Page 64 of Seducing a Frigid Lady
“Lord Montgomery took a lot of persuading, I’ll admit,” Max said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But that is why I am so to return. I visited the Montgomerys and asked to speak with Lady Caroline. At first, she would not see me, but I refused to leave until she had and when I confessed my intentions, she agrees with my sentiments.”
Lionel stared at his cousin, open-mouthed. “And what of Lord Montgomery?”
“He took some persuading as I said, but in the end, he could not resist giving Lady Caroline exactly what she wanted,” Max admitted, the smile on his face growing so wide that it looked as though his cheeks might tear.
For several moments Lionel was silent. He turned his gaze away to look once more into the fireplace, his heart aching and his head spinning.
“Why could you not have come to this realisation earlier?” he asked through gritted teeth. When he blinked, he could still see the pained expression that had been on Miss Lloyd’s porcelain face. After all he had put her through, he couldn’t see that Max’s realisation would change anything, not for him.
“I… I admit, when Lord Montgomery confronted you. I was terrified and the thought of marriage was even more traumatising, but over the last few days, I have come to realise I have missed Lady Caroline more and more with each passing hour. I cannot live without her. Nor could I bear the thought of seeing you together every day. Can… can you give me this, cousin?”
The way Max gripped hold of Lionel’s hand on the arm of his chair suggested just how desperate he was.
Lionel shrugged, unable to stop from smiling. “Lord Montgomery has yet to make any announcement on my behalf, so I suppose I can… if you are certain that it is what you wish for?”
Max looked at him with such strength in his brown gaze that it almost frightened Lionel. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”
With a deep sigh of relief, Lionel told his cousin, “Then I am happy to step down and have you take my place.”
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Max exclaimed, lunging forwards to wrap his arms around Lionel’s neck. “I could not bear to see you sacrifice yourself any longer!”
Lionel grimaced at that, glad his cousin couldn’t see his face.I fear the damage has already been done.He thought again of Miss Lloyd and how she had looked at him, how she had kissed him shortly before running off and leaving him standing there utterly heartbroken in the garden.
“Now you are free, Lionel!” Max stated, pulling back and holding him at arm’s length by the shoulders. “What will you do with your newfound freedom?”
Lionel gulped past the sudden lump in his throat as realisation hit him. He did not wish to be free. “Max, I’m going to need your assistance.”
After just a couple of hours to allow Max to sleep off his celebratory drinks, Lionel dragged his cousin straight to the Lloyd residence. Standing in the hallway as he awaited the butler to announce them to the master of the house and his daughter, who were apparently in the drawing room, Lionel felt as though his nerves might well get the better of him.
It was only when Max placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder that he realised he could not turn back now. If Max had managed to face his fears, then so could he.
“Viscount Lloyd and Miss Lloyd will see you,” the butler announced the moment he returned and gestured them into the room beyond.
Sucking in a deep breath and straightening his jacket, Lionel entered the room to find that Miss Lloyd and her father were sitting in the very centre of the room, facing each other with artist’s easels between them. And though they could not see each other, the two were laughing as though they were having a whale of a time.
If not for the dark circles beneath Miss Lloyd’s eyes, Lionel might have come to believe that she was entirely unphased by what had happened between them.
As though she sensed him watching her, Miss Lloyd turned her gaze upon him, and the moment that she saw him, her entire expression changed. In an instant, she had turned to ice before his eyes.
“Good morning, Lord Sinclair, Mr. Parr!” Viscount Lloyd greeted them warmly with a bow of his head, standing up from his chair to wipe his paint-covered hands on his handkerchief. “Do not mind me. I shall go and get cleaned up and have the butler bring some tea!”
As eccentric as he had always seemed to be flitting to and fro at balls and dinners, Viscount Lloyd scurried from the room with another bow of his head.
It was only the clearing of a throat behind Lionel that caused him to look around to the very far end of the long drawing-room where he found Lady Bishop sitting in a pool of sunshine, reading a book.
“Good morning, Lady Bishop,” he called to her. The woman dropped her book just long enough to greet him before turning back to her reading. Clearly, she knew well why they had truly come, that they did not wish to see her.
Hoping that Lady Bishop was out of earshot, Lionel turned to Max and said just loudly enough for Miss Lloyd to hear, “Cousin, am I wrong in believing you have something you wish to explain to our hostess?”
With a sigh, Miss Lloyd got up from her chair and wiped her hands just as her father had, before she gestured for the two of them to join her, sitting upon a couch at the opposite end of the room to her aunt.
“Say what you have come to say,” she insisted when the two men sat on the couch opposite her, both of them quite silent. “I do not have all day, sirs. My paints are drying.”
With a dig in the ribs from Lionel, Max started to reel off everything from his secret meetings with Lady Caroline, to how he had allowed Lionel to take the fall for him and how saddened and ashamed he was at such a thing. He continued on to say that he had learned his lesson and that he had come to fix all of the problems he had started, including that he would soon be married to Lady Caroline himself, leaving Lionel free to marry whomever he should choose.
And all the while, Lionel watched her closely, seeing the disbelief turn to astonishment upon her face.
“If you do not believe me, Lady Caroline shall explain it just the same once her father has finally eased her confinement,” Max finished, his face flushed as though he had struggled to catch his breath throughout the entire tale.
