Page 63 of Seducing a Frigid Lady
Feeling almost as though she was haunting him, Lionel clambered back out of his bed and grabbed his dressing robe from the hook on the back of the door. Shrugging it on and shoving his feet into his slippers, he headed back down the hall and wandered idly down the stairs, wondering whether his cousin might enter the front door at any moment.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, half-expecting Max to stumble through, looking merry and drunk and as though he had been sharing in a mighty good time at the local tavern.
But after listening to the silence of the house for several moments, he decided that he was wasting his time. With a deep sigh, he headed down the hall to the library, and finding that the fire was dying in the hearth, he stoked it before adding another few logs from the basket close by.
After pouring himself a glass of scotch, he dropped down into the armchair that had become his favourite in the entire house and propped his feet up on the pouffe stool.
Gazing into the fireplace as he had come to do so many times of late, he found he was once more thinking of the mess he had made of his life. Thinking of Lady Caroline and all he was about to be forced into, thanks to his own stupid notions of family loyalty and his desire to make his parents proud.
It shall all work out in the end,he assured himself but the longer that he sat there, the longer he found himself thinking of Miss Lloyd’s final words whispered in his ear, the ones where she had declared that he would have been the man she would marry if it were a choice.
And, still able to hear the soft yet confident tone of her voice, he quivered with desire and frustration.
When the grandfather clock across the room started to ding, announcing the turn of four in the morning, Lionel gritted his teeth and snarled to himself, “Maximilian, where in God’s good name are you?”
Almost as if his words had summoned him, Lionel heard the creaking of the front door coming from down the hall. Listening through the library door that he had left open to wait for his cousin, just in case, he heard the sound of merry yet hushed laughter and the stumbling of feet.
Here we go,Lionel thought grimly, shoving himself to his feet in order to see just what a state his cousin was in.
The front door slammed shut so suddenly that it made Lionel jump just as he reached the library door with his glass still in hand.
Able to see right the way down the hall from his vantage point, Lionel watched his cousin stumbling towards the staircase with an overly merry smirk upon his face, looking more than a little drunk.
You have got to be jesting with me!Lionel thought angrily. After all, he had been forced to endure, after the scathing way Miss Lloyd had looked at him and the fact that he had practically lost everything in favour of keeping his younger cousin from the noose of marriage, he could not hold his tongue seeing how much of a good time the man had likely had.
“Max! Where have you been?” he demanded, storming down the hall to meet his cousin before he could even take one step up the stairs.
Immediately, Max whirled around, looking far less drunk than Lionel had at first believed him to be.
“Oh! There you are, cousin! I thought you would be abed by now!” Max exclaimed, reaching out to place a hand upon Lionel’s shoulder. It was a brotherly gesture and one that Lionel was not exactly feeling in that moment, but he forced himself to remain still.
“I would have been had I known where you were!” Lionel snapped back at him. “You do realise the hour?”
Raising an eyebrow at Max, Lionel waited impatiently for an explanation.
“Oh, Lionel, you would not believe me if I told you!” Max stated, sounding as though he was fit to bursting. Before Lionel could stop him, Max threw an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a brotherly side hug.
“I think you had better come and explain,” Lionel insisted, wrapping his arm around his cousin’s waist to guide him back towards the library.
Before long, the two of them were sitting opposite each other in armchairs as they had so many times before. And yet the happiness that was brimming from Max left Lionel feeling utterly on edge. After all, he had endured for his cousin so far. He wasn’t sure he could handle the ease with which his cousin seemed to have brushed everything off.
“How was the ball?” Max asked with a raised eyebrow, though he did not wait for Lionel’s answer before he added, “Oh, we can talk about that later, but for now I have news!”
Max pushed himself forwards, perching on the edge of his armchair and Lionel found himself doing the same. He demanded, “Well then? Tell me!”
“I am to be married!”
The moment that Max blurted the words, Lionel found he was utterly speechless.
“Do not tell me you have gotten so drunk you have gone and proposed to some harlot!” Lionel boomed back at him, unable to believe that his cousin could be so stupid.
“No! No, nothing like that,” Max protested. “For the last few days, ever since Lord Montgomery’s confrontation, I have been unable to stop from thinking of Lady Caroline.”
“Max, you must forget about her if…” Lionel began, his stomach clenching and his chest tightening. The plans he had made would only work if his cousin was able to keep away from the woman who was set to be his wife.
“You don’t understand! I have fixed everything, Lionel!” Max insisted. He came rushing across the rug, practically crouching before Lionel as though he was pleading with him to listen. “Hours of silence in this house after you had left for the ball gave me exactly the time I needed to decide. I am in love with Lady Caroline and I wish for her to be my wife!”
“But Lord Montgomery has already…”
