by Gaelen Foley
The sword master was replaced with a squat, tough, grumpy-looking man who proved to be the boxing coach, a veteran pugilist. Oh, dear, she thought with a wince. Fencing practice was one matter, but she wasn’t sure she could bear to watch Lucien and his men bruising and beating and pounding each other senseless. Then Lucien peeled off his shirt and her mind went blank.
With an artist’s fascination and a woman’s desire, she stared, mesmerized by the play of bronzed muscle across his back. His arms were huge, his chest smooth, sculpted, gleaming. He began winding a length of leather around and around his knuckles to dull the impact of his fists.
It occurred to her that, for all her art lessons, she had never had the opportunity to sketch that most classical of subjects, the male nude. Before she had come to Revell Court, the very thought would have made her reach for her smelling salts, but ever since she had met Lucien Knight, anything seemed possible.
As their boxing drills started, she flinched at the violence, but it did little good to look away, for the sounds were inescapable and somehow worse—the hard thud of leather-wrapped knuckles connecting with flesh; the low, rough grunt of a man taking a blow to the belly; the Cockney accent of the old fighter ruthlessly urging the youngbloods on. Lucien flattened “West” with a neat clip in the chin. Though the lad got up grinning, she vowed she would never let Harry try his “morleys” in this sport when he grew up, no more than she would ever allow him to join the army.
The red-haired lad they called South was the next contender. He charged into the square and managed to land a blow on Lucien’s cheek before he, in turn, was on the floor. This was repeated several times before Alice could no longer stand it.
She jumped to her feet. “Stop!”
Every man went motionless and looked over at her in perplexity.
“You really should stop before someone gets hurt,” she said awkwardly, turning red.
Lucien exchanged a mirthful look with the old prizefighter as the boys cleared their throats and swallowed their chuckles. He walked toward her, brushing the sweat off his brow with his forearm. She could not help but let her gaze travel down his gleaming chest. She turned even redder.
“No one’s going to get hurt, love. It’s just a sport,” he said, catching his breath.
“It’s brutal.”
“But a man must do it so he may stand and defend his lady’s honor,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “I am touched beyond words that you should fear for my safety.”
“I’m more worried about them,” she retorted, nodding toward the lads, who were openly eavesdropping on their exchange. They grinned when she looked over at them.
“Nonsense, you should worry about me,” he said indignantly. “I’m outnumbered five to one, and those hell-born babes are all at least five years younger than I. I believe that gives all the advantage to them.”
“Well, I don’t want to see them thrash you, either!”
He smiled roguishly. “You see? You do care. I think you are beginning to like me in spite of yourself. Now sit down and try to enter into the spirit of the game, girl.” He slammed his fisted knuckles together and pivoted, swaggering back to his companions. “She says you’re not to hit me in the face, lads. She especially asks that you take care not to bruise my lips.”
The young bucks laughed and pretended to be scandalized by her supposed request, while Alice scowled, fighting a smile. He really was the most provoking man, she thought. A little sigh escaped her.
Lucien did not know what angel had visited Alice in the middle of the night to plead his cause with her. It seemed some miracle had taken place, for she was actually being nice to him today. This changed matters. If she could find it within herself to take a step toward him, then he was eagerly willing to meet her halfway. Compromise was not a natural part of his makeup, but perhaps it had been a little unreasonable of him to expect the girl to accept him as “Draco” in all his evil glory. He had decided to provide her with a character reference.
After a hasty but thorough bath and a change into fresh clothes, he led her through the woods on the same path they had trod yesterday. It was a good deal muddier after the rain. They were bound for the tiny hamlet of cottages in the valley to visit his elderly, boyhood tutor, Seymour Whitby.
If Lucien’s pace was slower today, it was because every muscle in his body was already feeling the extra effort he had put into his training. Knowing that Bardou was out there somewhere had driven him to push himself to the limit—and of course, she had been watching. He had been aware of her gaze clamped on him from the second she had tiptoed into his studio. He had been sure she would lock herself in her chamber and pout all day, but he had managed to hide his exultation at her arrival. The ruse had worked.
The hungry admiration in her stare had filled him with lusty pleasure. It was shameless how he craved her attention, he thought, but there seemed no remedy for it. He had wanted to treat her with a certain distance today, but one look into her Chartres-blue eyes had dissolved all his resolution. Merely being near her helped to ease the knot in his stomach about Bardou.
As they marched through the woods in companionable silence, he slung the leather bag of books up higher onto his sore left shoulder. It contained the latest tomes he had ordered for Mr. Whitby from his favorite London bookseller. Alice, meanwhile, carried the basket containing half a dozen muffins and a sponge cake, as well as a jar of the mineral waters from the hot springs beneath Revell Court. Mr. Whitby was a firm believer in taking the waters. Its medicinal effects, he said, worked wonders for his arthritis.
They stopped briefly at the limestone outcropping, as they had yesterday, to enjoy the view. The sky had turned overcast. It looked like rain. As they gazed at the valley, side by side, he sensed her nervousness, as though standing on this spot reminded her afresh of how passionately she had kissed him.
He slid a hopeful, sideward glance at her, more than willing to endure another, but if she felt his gaze, she did not turn to him. He smiled to himself, studying her in soft delight. Such graceful, long lashes. Her lips were the color of a dewy pink rose. Seized with the desire to sweep her into his arms once again, he quickly reined himself in, keeping a firm grip on his impulses, for he was determined not to do anything wrong. Today he was bent on showing her what a very good boy he could be when he chose.
She turned and walked back to the path. He followed obediently.
“Lucien?” she asked in a thoughtful tone.
The sound of his name on her tongue swept him with shivery sensations of pleasure like the tickling breeze. “Yes?”
“May I ask you something?”
“Yes,” he cautiously agreed, steadying her by her dainty gloved hand as she stepped up onto a fallen log that barred their path.
She hopped off it, the basket swinging in her grasp. “I’m curious. Why did your father leave Revell Court to you and nothing to Lord Damien?”
“Actually, Damien is to be made an earl by virtue of our father’s bloodlines.”
“Really?” she exclaimed.
“Yes. As I mentioned, Carnarthen had no legitimate heir. He was so devoted to my illustrious mother, Georgiana, that he never married—four-hundred-year-old lineage be damned. She was the love of his life. He refused to marry another. At any rate, he had a great many friends in the House of Lords who saw his situation and said to themselves, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” They rallied together after his death to petition the Crown that a new title be created to ensure that even if the name of Carnarthen would be lost, the ancient bloodlines would not. As Damien is older than me by twelve minutes, the title will go to him. Of course, the decision was influenced by Damien’s fame as a decorated war hero and his reputation for courage and integrity—not to mention his private assurance to the prime minister that he and his descendants can be counted upon to vote Tory for three generations.”
“I see. Lord Carnarthen must have been mad over your mother to forsake his heritage for love,” Alice said in a
tone of awe.
“He was. He had met her when she was a young girl, before she wed the duke of Hawkscliffe, but he overlooked her. He told me the story when he was dying last year.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It was for the best. He was very ill.”
“It’s good that you were with him. Was Damien by his bedside, too?”
“No, Damien could not leave the Peninsula. Besides, Damien prefers to ignore our true parentage and simply pretend that he is really Hawkscliffe’s son.”
She gave him a sympathetic wince.
“I prefer the truth. Would you like to hear their story?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Georgiana had a year at the Sorbonne to finish her education before her debut. Edward—that was Carnarthen’s name—was a twenty-one-year-old dandy on Grand Tour. He first saw my mother one sunny afternoon when she was taking an art lesson with her classmates in the garden at Versailles.”
“How romantic,” she murmured with a smile.
“Yes, but unfortunately, he paid her little attention, too busy chasing French courtesans. The next time he saw her, she was a fast young Society wife. He realized he had made the mistake of his life, letting her get away. They were meant to be together, but of course it was too late.” He did not mention aloud the exhortation that Carnarthen had given him at the crux of this conversation: When you find the one, my lad, grab her up in your arms and never let her go. You may never get another chance. “He begged her to divorce Hawkscliffe,” Lucien continued, “but she would not because she knew the duke would have kept her children. She had Robert and Jack at that point. At any rate, Damien and I were born. Hawkscliffe had his various mistresses; Georgiana had Carnarthen. Things continued quietly that way until Damien and I were four years old.”
“What happened then?”
“Carnarthen was a high-ranking navy man, you see. He had to go off to sea from time to time for long periods. When I was four, he came back to find that my mother had comforted herself in his absence with—”
Alice gasped. “Her husband, the duke?”
“No. No, that would have been much too tame for Georgiana,” he said drily. “This time, it was Sir Phillip Preston Lawrence of Drury Lane, a Shakespearean actor renowned for his looks more than his talent. Once more, Georgiana was in the family way.”
“Gracious!” she said, blushing.
“Do you know my younger brother, Lord Alec?”
“Of course,” Alice said. “Everyone does. My friend, Freddie Foxham, does not buy a waistcoat until he finds out whether or not Lord Alec approves of the tailor.”
“Yes, that’s Alec. It is that showman’s blood,” he said with a chuckle. “You would do well to warn your friend never to let Alec beguile him into sitting down with him at cards. Alec is a cardsharp with the devil’s own luck.”
“I will,” she answered with a smile. “You have an interesting family. But I wonder, does it bother you at all that Lord Damien will be made an earl and you won’t?”
“Not at all,” he said at once. “He deserves it. Besides, I’m quite used to being in Damien’s shadow. I don’t really mind it.”
“Lucien,” she protested. “I’m sure you’re not at all in his shadow.”
“Of course I am. You’re just being polite. I always have been.” He stopped to wait for her as she negotiated her way around a slippery patch of mud.
“Lucien, really.”
“It’s true. Ask anyone. There’s Damien and ‘the other one.’ I’m ‘the other one.’ I don’t really mind—only, I admit, it does render one a bit redundant.”
With a soft, tender laugh, she caught up to him and laid her hand on his back, caressing him as she came up beside him. “I don’t think you are at all redundant. If it’s any consolation, to me, Damien will always be the other one.”
“Why, it is, Miss Montague.” He flashed her a rueful grin. “It is a very great consolation, indeed.”
“Good.” She gave him a pert smile, the dappled shadows of the leaves playing over her smooth ivory skin, then walked on ahead of him. “Now, come along.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Tell me something no one else knows about Alice Montague.”
She cast him a wry look. “You mean a deep dark secret?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Sorry, I don’t have one.”
Lucien smiled and marched on, swallowing the remark before he uttered it that he had more than enough for them both.
“Tell me something good, then. Tell me the best day you ever had.”
“That’s easy. My tenth birthday party. My father gave me my first horse—not a pony—which meant I was terribly grown up. Everyone was there.”
“Everyone?”
“Mother, Papa, Phillip, Nanny Peg.” She shrugged. “It was my last birthday before my mother got sick.”
Sensing the carefully controlled grief in her voice, he snapped his head up. “What happened to her?”
When she glanced at him, her sad, faraway smile twisted his heart. “She was a vibrant, active, beautiful woman, thirty-six years old, but one day, she got a cough that grew worse and worse, until a few months later, she couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for breath. The doctors did not know what to make of it. First they thought it was consumption, then pleurisy, though she had none of the other symptoms of either disease. Finally, they discovered it was a concealed tumor in the breast that had spread into her lungs. There was nothing they could do. They gave her hemlock for the pain. It only made her sicker.”
“I am so very sorry, Alice,” he said softly, stricken.
“Me, too. She was a woman of humor and grace to the very end. I still remember sitting on her bedside, reading the Society column of the Morning Post to her. She would make jokes about the ton and tell me how grand I would be when I made my debut.” She paused. “My father died two years later in a fall from a horse he should not have been riding, over a jump he should not have attempted, especially after drinking an entire bottle of blue ruin.”
Lucien stopped and stared at her. She flicked a hesitant glance over him, as though uncertain whether or not to say more.
“Go on,” he urged her softly.
“Papa fell apart after she died. They had been very much in love. I think he was glad to go. I miss them so.” She looked away. “I can still see all of them when I look at Harry—in his eyes. I am so glad I have him, Lucien. I would do anything for him.” Her voice broke on her final words, and tears welled in her eyes.
“I know you would,” he whispered, pulling her brusquely into his arms. He held her hard for a long moment while the brown, dead leaves scattered around them on the breeze. Closing his eyes, he pressed a fervent kiss to her hair.
Something profound changed inside him at that moment, as he held her. He wasn’t sure what it was. One second he was praying for some way to take away her pain, and the next he felt as though a sledgehammer had just knocked a gaping hole in the biggest, thickest wall that he had built around his heart. Light poured through—aching, nourishing light.
He pulled back from her a small space and captured her delicate face between his hands, lifting her gaze to his. With his thumbs, he wiped away the tears that had rolled down her cheeks.
“If you ever need anything, anything at all,” he whispered fiercely, “I want you to come to me. Do you understand?”
“Oh, Lucien—” she started, trying to pull away.
He held her in a firm, gentle grip. “I mean it. You don’t have to be alone. I am your friend, and I will always be there for you. And Harry.”
“Why?” she whispered with a shaky trace of defiance. “What do you care?”
Her question reminded him anew that she was still nowhere near trusting him. He shook his head, his slick eloquence failing him once again with her. “Because I like you,” he said simply.
“You barely know me.”
Still reeling with his astonishing vow, Alice followed a moment later. Lucien marched ahead of her down the path—broad-shouldered, masterful, an air of command in his long strides. His focus on her was apparently intensifying, and she did not know whether to be terrified or overjoyed. She wouldn’t have believed his oath of loyalty at all, except for the fact that he had extended his protectiveness to include Harry. That, she had not expected.
They came out of the woods onto a dirt road that curved toward a cluster of five or six cottages a short distance away. The smell of a welcoming hearth fire carried to them on the wind, which had picked up and went whisking through the branches. They had been shielded from it in the woods, she thought. Holding down the checked cloth that covered the basket to prevent it from blowing away, she glanced at the leaden clouds rolling in from the west, then noticed the restlessness of the crows that flapped across the sky, which had turned a bleak whitish-gray.
“We shan’t stay long,” Lucien murmured. “It looks like rain.”
She nodded. Arriving in the quaint hamlet, Lucien led her to a charming wattle-and-daub cottage with a thick thatched roof and neat white shutters. He let her in through the waist-high gate and escorted her up the walkway lined with chrysanthemums. He knocked on the door but did not wait to be admitted. Instead, he opened it and leaned in, glancing inside. “Mr. Whitby?”
“Ah, young Master Lucien,” said a weak, wobbly, and very proper old voice from within. “In here! Do forgive me, I must have dozed off.”
Trying to peek in behind him, Alice could see little past the breadth of his shoulders.
“I am sorry to wake you,” he said fondly.