His friend had an insufferable ability to poke things Lucien preferred to ignore.
Lucien turned his gaze back to the lake, watching as Grace threw the last crumbs into the water, then brushed her hands. He ran a finger under the edge of his cravat, which seemed suddenly tied it too tight. A picture from his past flashed in his memory. They were at a Christmas party at The Willows, Grace’s parents so tender beneath the kissing ball. Lucien’s mother looking on, wistful, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Though he was but ten years old at the time, he had known something was very wrong that night, that his mother had changed. Feared it was the melancholia his father had warned against. He knew better now. She had wilted from neglect before Lucien’s eyes.
What if Grace wilted, too?
Four dayslater Lucien sat with his wife in the drawing room, a place that might have been inviting to anyone who wasn’t watching his wife for signs of unhappiness. In the time since the memory of his mother’s decline had stolen into Lucien’s head, his concern seemed to lodge in a knot of pulsing pain behind his left eye. One he badly needed to ease before he and Arkwright went to their club an hour from now.
Grace sat in her chair, her work basket beside her as she stitched on some bit of embroidery. He had managed snippets of conversation, then pretended to read a newspaper, though the words swam before his eyes. At last, he set the daily aside and pressed his fingertips to his left eye.
“Your head is aching.” Grace’s voice broke into his thoughts.
Startled, he looked up to find her regarding him with concern, her dark hair pretty beneath a lace cap. She seemed to be waiting for an answer.
“A bit, yes.”
“Perhaps your eyes are strained. I could read the newspaper aloud to you.” She picked up the daily that lay folded on the table. “It seems there is a new branch of Chartists, willing to do whatever is necessary to have the vote and improve working conditions.”
Even if that meant resorting to violence…Lucien thought.
Of course Pinchbeck had given the journalist his opinion regarding that development. The man could never resist seeing his name in print. And yet, Lucien had more difficulty dismissing Pinchbeck’s concerns since some elusive bastard had nearly hit Grace with a brick.
He winced. “The goings on in London only make my headache worse.”
Grace interrupted his troubled thoughts again. “What if I read you a novel to distract you?”
God, no,he almost groaned, but managed to stifle it as she continued.
“There is a book I was starting to read again by a man named Charles Dickens. Have you heard of him?”
“Complaints mostly from Pinchbeck and his like. He claims the author is trying to shake down the very pillars of decent society with his tales. Arkwright likes Dickens well enough.” He did not add that Arkwright was far too amiable in general. Lucien was trying to be more attentive, wasn’t he? At least, if Grace was reading aloud he wouldn’t have to make conversation while wrestling with this abominable headache. “I suppose I could listen for a bit,” he said.
She smiled at him, like dawn after darkness. “Come. Lie on the settee while I fetch the book.” He eased himself down, hisboots dangling off the edge of the upholstery so as not to smudge it.
She placed a cushion beneath his head. “Shall I take off your boots?”
“No.”
Her eyes widened at his sharp tone, and he felt an uncharacteristic impulse to explain himself. “I have a meeting at the club with Arkwright soon.” Lucien frowned, bemused. He had never had anyone fuss over him in quite this way. Oh, mistresses and women hoping to snare him in the marriage mart had paid him attentions, but there was always an undercurrent beneath such actions, an exchange to be made. With Grace, it felt different, but it set him off balance. He could not seem to get comfortable. She took up the book, the gilt in its binding glowing in ribbons down the leather spine.
“Would you care to lay your head on my lap?” she asked.
Instinctively, he was ready to refuse, then he reconsidered.
“I suppose I would be able to hear better,” he grumbled.
He raised up on his elbows while she slid onto the settee, then he laid his head on the soft nest of skirts, felt the warmth of her skin through the petticoats, her faint scent of jasmine and cinnamon surrounding him.
“The Old Curiosity Shop,” she began.
He hadn’t suffered listening to someone read since he’d had schoolmasters who thrashed him if his mind wandered, but her voice was melodious, oddly soothing.
He closed his eyes and let his muscles relax.
He didn’t have to really listen, he told himself. Grace would never know.
And yet as the hour passed, pictures began to form on the canvas of his mind, like mist, faint at first, then clearer…drawing him in. An old man tending his shop full of antiques…a moneylender tempting him to gamble…and a little girl namedNell whose face unsettled him…shifting into that of a much younger child, a flower seller with Grace’s scarlet ribbon in her hair.
CHAPTER 25
