Free Amanda Scott by The Bath Quadrille

bidding, Sybilla looked at the earl. “Giving orders, sir?”
    He smiled. “Not going to send me back out into the cold without a bracer, are you? Not after having got me so warm. Let’s go upstairs.” There was a wealth of meaning in his voice, and Sybilla began to wonder again what she had got herself into.
    “I can still throw you out of the house, Ned,” she said sweetly, surprising herself.
    “To be sure, you can,” he agreed, smiling down at her. “Do you want to?”

IV
    B ITING HER LOWER LIP, Sybilla shook her head in response to Ramsbury’s question. She knew she would do better to send him on his way, but she could not seem to do so. Conscious only of the warmth in his eyes and a lessening of the odd sense of loneliness that had for so long been her constant companion, she made no demur when he took her hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm, and guided her upstairs to the library, where they were welcomed by candlelight from a number of gilded wall sconces, the glow casting golden highlights and dancing shadows onto the peach-colored walls. The only sound was the sharp snap-crack of a spark from the embers of the dying fire.
    Once inside the door, Ramsbury paused, glancing down at her ruefully. “Perhaps you would have preferred to go into the drawing room instead,” he said.
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “The pianoforte is there. Were you not inspired by Mr. Davies’s excellent performance?”
    Sybilla shook her head again, chuckling. “I am neither so puffed up in my own esteem nor so accomplished a musician as to try to emulate what we heard tonight; however, I suppose I ought at least to thank you for considering my wishes for once.”
    “Don’t be absurd,” he said, releasing her arm and moving away toward the fireplace. Taking a log from the wood basket on the hearth, he knelt to set it gently on the grate, prodded the coals with the poker, then stood back to admire his handiwork. The hot embers glowed hungrily, then sparked, and flames began immediately to flicker at the base of the log.
    Sybilla said, “Why is it absurd for me to thank you, Ned? ’Tis much more in keeping with your nature that you gave the order to serve us in here without consulting my wishes than that you subsequently remembered I might have had a preference.”
    His heavy dark eyebrows knitted together in a beetling frown as he turned toward her. “Are you trying to provoke me, wife?”
    “Don’t call me that.”
    “Why not? You are my wife.” He moved toward her, and Sybilla watched him warily but made no attempt to elude him, even when he placed one hand on her shoulder, looked down into her eyes, and added more gently, “Perhaps you ought to be reminded of that fact rather more often.”
    She gazed back at him, willing her emotions to remain calm. “Is that why you escorted me to the concert tonight, sir? To remind me? I do not forget, you know.”
    “Do you not, Syb?” Both his hands were on her shoulders now, and his touch was firm, possessive. The expression in his eyes was enigmatic and told her nothing about his feelings.
    She wished he would move away, and her tension made her tongue sharp. “Of course I don’t forget. How could I?” Having decided it would be better to put distance between them, she found when she attempted to move that he would not let her. His hands tightened. She turned her head to avoid his ardent gaze.
    “Do not look away, Sybilla,” he said softly. “It has been a long time since I was last able to look this closely into your lovely face.”
    She wanted to ask him why it mattered, but she could not find the words. She still was uncertain about his motives. From all she had heard of his activities these sixteen months past—and it often seemed as though her friends were only too willing to report his every move to her—he had not missed her. Nor had she missed him, of course. Not at all.
    All these thoughts passed through her mind in less time than it took Ramsbury to