“Is your voice growing tired?” Grace murmured as he took a drink.
“Not at all. Unless you wish to sleep?”
She shook her head. “I love the sound of your voice.” Her eyes sparked with amusement. “I can see why you win so many arguments in parliament.”
“Perhaps I can argue that we should finish this book tonight?”
“Because…?”
He smiled. “We are nearly to the end. I have to find out what happens.”
She laughed. “It is a good thing you didn’t read this when it was released as a serial.We had to wait a full week to find out. Then Avery got measles, and Papa made us wait even longer, until he was well to finish it.”
A scene flashed in his mind. Something Lucien hadn’t thought of since he was a boy. A sick room, the light bothering his eyes, his skin itching…and Cassandra…
Grace’s brow puckered. “Is something amiss? You look rather done in all of a sudden.”
“No…I’m fine. I was just remembering something. Cassandra and I had the measles at the same time when we were small.” His mother had never left their sides.
She pushed herself up on an elbow, her nightgown dipping just a little to expose the topmost swell of one breast. “How old were you?”
Why had he even opened that door to her question? He could still brush it off, but somehow felt compelled to answer. “Six.” As long ago as it had been, he still remembered clearly…“They put us in the same bed away from Simon and Jane. I was burning with fever, but Cass insisted on covering me with that infernal blanket she dragged about.” And yet, he hadn’t complained. Even at six, he’d known sharing that blanket was a gift his sister had given him. “My mother had embroidered the corner of it…Pansies, Cass’s favorite…”
He wasn’t even aware he’d spoken this last bit out loud, until Grace said, “That sounds like a lovely memory.”
Only because he’d had decades to dull all that happened. Even to this day, it burned like the sore throat that had tormented him. When he and his sister had finally recovered and were allowed out of the sick room, his father had taken Cassandra’s blanket to burn. Might have destroyed all of it except…he shoved the memory away.
“Shall we continue the book?” he asked briskly, returning to the bed. He lit a fresh candle to give himself more light.
The rustle of pages and the bedchamber with its warm fire and rich accoutrements faded as he lost himself in the story once more. Relief filled him as Nell and her grandfather found safe haven. Lucien’s chest felt tight, and something prickly seemed lodged in his throat as the little girl was tucked in a warm bed at last. He swallowed hard, his voice sounding strange as he read Nell’s words. “‘When I die, put near me something that has loved the light—’What the devil?!” He slammed the book shut. Startled, Grace jerked her head from his shoulder. “Nelldies?” He glared at Grace in indignation. “What was this Dickens fellow thinking?” It took a moment for his head to clear enough to see Grace’s face. A tear welled on her lashes, trickled free. His outrage faded away, leaving him appalled at his behavior.
He smoothed his thumb across her cheek, gathering up her tears. “Forgive me for being churlish, sweetheart.”
“It’s not you.” Her voice broke. “It’s Nell…”
Lucien gathered her into his arms, experiencing a surge of relief that he wasn’t responsible for her tears. Cursing Dickens for drawing them from her. He kissed the crown of her head, rubbing her back, wanting above all things to soothe her pain away. Her hand curled in his shirt, her hair spilling across the pillow, smelling of flowers and compassion…
“Nell isn’t real, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You are weeping over the death of a child who never existed.”
“And, yet, you were upset as well.”
“That’s different. You knew how the book would end. I did not.”
She lay her hand upon his chest, her touch penetrating far deeper than the surface of his skin, sinking through to muscle, bone…to the place where he should have had a heart. “The real reason I’m upset is that there are a thousand Little Nells all over London. They just have names like Sibby Rose.”
He felt a throb of something that made his throat go dry. How was it that he had thought he could simply get her with child, then walk back to his own life unchanged?
“I will leave you to rest,” he said, needing to put distance between them so he could think straight. Think at all. He gently untangled her fingers, slowly slipped from her bed and doused the candle flame. Shadows surrounded him, but he was used to darkness. He made his way to his bedchamber door, his shirt still damp with her tears; his imagination filled with images he could have gone his whole life without noticing…and feelings too new to understand.
Grace leanedclose to Lucien as the Harcourt coach waited its turn to draw up to the Theater Royal, the line of equipages and lanterns stringing out before and after them like a glittering necklace.
She peered out the window at the spectacle. Tonight, Drury Lane was filled with contrasts. Jewels sparkled, fashionable gowns and bonnets a rainbow of color. Vendors were scattered about, hawking their wares, meat pies and slices of orange,trinkets and ribbons and fans. Here and there, scrawny, sharp-featured waifs wound through the crowd, ready to pick pockets, and hard-eyed men milled about ready to do worse, were they not held at a distance by towering footmen in livery.
It was a strange patchwork that changed whenever she looked, not unlike the man sitting beside her. In the weeks since they had finished the Dickens novel, her husband had seemed uncomfortable. Sometimes silent as a sphinx, watching her with a sharpness that made her feel bare to the skin, others so distant, his eyes guarded as if he expected her to slip a penknife between his ribs. He had been so tender that night, but now…even their lovemaking had changed, with a fierceness, but a wariness as well.
She put that troubling picture from her mind, looking over at her husband. “Wasn’t it kind of Lady Alice to send tickets to the theater?” she asked. “I am so excited.”
“So excited you nearly forgot?” Lucien observed and she winced inwardly. “I return home expecting to find my wife garbed in her theater finery, only to discover her elbow deep in a plethora of crates instead.”
