“Seriously, Luce, failing to bid them goodbye is a bit surly even for you.”
“It seemed the best course after last night.”
“Your father?—”
“No. The encounter in question happened in the kitchen after the clock struck two. Lady Grace and I?—”
“What the devil?” Arkwright gaped at Lucien as if he’d swallowed a rock. “You were in the kitchen with Lady Grace? In the middle of the night? Alone?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Arkwright ground his fingers into his temples. “Jesus, Luce! I’ve been pulling you out of marital traps like that for years.”
“It wasn’t a marital trap.” A smile played about Lucien’s lips. “She was bent on thievery.”
“Thievery?”
“Lady Grace was stealing cake.” Lucien chuckled.
Arkwright stared. “Wait—did you just laugh?”
“My God, if you could have seen her face. She flipped a tray of them when I startled her.”
The memory of her was still fresh in his mind. He could picture every line and curve, the precise arch of her brow, the thick lashes. Flecks of sugar spangling her cheekbones. He was not a man given to flights of fancy—anyfancy, truth be told—but she’d seemed like the women in tales Nanny Rowley had told in the nursery long ago, a fairy queen, tempting mortal men beyond reason.
Lucien shook himself inwardly, dispelling the absurd comparison. Remembering instead the warmth of Grace’s lips, the way she’d gasped just a little when he kissed her.
By any measure of the ton’s rules, he’d compromised Grace Elliot. In Everdene Hall’s kitchen and at the lakeside when he’d held her in his arms, her lush body covered in nothing but a sheer, wet chemise. “She invited all of us to a day of picnicking at The Willows Thursday next,” he added.
“That sounds…pleasurable?” Arkwright ventured, regarding him warily.
“I won’t be attending.” Lucien’s jaw knotted. “I’m going to Bitterne Tower to see what the devil is going on with my father and warn him to stay the hell away from my sisters.”
Yes, he resolved, picturing Grace’s slender form, her eager lips, her eyes glowing with empathy. There was only one thing to do about a woman who tempted him to such recklessness.
Stay the hell away.
CHAPTER 9
“Ithought you had business to attend to?” Rhys Arkwright called out merrily from the archery range that had been set up a safe distance from the cluster of gaily colored tents on the Elliot lawn.
Lucien strode toward him, barely avoiding Grace’s brothers as they pelted toward archery butts to retrieve their arrows from the straw bales.
Simon regarded Lucien as if explosives might be involved, understandable since Lucien had just returned from seeing their father. “What are you doing here?” his brother asked.
“He’s looking for cake, no doubt.” Arkwright quipped. “He’s seemed to take a fancy to it of late.”
Lucien leveled a deadly glare at his friend, but Arkwright only winked—the insufferable bastard.
“Cake?” Simon’s brow furrowed and he turned to Lucien. “What’s he on about?”
“Clearly, he’s started drinking too early.” Lucien straightened his cravat as he scanned his surroundings. A cadre of servants garbed in Elliot livery moved about the tents—while Cassandra’s grim Italian maid with her black silk eyepatch stood beneath a tree, watching the proceedings.
Penelope and Cassandra were speaking to an older woman in a cream silk bonnet who clasped her hands in delight when she noted his approach, while Lord Elliot exuded grim displeasure.
But the one person Lucien wished most to see was nowhere to be found. Perhaps Grace had drawn his sister Jane off somewhere quieter.
“Did something go wrong with Father?” Simon pressed him.
