“Will you hold me?” she asked softly.
Lucien swallowed hard. It stunned him to realize there was nothing he wanted—no,needed—more.
He turned back the bedcovers, and she slid beneath them, her hair soft on the pillow. He tucked the warm coverlet over her and stood beside the bed. He pulled off his boots, then stripped off his damp shirt and trousers still smudged with dirt from the night’s misadventures, leaving only his drawers in place.
He gathered her into his arms. She nestled against him, resting her cheek on his bare shoulder, her breath warm on his chest. The sigh she let out was pure trust, and she melted into him.
“I was afraid something would happen to you,” she said softly.
“Me? I was not the one battling the crowd to shield an errant flower girl. You were quite brave.”
“Lucien…I—I heard one of the mob yelling something…”
He tried not to reveal the foreboding that trickled down his spine. “And what was that?”
“Someone shouted ‘Find Everdene,’” she said.
This was the second time someone had struck out at him specifically. Someone with a particular grudge, no doubt, but who? The house of Harcourt had crimes enough laid to its score during his father’s time. And Lucien had made enemies of his own.
What if the rioter seeking him had realized Grace was his wife? The very thought sent a sliver of fear into his chest. Not wanting to worry Grace, he kissed the crown of her head. “Doubtless someone saw me enter the theater. It is naught to worry about.”
“But it is! When I heard the rioters searching for you, feared they might injure you…I knew…”
He tightened his embrace, wanting to protect her from the world. “Knew what, sweet?”
She lifted her head, looked straight into his eyes with an expression that pierced him to the core. “This is not an arrangement anymore. Not for me. I love you, Lucien.”
Something inside his chest leapt at those words, as if he had been starving to death and she had offered him life. As if he were stripped bare, overwhelmed by a rush of sensations too exquisite to bear. Elation. Anguish. Disbelief. Fear.
He knew how to take care ofthings. Business, estates, finances. People…he’d failed when they needed him most. Yet the tumult inside him wouldn’t let him go. He remembered his promise to Cassandra, that he had vowed to live far, far away from at Everdene Hall.You have an estate in Lancashire…she’d said. That was not that far from Scotland after all.
“You must not…”Love me. He could not even say the words, the weight of the beliefs he’d carried his whole life pressing down on him. “I warned you not to…” Were those his words? Or were they a belief his father had instilled him? A lash of punishment Lucien had wielded on himself?
“We can’t help who we love,” she said, an angel’s voice, inviting him to step out of his own hell.
He cupped her face in his hand, her cheek warm against his palm. His throat burned as if he’d swallowed thorns. He should tell her now. Tell her about the vow he’d made to take her far away from here, away from his sisters. Confess. But all he could say was, “You are…precious to me.”
She smiled, softly, a little sadly. “I love you, Lucien,” she breathed again, the words searing into him. “Don’t leave me tonight.”
He lay awake, holding her until her breathing rose and fell, soft in sleep. Stayed until the fire became a glow of embers. Could a man learn how to love the way he learned to ride a horse or play faro? he asked himself as dawn squeezed through the break in the draperies.
God help him, he would try.
Takinghis wife into the Seven Dials was a decidedly bad idea, despite an armed coachman, a brace of brawny footmen and the pistol Lucien had tucked in his coat pocket. He had sent a rider ahead to make certain the violence from the night before had ended, but resentment still thickened the air like the miasma of smells that assaulted the senses: unwashed bodies, open sewers, rotted food and despair.
Avid faces stared at the coach as it squeezed down the narrow streets, shops and street vendors selling secondhand wares to the ragged denizens of the rookery. The Old Curiosity Shop could have been any one of them, and Grace’s words echoed in his head.There are Little Nells all over London. They just have names like Sibby Rose…
He glanced across the coach to where his wife sat in a soft blue day dress, Sibby Rose dozing on her lap. The child’s little frock had been washed and pressed, a clean white bandage wrapping her head. Even so, angry bruises were visible beyond the strip of linen, the fragile skin beneath her eye purpling.
When the coach reached the location Sibby Rose had given them, the street barely wide enough to allow entry, Lucien rapped on the roof of the coach to signal the driver to stop. “Wait here,” he warned Grace, checking the pistol in his coat pocket.
A footman opened the door and Lucien stepped out onto the filthy street.
A woman with a face like a shriveled apple squinted up at him. “Well, if it isn’t another swell slinkin’ round. Lookin’ fer a bawdy house or a gaming hell to lose a fortune? Or did ye just come t’ gawp an’ laugh at us like animals in a cage?”
While Lucien was doing nothing of the sort, he couldn’t help the swift feeling of shame. God knew, misery always drew crowds—hangings at Tyburn, houses made famous by grisly crimes or famous criminals who once lived there, asylums where the quality entertained themselves by gawking at the wretched inmates. His father dragged him on such an excursion once to frighten him, no doubt, warning that melancholia was overtaking his mother…
He shoved the gut-wrenching memory away. “Can you direct me to the Nolan family. I’ve brought their daughter here. The little flower seller.”
