“No,” he said softly. “Whatever was between us is in the past, isn’t it? I can’t allow it to hurt me.”
His mother took his words at face value and nodded before she said, “Best go talk to Felicity, then. Good afternoon, Lucien.”
He smiled at her before he left the room. It was easy to get her to believe him. Felicity would be harder. No one would dare call her flighty.
He walked down the hall and into the music room. Felicity stood at the window, overlooking the garden behind the house. When he entered the room and closed the door, she turned on him, her face taut with the same powerful emotions she had displayed the night before.
“I couldn’t leave things as they were,” he said. “I wanted to discuss what happened last night.”
She shrugged, and he could tell this would not be easy. “I’m not sure there’s anything to discuss. After all, you seem to have made up your mind, despite the past. Despite what that past nearly drove you to do.”
He flinched. She was referencing that night on the terrace. That night he’d nearly taken his own life. Of course she knew about that night—Gray had told her. Stenfax had always known that.
“Please,” he said softly, moving toward her. “Let’s not discuss that.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Of course. We never discuss that. Even though it’s the most horrible thing that nearly happened to us. Even though it changed Gray forever, changed you forever, and changed me forever.”
“You weren’t there, Felicity,” he said, trying to be calm when this topic made him anything but.
“I think that made it worse,” Felicity said, stepping toward him. “I think it was worse to know you nearly killed yourself and that I wasn’t there to try to stop you. Do you know how many times I went over the last thing I’d said to you before that night? Do you know what my last words to you would have been had you succeeded in ending yourself?”
“What were they?” Stenfax asked.
She blinked at tears. He was shocked to see them a second time, for Felicity had hardly ever cried after her husband’s death. She’d become stronger than iron after that night.
“I said, ‘will you hand me the salt’.”
He wrinkled his brow. “What?”
“The last time I saw you before you climbed a terrace wall was at supper the night before. I asked you to pass me the salt but we didn’t talk again. I had a headache and I snuck out. So the last thing I would have said to my eldest brother, who I adore beyond measure, was something about salt.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Felicity. Just as I’m sorry that this thing with Elise stirs such painful memories for you.”
“It does,” she admitted. “And regrets. I have also often thought of what I would have said to you had I faced you in your grief on the terrace that night. Would you like to know what I decided those words would have been?”
He slowly nodded, though this entire conversation was an exercise in intense pain.
She reached out and caught his hands with hers. “I would have told you that there were some nights during my marriage when jumping from a terrace to end the pain also appealed to me. That I understood the impulse because I’d felt it too.”
He drew back. He’d known how terrible Felicity’s marriage had been. Both he and Gray had tried to extract her from Viscount Barbridge’s clutches, but she was legally bound to him. They had seen her bruises, seen her brokenness, and been helpless to save her.
But to know she had considered the same bitter end he had was heart-wrenching.
“But you didn’t,” he said. “And I’m glad neither of us took that path.”
“As am I,” she whispered. “But now I’m terrified for you. I know you loved Elise. Truly loved her with all your heart. I know that losing her once was nearly unbearable. If you entangle yourself with her again, you know it won’t work out.”
He shut his eyes. Yes, that was true. There was no happy end here. That was his choice now. Even if Elise drew him in like a moth to a dancing, beautiful flame.
“I know it won’t,” he admitted.
“And the closer you get, the more painful that end will be. I don’t want to see her tear you apart again. I don’t want to see her hurt you. To see you hurt yourself. So if I am harsh with you, that’s why. It’s out of fear. Fear for your safety and for your very life.”
“Felicity, I love you with all my heart for your concern,” he said, drawing her in to kiss her forehead and feeling her shudder at this massive display of emotion that she normally kept tucked tightly inside.
“Then tell me how to stop fearing what will happen to you,” she whispered.
He moved her to the settee and they sat together. He smiled at her even though it hurt. Everything hurt. She was making him face a truth, and a consequence, of these actions.
He sighed. “You must understand that things are different now. Part of why I was so devastated three years ago was that I believed Elise to be someone different. I know what she’s capable of now.”
He said those words, but the moment he did, he realized how little they rang true. He’d believed her to be no better than a demon for so long, but in the past few weeks since they’d been thrown into each other’s path again, he had seen no evidence of that. She hadn’t made any attempt to excuse what she’d done.
She’d just been…herself.
He shook his head and forced himself to continue, “I suppose I mean that I don’t have any expectations that we could be together, or that anything she says can be trusted. I won’t allow myself to be hurt. Not again.”
Felicity lifted her gaze to his. “You say that, Lucien, but the past has come back. You think you can control everything that comes along with it, but…”
“But?”
“You may not be able to.” She turned away. “I know if someone I loved and had lost suddenly resurfaced in my life, I would have a difficult time facing it.”
Lucien pinched his lips. Felicity hadn’t had any long-lost loves that he knew of, despite how her voice was filled with regret. But she made a good point. Emotions had been stirred now. He couldn’t pretend that there weren’t potential dangers to the line he had been walking.
“I’ll be careful,” he vowed. “I won’t let anything happen that I’ll lament later.”
“I hope that’s true, Lucien. I’ve lost too much in my life to fathom losing you.”
He squeezed her hand gently. “You won’t. I promise.” He pushed to his feet and drew her up with him. “Now, why don’t we go see if Mama wants to take a walk in the garden before I go? I know how she loves to show me her roses.”
Felicity nodded, but Stenfax still saw the hesitation in her gaze. The uncertainty and fear about his future and his choices. As he led her out of the room, he couldn’t blame her.
In truth, he was beginning to feel the same way about what he was doing with Elise. And he wondered if he would survive unscathed and unchanged when he finally found the strength to walk away.
Chapter Nine
Elise sat at a table in the far corner of Vivien’s club, staring at the room around her. The scene was still shocking, but the more times she returned to this place, the less shocked she found herself feeling. Watching the others engage in their erotic games was sometimes embarrassing, but sometimes titillating. And sometimes she didn’t even notice them at all.
She supposed it was good she was becoming accustomed to such things. There was no use in being naïve anymore. She had to commit fully to this endeavor at last. Ambrose’s scene after the ball just two nights ago had proven that to be true.
She cast her gaze around the room one more time, but this time she wasn’t looking at naked flesh and grinding motions. No, this time she looked at faces, especially the faces of the women in the crowd. Many looked happy, aroused, totally engaged in whatever they were doing and whoever they were with.
Others, though, had a hollow look to them. An
emptiness.
Elise frowned. She would be one of the empty ones. That much was becoming very clear.
“May I join you?”
Elise glanced up to find Vivien Manning standing beside her. She was wearing a shocking gown with a gauzy top that left very little to the imagination. Yet she somehow she still managed a cool sophistication that Elise envied.
“Certainly,” Elise said, motioning the chair beside her. “I would appreciate the company.”
Vivien settled into the chair and looked around her with a sigh. “We are a busy group tonight.”
“You always seem to be. That must give you pleasure.”
“It gives me money,” Vivien said with a small, rather sad smile. “Though I do enjoy many of the games played here.”
“Did you always?”
Vivien shot her a side glance. “No,” she admitted. “When I first became a mistress, it wasn’t easy. It got better as time went on and I found protectors who were kind and patient.”
Elise nodded slowly. “I sincerely hope for the same. It would make this easier.”
“Still, it helps to know what you want,” Vivien said, leaning in.
A vision of Lucien rose up in Elise’s mind. Not just Lucien as she’d had him lately, angry and passionate, but the person she’d known as a girl. The one she’d loved for so long she could hardly recall a time when she hadn’t. The Lucien who had once whispered how deeply he loved her and wanted her in his life for the rest of his days.
She caught her breath. “I want independence and protection and—”
“You want him,” Vivien interrupted.
Elise stopped talking and tried not to look at the courtesan directly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are many hims at present.”
“Then I shall be more specific. You want Stenfax,” Vivien said softly.
Elise bent her head. She had been fighting to be strong for so long. Fighting to deny what she felt in her heart so that it didn’t overwhelm her and send her into a dark place where she feared she’d never escape. She had been trying not to slip into despair as she considered a future she’d never have.
“He doesn’t want me,” she murmured.
Vivien let out a soft chuckle. “My billiard table would beg to differ.”
Heat filled Elise’s cheeks as she pictured that intense night with Lucien not so very long ago. She had no idea their joining had been so closely marked.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Vivien covered her arm gently. “My dear, I was not seeking an apology. This place is meant for pleasure. Anyway and anywhere you can find it.”
Elise allowed herself to look at Vivien fully. “You have been doing this a long time now.”
Vivien nodded. “I have.”
“How do you keep from involving your emotions?”
Vivien’s expression suddenly darkened and her eyes grew sad for a brief moment. “Sometimes you don’t,” she whispered.
Elise stared at her, sensing there was a great deal more to this woman than perhaps she’d guessed. She shook her head. “But I must,” she continued, leaving Vivien to her private emotions since she assumed the other woman would never share them. “With Stenfax especially because he can’t overlook his rage over what I did to him.”
“Have you ever told him why?” Vivien asked, her tone low and surprisingly gentle.
Elise shook her head. “I’ve thought of doing so a dozen times, but it feels cheap to do it now. It doesn’t change what I did. It would only bring him so much more pain. It would bring everyone much more pain.”
Vivien tilted her head. “You’re punishing yourself.”
Elise caught her breath. She’d never thought of it in those terms before, but now she recognized them as the absolute truth. “Perhaps,” she admitted. “Perhaps I deserve to suffer as I made him suffer.”
“I would wager you’ve been punished enough,” Vivien said.
Tears swelled in Elise’s eyes and she blinked to keep them from falling. “Ask Lucien if that’s true. I’m certain he will tell you I haven’t paid half my penance yet.”
Vivien’s gaze slid away from her face to a point behind her and she smiled softly. “It seems you could ask him yourself. He just came in and he’s obviously looking for you.”
Elise spun in her chair to look at the door behind her. Indeed, Lucien was there, beautiful as always, scanning the room. When his eyes found her, there was a moment when pleasure crossed his face and he looked just as he had when he still loved her. The tears she’d forced not to fall returned and one trailed its way down her cheek before she wiped it away.
“Don’t throw away hope, Your Grace,” Vivien said as she pushed to her feet. “Good luck.”
Stenfax let his gaze move over the room in Vivien’s club, ignoring the writhing bodies and moaning couples, and instantly found Elise. She was sitting at a table with Vivien and he couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t with some gentleman. She wasn’t offering herself to a protector.
In that moment, he thought of Felicity and his smile fell. His feelings were exactly what she feared. That he was giving himself over to emotions that would only damage him and the people he loved.
In that same moment, he knew he had to end what he had foolishly started with Elise. Before he loved her again. Before he lost her again. Before he tore his own heart out and damaged it beyond repair.
He felt sick as he moved toward her. He watched as Vivien got up from her place and turned toward him. Her little smile as she passed him made him realize she and Elise were likely discussing him, and that made it all the worse somehow.
Elise stood as he reached her table, her face a combination of welcome and wariness. “Good evening, my lord,” she said, her voice catching a fraction.
He fought the urge to reach for her and nodded. “Elise, I—” he began, and couldn’t find the words. He wasn’t going to do this out here. It wasn’t right. “Would you come with me?”
There was a moment when all her pain, all her fear, all her hesitation flowed over her face like a waterfall. But she reined it in, of course she did, and nodded. “If you’d like,” she whispered.
He didn’t touch her, mostly because he feared what would happen if he did. He merely turned and started off across the room with her walking behind him. At the hallway, he murmured what he wanted to one of the men who worked for Vivien and he gave Stenfax a key to a room.
He moved down the hall, ignoring the sounds of pleasure that pierced into the narrow space, taunting him, arousing him. He stopped at a chamber and unlocked it, letting her in past him, her sweet scent swirling up around him as she did.
He locked the door behind himself to give them privacy and turned to face her. She stood in the middle of the room, just in front of the bed, her hands clenched in front of her. She looked like she was being taken to the gallows and he briefly wondered if she could read his mind…if she knew his thoughts thanks to his face or his posture.
Once upon a time she’d been able to do that, or so it seemed. But that was a lifetime ago.
“Elise, I need to talk to you,” he began.
She swallowed hard, and for the first time he saw how tired she looked. How wrung dry by everything she was doing. It swept away his intentions and he moved toward her a step even though he knew there was no prudence in the action.
“Why are you doing this?”
Her face crumpled when he said it, and she caught her breath on a wavering sob. “You keep asking me that. Over and over, no matter how many times I give you the answer. I know you have every reason to doubt me, but am I so evil that you think everything is a lie? Even my deepest and darkest pain?”
He drew back at the emotional display. Elise had kept her feelings so close in, never revealing much beyond her pleasure since the moment he’d first seen her again. To see anger, pain, desperation now…it was like he’d opened a book and found the girl he once knew all those
years ago.
It was like he saw the real her.
“Elise—”
“No!” She held up a shaking hand. “I understand you have every right to despise me. To punish me. To want to see me suffer. But I do, Lucien. I do suffer. And I’m doing the best I can in a situation that is so terrifying I can hardly express it to you. So if you came to batter me about my motives for seeking a protector, then I…” She caught her breath and spun away. “I can’t.”
He moved to her even though he shouldn’t. He just couldn’t stop himself. He slipped behind her, wrapping his arms around her, feeling her tremble as he pulled her against him. She didn’t fight him. In fact, she went almost limp, like she needed him to prop her up as she drew in harsh breath after harsh breath.
He turned her gently, folding her into his arms as she clenched a fist against his chest, her cheek coming to rest there. For what seemed like forever, they stood like that. He smoothed her hair gently as she clung to him.
And it was like no time had passed. She lifted her face and he stared into it, seeing the future they once would have had. The future snatched away by her decisions. But for the first time, he didn’t blame her for that.
He just mourned what they had both lost.
He slid a hand into hair, tilting her face even more. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and gently kissed her. She made a soft sound in her throat, something on the brink between pleasure and pain. Something that spoke volumes in the language of their relationship.
He pressed his tongue to her lips and she opened for him easily, taking him in, welcoming him. There was no desperation, just a gentle caress. And in that moment he wanted to make love to her.
Not claim her. Not fuck her. Not punish her with pleasure.
He wanted to make love to her.
Wordlessly, he let his fingers splay against her back, finding the buttons along her spine. She deepened the kiss as he loosened her gown, spread the fabric open and finally stepped away from her to silently draw the bodice away from her body. She, too, was silent as she stared into his eyes. It was as if they both feared that words would shatter this spell between them. Break this bubble where no damage had ever torn them apart.
One Summer of Surrender Page 8