erm… read that pamphlet I gave you, Clarke?”

Her maid’s bright eyes brightened in the looking glass reflection. “Oh, yes! I had no idea that there were so many modern ways to style a lady’s hair nowadays! The maid who taught me was quite adamant a lady’s hair should be just so.”

Lilianna’s shoulders slumped. Her previous lady’s maid, who’d taught Clarke, had been decrepit, indeed. Even Clarke’s own mousy, brown hairstyle would have better suited a grandmother. “And you haven’t tried one of the newer styles today because…?”

“Well, I can’t have you be my first attempt, can I now?” said her maid fairly, as though it were obvious. “I’m going to have to practice.”

“Practice. On whom?”

Who precisely was going to be subjected to the learning attempts of Clarke was never discussed. At that moment, Lilianna’s bedchamber door burst open and her sister yelled with something akin to mirth, “You’ve got to see it!”

Clarke dropped a pin and Lilianna tutted at her wayward sister. “Frank, honestly, you could knock.”

“I said, you’ve got to see it , and I said so advisedly,” said Frank, her shoulders shaking with laughter. There was a pencil stuck in her hair and ink smudges all over her fingers—fingers, Lilianna saw with a sigh, that were leaving marks all over her bedchamber door. “Now!”

Lilianna waved away her maid and rose to her feet, shaking her head ruefully. When Frank got something in her head there was absolutely no way to encourage her to think of anything else. The conversation had to be had, the design looked at, and a sufficient amount of praise given. Then, and only then, would Frank be able to talk on any other topic.

What was it to be today? A blueprint for a library? An engine designed to put out fires? Lilianna had been most impressed by her design for drying one’s hair swiftly but had been immediately put off it when she’d realized one’s entire head had to be placed in the thing.

When Frank had started talking about “prototypes” and “test subjects,” Lilianna had been careful to avoid her eye.

“It’s the most absurd thing I have ever seen,” Frank was saying, her ink-splattered hands grabbing Lilianna’s as she dragged her along the landing to the head of the staircase. “I don’t know how you did it!”

“ I did it?” Lilianna said, amused. “But I haven’t done any… anything.”

Words failed her as her sister pulled her down the staircase. When they were only halfway, it became clear what Frank had been talking about.

Roses. Roses, everywhere. Not a bunch of roses, or a bouquet of roses, though Lilianna wondered if that was how the effect was created.

No, this was festoons of roses. Roses covering every inch of the floor of the hall. Roses in vases everywhere. Red, and white, and yellow. Some were neatly budded and some were already in full bloom. The scent was overwhelming, the sensation giddy, and Lilianna almost tripped over the last few steps as she and Frank descended.

What on earth?

“I can’t believe it,” she breathed.

Frank giggled. “Believe it!”

“I suppose this is all your doing,” said Samuel as he stepped out of the breakfast room and gingerly attempted to make his way through the maze of roses. His foot knocked a vase and it fell over, spilling flowers and water across the marble. “Oh, damn.”

“I won’t have that tone from you. You’re seven and twenty and you know better,” said their father, emerging from the library with a grin. “And speaking of knowing better, what on earth have you done to some poor young man, Lil?”

Lilianna flushed. “I haven’t—I haven’t done anything!”

Nothing that would require a response like this! Good lord, there must have been no other roses left in the whole of Bath.

A memory prickled at the back of her mind.

“I am bold. Because I know what I want. And I want you, Lady Lilianna. Now. Marry me.”

She pushed it aside hurriedly. No, the irritating Earl of Taernsby would not have done anything so foolish. The man was a terrible flirt, yes, but from what she’d heard of his exploits, he was more in the deflowering business than the flower business.

“Frank, to whom have you been speaking?” Lilianna asked, turning on her sister.

Frank snorted. “I’m not even officially out, Lil. Whom do you think I’ve been talking to?”

Lilianna turned back to the flowers, her mind hardly able to take in their sheer number. Roses—everywhere. It was like something out of a dream. Like a page from a romantic novel.

This did not happen in real life, did it?

“I-I am v-very impressed, Lil,” her mother said, emerging from the library and looking disheveled.

Disheveled?

Lilianna caught her father’s glance at his wife and flinched. Did they have to be so obvious?

Then her mind caught up with her. “‘Impressed’?”

“W-Well, you m-must have done s-something right,” her mother said, gesturing at the sheer number of roses. “Wh-Why else would all th-this b-be here?”

“Morning, all. I thought I’d call on you and see if—heavens above!”

Lilianna whirled around, dreading the thought that someone from outside the family would find her here, surrounded by roses—but it was only Evelyn, her perennially paint-splattered cousin with her dark hair plaited and encircling her head like a coronet.

“Morning, Cousin,” Evelyn said with a dry laugh, pecking her on the cheek and looking about her in wonder. “Who’s the lucky man?”

“He’s not lucky ,” Lilianna snapped. “I mean—”

“Poor sod, he’s probably bankrupted himself,” said Samuel conversationally, sitting on the stairs to avoid the roses. “And for you !”

Lilianna stuck her tongue out as Frank said, “Aha!”

“‘Aha’?” Lilianna repeated, turning to her. “What do you mean, ‘aha’?”

“I mean, aha, I’ve found the note!”

“This is the beginning of the end,” her father was saying casually to her mother. “I never expected any gentleman to be this extravagant. I never was!”

“Yes, I kn-now,” her mother teased with a grin.

Lilianna tried to take in a deep breath, but her lungs weren’t working. This was all too overwhelming, all too much! This number of roses, it was obscene. It was nonsense. No sane man would have done such a thing.

“What does the note say?” her cousin asked eagerly, stepping forward.

Lilianna reached for the note, but it was too late. Frank had already opened it, grinning as her focus settled on the words before her.

“Oh, my!”

“Frank, give it to me,” said Lilianna.

“I was the one who found it,” said her younger sister immediately, their childhood rivalry returning as though it had been yesterday. “Finders keepers!”

“It’s addressed to me, though, isn’t it?” Lilianna persisted, unable to reach her sister because of the sheer plethora of vases around her feet. “Give it here.”

“Read it out!” called their brother from the stairs.

It was all most irritating, and the worst of it was that Lilianna could hardly ignore the utter number of roses. It was like ignoring the sky. It was there .

“‘My dearest Lilianna,’” Frank began.

“A promising start,” muttered Cousin Evelyn with a wink.

“Frank, give it to me,” said Lilianna through gritted teeth.

“‘My dearest Lilianna, I was heartbroken we could not resolve our differences last night,’” Frank continued to read aloud, to much guffawing from their brother. “‘I hope that this small token of my affection—’”

“‘Small’?” muttered their father.

“‘Affection’?” repeated Lilianna in amazement. Who on earth could have deluded himself so utterly to think that she would welcome this? Last night, she had spoken to no one of consequence. No one who… She swallowed.

Frank narrowed her eyes at the interruption. “‘I hope that this small token of my affection will right any wrongs I may have accidentally committed,’” said Frank in a loud voice. “‘Your very own, Taernsby.’”

Taernsby .

Lilianna’s cheeks were burning as her family’s laughter rang out around them.

“D-Dear me, I knew you h-had m-m-made an impression,” said her mother gleefully. “Well d-done!”

Well done? How could her mother congratulate her on this—this spectacle? Had she not last night also seemed offended on her behalf? How quickly that man had managed to earn the marchioness’s favor.

Perfection, that was what Lilianna had been expected to deliver: but this was surely far beyond anything a perfect daughter would be presumed to live up to?

“It’s a joke!” And not a particularly amusing one, either, but Lilianna had to say it—it had to be true. Why else would the foolish man do something so… so…

“Oh, I don’t know, he sounds smitten to me,” teased Frank, a gleam in her eye. “Have you finally met your match, dear sister?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Lilianna snapped, heat scalding her face.

“I think you like him,” said Samuel with a grin. “Do you like him, Lil?”

“She doesn’t like him, she loves him!” crowed Benjamin.

“Who?” said Cousin Evelyn bemused. “I still don’t really understand who on earth this man is. The name sounds familiar, but…”

“He’s a nobody!” Lilianna said sharply.

The hall quietened. Both of her parents were looking at her with that irritating knowing look that she hated, and Samuel was still grinning. Frank looked… well, more curious than anything else, and poor Cousin Evelyn was looking around her in bewilderment, as though she might be able to decipher the truth of who this man was from the copious flowers he had sent.

Lilianna tried to calm herself, but it was a mistake. Her nostrils filled with the overwhelming scent of the roses, piles of them, making her head spin and her temples ache.

This was outrageous. This was too much!

This had to be stopped.

“He’s a rake,” she snapped coldly. “A scoundrel, a seducer of ladies—”

“ Lilianna !” her father chided.

“—who doesn’t care a fig about what happens to them after he is done with them,” said Lilianna, ignoring her father’s exclamation. A door opened and shut behind her, but what did that matter? It was probably just Benjamin returning from whatever nonsense he had gotten up to. “The man is an utter joke, and so is this. I wouldn’t expect anything more impressive from him, and this is not that impressive at all!”

“Lil,” said her mother quietly.

“Honestly, Mama, you saw him! What an arrogant, ignorant—”

“Lil,” murmured Frank, even quieter than a whisper.

But Lilianna would not listen. Surely, her mother had seen just how ridiculously this Lord Taernsby, this fool , had acted at Lady Romeril’s ball? And Frank, she hadn’t even met him. She couldn’t know what a rogue he was!

“I think I can quite definitively state that I have absolutely no interest in seeing this Taernsby fellow again,” said Lilianna in a clear voice that rang out around the hall, roses and all. “And if he were here, I would tell him just the same thing!”

“Well,” said a smug voice just behind her. “I suppose that saves you from having to repeat yourself.”

Lilianna froze.

No . No, surely not. She had dreamt that voice, or she was so tired from the late night yesterday and she was imagining that it sounded just like…

Turning slowly on her feet, careful not to move them too much in case she knocked over one of the many vases littering the floor, Lilianna saw—

The Earl of Taernsby.

A curse that would have gotten her scolded by her father crept into her mouth, but Lilianna pursed her lips and prevented its escape.

Frank was not so controlled. “How the hell did he—”

“ Frank !”

Lilianna tried to smile at the sudden outrage in both her parents’ voices. She could always rely on Frank to distract her family. Not that she wanted a distraction right now. She wanted to escape.

He was far more handsome than she remembered, and she had been taken by his looks then. In the light of day, however, the Earl of Taernsby was devastatingly impressive. Far too alike one of the marble busts in the British Museum, he was tall, taller than her, dressed in that ruffled yet fashionable way that was starting to become a trend in the nobler set, and he had a smile on his face that told her two things.

First, that he had overheard almost all, if not all, of her speech… Fine, tirade against him.

Second, that he was delighted by it.

The latter irritated her far more than the former, and while the chatter behind her rose as her parents berated Frank for her rudeness, and Samuel attempted to intervene, Lilianna said in a low voice, “You have some nerve coming here.”

She had intended her words to be low, and vicious, and they were.

Lord Taernsby, however, merely inclined his head. “Good morning to you, Lady Lilianna.”

“Don’t talk to me,” she said curtly. “I have no interest in hearing what you have to say.”

“I think you do. I think you are intrigued by me now,” said Lord Taernsby, stepping forward.

Lilianna attempted to step back. A vase crashed to the floor, roses flying everywhere, water soaking her feet.

“There’s no escape from me, Lady Lilianna,” said Lord Taernsby quietly, his serious eyes fixed on hers. For some reason, she could not look away. “I thought the roses would get your attention—”

“They are more an inconvenience than a delight,” she hissed.

“—and I have given you some time to think over my proposal.”

For a moment, Lilianna just stared, uncomprehending.

And then she began to laugh.

Oh, he is ridiculous. He did not honestly think his pathetic attempt at humor last night, which had merely vexed her, not amused, had been tantamount to a proposal?

But as her laughter died away, echoing horribly in the hall as her family’s argument behind her increased in volume, Lilianna was disconcerted to see that the man before her was not laughing.

He was no longer smiling. Instead, he was looking at her like… like…

Lilianna swallowed. Well . No one had ever looked at her like that before. As though she were a delicacy on a plate he was ready to eat. As though she were removing her clothes slowly and suggestively. As though they were alone together, and it was their wedding night, and he was about to…

“And you can stop that,” she hissed, stepping forward in an attempt to show him just how serious he was.

The Earl of Taernsby was unmoved. “Stop what?”

“Looking at me like—like that !” Lilianna said, jabbing her finger against his chest.

It had been a clever idea. She probably could not get away with punching the man in the jaw again, and besides, her hand was still sore from when she had done so last night.

But Lord Taernsby was faster than she had expected. He grasped her finger, then her hand, holding it close to him, forcing her palm to splay against him, her fingers struggling against his hold.

“Let me—”

“Go?” he finished, raising a sardonic eyebrow. “But then you wouldn’t be touching me, Lady Lilianna. And I know how much you enjoy being close to me. Feeling my embrace. Why else would you throw yourself into my arms?”

Lilianna gasped. The intimacy with which he had spoken, his low voice, so low that none of her family could hear just how informal he was being…

And he was right, damn him. At least, about enjoying being close to him. A thrill roared through her as her hand was captured by his own. It was intoxicating being possessed in this way. No man had ever touched her like this. No man had ever been so bold as to touch her outside of a dance, and then, only chastely.

About one thing, however, he could not be more wrong.

“I-I did not throw myself into your arms.”

“Didn’t you?” Lord Taernsby’s gaze flickered to her lips, and he wetted his own before he looked again into her eyes. Lilianna’s stomach lurched. “What a shame. I was hoping it was your way of indicating that you were ready.”

Oh, this heat—how is it so hot in here? “‘Ready’?”

“To be mine.” His voice had lowered, but that did not matter. He had somehow pulled her close. “Are you ready now to admit it, Lilianna?”

Lilianna tried to breathe, but it was getting increasingly difficult. “M-My title is Lady Lilianna.”

“I know it is, to the rest of the world,” Lord Taernsby said possessively, and somehow his other hand was reaching for her free one. “But to me—”

“—and that’s that,” said a voice from a long way away, a voice she knew. “That’s Frank dealt with. Now, Lilianna—Lil?”

Lilianna blinked. That was her father’s voice.

Wrenching her hand from Lord Taernsby’s grasp and hoping to goodness neither her father nor her mother nor, heaven forbid, her sister or cousin had heard the nonsense the man had spouted, she attempted to draw herself up.

It was difficult, when one’s legs were about to give way.

“Lord Taernsby was just leaving,” she said calmly. At least, that was what she had intended. As it turned out, her voice had quavered somewhat.

The Earl of Taernsby gave her a wicked grin.

“ Right now ,” Lilianna added, her voice stronger now. “The poor man made a mistake.”

“‘Mistake’?” repeated her father behind her. His voice sounded bewildered. “What, did he intend to send you a hundred roses, not a thousand?”

“Lilianna,” the wretched man said in a low voice.

Lilianna attempted to ignore the way that Lord Taernsby’s tone thrummed through her body, vibrating in a way that was most delicious and certainly never to be repeated. “No, Papa. Lord Taernsby intended to send one hundred flowers to each of his ten current pursuits,” she said sweetly. “Unfortunately, all of them were delivered here, but I am sure we can send them back.”

“You should be careful, Lilianna,” Lord Taernsby said quietly, stepping closer to her once more and making her lungs tighten. “If you intend to play this game with me, I can assure you, you will lose. I have seduced more women than you have ever met.”

“So go seduce, then!” she shot back.

The gentleman’s lip quirked. “I’m doing it right now.”

It was most unfair of her lungs to fail her right at this moment. Lilianna gasped, staring, eyes wide and mind spinning.

The arrogance! The cheek! And saying such a thing right in front of my parents, too!

“Go away,” she eventually said in a jagged voice.

Lord Taernsby raised an eyebrow. “Attempting to increase my ardor by putting off the inevitable?”

“Inevitable”? “Ardor”?

It was a miracle that Lilianna was still standing—it truly was. Her knees were quivering, her whole body suddenly aware of every part of her skin, and this man—this irritating man…

Lilianna swallowed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said curtly. “I thought merely to relieve you of any further embarrassment.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lord Taernsby said, stepping around her. “I don’t embarrass easily.”

And neither do I , Lilianna thought wildly as she watched the man approach her parents, bowing low and speaking quietly to them. At least, I didn’t. Not until you.

She hated how much of an effect the man had on her. Hated how he could look at her and make her quiver. Hated his reflexes, so much faster than her own, able to manipulate her body to be close to him without so much as an apology.

And most of all she hated, hated , how her body responded to him. How she wanted him to touch her, wanted him to be close.

Her mother laughed.

And that was it. Lilianna could put up with a lot—thanks to Lord Zouch, she already had—but she was not going to permit this joke of an earl to impress her mother.

“All right, that’s it!” she said firmly, striding forward and ignoring all the vases of roses that she knocked over in her path. “I have had quite enough of this!”

“Lilianna—”

“Lil!”

She ignored her sister, father, and cousin. Her mother merely stood there, mouth agog, as Lilianna grasped the collar of the Earl of Taernsby and started to walk.

Dragging him backward behind her.

“Christ, what—”

“Lilianna, put him down!”

She ignored her brother’s laughing remark. She ignored Lord Taernsby’s splutters, his muttered curses as he tried to twist out of her grip, the way his feet slipped on the wet, marble floor as he desperately tried to keep up with her rapid pace.

Not until a footman had opened the front door and Lilianna had thrust the unwelcome man down the steps did she take another breath.

“I hope this makes my feelings on the matter perfectly clear,” she said sweetly, relishing the way Lord Taernsby straightened up with red cheeks and blazing eyes. “I have no wish to see you again, I don’t care what you think or what you want to say, and you have mortified me for the last time.”

Lord Taernsby’s expression twisted into one of wolfish delight. “I’ve mortified you, have I? Well, that’s a start.”

Casting a prayer up to the high heavens for patience with this cretin, Lilianna snapped, “You are a rake, doing all this to please yourself and give yourself airs.”

“That’s not what—”

“I know your reputation and it does not impress. You can’t, you won’t , seduce me, I have no interest in being abandoned after being bedded, and I don’t want to see you again,” Lilianna said sharply. “To think you thought a Chance would fall so low. That my father and uncles and brothers and cousins would allow you to pursue such a scandal with me. The arrogance.”

For a moment, Lord Taernsby’s face fell. “That’s not what I—”

Whatever else he was going to say, Lilianna never knew. She stepped inside and indicated for the footman to slam the door in his face, which the manservant seemed to relish the chance to do. Lilianna brushed her hands together as though she had just dropped a most disgusting thing outside a window and turned.

To see her family all staring.

“What?” she snapped in a most unladylike tone.

Frank grinned. “So. Who’s your friend?”