Excerpt of Lady Rises by Renee Bernard

“Look who I found, Delilah! Cousin Phillip is here and now the sighs can cease!” James spread his arms like a magician presenting a rabbit from his pockets.

Delilah left her chair by the windows to rush toward him for the warmest of hugs. “Dear cousin, I am so glad to see you again!”

“You grow lovelier each time.” He kissed her cheek and then froze as a figure in the corner of his vision also rose from her seat. It was a ghost who had mercilessly haunted his dreams but who had never before manifested so brazenly in his waking hours.

Delilah mistook the shift in his attention and stepped back with a smile. “May I introduce you to my friend, Lady Serena Wellcott? Lady Wellcott, this is my cousin, Sir Phillip Warrick.”

“Sir Warrick.” She gracefully held out her hand and he walked forward to take it, bowing stiffly over to brush his lips across flesh that he’d mourned as dead by a lonely roadside seven years ago.

He nodded, his voice gone. It was surreal. Raven Wells was within reach, lovelier and more sensually potent than any woman had a right to be. The intervening years had heightened her powers, all of the soft edges of youth melting into a woman of incomparable beauty. Her ebony black hair was twisted up into a delicate crown of braids without a single curl out of place. The aristocratic features he had so admired were turned toward him, her serene countenance daring him to take note of porcelain skin without the insult of powders and lips the wickedest color of red coral. And her eyes…

God, those eyes! How did I ever think to forget those icy gray eyes?

It was clear that despite all his horrified conclusions of her fate after months of fruitless searching years ago; the lady had obviously flourished and landed on her feet.

Like a cat.

She laughed at something Delilah said and Phillip struggled to unclench his hands at his sides. The melody of her laughter threatened to unman him. He wanted to seize her shoulders and shake her, to punish her, to possess her, to demand an explanation, beg her for forgiveness and to hear her pleas for mercy and cries in regret at her betrayal. He wanted all those things at once and none of it was possible.

“Phillip?” Delilah asked, a gentle touch on his arm relaying her concern. “Is everything all right?”

One breath. His life turned on the edge of this moment. If he called her out, it would be like pulling a loose thread on a tapestry he could never repair. Confronting her was a fleeting option as she stood there, dressed like a duchess holding court while his dear cousin sat meekly at her side. It was clear that Delilah and her husband were enamored of the ‘grand lady’ in their midst, and it was all he could do not to shout his fury at the deception.

But there was more to it than that.

Because one look at him with those bewitching silvery eyes and it was as if time held still. Every desire he’d ever felt for her multiplied at the denial of years, the cruel loss she’d inflicted on him and the staggering guilt he still harbored at her destruction.

There’s a tiger in the music room and they think she’s a housecat.

“Everything is fine.” He forced himself to smile. “I’m just a bit mortified to meet your guest while I still have the mud of the road on my coat. James was so eager…”

“Think nothing of it,” Lady Wellcott said. “Mud is nothing if not humbling and I’ve yet to meet a man who doesn’t improve with its touch.”

His jaw tightened. “I do strive to improve.”

Her smile sent a wicked shiver of hunger and anger down his spine. “Don’t lose heart, Sir Warrick. Admitting that you fall short is half of the battle, is it not?”

“Phillip does not fall short by any means.” Delilah came to his defense. “He is all that is noble and worthy in my eyes.”

“Is he indeed?” Lady Wellcott said, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.

“I am sure you will become good friends,” Delilah said. “Phillip is very dear to me.”

“Of course he is,” James said, openly displeased. “God, are we really going to stand about and discuss how wonderful your cousin is? This is tedious conversation for a man to bear, ladies.”

“I’m happy to leave off,” Phillip said quickly then took a step back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see about changing my clothes. Improvement or no, these splashes of humility on my boots are not adding to the beauty of your music room.” He bowed slightly and risked one last look at Lady Serena Wellcott. “I so look forward to further conversation, your ladyship.”

And to wiping that arrogant smile off of your face, Raven Wells.

She nodded her head, a phantom of a salute to demonstrate her good breeding. “Sir Warrick. A pleasure to meet you.”

Innocuous words but at the sound of the word ‘pleasure’ on her ripe lips, Phillip’s stomach spasmed with heat. Damn it! This is ridiculous!

He couldn’t answer her, so he turned and left without another word, cursing the sensation that he was trapped in a social nightmare. Phillip had never told anyone in his family of his affair with Raven Wells. The witnesses at the party had all naturally assumed that there had been some falling out between the pair when their departure from Oakwell Manor had not been followed by a marriage announcement. The few questions he’d faced had been easy to deter and Phillip cringed now recalling how he had lied and said that the lady had changed her mind and broken the engagement.

The story guaranteed him the listener’s sympathy but also an end to the conversation since no one wanted to push a man on such a painful subject. No one had ever pressed him on what might have become of the lady and Phillip endured the silence, hiding his heartache.

And now as she manifested in his cousin’s house, he saw what a mistake it was to have harbored that secret. Raven Wells had used the time to reinvent herself and perfect her craft. There were hardly any traces of the impulsive smiling girl he’d kissed in a gazebo and pursued with a singular madness.

Working some scheme, pretending to be something she is not and setting everyone around her up like pins in a bowling game.