Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(58)

While both the Chamberlains glared at her, Gideon Shaw laughed freely at her impudence. “I enjoyed the fair,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. He glanced at Susan. “And you seem to have forgotten, dear sis, that most of those so-called rustics have better bloodlines than the Shaws.”

“How could I forget?” Susan Chamberlain asked sharply. “You are always so eager to remind me.”

Livia bit the insides of her lips to keep from laughing. “I suppose I shall retire for the evening. I bid you all a good night.”

“Not yet,” Shaw said softly. “The night is still young, my lady. Shall we play a hand of cards, or have a turn at the chessboard?”

She smiled and asked ingenuously, “Do you like to play games, Mr. Shaw?”

His gaze was subtly seductive, but his tone matched hers for innocence. “Of every kind.”

Livia’s teeth caught at her lower lip in the way that had always inspired Amberley to say that she was adorable. How strange—she hadn’t consciously done that in so very long. Which made her realize how very much she wanted to attract Gideon Shaw.

“I never play when I don’t think I can win,” she told him. “Therefore, I suggest that we take a turn through the portrait gallery, and you can view my ancestors. You may be interested to know that our family tree boasts of a pirate. Quite a ruthless fellow, I’ve been told.”

“So was my grandfather,” Shaw remarked. “Although we politely refer to him as a sea captain, he did things that would make a pirate blush for shame.”

His sister Susan made a strangled sound. “I will not join you, Lady Olivia, as it is obvious that my brother is determined to denigrate his antecedents at every opportunity. Heaven knows for what purpose.”

Livia tried to suppress a rush of pleasure at the prospect of being alone with Shaw again, but a betraying tide of color burnished her cheeks. “Certainly, Mrs. Chamberlain. Again, I wish you good night.”

The Chamberlains’ replies, if they made any, were inaudible. And Livia wouldn’t have been able to hear them in any case: her ears were filled with the pounding of her own heartbeat. She wondered what they thought of her going somewhere unchaperoned with Shaw, and then decided in a rush of happy self-indulgence that it did not matter. The night was young, and for the first time in a long while, she felt young too.

Leading Shaw to the portrait gallery, Livia gave him an arch glance. “You are wicked, to tease your sister so,” she said severely.

“It is a brother’s duty to torment his older sister.”

“You perform your duty with awe-inspiring thoroughness,” she said, and his grin broadened.

They entered the long, narrow portrait gallery, where paintings had been hung in six rows up to the ceiling, clearly intended not as a display of art but rather a display of aristocratic heritage. At the far end of the gallery stood a pair of immense gothic thrones. The backs of the chairs were eight feet tall, and the seats were surfaced by cushions that managed to be harder than a wooden plank. To the Marsdens, bodily comfort was of far less importance than the fact that the thrones dated back to the 1500s and represented a lineage far less corrupted by foreign influences than that of the current monarch.

As they walked back and forth along the gallery, the conversation quickly detoured from the subject of ancestry into far more personal channels, and somehow Shaw managed to guide Livia into the subject of her love affair with Amberley. There were countless reasons why Livia should not have confided in him. She ignored them all. Somehow Livia did not want to keep anything hidden from Gideon Shaw, no matter how shocking or unflattering. She even told him about her miscarriage…and as they talked, Livia found herself being pulled to one of the enormous chairs, and suddenly she was sitting on his lap.

“I can’t,” she whispered anxiously, staring at the empty doorway of the gallery. “If someone should catch us like this—”

“I’ll watch the doorway,” Shaw assured her, his arm tightening around her waist. “It’s more comfortable to sit like this, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stop wiggling, darling, or you’re going to embarrass us both. Now…you were telling me…”

Livia went still in his lap, blushing wildly. The endearment, commonplace as it was, and the prolonged contact with his body, and the friendly sympathy in his gaze, made her weak all over. She struggled to remember what they had been talking about. Ah…the miscarriage. “The worst part was that everyone thought I was fortunate to have lost the baby,” she said. “No one said it in those exact words, but it was obvious.”

“I imagine that it wouldn’t have been easy, to be unmarried with a fatherless child,” Shaw said gently.

“Yes. I knew that at the time. But I still grieved. I even felt as if I had failed Amberley, by not managing to keep that last little part of him alive. And now there are even times when I find it difficult to remember exactly what Amberley looked like, or what his voice sounded like.”

“Do you think he would have wanted you to commit suttee?”

“What is that?”

“A Hindu practice in which a widow is expected to throw herself on her husband’s burning funeral pyre. Her suicide is considered as proof of her devotion to him.”

“What if the wife dies first? Does the husband do the same thing?”