“Well, I haven’t actually asked her yet,” Jeffrey explained. “Well, not formally, anyway. But she gave me every indication her answer would be yes if I asked her.”
“She did?” Lucien was stunned, absolutely stunned, his heart suddenly beating rapidly. He’d just made love to Colette last night. Together they had made history in the history section of the bookshop, for Christ’s sake! Had that encounter meant nothing to her? How could she possibly agree to marry another man, only one night later?
The same way he had introduced her to his intended fiancée only this evening.
Jeffrey responded matter-of-factly, “Yes, she did.”
Jeffrey seemed so self-satisfied that Lucien wanted to knock him down. Instead he reiterated his main point. “I’m telling you now that you cannot marry her.”
“Why can’t I?” Jeffrey demanded angrily.
“Because she’s mine!”
The words were out of Lucien’s mouth before he realized what he had said. The thought of Colette, his beautiful, independent, passionate Colette, in the arms of his best friend almost stopped his heart cold.
“She doesn’t belong to you, Lucien,” Jeffrey uttered with a deadly calm. “She can marry whomever she chooses. As can I. Besides, what does it matter to you who Colette marries? You’re going to propose to Faith Bromleigh. Aren’t you?”
Lucien did not answer, although he had already made up his mind that he no longer had any intention of marrying Faith after all. In fact, they had parted that evening on good terms, but with the clear understanding that their brief courtship had ended. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, which did nothing to ease the anger building within him, he curled and uncurled his fists at his side.
Jeffrey’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Do you have some prior claim upon Colette I should know about?”
“My claims on Colette are none of your concern,” Lucien ground out between tightly gritted teeth. Did knowing the way Colette’s heart-melting smile lit up a room demonstrate that he had claims over her? Did kissing her passionately? Did making love with Colette in his bed or in a darkened bookshop? Did knowing just where she liked to be touched to make her cry with pleasure constitute claims? Lucien believed they did, but he was not about to enumerate them to Jeffrey. Especially when the subject of their conversation sat a few feet away from them. Instead he demanded, “What is your interest in her all of a sudden? I thought you were not planning on getting married for years.”
“Meeting Colette and her sisters has changed my mind.”
“Aren’t you leaving for France soon?”
“Yes, but not for two or three more weeks. I intend to wed Colette before I go. I’ll set her up in my house and then she can have her family stay with her or she can go to Brighton with them until I get back.”
Lucien shook his head in disbelief. This was a new Jeffrey. A Jeffrey that had made concrete plans with a woman for the future. “You’re serious about this?”
“Yes. I’ve thought it all out,” Jeffrey explained calmly. “I’m going to take care of her and her sisters. Once she’s my wife, she won’t have to toil in the bookshop any longer. Not that it matters now, since the shop has been sold.”
“Yes, I know,” Lucien said. “I’m the one who bought the shop.”
Stunned by Lucien’s comment, Jeffrey stood up straight, moving away from the wall. His lazy posture completely vanished. “You? Why would you buy the shop?”
“Because her mother was selling it and it would have broken her heart to lose it.”
Jeffrey’s voice lowered and he seemed preoccupied. “I hadn’t thought of doing that.”
“No. But I did,” Lucien stated.
“Well, once she’s my wife, she won’t have time to work any longer. I’ll keep her too busy.”
Jeffrey never even saw the solid punch that landed him flat on his back on the slate floor of the veranda. Immediately a commotion erupted. Shocked gasps and startled cries filled the night air.
“She’s fainted!” he heard Juliette cry.
Lucien turned around and saw Juliette kneeling over Colette, who lay on the ground also. Her aunt and uncle came rushing to their aid as some of Lady Hayvenhurst’s guests began to help Jeffrey to his feet.
Well, he had given the gossips quite a show that evening. Too angry with himself and the entire situation to care, he ignored the calls to him. Without a backward glance Lucien walked from the veranda as a crowd gathered around Jeffrey and the Hamilton sisters.
Later that evening, Lord Eddington’s black carriage pulled up in front of Hamilton’s Book Shoppe. Juliette Hamilton sprang from the carriage and hurriedly unlocked the door while Jeffrey half carried Colette out of the carriage and inside the shop. The one lamp that Juliette carried cast a yellow path of light as the three of them stealthily made their way to the back room of the silent bookshop.
“Sit her here,” Juliette instructed Jeffrey in a brisk whisper as she hastily removed a small stack of books from a tattered armchair in the corner of the room.
Jeffrey led a still-woozy Colette to the chair and let her fall limply onto it. Colette’s head fell back and she closed her eyes with a muffled little sigh. She was sound asleep.
“I had no idea she could get so foxed so fast,” he said in amazement, shaking his head at Colette’s helpless form.
“It’s all your fault, giving her so much champagne. Good heavens, Jeffrey! Your face!” Juliette cried, staring at the ugly purple bruise forming around his eye and upper cheekbone.
“I am a handsome devil, aren’t I?” he asked with a wicked grin.
“Oh, it looks so much worse than when we left Lady Hayvenhurst’s!” She reached out her hand and gently touched his swollen cheek with her fingers.
“Don’t press on it!” he cried out, flinching away from her. “That hurts!”
“I’m sorry!” Pulling her hand back hastily, she shook her head and bit her lip. “It’s going to look even worse tomorrow.”
“But it can’t hurt any worse than it does right now.”
“I’m afraid I have nothing down here for you to put on it. I can’t risk going upstairs just yet. Not with Colette like this,” she said worriedly. If her mother or one of her sisters happened to be awake and saw Juliette, they would wonder where Colette was. And Colette was in no shape to be seen by her family.
“That’s all right. My valet makes an excellent poultice. He’ll fix me up when I get home.”
“Can I offer a kiss to make it better?” Juliette offered with a mischievous smile.
“It can only help.” His eyes twinkled at her, making the bruise almost disappear.
Juliette rose on tiptoe and placed a soft kiss on the bruised area of Jeffrey’s face.
Crestfallen, Jeffrey frowned. “I thought you were really going to give me a kiss.”
Juliette began to giggle. “You’re so obvious, Jeffrey.” She flashed him a grin. “It seems Lord Waverly has quite a punch.”
“We both did a bit of boxing back at Oxford.” Jeffrey tenderly moved his jaw and stiffened cheek. “I’m not a bad shot myself, but I didn’t even get a chance to take a swing back at him.”
Oddly intrigued by the thought of those two fine examples of masculinity battling each other in a test of strength, Juliette mused, Which one would win that fight?
Lucien and Jeffrey’s little scuffle had caused quite a scene on the veranda. When a woozy Colette had jumped up to see what had happened, she tripped and fell. Due to Juliette’s quick thinking, everyone assumed Colette had fainted because of the altercation. Aunt Cecilia and Uncle Randall did not suspect that Colette had had too much champagne, although Uncle Randall had given her a skeptical glance, as if to imply that Juliette had done something to cause the row between Lord Eddington and Lord Waverly. When everyone was assured that Colette and Jeffrey were fine, they bundled Colette up, and she and Jeffrey hurried from Lady Hayvenhurst’s party and into Jeffrey’s carriage. Juliette was sure the gossip would be quite rife wi
th speculation over the cause of the fight between the two friends. “I’m confident you could knock the lights out of Lucien Sinclair,” Juliette teased him.
“At times your considerable charm leaves much to be desired, Juliette,” Jeffrey remarked dryly.
Laughing at him, Juliette glanced at Colette. Her sister had chattered incessantly the entire carriage ride home. Still suffering the ill effects of too much alcohol, she now slept peacefully in the chair. “At least we can talk without Colette hearing us.”
“She’s going to have a terrible headache in the morning,” Jeffrey predicted with a regretful expression.
“The poor thing,” she murmured softly. Colette rarely appeared vulnerable, and in this instance it left Juliette feeling more than a little anxious.
“Oh, fine. She gets your sympathy, but I take a punch in the face for following your little plan and I get laughed at.”
“It’s for a noble cause, Jeffrey.” She smiled sweetly at him. “You know how much I appreciate your help.”
He gave her a skeptical look, and then they moved to sit on two overturned crates. Usually Juliette avoided the back room of the shop as much as possible. The overcrowded, windowless space used to make her feel claustrophobic. But she had to admit that it was not as bad now as she recalled. Colette had been unable to spruce up the back room as much as she had the main shop, but at least it was cleaner and more organized than when their father was alive.
“What a scene that was! What luck Lucien hit you when he did! No one noticed my intoxicated sister. If Lucien hit you, he must have been jealous,” Juliette whispered excitedly. “What did you say to him?”
Jeffrey rubbed his cheek with an unconscious motion, obviously recalling the dreadful incident. “Oh, I hit a nerve all right. I told him that I intended to marry Colette and that she had practically said yes.”
Thrilled by this development and the probable success of her plan, she laughed at the thought of Jeffrey taunting Lucien. “Oh, my! He must have believed you!”
“I don’t think he was quite sure at first, but then I convinced him.”
“Did you truly ask Colette to marry you?”
“Of course not. Even if I did, she would refuse me. She is head over heels in love with Lucien.”
“I told you she was. And this evening simply goes to prove that Lucien is in love with her, too. If he didn’t care about her, he wouldn’t have hit you.”
“They are quite serious with each other,” Jeffrey ventured quietly with a knowing look at Juliette. “If you take my meaning.”
Of course Juliette knew, but she was stunned that Jeffrey knew how intimate Colette and Lucien had become. “How did you find out?”
He motioned his head toward Colette with a wry look. “Apparently too much champagne makes your sister rather talkative.”
“I can’t believe she told you something like that.” Knowing that Colette would be mortified when she realized what she had revealed to Jeffrey, Juliette cringed.
Jeffrey seemed a little offended by her remark. “I’m a trustworthy fellow.”
Juliette apologized. “I didn’t mean that as a slight against your character, Jeffrey. It’s just that Colette is so private, I am shocked she told anyone besides me.”
He nodded. “Lucien did not tell me, either, if that is what you were thinking. He’s too much of a gentleman.”
Juliette wondered how much of a gentleman Lucien was if he refused to marry her sister after taking her virtue.
Jeffrey quietly inquired, “Were you aware that Lucien purchased the bookshop?”
Blazes! If Jeffrey had told her that he had suddenly sprouted wings and had learned to fly, she couldn’t have been more astounded. Unable to speak, Juliette simply stared at him.
An amused smile flickered across his handsome face. “Well, well, well. It seems I finally knew something before the infamous Juliette did.”
“He didn’t really buy the shop, did he?” she asked breathlessly, still in awe of the earth-shattering news he had just shared with her. “Lucien is the anonymous buyer?”
“That’s what he told me, and I have no reason to believe that he’d lie about something like that.”
“No, of course not. If Lucien told you, then I’m sure he did buy it. But why would he do such a thing?”
“To prevent Colette’s heart from being broken,” Jeffrey clarified. “Or so he told me when I asked him.”
Juliette was stunned. “He said that? That he purchased the shop to protect Colette?”
“Yes, he did. If you did not know Lucien bought the shop, the real question is, does Colette know?” he asked.
“She would have told me something so important!” Wouldn’t she? Perhaps Colette didn’t know either. Although they now knew whom the anonymous buyer was, questions upon questions still niggled at Juliette. Why did Lucien keep it a secret? What had he intended to do with the building? Had he wished for the shop to stay in Colette’s care, since she was the motivation behind his purchase?
“So what happens now, Miss Master Plan?” Jeffrey interrupted her thoughts.
“Now, we wait.”
“Wait for what? For Lucien to beat the devil out of me?”
“No.” She managed a wry smile. “But you do need to stay away from him for a while until he discovers that you have no true designs on Colette. In the meantime, I have a feeling things will happen rather quickly.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Plot Thickens
About to begin their reading session, Lucien sat with Simon in his bedroom. Exhausted after a seemingly endless and sleepless night, Lucien found himself at loose ends the next day and wandered into his father’s chamber.
For the past week his mother had spent much of her time with Simon. To Lucien’s complete amazement, she had moved back into Devon House with his father’s blessings. The two of them acted as if the years of separation had not happened. Lucien could not quite understand it. Too much had happened too quickly for him to absorb. “You and Mother seem to be getting along well. It’s almost as if she never left,” Lucien remarked to his father. Lenora had gone out shopping that afternoon and Lucien used the time to visit with Simon alone.
His father smiled brightly, appearing more alive than he had in months.
“You’re not going to explain to me what happened with you and Mother, are you?”
Simon shook his head. “It’s p-private. Sh-she knows the truth. I know the t-truth now.”
Lucien tilted his head, feeling somewhat angry. Her devastating departure had affected him just as much as, if not more than, his father, and they did not see fit to explain to him why. “And am I never to know the reason my mother left me for most of my life?”
Simon actually looked embarrassed, his head hung low. “M-maybe Mother will tell you.”
“Well then,” Lucien picked up David Copperfield, idly running his finger across the golden embossed lettering. “I suppose there is nothing left to say, is there?” With a heavy heart he held the book that Colette had been reading to his father, suddenly feeling her absence like a knife in his side.
“Marry her.”
Startled by not just the clarity of Simon’s words but their implications, Lucien glanced up. He knew his father referred to Colette, but it seemed he was under a misguided impression.
“She’s going to marry Jeffrey Eddington.” Lucien still could not believe it. If he had not heard the words directly from Jeffrey himself he would not have believed the story at all. The very idea of the two of them together made him feel like hitting Jeffrey again. Apparently last night’s pummeling of his oldest friend did not quite satisfy him.
Lady Hayvenhurst’s had been a disaster. He had caused a scene and enough gossip and speculation to keep society wagging its tongues for weeks.
At least he had finally seen through the folly of thinking he could spend his life married to someone like Faith Bromleigh. She was a sweet girl, to be sure, but completely wrong for him. He simply couldn�
��t do it.
But learning that his best friend intended to marry the woman who tempted him above all others left him still in shock.
“No.” His father shook his head adamantly. “No, she won’t. She loves you.”
Granger stepped into the room. “Excuse me, my lord, but there is a Miss Hamilton waiting to see you downstairs. She’s in the blue drawing room.”
Stunned, Lucien stood up with a jolt, the copy of David Copperfield falling to the floor at his feet. Colette has come to see me? The sudden pounding of his heart startled him. He felt like a giddy schoolboy at the mere thought of seeing her.
His father’s broad smile lit up his face. “Hurry. G-go to her,” he instructed with a wave of his good arm.
Leaving his father in Granger’s care, Lucien wasted no time in getting downstairs, yet the whole time his mind was spinning with questions. Why has she come? What does she want from me? Admittedly he still felt angry with her for her bitter reaction to his buying the bookshop. And he was none too pleased with her for practically agreeing to marry Jeffrey Eddington less than twenty-four hours after they had been so intimate in the bookshop.
Yes, he had quite a few things he wanted to say to Miss Colette Hamilton.
He eagerly opened the door to the blue drawing room and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Juliette Hamilton seated calmly upon the velvet sofa, regarding him with something akin to amusement.
“Juliette?” he questioned, unable to conceal the surprise in his voice and overwhelmed with disappointment that it was not Colette who had come to see him.
“Good afternoon, Lord Waverly.”
Her superior smile gave him pause and, as was usually the case whenever Lucien was with Juliette, irritated him. “What are you doing here?”
“Were you expecting Colette, perhaps? I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you.”
Her sarcastic yet deadly accurate assessment of the situation only further irritated his already frayed nerves. Devil take her! What did Juliette Hamilton want with him? He advanced farther into the drawing room, stopping near the sofa.
When His Kiss Is Wicked Page 26