Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(99)

Truly. A treasure hunt? Gads and to think this was the most anticipated house party of the year. “I’m afraid I must retire to my chamber,” she announced to him. “I have a megrim.”

Just as she began to breathe easier, Thornton ruined her reprieve. His sullen mouth quirked into a disengaged smile. “I’ll escort you.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself.” She hadn’t meant for him to play the role of gentleman. She just wanted to be rid of him.

Thornton’s face was an impenetrable mask. “It’s no trouble.”

“Indeed.” Dismay sank through her like a stone. There was no way to extricate herself without being quite obvious he still set her at sixes and sevens. “Lead the way.”

He offered his arm and she took it, aware that in her eagerness to escape him, she had just entrapped herself more fully. Instead of staying in the safe, boring company of the other revelers, she was leaving them at her back. Perhaps a treasure hunt would not have been so terrible a fate.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them, with Cleo aware the young man who had dizzied her with stolen kisses had aged into a cool, imperturbable stranger. For all the passion he showed now, she could have been a buttered parsnip on his plate.

She told herself she didn’t give a straw for him, that walking a short distance just this once would have no effect on her. Even if he did smell somehow delectable and not at all as some gentlemen did of tobacco and horse. No. His was a masculine, alluring scent of sandalwood and spice. And his arm beneath her hand felt as strongly corded with muscle as it looked under his coat.

“You have changed little, Lady Scarbrough,” Thornton offered at last when they were well away from the others, en route to Wilton House’s imposing fa?ade. “Lovely as ever.”

“You are remarkably civil, my lord,” she returned, not patient enough for a meaningless, pleasant exchange. She didn’t wish to cry friends with him. There was too much between them.

His jaw stiffened and she knew she’d finally irked him. “Did you think to find me otherwise?”

“Our last parting was an ugly one.” Perverse, perhaps, but she wanted to remind him, couldn’t bridle her tongue. She longed to grab handfuls of his fine coat and shake him. What right did he have to appear so smug, so handsome? To be so self-assured, refined, magnetic?

“I had forgotten.” Thornton’s tone, like the sky above them, remained light, nonchalant.

“Forgotten?” The nerve of the man! He had acted the part of lovelorn suitor well enough back then.

“It was, what, all of ten years past, no?”

“Seven,” she corrected before she could think better of it.

He smiled down at her as if he were a kindly uncle regarding a pitiable orphaned niece. “Remarkable memory, Lady Scarbrough.”

“One would think your memory too would recall such an occasion, even given your advanced age.”

“How so?” He sounded bored, deliberately overlooking her jibe at his age which was, if she were honest, only thirty to her five and twenty. “We never would have suited.” His gray eyes melted into hers, his grim mouth tipping upward in what would have been a grin on any other man. Thornton didn’t grin. He smoldered.

Drat her stays. Too tight, too tight. She couldn’t catch a breath. Did he mean to be cruel? Cleo knew a great deal about not suiting. She and Scarbrough had been at it nearly since the first night they’d spent as man and wife. He had crushed her, hurt her, grunted over her and gone to his mistress.

“Of course we wouldn’t suit,” she agreed. Still, inwardly she had to admit there had been many nights in her early marriage where she had lain awake, listening for Scarbrough’s footfalls, wondering if she hadn’t chosen a Sisyphean fate.

They entered Wilton House and began the lengthy tromp to its Tudor revival styled wing where many of the guests had been situated. Thornton placed a warm hand over hers. He gazed down at her with a solemn expression, some of the arrogance gone from his features. “I had not realized you would be in attendance, Lady Scarbrough.”

“Nor I you.” She was uncertain of what, if any, portent hid in his words. Was he suggesting he was not as immune as he pretended? She wished he had not insisted upon escorting her.

As they drew near the main hall, a great commotion arose. Previously invisible servants sprang forth, bustling with activity. A new guest had arrived and Cleo recognized the strident voice calling out orders. Thornton’s hand stiffened over hers and his strides increased. She swore she overheard him mumble something like ‘not yet, damn it’, but couldn’t be sure. To test him, she stopped. Her heavy skirts swished front then back, pulling her so she swayed into him.

Cleo cast him a sidelong glance. “My lord, I do believe your mother is about to grace us with her rarified presence.”

He growled, losing some of his polish like a candlestick too long overlooked by the rag. “Nonsense. We mustn’t tarry. You’ve the headache.” He punctuated his words with a sharp, insolent yank on her arm to get her moving.

She beamed. “I find it begins to dissipate.”

The dowager Marchioness of Thornton had a certain reputation. She was a lioness with an iron spine, an undeterred sense of her own importance and enough consequence to cut anyone she liked. Cleo knew the dowager despised her. She wouldn’t dare linger to incur her wrath were it not so painfully obvious the good woman’s own son was desperate to avoid her. And deuce it, she wanted to see Thornton squirm.