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“You’re not…?”
“No, I’m not.” She interrupted. It’d been established she was not with child during her sail to England. Alice shouldn’t have asked since Lucinda assured her mother of her…unharmed condition. Mother’s hunch, no doubt.
Alice observed her daughter attentively for the first time that evening. She acquiesced with a curt nod. “I can imagine it might have been a rather straining trip. Take your maid with you. I’ll instruct the carriage and the footmen to be ready in the morning.”
Lucinda thanked her mother. She’d have done it all over again. The straining trip, she meant. The desert. The sandstorm. The caravan. The man. And again, she reasserted, as her mother excused herself.
Her head touched the pillow as a sharp loneliness abated her. She closed her eyes, and the images stored in her memory replayed and replayed in her head. Especially the steaming nights in his arms. The tears came then as if a dam had burst open. Excruciating longing shook her body. She’d left something there, she sobbed. Something important, irretrievable. Her heart. And she hadn’t even noticed it. Goodness gracious! She’d fallen in love with Tariq. Irreversibly, inexorably. Completely. His protectiveness, his strength of character, his temper, his hot-blooded passion, everything. She loved everything in him. It ran so deep and warm; she doubted she’d be able to forget him. Ever. The abundant flow of tears didn’t stop as she fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lucinda circled her father’s enormous desk in the library and kissed his rather round cheek. “Thank you, papa, for everything you taught me.” He would never imagine how useful those skills had turned out to her.
The early morning spring sun came by the huge window. “Oh, Lucinda, my child! You’re most welcome.” Alfred Lancefield had passed his golden years and kept a proud swollen belly and wined rosy cheeks these days.
She had come to bid him goodbye before she left for the manor. “I’m so happy you allowed me to go to Lancefield Manor!” A two-hour’s ride from London, it wasn’t too far for a young lady to travel.
“Yes, yes.” Her good-natured father dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Mr and Mrs Burns will take good care of you, I’m sure.” He referred to the butler and his wife, the housekeeper.
Lucinda rode her white Arab mare through the fields, astride, as she liked most. This week in Lancefield Manor had been peaceful and quiet. She had entertained neighbours, read new travelling accounts, strolled in the village and paid calls. She made it a point to engage in social appearances so there’d be no rumours to stain her reputation. Sudden retirements in the country usually raised suspicion.
But Tariq stuck to her mind, day and night. She fretted it’d take more than a few days to leave these memories be. She feared it’d not happen even in years. Or even in decades, who knew? Every time she remembered their intimate moments, her body respond
ed as if they happened at that minute, lighting the familiar fire again and again.
The lake came into view. The Lancefield Lake stood as one of her favourite spots in the property. She dismounted and tied her mare to a tree, sitting on a fallen tree trunk the game-keeper let be there at her request. It had been her refuge since her early teenage years. The woods surrounding it kept it apart from the world.
The weather hadn’t helped so much. A lot of rain fell for days and today the grey sky threw a melancholy light on the water. She’d promised her mother she’d go back to London at Easter, in a week’s time. She wished she did not need to be back in town for a long time. London was not for her. The frivolity, the gossiping, the exacerbated vanity didn’t attract her in the least. A promise was a promise, and she’d have to make good on her word.
And after Easter, she’d probably have to choose a suitor. Dreadfully soon, if someone asked her. By then she’d not be able to postpone the private conversation with her mother and come clean about the subject of her virginity, a serious matter. A husband might call for an annulment of the marriage if the bride proved not to be a virgin. The scandal and the shame would destroy her family. There must be a way out and her mother would help for fear of the consequences. It was not as if she would bring a bastard to her marriage. She wasn’t. And that remained the crux of the question.
She regretted nothing. Absolutely nothing. Given the chance, she’d do it all over again. She imagined those married ladies of the ton, taking lovers out of boredom. Hollow liaisons, meaningless for the people involved. She didn’t want that life. Nevertheless, the life she envisioned stretching before her would be arid, insipid. The idea despaired her. That who her heart yearned for would never be with her again. She had the memories though. And she’d treasure them. She’d feed on them so her heart wouldn’t dry out. Better to have known love and suffered than otherwise.
Almost time for luncheon, she calculated. She stood from the bench and appreciated the grey shades of the landscape. The newly green trees, against the cloudy sky, shook with the wind, their rustling filled the crisp air. She mounted the mare again and headed for the manor. Tomorrow she’d practice a little archery, she planned, she didn’t want to get rusty,
Afternoons were calling time, so she required a proper dress. Her wardrobe bored her to death lately. In the lazy hours, when she knew there would be no visits, she wore her tunics and read in her rooms. The foreign attire appalled her maid for the lack of layers. But they were so incomparably comfortable she found it difficult to give them up, anyway. In the afternoons, though, she must be conventionally presentable. A corset, she couldn’t stand any longer. She’d almost banned them from her daily life. She’d wear these only in parties and balls. Loose.
In the drawing room, she sat with a book as her maid sat in a corner with her sewing. The usual setting for them these afternoons.
Mr Burns, the butler, brought her the card of a visitor. Predictably, Lord Stanford. Lucinda allowed the butler to bring him to the drawing room. Marques of Stanford’s land bordered the Lancefield’s at the north end. He’d been angling for match lately as he found it convenient to enlarge his radius of influence in the region. Every time he learned of her presence in the manor, he made frequent calls.
George Stanford walked into the room groomed in a fashionable suit and top-hat. With an unremarkable general appearance. In his mid-twenties, shorter than she, thinning blonde hair, common blue eyes and hands too small for a man’s. “Lady Lucinda.” He bowed courteously.
Lucinda curtsied. “Lord Stanford, please have a seat.” She called for tea and kept the drawing room’s door open for decency’s sake.
A dull boredom invaded Lucinda. His visits had invariably the same routine. He commented on the weather, moved on to land affairs, asked about her family, finished his tea and took his leave. Today would be no different. But she decided to endure the visit stoically, it’d be over in due time. So she carried out her role of host, served tea, smiled, commented his statements, offered more tea and politely answered his questions. She had to keep the social niceties going as she needed to maintain her options open. An earl’s daughter must make a marriage for connections and Lord Stanford displayed many.
The whole time, her mind drifted. The sudden warmth of the desert sun assaulted her memory with such force she felt it on her skin. With it, the day Tariq tore her Bordeaux-coloured dress after detecting the damage the sun had done to her. Those chiselled lips of his on her bared shoulder nearly caused her lashes to weigh down with the pleasure it evoked. For a moment, her stare flew through the window with a longing which threatened to overwhelm her.
“I bid you good-day, my lady.” Lord Stanford’s voice catapulted her back from her reveries as she stood automatically and stretched her hand for him to bow over, a doll’s smile frozen o her lips.
She shut the drawing room’s door after he left, closed her eyes and sighed. Finished at last. Today, his visit was especially endless. “I thought he’d never leave.” She told Megan, her maid.
“He got enthusiastic with his lands today, my lady.”
“Too much for my taste.” Her hand on her forehead. These days, she’d been restless and impatient as if nothing could catch her attention. The only thing which calmed her were her rides in the morning. She yearned for things she would never have again and she didn’t have a clue how to put up with them. A completely new state of mind to her.
“I’m going for a walk.” The hour being early, maybe physical strain would make her feel better. “Thank you for keeping me company, Megan.”
