“When your sisters left for Italy. Did you get over it?”
Jesus. Lucien looked down into those hurting, haunted eyes. “My dear, there is no comparison between my sisters and your brothers.”
She fidgeted with the signet ring winking on his finger. “Do you think before the wedding we might be able to show them where we are to live? Remind them of how close we’ll be living?”
Lucien recoiled inwardly, but said, “Of course—preferably when I am not at home.”
She gave a watery chuckle. “Thank you. Perhaps seeing the horses again will ease things. I don’t suppose you have a supply of toads available?”
“Horses will have to do.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you! You won’t regret it!”
He already regretted the confounded family complications his decision had produced. But those lips…so tempting and pink, the sparkle of tears on her spiky lashes, and the hint of a smile were too much for him to resist. He framed her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, felt his blood heat as he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue. She opened to him, and then he was tasting her, sampling deep secrets yet to be revealed. She pressed her body against him, and he knew she could feel him harden against her. He trailed kisses down her throat, had a fleeting thought…they should have eloped. If they had, he could have her in his bed by nightfall.
At last he drew away. Her gaze found his, her eyes hazy with desire.
Possessiveness shot through him. Soon she would be his wife…“Perhaps this marriage is not what you imagined, but I think we will deal well together,” he mused. “From the moment I pulled you out of the water, I wanted you in my bed.”
He reached into his pocket, drew out a small velvet box, and opened it. A ring gleamed against the blue velvet. It was a large diamond, square cut, fit for a future countess. Lucien lifted her hand and slid the cool circlet onto her finger, vaguely displeasedwith the way the diamond looked on her hand. Some instinctive reaction to a step he’d sworn never to take?
“In three weeks’ time you will be my wife,” he said, as much to himself as to her.
Grace gave him an uncertain smile, and he suddenly wondered if she might change her mind. Her father might talk her out of it, or his sisters might…No. This is what she wanted. She was the one who had proposed tohim.
“I hope you will be satisfied to stay in the steward’s house for a brief time after we wed,” Lucien said. “My presence in Everdene Hall makes it uncomfortable for my sisters at present. I wish for Jane to be able to settle in.”
She peered up at him with a softness in her eyes, as if he were doing something selfless. “Yes, of course,” she said. “How very kind of you. I’m sure the steward’s house will be quite lovely.”
Don’t look at me that way, he thought.I’m not the man you think I am…“Of course, we will depart for Raven’s Court, my townhouse on Curzon Street soon after the ceremony,” he said.
“It will be a relief to have all this wedding fuss over with. Truth is, I am rather dreading the trip to the city with my stepmother,” Grace confided. “I’m fearful I might end up in a gown scattered with peacocks.”
“Mustachioed or not?”
She smiled, slightly. “Helen is most enthusiastic, but all I can think about is the fact that the last time I went shopping for garments in London, it was with Mama. Just before my first season.”
Lucien’s instinct was to change the subject away from something painful. Instead, he said, “Tell me.”
“She was so excited. One of the happiest memories I have is Mama and I alone for once, without any of my brothers. I had her all to myself as we reveled in selecting gowns and slippers and bonnets. The shopkeepers treated her like the queen, andshe was so warm to them all. I think…perhaps…she already had some inkling she was ill, though she never let on to me.”
Grace twisted the diamond on her hand, as if it chafed. “There was this bit of Honiton lace, the most exquisite I’d ever seen and so expensive. She said it would be perfect to trim my wedding gown when I met a man worthy of my love.”
Lucien felt a twinge. Had Grace dreamed of wearing it for her former betrothed? What was the blackguard’s name again? “Did you mean to wear for Freyne?”
“No. He hadn’t paid his addresses yet.” She looked away, and he wondered if the deepening shadow over her countenance had to do with that disappointment in love. But then, she continued, the true source of her heartache evident. “I imagined my mother and I would have all the time in the world. Trousseaus to select. Baptismal gowns for babes when they came and clothing as they grew. She would have been the most wonderful grandmother.”
I wonder what she would have thought of me.Lucien could well imagine. Barbara Elliot had been notorious for her forthright speeches. He could picture her reaction to the way he had secured her daughter’s hand, and it would not have been pleasant.
“We never know what will come, do we?” Lucien mused.I never imagined you.
“No. There were so many things I took for granted.”
The sudden loss, the grief, the wistfulness in her eyes tugged at that place where his heart should have been.
He imagined what this trip with her stepmother would be like for her.
A better man wouldn’t let her face it alone.
