“Surely it can’t be so dreadful,” he said, reaching out toward her hand, but evidently changing his mind at the last minute, as he simply tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.
“No,” Cecily returned. “Or, rather, I’m not entirely sure. I have been fearful of close quarters since I was a child and I’ve never really been able to understand what happened to cause it. I know my mother was there—though I do not know in what capacity—and I remember crying for my favorite doll and having her bring it to me. I do remember a box of some sort and Mama telling me it was a game. But when I wanted to get out she wouldn’t let me. She told me that I must be very quiet. But I wanted out.”
She could feel the beads of sweat gathering on her brow as she remembered the incident. But it was impossible to know what parts she truly remembered and what parts she had fabricated in her imagination in the years that followed as a way to explain what had truly happened.
“Were you in danger?” Lucas asked, his voice neutral. “Did you get that sense from her?”
“I do not know,” she answered truthfully. “The memories are so faded now. It’s almost as if the only thing left is this illogical fear. Obviously I did not suffer for it. I am here to tell the tale, after all,” she said.
“You do suffer,” he said harshly. “Every time that terror grips you, you suffer. Even if, as you say, it does not happen very often.”
She supposed he was right, though having him here with her alleviated her nervousness in a way that she could not explain. It was as if suddenly being greeted by a loved one after a long journey. The sense of relief and belonging was inexplicable, really. Certainly there was no logical reason her fear should lessen because he was with her. Having others around had never mattered before, and certainly she’d never been talked down in such a calm, efficient manner. In the past everyone had either become upset for her, or become upset themselves because her plight made them notice something that had not bothered them before.
But she would tell him none of this. Bad enough that she should have lost her composure in his presence, no matter how out of control her response had been. Informing him that his very presence in the tiny room with her had calmed her in some way would perhaps give him a hint of the power he had over her. And she was not ready to admit that any man, let alone this one, could possibly affect her in such a way.
Aloud she said, “Yes, I suppose I do suffer, a bit. But I am righted again soon enough. And I certainly do not endure any lasting effects. Certainly nothing like the limp you carried with you from the war.”
“Nicely done,” he said in a wry tone, referring to the way she had turned the subject from herself to him. “Only I am well aware that not all wounds have lasting physical effects.”
“What do you mean?” she asked warily, worried that in some way she was about to be hoist by her own petard.
“Just that my leg injury was the least of my wounds when I returned to England from Waterloo,” he said. “There are any number of ways that war changes a man, and not all of them can be seen on his person. In the same way that you dislike enclosed spaces, I dislike crowds. Neither of these symptoms are evident in our persons. I cannot look at you and know you become faint in small rooms. And you cannot look at me and know I would rather walk over hot coals than attend a crush in an overheated assembly room. But the wounds are there all the same.”
Cecily was silent for a moment. Then said, “Can you really not stand a crush, Your Grace?”
“I cannot,” he responded, reaching for her hand, which she gave to him willingly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know,” he said gently. “We all have flaws and weaknesses.”
“Yes,” she said, “but not all weaknesses keep one from doing their life’s work. Even if Papa would have allowed it, I couldn’t bear to go on an expedition because I’d never be able to enter the tombs. Or forget the tombs, I’d not be able to endure the closeness of the journey by sea.”
It was the first time she’d ever openly admitted the fact. Over the years it had become easier to lay the blame for her inability to travel on her father. But something about the privacy afforded them by the small room gave her the space she needed to admit the truth she’d been hiding from herself for so long.
“What a pair we are,” Lucas said with a rueful shake of his head. “You cannot go to Egypt, the one place in the world you wish to go. And I cannot go back to war, the one thing in the world I am trained for.”
“Misery loves company, I suppose,” Cecily said, with a lightness she did not feel.
“Speak for yourself, my dear,” he said dryly. “I am far from miserable just now.”
Cecily felt her breath quicken at his words. Truth be told, she was far from miserable at the moment too. There was something about the duke’s company that made her feel … safe. And safety was something she’d not felt for a long, long time.
Feeling an urgent need to change the subject, Cecily asked, “How did it happen? Your leg injury, I mean?”
He was quiet for so long that she was forming an apology when he finally spoke.
“I know you’ve probably read newspaper accounts of Waterloo,” he said quietly. “Or heard stories from people who were there. But nothing—no amount of description—can convey just how chaotic and dreadful it was. The closest thing to hell on earth I’ve ever seen. I won’t go into detail because even I cannot bear to go back there, even if only in memory. But I received my injury when my horse—Malvolio, a solid cavalry horse who’d been with me through several battles—was shot out from under me. I was fighting off a Frenchman at the time, and had already been winged. My strength was waning, otherwise I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. But I was, and by the time Mal was on his way down it was too late. I didn’t make it out of the stirrups in time and my leg was crushed and I was trapped.”
Cecily bit back a cry, too shocked to stop herself from asking, “Surely you weren’t trapped beneath him for long…?” But she knew as soon as the words left her mouth what the answer would be.
“I’m not actually sure how long I lay there before Monteith found me,” he said quietly, running a weary hand over his eyes. “The French took me for dead, thank God, else I’d have been run through where I lay. In any event, Mal saved my life. And Monteith was able to round up a couple of men with less serious wounds to get him off me.
“My leg may pain me some days,” Lucas continued, “but there is never a day that goes by that I don’t appreciate the sacrifice Malvolio made for me.”
She couldn’t help it. Cecily reached out and clasped Lucas’s hand. “I am so glad you survived,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. The idea of this vital man, so full of life, lying dead on a Belgian field was unthinkable.
“Me too,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Now, I’ve answered your question, so it’s time you answered one of mine.”
Cecily frowned, but nodded in assent. Fair was fair, after all.
“Tell me about David Lawrence,” Lucas said firmly.
She felt her frown deepen. “What about Mr. Lawrence?” she asked frostily.
“It’s hardly a secret, is it?” he asked, seemingly oblivious to her annoyed tone. “You told me about him yourself. The announcement was posted in the Times.”
Some of the rigidity left her spine. He was right, of course. Any number of people must remember her engagement. She had told him about it herself. Still, there was no reason for him to know the extent to which David had hurt her.
“What do you wish to know?” she asked, trying to sound less wary, and failing miserably.
Lucas’s tone was easy. “Let’s start with why you aren’t married to the man.”
“It’s … complicated,” Cecily said stiffly.
“I believe we have time,” Lucas said with a wryness that would have brought a smile to her lips if she weren’t so uncomfortable.
“All right,” she said, trying to maintain an even tone. “If you must know, David had the bad taste to f
all in love with someone else. Under the circumstances I released him from our engagement.”
“Just like that?” he asked, his tone suspicious. “You make it sound exceedingly uncomplicated. And falling in love with someone else is hardly reason enough for an honorable man to break his engagement.”
“Well, it was perhaps a bit more … dramatic than I let on,” she admitted carefully. “He asked to be released from our engagement because the other lady … well, to put it bluntly, she was with child, and David had to marry her.”
Lucas said a word that Cecily had never actually heard spoken aloud before.
“So, he broke off his engagement with you so he could marry his lover,” he said bluntly. “Dare I hope that she was penniless and he married her out of true love?”
Cecily lifted her chin. “She was a wealthy heiress whose father is a board member of the British Museum, where David had been angling for a position for years,” she admitted. “But I was hardly crushed to break things off with a man who cared so little for me that he would dangle after another woman while he courted me. In the end, I realized that he’d probably sought me out in an effort to gain favor with my father.”
“I hope your father thrashed the bastard,” Lucas said, sounding more bloodthirsty than Cecily had ever heard him.
“Hardly,” Cecily said with a bitter laugh. “Papa thought, still thinks, the world of David. Though he did promise to expel him from the Egyptian Club, he never really followed through on the threat. And in his defense, David is a good connection to have in the world of Egyptology. The British Museum houses the foremost collection of Egyptian antiquities in England. Papa could hardly cut off so valuable a resource.”
Lucas would have said more, Cecily was certain, but something made him stop. Perhaps her extreme discomfort.
He rose to his feet. “If you are sufficiently recovered, I will attempt once more to retrieve the key.”
Cecily waved him onward. The sooner they were able to leave the tiny locked room the better. Standing, she moved closer to him, not wanting to remain in the darkened center of the chamber since he had taken the candle with him.
“Good,” he said as she crept in next to him. “Hold the light, please, so that I can see if the key is indeed in the lock.”
She maneuvered the candle, supressing a gasp when he took her hand in his firm grasp and moved the light where he needed it to be.
“I think I see the key there. Hold still for a moment while I attempt to dislodge it.”
He took the lock pick that he brought for just such an emergency, and maneuvered it this way and that until Cecily heard the satisfying jingle of metal on metal followed by the heavy thud as the key fell to the carpet on the other side of the heavy mahogany door.
“Got it,” he said with a grin of satisfaction. “Now we need to find a way to retrieve it. What we need is something thin enough to fit beneath the door, but long enough that we will be able to keep hold of it without fear of losing our grip.”
Lucas stood and, taking the candle from her, peered into the darkness, raising the light from shelf to shelf, surface to surface, looking for something that would suit his task. But nothing seemed to fit their purpose.
“Let me look at your hand,” Lucas said, reaching out to grasp her fingers. He took her hand in his, ignoring the little zing of pleasure as he held her thin hand in his strong one.
“Will it fit?” she asked.
“I suppose we won’t know until we try it,” he said, motioning her onto the floor, and following her down.
Carefully Cecily lowered herself to the floor and experimentally tried to insert just her fingers into the narrow gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. Her fingers cleared the opening, so she pulled her hand back out, moved into a sitting position, then carefully lowered herself onto her stomach, stretching her legs out behind her.
“Do not try to force it,” Lucas said, leaning so closely above her that she could feel his warm breath on her neck. It sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing whatsoever to do with fright. “We don’t want you to be injured.”
* * *
Lucas tried to keep his distance from her, but the space they occupied was simply too small. As he sat with one knee bent, his arm draped casually over his knee, for all the world like they were having a picnic or playing at spillikins, he fought the urge to caress the delectable rearview of the woman before him. If such medals were awarded, he mused silently, then he certainly deserved one for Most Restraint Under Pressure. For never had a man been so provoked as he had during this midnight escapade.
Biting back a groan as she wiggled her bottom as she tried to work her hand more fully beneath the door, Lucas asked, “Are you able to reach it?”
“Not quite,” Cecily returned, not looking up from her task. “My middle finger barely brushes the edge of the key, but if I can just manage to fit a little more of my hand here, I think I could work it toward me.”
As she worked, Lucas recited Latin conjugations in his head, trying with all his might to keep himself from falling on her like a starving man at the sight of a beef roast. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about any other woman, let alone a headstrong virago with a flair for danger. It was so entirely out of character for him that Lucas briefly wondered if he were suffering from some sort of brain fever.
Deep in his heart, however, he knew that the only explanation had nothing to do with fevers and everything to do with his burgeoning affection for the woman laid out like a Christmas feast on the floor before him. It was at once thrilling and utterly, utterly terrifying.
“Pardon? My lo-ord?” The sound of her voice, singsong and insistent, broke into his thoughts. “I require your assistance, please.”
“Right,” he said casually, as if he’d been paying attention the entire time. “What do you need, Miss Hurston?”
She craned her head as far as she could, looking up at him from the corner of her eye.
“I need you to help me turn my body a bit so that I can reach farther. I’ve almost got it, but if I can gain another smidgeon of reach I think I’ll be able to maneuver the key toward me.”
When he did not answer immediately, she said quickly, “Never mind. I’ll do it myself. I simply didn’t want to remove my hand or I’d lose the little bit of ground I’ve already gained. But I can—”
“Don’t…” he interrupted her, putting a staying hand on the small of her back. “Don’t get up. I’ll do it, I was just … er … trying to determine the most effective manner of … um … moving you.”
He ran a finger under his suddenly too-tight collar and shook his head a little to bring his focus back to the matter at hand.
Moving to his knees, he realized with an inward groan that the most expedient means of moving her would entail him straddling her legs on his knees, then gripping her hips to lift and slide her into a position parallel with the door.
How the bloody, cursed, damned, fucking hell did I manage to get myself into this ridiculous situation?
His jaw clenched, and looking down at his companion, he said, “All right, I’m going to need to lean over you a bit.”
Lean over her.
He rolled his eyes at the euphemism. What he was about to do was quite a bit more than leaning, though he was damned if he’d tell an unmarried lady to prepare to be covered. Which was technically what he would be doing. Minus the actual … covering.
Lifting his left leg, he brought it over to kneel on the floor on the outside of her right knee, and deciding to simply jump in, Lucas leaned forward and grasped her by the hips. Ignoring her gasp at his touch, he lifted her up and simultaneously moved on his knees toward the door on his left, and moved her in the same direction.
“There,” he said, removing himself from his precarious position and leaping to his feet. “That should do it.”
Cecily cleared her throat, not sure she’d be able to speak beyond a croak even if she wanted to. When she had felt his presence, his hea
t, leaning over her backside, she had found herself fighting the instinct to press her bottom upward to meet his groin. Imagined what it would feel like if he had abandoned all propriety and reached down and caressed her breasts from his position leaning over her.
Finally, willing herself to stop her thoughts and concentrate on the business at hand, she said in what she hoped was a normal tone, “Thank you, I believe that will do it.”
She reached around under the door again, patting the floor in the hall outside, searching for the key. It had been there a moment ago.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said at last. “But would you mind terribly bringing the light down here? I seem to have lost the key.”
“Stop ‘Your Gracing’ me,” he said irritably. “And how on earth am I to shine the light under the door without setting the carpet on fire?”
“All right, then, Lucas,” she snapped. “Will you bring the candle down here? Just hold your hand behind the flame so that it doesn’t touch the carpeting. It’s not that difficult a concept.”
“I understand the concept perfectly, Miss Hurston,” he replied sweetly. “But it will mean having me lie on the floor beside you. Is that something you are comfortable with?”
“Call me Cecily,” she said finally. “And just get down here. The sooner I find this key the sooner we can get out of this horrible room. I will need to wash my hair four times to get the stench of mummy out of it.”
He could have told her that she smelled like roses, as she always did, but thought that would try her patience.
“Ready or not, here I come,” he said, once more dropping to his knees, then stretching forward to brace himself on one arm and thrusting out his legs behind him to lie flat on his stomach. Turning his head toward Cecily, he found himself facing her hair.
“Here,” he said, purposely speaking into her neck, sending the stray curls at her nape into a flutter. Holding the candle, he stretched his arm out over her back, and turned the candle sideways, careful not to touch the flame to the carpeted floor.
“Just a little to the right,” she instructed, resuming her sweeping hand motions under the door. “There, I see it!”
How to Dance With a Duke Page 17