Page 62 of Seducing a Frigid Lady
The way his fingertips brushed the high point of her cheekbone caused her to shiver. And the moment he gripped hold of her cheek in his palm, she knew that she was lost.
“I have come to know exactly how it must feel to lose one’s wits in the face of a beautiful woman,” Lord Sinclair announced, his voice barely a whisper, and his words caused Priscilla’s breath to catch in her throat. The way his eyes travelled from hers, down to her lips, a look of longing in his eyes, made her heart race like it had never raced before.
It was in that final moment that Priscilla’s mind whirled, only one thought able to come to the surface:just one last kiss.
And before she could stop herself, she had placed her hands upon his chest, pushing herself up onto her tiptoes to meet his face with her own.
Their lips collided, and passion overwhelmed. All rational thought was forgotten as the viscount’s hands landed on her hips, urging her ever closer. Hands travelling upwards, Priscilla wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him deeper still as she pulled him down further to meet her.
Though she was taller than many of the women of theton, Lord Sinclair still towered over her, making her feel for once as though she were small and feminine and fragile. And the way that he held her, the way that he kissed her, entirely took her breath away until she felt as though he was the only air that she needed.
Then, just like that, their kiss was broken.
The viscount pressed his forehead to hers, their nose tips brushing affectionately as she smelled the sweetness of wine upon his breath. Closing her eyes, Priscilla held onto the feeling in that moment for as long as she could, praying that it might never end.
But just as quickly as they had kissed, they broke apart and Priscilla’s rational thoughts came rushing back to her like a ton of stone had been thrown upon her shoulders.
“My lord, we cannot allow this to continue,” she declared with her eyes closed, struggling too much with her own emotions to see his own written plainly upon his face. “Lady Caroline does not deserve for this to continue behind her back. Not with everything that is set to occur.”
“I agree.”
The suddenness of his response caused Priscilla’s eyes to open immediately. The pain that lanced through her heart was made no better by the agonised expression on the viscount’s face.
“I cannot do this to Lady Caroline,” Priscilla said again, more firmly this time, meaning to solidify the words in her own mind as much as his. Again, the viscount nodded his agreement.
“I agree though there is something I feel you must know,” Lord Sinclair sighed and when he held out his hands to her, Priscilla could not stop herself from placing her palms in his. Her throat constricted and all she could do was gaze up into his dark hazel eyes, the moonlight turning them to charcoal.
“Miss Lloyd, I never believed I would ever marry, but upon meeting you, I realised there was one woman I would consider marrying.”
Priscilla’s heart beat faster and faster with every word that he spoke, and soon she felt as though her knees might buckle out from beneath her.
“You, Miss Lloyd… I would have married you in a heartbeat.”
Tears threatening as they had so many times over the last few days, Priscilla could only manage to push herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek before she whispered, “And I you.”
Before Lord Sinclair could say another word or even pull her back into his embrace, Priscilla spun on her heels and started to run.
“Miss Lloyd! Wait!” he called after her, but Priscilla did not turn back. She continued to run, taking the long way around the rose gardens until they finally married back up to the main path.
Tears streaming down her face, only able to stop herself from tripping by holding up her skirts, she raced around the side of the manor in search of the nearest carriage.
All had been lost that night and she cared not to pretend for a single moment more that she was as she had always been. Lord Sinclair had entirely changed her, broken her heart and shattered her ice-queen persona into a thousand tiny pieces. She could no more return to the ballroom than she could pretend that she was not entirely broken by all that had happened between them.
He is lost to me;she thought. Even as she forced herself to wipe away the tears just long enough to appeal to the carriage driver to return her home.And I am lost to myself.
Chapter 23
Having forced himself through perhaps the worst ball of his entire life, the only highlight being his last kiss with Miss Lloyd, Lionel was not impressed to return to Max’s residence to find that his cousin was nowhere to be seen.
At first, believing he might have gone to bed, he enquired to the butler as to the whereabouts of his master, only to learn that Max had disappeared several hours earlier and most definitely was not in his room. Unable to believe it himself, Lionel headed upstairs to check the master bed chambers, only to find that the butler had been right. Max was not there and he most definitely was not abed.
Searching the house from top to bottom, he eventually gave it in as a lost cause and headed to his own bed. His cousin would likely be back shortly, but he was too tired after the ordeal of the ball to await him.
Yet after two or three hours tossing and turning in his bed without so much as the creaking of floorboards to suggest that Max was creaking to his room down the hall, Lionel realised there was no way he was ever going to be able to sleep with all that was going on in his mind.
Whenever he closed his eyes, he could still see Miss Lloyd’s heartbroken expression and his lips still tingled with her kiss. He was still surprised when he thought of how she had been the one to push herself up onto her tiptoes and initiate such a kiss.
It had been the very last thing he had been expecting when he tried to explain himself to her. In fact, he had half-expected for her to become just as she was with all the rest of theton. He had wholly expected for her to remain utterly the ice-queen that everyone suggested her to be.
