“You expected Robert to come to his room and find you lying in his bed, dressed like that.” His blue eyes flashed with incredulity. “Are you and he…” At least he had the decency to look away as he stumbled over the accusation. “Intimate?”
“No!” She blinked back the stinging tears. Her humiliation had reached new heights now, never mind the fact that intimacy with Robert was exactly what she’d hoped for tonight.
“Then why were you waiting in bed for him?” he pressed.
With a groan, she hung her head in her hands. All she’d wanted was a simple seduction, but her dream had become a nightmare. “Oh, what does it matter?”
He arched a brow. “Because he’s my brother, and I care about him.” His voice softened. “And about you.”
Ha! She didn’t believe that for a second. The oldest of the three Carlisle brothers, Sebastian was the one she knew the least well yet the one who had annoyed her the most, probably because he was a decade older than she was and impatient with the games she and his siblings had played. He’d been fifteen when she arrived at Islingham, already enrolled at Eton and so away most of the time. Even on those rare visits home on holiday, he’d been too interested in spending time with his father and learning about the estate to be anything more than distantly friendly to her. By the time he’d reached university, he was more concerned with chasing women and having a good time with his brothers carrying out whatever wild scheme they could concoct than whatever was happening in Islingham. And the wilder, the better.
Until Richard Carlisle became a duke. Then the rowdy, unmanageable brothers became more serious, especially Sebastian, who as the heir had always felt the weight of the responsibilities he would someday bear. He’d paid her scant attention before; now that he was the duke, he barely noticed that she existed at all.
“Miranda,” he sighed patiently, “I can’t think of any good reason why you’d be in Robert’s bed.”
She grimaced. “No, of course not—I mean— Oh, blast it!”
She didn’t care that she’d cursed in front of him, especially since the Carlisle brothers were the ones who taught her to swear when she was a child. Especially since Sebastian would never have seen her as a demure, polite society lady in the first place. And especially since she knew he wouldn’t care that she’d made such a muddle of things tonight.
But she also knew that he fiercely protected his family and that he wouldn’t let her leave until she explained what she’d planned for his brother.
So she grimaced in defeat and admitted softly, “Robert’s going to offer for her, I know it.”
“Who?” he puzzled.
“Diana Morgan.” Her eyes blurred with a hot mix of anger and humiliation, and her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of it. “General Morgan’s daughter. He invited her to the house party, and he’s going to court her this season in London.”
“What does that have to do with— Oh.”
“Yes.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh. Tonight was my last chance to be noticed by him as someone other than a friend. So I wore this costume.” She gave a hopeless wave of her hand to indicate the dress that now crumpled with wrinkles from him lying on top of her. Good heavens, how could something cost so much when there was so little to it? “And the only person who saw me in it was you. No one important.”
His mouth twisted dourly. “Thank you.”
“Oh, you know what I mean!” Her hand darted up to swipe at her eyes. “But I thought that if Robert could see me like this then maybe…just maybe he’d…” She shrugged a shoulder, feeling utterly pathetic. “Notice me.”
“But…Robert?”
With a cringe of humiliation, she shoved him away to scramble off the bed. She barely remembered to snatch up her mask before rushing past him toward the door.
A sob strangled in her throat. What a horrible, horrible night! All she wanted to do now was flee and never again show her face at Chestnut Hill, or in Islingham Village, or anywhere in England for that matter, so she wouldn’t accidentally run into Sebastian. Or Robert, because Sebastian was certain to tell his brother about this. Oh, what a hearty laugh the two of them would—
“Wait.” He grabbed her arm and tugged her back toward him.
Set off-balance, she stepped backward, and her legs tangled in the gauzy skirt. She fell against him, and his arms went around her to steady her.
Fresh mortification heated her cheeks. She’d tripped in front of him like some graceless dolt, then fell right into his arms. So pathetically. Her eyes blurred. Tonight was proving to be nothing but one humiliation after another.
“Let me go,” she pleaded.
His arms stayed firmly around her. “Miranda, I am sorry.” His apologetic voice was surprisingly kind. “I had no idea that you…”
Raising her gaze to his, she steeled herself against the pity she knew she’d see on his face.
What she saw instead was incredulous curiosity. “I’m just surprised,” he explained gently.
Her throat tightened. Surely he hadn’t meant that as an insult, but when heaped on top of the other humiliations she’d experienced tonight, his words hurt. “Surprised to find me in your room?” She stuck her nose into the air with a peeved sniff. “Or surprised that I might possibly have feelings for your brother?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly, “to both.”
With an angry groan, she pushed against his chest to shove herself away.
He took her shoulders and held firm, his solid body not budging an inch. “And, frankly, that you would want Robert in the first place instead of some nice man from the village.”
She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Was that how all the Carlisle men saw her? As a silly country gel destined to marry a boring vicar or farmer and spend her life polishing church pews or chasing pigs on a farm? Was that the best they thought she could do with her life? Oh, she wanted so much more than that! She wanted adventure and excitement, a large family of her own to love, and a home right here in Islingham, surrounded by the people she loved and would do anything for. She wasn’t daft enough to think that she could marry someone of rank, like a landowning gentleman or a peer.
But the brother of a peer…
Yet if Robert thought no more of her than Sebastian did, then he would never notice her as a woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life, and everything she’d gone through tonight was a thoroughly humiliating, horrible waste of time. And money. She might as well have been placed on the shelf tonight and marked Do Not Touch, because her life as she wanted it to be was irrevocably over.
She turned her face away, blinking hard. She wanted to laugh! And cry bitterly.
“For what I did earlier,” Sebastian apologized as he sucked in a deep breath, “I am truly sorry.”
Yes, she supposed he was, now that he knew it was her and not some temptress he thought had wantonly sneaked into his room for a night of bed sport with the duke. After all, he hadn’t appeared particularly apologetic when he’d been pulling up her skirt.
He squeezed her shoulders in a gesture of friendly affection. The same hands that moments before had been caressing her naked breasts and had her liking it, that even now sent tingles through her—
“Oh God, no!” She pressed her fingers to her lips with horror at her sudden outburst—and even more horror at herself for liking the way he’d touched her. Sebastian of all men!
“Pardon?” He frowned, bewildered at her behavior.
“I mean, no apology is necessary. It was nothing.” She stepped back, and this time he let her go. “A mistake, that was all. And I would greatly appreciate”—another step away, because if she kept putting steps between them she could reach the door and flee into the hallway before the tears overtook her—“if you would kindly keep what happened here tonight a secret.”
“Of course,” he agreed solemnly.
Embarrassment burned her cheeks. “I mean it, Sebastian. If you tell anyone, especially Robert or Quinton, I’ll…I’ll…”