Charlotte Featherstone - Pride & Passion

“How you must have suffered,” Issy murmured as she reached forward and rested her palm on Lizzy’s arm.

“Endless nights of wailing into my pillow,” Lizzy said with a deprecating smile, “only to be followed by hours of humiliation whenever I thought on my actions after. I vowed then never to make a spectacle of myself ever again. And especially over a man.”

“If only we had known each other then, Lucy and I would have boxed his ears!”

Elizabeth’s laugh was soft and genuine. “Time heals all wounds. However, I do upon occasion allow myself to reflect upon that summer, and remember those days when he had been everything to me.”

“He’s not worth it,” Isabella sniffed. “To be so careless with you, Lizzy, he doesn’t deserve you, or your love.”

“Oh, I haven’t loved him in years. But tell me,” she asked quietly, “what does he look like? I haven’t dared ask another soul that, for fear of how it might be taken. But I would be a fool if I did not admit that there are some nights, when I lie awake in bed, and wonder about him. Is his hair still dark?”

Lucy felt her own eyes well with tears, and she glanced to her right, to discover that Isabella was discreetly blotting the corner of her eyes with her napkin.

“Yes,” she answered Lizzy. “His hair is dark, like coal—”

“And when the light hits it, does it have the blue of a raven’s wing?”

“Yes, I think it must, for it is black as jet, and given to curl. He wears it unfashionably long, to his shoulders, and when he talks with Black and your brother, he occasionally brushes it behind his ears.”

Elizabeth’s eyes closed, as if she were savoring the images of the marquis. “And his eyes? Are they still dark blue? I always thought the color reminded me of the sky at twilight.”

“I … I don’t know, Lizzy. I thought his eyes dark. There is a hardness to them, and when he looks directly at you, well … one cannot help but to think that he is looking directly past you. There’s coldness there, nothing soft or comforting.”

“Eyes consumed by sin,” her friend whispered. “How sad, for the man I thought I knew that summer was not hard or cold, just … lost and hurting. But then, I didn’t really know him, did I?”

“Sometimes, our hearts won’t allow our eyes to see what is really there, Lizzy.”

Where those words had sprung from, Lucy had no idea. She only knew how right they felt. For it was true, the eye was blind when love and desire was involved. Or was it only blinded by lust? Did the eye truly see love, or was it just for the heart to feel it? Thomas had claimed to love her, had made the same sort of promises to her that Alynwick had made to Lizzy. Only Lucy was certain that but for the fire, Thomas would not have left her the way the marquis had left her friend.

The bit of lace in her pocket reminded her that Thomas was indeed alive. There could be no other explanation for the reappearance of the handkerchief, and for the identical description of Thomas that the duke had given her of the man who had dropped it.

He was alive, and because of those very promises he had given to her, Lucy knew without a doubt he would find a way to come for her.

Squeezing Lucy’s hand, Lizzy replied, “Yes, one can be blind, can’t they, even when they possess the gift of sight. I was young and naive and I learned a difficult lesson.”

“What happened to the woman he was supposed to marry?” Isabella asked. “I hope she made him utterly miserable. He deserved no less after what he did to you.”

Lizzy shrugged. “I do not know the particulars. Only that the marriage did not come into being, and after their broken engagement, he went to the East with Black. Upon his return home, he was changed, much as he is now, irreverent and uncaring, consumed with pleasure and gain. There is nothing left of the man I had given myself to.”

“He didn’t deserve you,” Lucy said, truly meaning it. “One day, you will meet with the perfect gentleman.”

“I have given up on that. Besides, I believe that once given, the heart does not easily love again. Especially when it’s been betrayed.”

For some reason, Lizzy’s words struck fear inside her. Gray eyes flashed before her, and she startled, not understanding where the image had sprung from. Only knowing she had no wish to see them, or to be drawn in by the ghosts that looked out at her. She thought of her young friend and her father’s cruel treatment of him. She had been betrayed then, and she was quite certain that although she had been very young, her friend had quite captured her idealistic heart. It had not been easy to allow someone in, after that. She had mourned his loss for quite a while, and still did.

“Oh, love, what a burden it can be. How can something so heady and perfect cause such deep-rooted despair?” Isabella asked.

How indeed? She had only ever known that love led to despair. The two were synonymous to her. “I suppose,” she answered, “it is because there is such a fine line between passion and despair.”

Elizabeth looked up, and in that brief second, Lucy could have sworn her friend glimpsed inside her soul. “You have felt despair while in love?”

Glancing quickly at Isabella, Lucy struggled for an answer. Isabella knew her secret—most of it at any rate. She would know if she lied to Lizzy.

As if sensing her inner turmoil, Elizabeth inched forward and reached out her hand, which Lucy took in hers. “Tell me, Lucy, have you ever given up everything you are, everything you believed in, for one moment of passion?”

Truth or dare … at last, the dreaded moment had arrived.

SAVED BY HIS GRACE!

Never in her life had Lucy been more delighted to see the large-bodied presence of Sussex lurking in the doorway. With typical cool indifference and ducal autocracy he strolled into the salon, his high glossed boots ringing against the marble floor. His gaze swept over her as he prowled closer to them, and Lucy fought the urge to give in to a tremble. The last time she had seen him he had been handing her the lace handkerchief, and warning her away from her lover. She had refused to listen, and now … now she suspected they were enemies.

There was no denying that his grace would make a formidable one. What he lacked in passion, he more than made up for with a determined tenacity, something Lucy knew he would use to discover Thomas. She could almost find herself admiring that trait in him, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was now her—and Thomas’s—enemy.

With an elegant arch of his dark brow he stood before them. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Of course you are, brother. Off with you!” Elizabeth drawled as she shooed him away with a wave of her hand. “You have the most inopportune timing.”

“Don’t be silly, your grace, do come in,” Lucy said a little breathlessly as she avoided Isabella’s astonished gaze. “The tea is still hot, and there are plenty of sandwiches left.”

She saw the way Elizabeth frowned and the speculation in Isabella’s eyes. Even though the duke really was the last person she wanted to see, at the present he was the lesser of two evils, the greater evil being the question Elizabeth had asked her.

Truth or dare … well, she dared not give the truth, and if suffering through tea with Sussex was to be the reprieve from having to answer, then so be it.

Taking the vacant cushion between Elizabeth and Rosie, the duke slouched deeply onto the soft settee and reached for a plate. With a glance, he peered up at them from a veil of thick lashes. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Swallowing hard, Lucy bit her lower lip and thought back to that evening when she had visited the Fraser Witch and the feelings she had experienced. They were the same ones she felt now—in the duke’s presence. And it was damned inconvenient, she thought churlishly, especially since she sought to dislike everything about his grace.