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Chapter 5
“Luke, tell me it is not true,” Jemima pleaded as they stepped into the carriage.
Luke sat opposite his sister and brother-in-law, looking between them in surprise.
“I feel as if I have done something wrong,” he said as Noah gave the order for the carriage to pull away. It jerked forward, jolting them all and making the lantern that accompanied them hanging from the carriage door sway a little from side to side. “Did I commit some dreadful socialfaux pas?” Luke asked with a smile. “It would not be the first time. My ability to care about such a gaff might be stretched, sister.”
“Noah, talk to him.” Jemima turned in her seat and pleaded with her husband. Noah took off his top hat and brushed the fair hair back from his forehead, slightly worried.
“What are we speaking of?” Luke asked, beginning to see he must have done something wrong, for Jemima and Noah were glancing at each other nervously.
“After your dance with Miss Storey, to say the ballroom was alive with the gossip of it would be an understatement,” Noah began slowly. “It was buzzing with it.”
“Buzzing? If we are to compare thetonto a hive of bees, then there are many things I can add to the conversation. They have great stings and can wound many unjustly.” He glanced toward Jemima, thinking of all the unfair hurt and pain she went through after her scandalous incident at the hands of an older man. Noah seemed to understand his meaning without him having to say any more, for Noah’s hand tightened around his top hat, forcing the knuckles to turn bright white.
Luke had seen the anger in Noah plenty of times over the last few years. He harboured pure hatred in his chest for how Jemima had been treated, just as Luke did.
“We are talking about other possible scandals,” Jemima spoke hurriedly, waving a hand in the air. “Your dance with Miss Storey. Brother, you must have been aware of the way you two were staring at each other afterwards?”
“We were talking,” Luke said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Talking?” Noah laughed at the idea, shaking his said. “Luke, Jemima and I had long left the floor. Even those who were taking longer to leave had also gone. You and Miss Storey were the only ones left on the floor. You were in the very middle, staring at each other with no attempt at discretion.”
“We were the only ones there?” Luke looked between Jemima and Noah in surprise. He had been so busy, absorbed with Miss Storey, that he hadn’t noticed.
“Yes. What were you thinking?” Jemima asked, moving to the edge of her seat. “Luke, you and I had an agreement regarding your behaviour.”
“And it is a deal I have kept to.” Luke lifted a hand, ready to abate his sister’s worries, but she could not be stopped.
“You said you would never charm a young lady whose reputation was a fragile thing.”
“I have never done so.”
“You do tend to keep to widows and ladies whose husbands have no interest in them, Luke,” Noah said, shifting uncomfortably.
“I intend to do so further!”
“Then why did you stare at Miss Storey so openly?” Jemima asked, sitting forward once again. Luke stared open-mouthed back at her, glad that he didn’t have to respond right away as the carriage jolted in and out of a hole in the road, knocking them all from side to side. He used the interruption to think quickly.
Why did I stare at her so?
In short, he had enjoyed the dance. More so than he wished to admit. There was something refreshing about Miss Storey’s resistance to him and wish to protect herself. His suspicion earlier in the night that she was someone who held her walls high, constantly concerned with being proper, had been confirmed in that dance.
Yet another suspicion had been confirmed too. She had smiled at him, though she had tried to fight it. It wasn’t that she had disliked him as a person, but she disliked his reputation.
“Luke?” Jemima said his name, trying to urge an answer from him.
“This is all a mistake, and thetonis overreacting, that is all,” Luke explained quickly. “Miss Storey is a rather…captivating young lady,” he admitted the words, aware that it only angered his sister further, who flushed red.
“Luke!”
“Yet I have no intentions toward her other than acknowledging that fact.” Luke held up his hands in surrender once again. On this occasion, Noah clearly attempted to calm his wife too. He took her hand and laced their fingers together. It had the instant reaction Noah had evidently desired, for Jemima looked to him, her spine softening, as she wrapped her hand in his own.
Luke glanced down at the connection of their hands, feeling a familiar burn inside of him. It wasn’t something he liked to admit nor think about very readily, but recently, he had begun to feel a sort of envy for his sister and her husband.
Their intimacy was of a different kind, one on an emotional level as well as physical. It was an intimacy Luke had never known with any lady, and he was not sure he would ever have such an indulgence. He tore his gaze away from those hands, trying to keep his focus on the conversation.
“Thetondoes have a tendency to overreact,” Noah said slowly, helping Luke’s argument.
