by Tessa Dare
Kitty huffed. “Well, I’m not going to be left here all alone.” She planted one hand on her hip and leaned against the banister.
“Come along then,” Lucy said with a shrug, resuming her progress down the stairs. Really, she thought. Kitty was insufferable. One would think she’d missed her invitation to a garden party.
Lucy led the sisters out through the manor’s massive front door. Cold seized her instantly. The wind whipped straight through her thin shawl and dress. Moonlight filtered through a lace of clouds overhead, and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim silver glow. She hugged her arms across her chest and hastened to follow the line of torch-bearing footmen into the garden. She turned slightly and noticed Marianne had joined the other ladies.
Dread shivered through her as they wove through the garden behind the bobbing beacons of flame. Dread and shame. Because although she ought to have been consumed with fear for Aunt Matilda, the true source of Lucy’s dread was the sight of those valises in Jeremy’s bedchamber. He was leaving.
Her slippers were wet through, and her feet felt like blocks of ice shuffling under her. They prickled with pain. The rest of her was numb. He was leaving, and the wintry wind felt like an ocean breeze in Tortola compared to the chill wrapped round her heart.
The footmen wound their way through the garden hedges, finally gathering around a circular flagstone terrace with a fountain at its center. Oblivious to the cold, the fountain’s nymph and satyr cavorted in their perpetual summer, their bronze bodies weathered to a muted green. Seated at the fountain’s edge, Aunt Matilda shivered inside a vast black coat. Jeremy’s coat.
Lucy and Marianne rushed to Aunt Matilda’s side.
“Poor dear,” said Marianne, wrapping an arm about the old lady’s shoulders.
Lucy grabbed her aunt into a fierce embrace and held on longer than she’d planned. Her usual Aunt Matilda smell, tinged with spice and chocolate and snuff, mingled with his scent. Lucy buried her face in the lapel of the coat, breathing in leather and pine and sweet reprieve. He might be leaving, but he hadn’t left yet. He couldn’t leave without his coat.
“How long do you suppose she’s been here?” Sophia asked, looming over Lucy’s shoulder. “She must be freezing.”
Lucy reached into a great black sleeve and found one of the old lady’s papery hands. “Her hands are ice.” She rubbed the chilled, bony fingers between her own.
She looked around. The men stood at the edge of the terrace, conferring with the servants. Kitty went to Felix’s side and assailed him with questions. Lucy was dimly aware of Henry gesturing with a torch and saying something about a pallet and blankets. Her attention was largely drawn to a tall figure in the shadows behind her brother. A broad-shouldered silhouette framed by white linen that gleamed in the moonlight. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his gaze on her, burning through the midnight chill.
Then Toby emerged from the shadows and strode into the circle of light.
Oh, thank God, Lucy thought. Thank God she already knew she didn’t love him. Because in the eight years she had spent admiring his physical beauty, Toby had never looked more splendid. He wore a greatcoat that gaped in front to reveal a bare chest. The torchlight bronzed every muscled plane and contour of his torso. His golden-brown hair was windblown and wild. He looked magnificent and pagan, like a piece of garden statuary brought to life. Lucy felt pagan just looking at him.
Beside her, Sophia gasped. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my.”
Toby brushed past Felix and crossed directly to Sophia. He eyed her from head to toe, his gaze lingering over a few areas in between. “God in heaven, look at you.” He shook his head slightly and jerked his eyes back to her face. “You must be freezing.”
Sophia nodded slightly. Her gaze did its own share of wandering and lingering over his bare chest.
Toby stripped off his coat and flung it around Sophia’s shoulders. He stood bare to the waist in the bitter night wind, but Lucy could have sworn she saw steam rising from his body.
“Better?” he asked Sophia hoarsely.
She nodded.
“Do you feel warm?”
“Everywhere,” Sophia breathed. She stared up at him, entranced. “Everywhere … except my feet.”
Toby looked down to where Sophia’s bare feet met the cold flagstones. Without a word, he hefted her into his arms and settled her against his chest. The blue silk of her peignoir flowed over his arms like a waterfall, and her golden hair fanned over his bare shoulder.
“Better?”
Sophia nodded again and made a small squeaking sound, presumably of agreement. Toby looked into her face and swallowed hard.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he said, as though it were poetry. And then he kissed her.
Lucy knew the polite response would have been to look away. Study the cobbled path beneath her feet. Admire the swan-shaped topiary. Stare up at the night sky. But a polite response was beyond her at the moment. She gaped openly. And since no one around her remarked on the flagstones or the hedges or the stars overhead, she assumed she was not alone.
At last, Aunt Matilda broke the stunned silence. “Lovely.”
“Felix!” Kitty prodded her husband in the ribs. “Don’t you think you should do something?”
Felix snapped his jaw shut and looked to his wife. “Oh, very well.” He took off his own coat and held it out to her. Kitty shook her head and looked at him as though he were mad. “You don’t mean for me to pick you up?” he asked, his face uncertain. “I’m not sure I—”
“Not me.” She jerked her head toward Toby and Sophia. “Them.”
Comprehension made its slow journey across Felix’s face. “Right,” he said softly. Then, a bit louder, “Ahem.”
Toby and Sophia remained joined at the lips and oblivious to all else.
Felix raised his voice. “I say, Toby.” No response. “Toby!” he fairly shouted.
Toby reluctantly broke the kiss. He kept his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against Sophia’s. “What is it, Felix?”
Felix shuffled his feet. “Sorry to interrupt, man, but I believe this is where I’m supposed to remind you that’s my sister-in-law you’re … holding.” He absorbed the pointed look Kitty gave him. “Was there something you meant to ask her?”
“Right.” Toby opened his eyes and straightened away from Sophia’s flushed face. He cleared his throat. “Miss Hathaway,” he began, shifting her weight in his arms, “It has been many months now that I have admired your elegance and the beauty of your …” His gaze wandered down her form. “Your character. The attachment I feel toward you transcends …” He looked back up at her lips and paused. “Transcends …”
Sophia smiled and bit back a small laugh.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he said again, bending his head to hers and stealing the laughter from her lips. “Marry me?”
Even if she’d wished to, Sophia could not have uttered a reply. Toby was keeping her lips occupied. Her lips, and—from the looks of things—her tongue, as well. But somehow she managed a muffled squeak of acceptance. Really, Lucy thought, Sophia’s whole body bespoke acceptance.
“Well, then,” said Felix. “That’s settled. Carry on.” As if either Toby or Sophia cared one whit for his permission. If they kept up like this any longer, Henry had better send the footmen off for a vicar and special license, instead of a pallet and blankets. Lucy told herself once again that she ought to look away. But from the general silence, it seemed no one else was looking away either.
But someone was. Someone was looking at her. And the hot intensity of his gaze set Lucy ablaze with conflicting sensations. She felt stripped naked and exposed to the cold. She felt blanketed in warmth. She felt bolted to the stone beneath her, and she felt like running into his arms. In one second, she went numb with shock; in the next, every inch of her body burst into exquisite awareness. His gaze was holding her together and tearing her apart, and Lucy’s heart raced so fast, she feared it would break.
> Her heart was breaking.
Jeremy watched Lucy watch her life’s dream slip away. No matter how hard he stared, no matter how hard he willed her to look away, she wouldn’t. Her eyes were riveted to Toby’s imbecilic display of ardor and bare chest. She turned deathly pale. Then she flushed. She shivered with cold, but he saw the sheen of perspiration on her brow.
Her heart was breaking, and there wasn’t anything he could do. She wasn’t his sister. She wasn’t his betrothed. She wasn’t his, and that was the whole damned problem.
Any of the others—they could have done something, but they didn’t. No one cared. Toby, self-absorbed ass that he was, had shuffled his feet for weeks over this proposal, waiting for his perfect moment, only to choose now, of all times. Felix, who ought to have tossed Toby’s self-absorbed ass into the fountain for mauling his sister-in-law, had the nerve to laugh. And Henry—oldest friend or no, Jeremy hated him. He was no excuse for a guardian and only a poor imitation of a brother. His sister’s heart and hopes were being ripped to pieces in front of him, and he was either too stupid to notice or too insensitive to care.
Two footmen hastened toward the fountain, bearing a pallet between them.
“Come on, then,” Henry said. “Let’s get back to the house. I’m freezing my stones off out here.”
Lucy and Marianne took Aunt Matilda by either arm and helped her onto the pallet. As the footmen carried her away, a scrap of white fluttered to the ground.
“What’s this?” Kitty bent over and picked it up. She turned it over and lifted the broken seal. “There’s no name.” She unfolded the letter, and Jeremy felt his gut twist into a knot. Her eyes began to scan the page, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh goodness.” Her eyes widened.
“What is it?” Felix asked. He tried to look over her shoulder, but Kitty turned away. She read further.
“Oh my,” she said, her lips curling into a feline smile.
Felix grabbed the paper from her hand. He held it at arm’s length and knitted his brows. “My … dear … little … radish?”
“No, no.” Kitty grabbed the paper away from her husband. “It says ‘rabbit,’ not ‘radish,’ you simpleton.”
Felix shrugged. “Looks like ‘radish’ to me.”
“Oh, Felix, that is clearly a ‘b.’ My. Dear. Little. Rabbit,” Kitty read aloud, jabbing her finger at each word.
Jeremy looked at Lucy. Lucy was looking at Sophia. And Sophia was clinging to Toby’s neck in wide-eyed terror. She bit her lip and gave Lucy a barely perceptible shake of the head.
“Give me that,” Henry said testily, leaving Aunt Matilda to his wife and reaching toward Kitty. Kitty reluctantly put the letter into his outstretched hand. Henry took it and shook the creases from the paper with a flick of his wrist. He lowered his torch to provide better reading light. “No wonder you can’t decipher it. This is Lucy’s handwriting. But it’s rabbit. Definitely rabbit.” He shook the paper again.
Jeremy looked back to Lucy. Now hers was the expression of wide-eyed terror.
“My dear little rabbit,” Henry read in a booming voice. “Forgive me, my darling. Darling?” He shot an amused glance over the paper and continued. “I regret our quarrel more than you could know. Sir Toby is nothing to me. You alone are—” He stopped reading and looked up at Lucy, eyebrows raised.
“Henry, stop,” she pleaded.
“You alone are my love,” he continued with a smirk, affecting a girlish tone.
“Henry,” Marianne warned.
Lucy looked to Jeremy, panic written across her face. Jeremy ran both hands through his hair. Damnation, this was like watching a rider thrown from a horse and being powerless to stop it. Helplessness roiled in his stomach like bile. What could he do? He couldn’t very well tell Henry it was Sophia’s letter. He would have to explain how he knew it was Sophia’s letter, and he’d ruin two ladies in the space of one minute. Even he wasn’t that great a rake.
“I cannot forget you,” Henry continued in his high, mocking voice. “I think of you constantly by day, and your face fills my dreams each night.”
Jeremy frantically tried to recall the exact contents of the letter. Perhaps it wasn’t as damning as he remembered. Perhaps Henry would simply laugh and chalk it all up to girlish fancies.
“I long for you,” Henry crooned. “I long for your …” His grin faded. His mouth thinned to a line. “I long for your touch?”
Jeremy groaned. Damned they were.
Henry skimmed the remainder of the letter, muttering more damning phrases as he read. “I remember the warmth of your hands … When I taste wine, I remember … I shall await you tonight … Make me yours in every way … Cabbage!” Henry held up the paper and shook it at Lucy. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Henry, please,” she begged, shooting a glance toward Sophia. “Can we discuss this inside?”
“No, I think we had better discuss this now.”
Lucy shook her head. “Henry, you don’t understand. It isn’t real.” Her voice grew shrill with desperation. “It isn’t even mine!”
Sophia burrowed her head into Toby’s shoulder. Kitty clutched Felix’s arm with glee.
Lucy buried her face in her hands. Her shawl slipped off one hunched shoulder, and Jeremy watched the ridge of her neck shiver into gooseflesh. Damn Henry. She was cold and heartbroken, and Jeremy was incensed. It was all mixed up inside him—this need to protect her; the desire to possess her. Anger and lust wrestled in his chest, spurring his heart into a furious rhythm. He wanted nothing more than to go to her. Cover her. Warm her. He had no coat, but he had his body. He had his hands and his lips and his tongue.
“Well if this letter isn’t yours,” Henry demanded, “then whose is it?”
Jeremy strode forward, calmly took the letter from Henry’s hand, and said the only word that mattered. The word that had been echoing through his mind and his heart and an ebony wardrobe for the better part of a week.
“Mine.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lucy uncovered her face. No. He hadn’t just—
Oh, but he had.
Jeremy stood next to Henry, letter in hand, wearing an expression more grave and determined than she had ever seen him wear. And that was saying something.
Felix grabbed the letter out of his hand, laughing. “Good one, Jem. As if you’d ever be Lucy’s dear little radish.”
“Rabbit.” The low threat in Jeremy’s voice would have sent a hare bounding for its hole. He took the letter back, but in the next instant Henry had snatched it again.
“Oh come now, stop joking.” Henry smoothed the paper against the front of his coat and then held it before his face. “You honestly expect us to believe that Lucy is … your little cabbage?”
Jeremy clenched his jaw. He briefly closed his eyes and opened them again. “I’m rather fond of cabbage.”
“Really?” Felix asked. “Terribly bland stuff, I’ve always thought. Of course, it’s not so bad when stewed with a bit of salted pork. Or pickled in brine, that’s all right, too. But—ow!”
Kitty removed her elbow from her husband’s side.
Lucy finally caught Jeremy’s gaze. “What. Are. You. Doing?” she mouthed.
He gave her a serious, inscrutable look. Then he turned away.
Lucy shook her head. She couldn’t understand it. Jeremy had just sentenced himself to a lifetime of merciless teasing. Henry, Toby, Felix—they would never let him live that letter down. Endless rabbit jokes would be made at his expense. Countless dishes of cabbage would be served up for his benefit. But Jeremy had taken it anyway. He had purchased that letter at the cost of his dignity, and Lucy knew he would rather have walked through fire. It was either the most utterly idiotic act she’d ever witnessed, or the most breathlessly romantic.
Perhaps both.
Henry perused the letter in his hand. “Your touch, your kiss, make me yours in every way,” he read. He looked up from the paper and regarded Jeremy with a skeptical expres
sion. “You say this is your letter, Jem. I don’t suppose that means you intend to answer for it?”
Jeremy nodded. Lucy’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Answer for it? Whatever did Henry mean? Surely they wouldn’t be so idiotic as to fight? Or duel? The idea froze the marrow in her bones. She clutched her shawl with both hands. Jeremy couldn’t shoot a pheasant from six paces. Not even one that was already dead.
But Henry’s look to Jeremy was incredulous, not murderous. And, Lucy assured herself, even if he did believe Jeremy had compromised her, Henry would never challenge him to a duel. It just wouldn’t be sporting.
Henry folded the letter with an odd air of leisure, all trace of joking gone from his voice. “You’re really accepting responsibility for this? And all the implications?”
“I’m accepting responsibility for her.” Jeremy crossed to stand beside Lucy, so close she could feel his radiant, masculine heat. Then, in a lower voice, he added, “It’s about time someone did.”
Henry’s eyes sparked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Lucy desperately wanted an answer to the exact same question. And the answers to a few questions of her own. She grabbed Jeremy’s cuff and tugged until she pulled his gaze down as well. His eyes pierced her with their clear blue intensity, robbing her of the breath to manage anything above a whisper. “What are you doing?”
He took her by the elbow and turned her slightly away from the group. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I know this isn’t what you wanted. But it’s the only way.”
“What’s the only way?”
Jeremy’s only answer was to wheel her back to face Henry. The two men stared at one another in silence. Lucy finally excavated a shred of courage from the pit of her belly, then summoned the tone to match. “Will one of you please tell me what the devil is going on?”
Jeremy’s hand slid down to grasp hers. “We’re getting married,” he said, never taking his gaze from Henry’s.
“What?” Lucy tried to untangle her fingers, but he only tightened his grip. Yanking her close, he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Lucy watched, stunned, as her fingers curled over his forearm of their own accord. As if they belonged there.