Page 5 of Not a Chance in Hell (The Chances #6)

March 16, 1840

“Y ou like him.”

“I like no one.”

“You have to admit, the delphiniums were beautiful.”

Yes, they had been. Lilianna was not going to admit it out loud, as that was a slippery slope when it came to one’s sister, but still. They had been beautiful. And decadent. And overwhelming—was the man just made of money? Did he have nothing better to do than spend it on such frivolities?

“I hope Mama sent some to Uncle William and Aunt Alice,” she said quietly, turning a page of the book she was pretending to read.

Frank snorted. She was seated on the other side of the library at the table, two large mathematics books open before her. “From the sound of it, Mama has been sending them to everyone. The whole of Bath has some of your flowers.”

“They’re not my flowers,” Lilianna said with a twist in her stomach.

Her sister snorted again and did not turn around. “They were sent to you, weren’t they?”

They had. It was not something that Lilianna could deny, even if she wanted to.

“By that admirer of yours.”

“He’s not my admirer .”

“Even if you don’t like him, you can’t pretend the Earl of Taernsby is not an admirer,” Frank said, her voice drifting off into vagueness as she turned a page. “Honestly, Samuel has left this volume in a very bad state of repair.”

“I don’t think he ever expected to look at it again,” said Lilianna with a wry look. “That man left mathematics behind as soon as he could.”

“I don’t understand why, it’s so elegant,” said Frank, scribbling some notes in that notebook she always had with her. “Elegant like those delphiniums.”

“Frank—”

“Did you know that Fibonacci’s mathematical sequence can be found in flowers?” Frank’s voice rose in volume as her excitement grew. She turned, pushing strands of hair that had fallen from her simple bun behind her ear. “Is it not incredible? I was speaking to Aunt Dodo, and she said—”

“As the family’s other mathematician, I can assure you Aunt Dodo will participate in this conversation far better than I will,” said Lilianna dryly. “Than I am.”

Sometimes you had to put your sister back in her place.

“Shouldn’t you be practicing the pianoforte?”

Lilianna groaned. “You know I hate that thing. I can play it only passably. Why can’t Mama let it go?”

“She wants us to be perfect ladies,” Frank said with a snort. “Perfect.”

Perfect . Not gallivanting with gentlemen with terrible reputations and even worse expectations.

Frank sighed and turned back to her books. “There’s no need to get in a snit with me because your gentleman caller—”

“He is not my gentleman .”

“—hasn’t sent any more flowers,” finished Frank, flourishing a pencil across her notebook, then underlining whatever she had written several times. Or crossing something out. It was impossible to tell.

Lilianna sighed. “I don’t know why you keep teasing me about him. I have absolutely no interest in the fool. Whatever his name is.”

It was a lie, and not a very good one. There was something… something strangely tantalizing about a man who just wouldn’t stay down when he was pushed. So long as he never pushed her too far—which, she had to admit, he hadn’t done. Yet. Nothing she said appeared to make any difference to the bounder. He just kept… pursuing her.

The man simply wouldn’t give up. It was a strangely attractive quality.

Not that she was attracted to him. Not at all.

“Just admit you’re intrigued by a man who sees past your snobbery and seems to like you,” said Frank quietly from the other side of the room.

“ Snobbery !” said Lilianna hotly, dropping her book down the side of the armchair and preparing herself for a fight. “I’ll have you know—”

“A letter for you, Lady Lilianna,” said a voice.

Lilianna looked round. “You really must make more of a noise when you come into the room, Humphreys.”

Their dour-faced butler nodded. “Yes, Lady Lilianna.”

Frank grinned. “Yes, in case you overhear Lil speaking about her future betrothed.”

Lilianna scowled. “A letter, Humphreys?”

She tried desperately to concentrate on the servant before her, but her mind was still swirling with her sister’s words.

“Just admit you’re intrigued by a man who sees past your snobbery and seems to like you.”

What on earth had her sister meant by it? She wasn’t a snob. A snob thought they were better than they were. She was marvelous. It was impossible for a Chance to be a snob.

A delicate clearing of the butler’s throat brought her back to the present. He was standing before her, a letter on a silver platter.

“Right, yes, a letter,” she said, taking the proffered missive and glancing at it.

The handwriting was unfamiliar. That was not unusual; handwriting was so varied even within a singular person. Why, sometimes she could hardly make out Frank’s handwriting at all.

Not that that was saying much. The girl hardly ever used a pen; it was all pencil at the moment.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

Lilianna blinked. Her sister, and their butler, were staring curiously at the letter in her hands.

Drawing herself up as imperiously as she could manage, Lilianna nodded her dismissal to the servant and waited for the door to close behind him before looking at the letter once more.

“Why don’t you want Humphreys to know what the letter says?” Frank asked curiously.

Shooting a glare at her sister, Lilianna pointed out, “I don’t particularly want you to know what it says, either.”

Her sister frowned. “Why are you so precious about a letter when you don’t even know if it contains anything interesting?”

Because I hope it does , Lilianna did not say. I hope it’s from…

Not that she was going to defile her mouth by uttering his name. Most definitely not. And the likelihood of the Earl of Taernsby sending her a letter was remote. They weren’t engaged! They were hardly acquainted. Now that she came to think about it, Lilianna wasn’t even sure if they had been introduced. Technically.

“And you are very presumptuous, whoever you are, to address me before we have been introduced. And perhaps even then.”

A smile slipped across her face.

“You’re thinking about him again.”

“No, I’m not,” snapped Lilianna. “Go back to your mathematics, Frank.”

Frank smirked. “Go on. Open it.”

There didn’t appear to be much else to do. After all, one could not simply sit looking at a letter, hoping it would reveal its contents to you through osmosis.

The seal was a swirly T. Lilianna broke it into fragments before unfolding the letter.

Dear Lady Lilianna Chance,

I hope this letter finds you well. In the cause of getting to know you better, furthering my justification of my pursuit of you, I invite you to take a stroll with me around the Fish Pond lake. I will be there at two o’clock in the afternoon and look forward to your company.

Yours most faithfully,

Taernsby

Postscript: Wear blue. You look fantastic in blue.

Lilianna did not require a looking glass to feel heat burning in her cheeks. She probably looked a fright—but what else could she do?

Fantastic in blue, indeed. Did the idiot not know she looked marvelous in every color?

“Was he very rude?”

“Very,” said Lilianna quietly. And then, “Not that it was from the person you think.”

“Whatever you say, Lil.” Frank grinned. “Goodness, an admirer. It’s been what, five minutes since you had a new one?”

If Lilianna had not been so concerned to keep the full details of the letter to herself, she would have thrown it at her sister. As it was…

“I feel in need of fresh air,” she said aloud. Not that she would go there . No, there were plenty of places in Bath where she could take the air and stretch her legs. A constitutional would be most advantageous, especially after luncheon.

Frank raised an eyebrow. “Do you, indeed? Shall I tell Mama you need a chaperone? Of course, we always need them, but in particular when meeting with a gentleman who—ouch!” She was too busy rubbing her sore arm to finish that thought.

Lilianna strode out of the room. It took five minutes to track down their mother, and another five to convince her to loan Lilianna the requested garment.

“B-But you have a p-perfectly good one yourself.”

“I know,” said Lilianna, smiling sweetly. “But yours has that beautiful lace around the collar and cuffs. It will go so nicely with my bonnet.”

Her mother arched an eyebrow but said no more. And so it was that about twenty minutes after receiving Lord Taernsby’s letter, Lilianna strode down the steps of her Bath home in the brightest scarlet pelisse anyone had ever seen, Clarke a few steps behind her, the lady’s maid looking a bit green, Lilianna had to admit.

“My lady, I’m not sure I should be out for a walk just now,” said Clarke, clutching her stomach.

“Nonsense,” Lilianna said. “Fresh air will do you good.” Besides, she would not give Lord Taernsby the satisfaction of her arriving without a chaperone this time.

Nor the opportunity of stepping too close to her.

She gulped.

Lilianna’s smile remained buoyant even as her spirits fluttered.

What on earth was she doing? She hated the man! No, hatred was too strong a word: she disliked the man. She did not think of him at all. She couldn’t stop thinking of him.

Treacherous mind, it was always doing what she didn’t want.

The Fish Pond was almost deserted. Lilianna’s shoulders sagged, just a little. Part of her had hoped it would be bustling, and she could take some time observing this Earl of Taernsby to see what he was like.

Though perhaps that would have been easier without the bright-red pelisse.

“My lady, you must excuse me.” Clarke swallowed and rubbed her stomach. “I need only be gone a moment.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll wait. I’m sorry I dragged you out here.” Lilianna winced as she watched her lady’s maid rush off to the nearest bench to rest upon, though she knew it was quite some distance away. She also knew her maid well enough to know when her courses were bothering her.

She was a fool for coming here, for insisting on Clarke instead of her mother to act as her companion, that deep, dark part of her no doubt counting on her maid to be more lenient than her parent.

Still, despite her promise to stay put, she found her feet wandering, her eyes looking to and fro.

The moment she turned the corner and the Fish Pond lake came into view, someone called her name.

A very handsome, very irritating someone.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist, Lady Lilianna,” said the Earl of Taernsby with a knowing look.

Lilianna held her head high as she stalked past him. The cheek! She was… curious, that was all. Could a woman not have some curiosity!

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said stiffly.

“And I see you have come alone,” he added. “Did you sneak out from behind your mother’s skirts to meet with me?”

She swallowed. She had no retort to that. She had not intended to come alone. “Good day.”

She continued to walk past him, a spring breeze tugging at her curls. Part of her was disappointed. If he had said nothing, or merely smiled, or bowed and thanked her for coming—well, maybe then she would have deigned to spend time with him. Five minutes. Maybe ten, if he were fortunate. As it was—

“Oh!” Lilianna gasped.

It was difficult not to. Some brigand had taken a hold of her sleeve!

“I told you to wear blue.” Lord Taernsby’s voice was low and intimate and suggestive all at once.

Heat blossomed in Lilianna as she tugged her sleeve away. Some of the lace ripped.

Botheration. She would have to apologize to her mother.

“And here I am, wearing red,” she shot back. “Would you rather have me at home wearing blue?”

The twinkle in Lord Taernsby’s eye was far too knowing. “You chose to defy me.”

“You can’t defy someone you never had any intention to obey,” Lilianna said, her pulse racing.

Why was this man so infuriating? How did he manage to say just the right thing to vex her?

Because she was vexed. Not intrigued. Not interested. Not hoping in any way that he would get as close to her as he had before, breathing her air, pressing himself against her…

Lilianna swallowed. Most definitely not.

“Why have you taken so against me, Lilianna?”

“Because—Because of things like that!” she said hotly, trying to keep her voice low. It would not do for any of the other people meandering about the Fish Pond to overhear what, admittedly, sounded like a lovers’ tiff. Not that it was. “Because of the way you speak to me. It’s—”

“Frighteningly intimate, isn’t it?” Lord Taernsby whispered.

Lilianna took a hasty step back. How precisely he had managed to—to creep up on her like that, she had no idea. The trickster!

“I take against anyone who presumes an intimacy with me that they have not earned,” she said sharply. Her fingers were tingling. With cold. Presumably.

Lord Taernsby was smiling. Smiling! At me! “And just how does one go about earning such intimacy?”

“You couldn’t—you can’t,” she said hastily. Lord, the last thing she needed to do was give him hope! “You are…”

Handsome. And charming. And rakish. With a terrible reputation of your own and a lowly reputation from your family.

You’re nothing like the sort of man whom I would wish to pay his address to me.

Lilianna swallowed. The words would be so easy to say, yet they did not come. They soared around her mind and made it impossible to think of anything else.

“You are not worthy of a Chance,” she said finally.

The smile on the Earl of Taernsby’s lips disappeared. “And what makes you so self-righteous as to think that?”

“My family is noble, and respected, and—”

“Oh, and you think the Taernsby name nothing of much import?”

Lilianna allowed the imperious look that she had perfected over the years to keep riffraff like this man away from her to shadow her expression. “Not much, no.”

There it was—the flaring nostrils, the flattened lip that indicated the flicker of anger she had hoped to inspire. Now all she had to do was laugh at him in the next two minutes, and he would be so mortified and irritated that he would stride away and never speak to her again.

She had done this before. Countless times. The few men on whom it had not worked had ended up proposing to her and finding themselves distinctly disappointed.

So why did Lilianna feel disappointment that this… this whatever it was, was already over?

Lord Taernsby grinned. “You can’t frighten me that easily.”

Lilianna hissed with an intake of breath. He is impossible! “You are so… so… so —”

“Yes, I get that a lot,” he said easily, eyes flicking up and down her as though he were measuring her for a new gown. “And you are so too, Lilianna. Very so.”

“ Lady Lilianna,” she snapped.

“Lady Lilianna,” Lord Taernsby replied in a mocking tone. “Why does anyone like anyone? Where does attraction come from?”

Attraction. It was not the sort of word one bandied about in public! It was bad enough she was standing here with him, without a chaperone in sight.

Lilianna glanced around them and saw with relief that the Fish Pond’s shores were mostly devoid of people. Very few, in fact, and no one currently close enough to see them. The only people she could see appeared to be leaving.

She swallowed. “So you are attracted to me.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual.”

It was impossible not to snort at that. “ My lord !”

“Oh, don’t you ‘my lord’ me. I think we are both old enough to speak the truth when we find it.” Lord Taernsby raised an eyebrow, which had a devastatingly wicked effect on the fine features of his face. “Or were the Chance ladies not taught to be honest?”

Hatred, or something very like it, flared. “How dare you?”

“I dare because I wish to have a direct conversation with you, Lady Lilianna Chance, and at every opportunity you make it impossible,” said Lord Taernsby sharply. “Have I asked you to marry me today?”

“I—what?” Lilianna felt wrong-footed, as though the whole world was upended whenever she was in this man’s presence.

How did he do it? Make it impossible for her to find her center, to understand what the world was doing? Why was there so little equilibrium in her soul whenever he crossed her path?

Or, she supposed, in this case when she crossed his path. But no matter. The point was—

“Is your silence acquiescence?”

Lilianna blinked, confused for a moment, then shook her head in horror. “No! No, absolutely not! I will not marry you, my lord!”

“You will not marry me today, to be sure. We would need a few weeks to get everything prepared.” Lord Taernsby had an impish grin on his face. “So how about the first of April?”

“Never,” shot back Lilianna succinctly. “I don’t understand why you would think I’d agree to… to…”

“Perhaps you don’t know me just as much as I don’t know you,” Lord Taernsby said quietly, stalling her words. “Perhaps I want to reveal myself, just as I want you to be revealed. To know you.”

Lilianna swallowed the myriad of questions that arose from such a ridiculous statement. The man was wholly mad—that was the only explanation. Why else would he… Why would he be so… so…

So forward.

“And so I ask again, why have you taken against me?”

Because you’re everything that I can’t understand , Lilianna wanted to scream. Not that it would have been very ladylike. Because people like you upset the order of things, and I have my life perfectly ordered, thank you very much.

“I may as well ask why you are so taken with me ,” she said, hoping her desperation to change the topic of conversation did not show in her—

“You are so desperate to change the conversation,” said Lord in a musing tone. “Why?”

This was a mistake. She should have known coming here had been a mistake—she had thought so instinctively and she should have listened to that instinct. She should turn around right now, walk away, find Clarke, and ensure never to accept an invitation to anywhere that also had the Earl of Taernsby on the guest list.

But her curiosity would not let her depart.

What was this man’s interest? Why was he here—why was she here?

What was there between them, already, and quite against her wishes, that had brought her out here to speak with such a rotter?

“You won’t answer the question, then,” she said softly, unwillingly meeting his gaze and feeling heat boil in her stomach. “You have no reason for your interest in me. I am just another of a long line of women whom you wish to woo, bed, and then abandon.”

A twist of his jaw, a throb in his temple, yet the Earl of Taernsby did not speak. She watched him, waiting, lungs tightening as she waited for an answer, any answer.

No answer came.

Lilianna sighed. “How very disappointing.”

She turned away. There was nothing else for her here, no reason to stay. The afternoon was drawing on and the sun offered little warmth at this time of year.

And she would have stridden off, head held high, if it had not been for the mud. That was the trouble with standing beside a lake for so long. Without her noticing, Lilianna’s feet were now slipping in mud—mud that would not provide her with a steady hold for much longer.

“Arrgh!”

It was most unladylike of her to produce such a sound, yet what else could she utter? It was the perfectly normal response of a woman who had slipped suddenly in squelching mud, careering toward the muddy ground, only to be caught—

To be caught.

Lilianna blinked up into the face of a gentleman she was starting to know a little too well. He was looking down, a hint of a smile on his lips, his eyes possessively raking over her.

But it wasn’t his eyes that were the problem. It was his hands. The Earl of Taernsby’s hands. One was around her waist, holding her parallel to the ground, evidently refusing to let her up for some unknown reason of his. And the other…

Heat burned Lilianna’s cheeks. The other was clasping her—her buttock!

“Unhand me,” she snarled.

Or at least, she had intended to snarl. Unfortunately, the phrase came out as a whimper, which was most definitely not what she had intended. Most irritating it was too.

For some reason, her gasp made Lord Taernsby grin. “We have got to stop meeting like this.”

His voice was a growl, a jagged tone wrenching something deep into her.

Lilianna wetted her lips in preparation for a response and for some reason, he groaned. The man actually groaned! And his hand was still on her behind!

“I think you owe me a kiss now, Lilianna,” Lord Taernsby murmured.

“ L-Lady Lilianna,” she spluttered, hoping to goodness no one could see them. Walking alongside him in a public park, she might feign innocence—her chaperone was somewhere nearby. But to be caught in this compromising position? Why, it was a scandal!

The Earl of Taernsby grinned wickedly, his grip tightening. “That wasn’t a no.”

“You have not a chance in hell,” Lilianna whispered.

She was going to say more. She was going to point out how utterly ridiculous it was to presume that he could kiss her—her, Lady Lilianna Chance! And in public too!

She ought to point out that gentlemen did not go around kissing ladies in public. As far as her experience went, gentlemen did not go around kissing ladies to whom they were not engaged. She certainly had not had a single kiss bestowed on her, and quite right too. The last thing she was going to permit was such an assault on her dignity!

The speech was impressive, but it was not needed. Not when Lord Taernsby lowered his lips to hers and pressed upon them a chaste kiss…

The kiss did not remain chaste for long. When Lilianna gasped in shock and surprise at the sudden intrusion, then whimpered at the delicate pleasure that tingled down her mouth and into her core, Lord Taernsby took advantage of her parted lips and deepened the kiss.

His tongue—his tongue was in her mouth!

Lilianna struggled, her hands splaying against his chest, but her efforts swiftly ceased as the aforementioned tongue caressed her own.

Oh, what sensation was this? What trembling overcame her body? How did every inch of her respond in need, clutching at Lord Taernsby now instead of attempting to push him away? Why did a moan erupt in her throat, swiftly swallowed by his tantalizing kisses that possessed her utterly, showed her, without words, precisely what he wanted from her?

When the Earl of Taernsby finally released her, standing her upright and taking a step back in the squelching mud, Lilianna could do nothing for a moment but raise a hand to her lips.

He had kissed her. She’d had her first kiss.

“That,” Lord Taernsby said in a ragged voice. “ That is why I am interested in you.”

And all the heat that had flooded her body disappeared, ice coldness replacing it.

Lilianna swallowed. “So that is all. You want my body.”

“I want to possess you, to show you what it is to be adored,” Lord Taernsby said in a low voice, reaching out for her.

This time, when she turned and marched away, Lilianna was very careful where she placed her feet. It would certainly not do to fall into a man’s arms again. Not now she knew where that sort of thing could lead.