Chapter 17 #2
“No, please, Your Graces,” Lucy said, trying to control her voice from trembling. “Go and dance with your guests. I am perfectly happy here.”
They tried once more, but Lucy was insistent. She didn’t want to be pitied. She could handle some more time in her corner. When they moved away, she felt her isolation even more. To make matters worse, she saw them.
Lady Cecily and her group of mean ladies were lingering by the refreshment table. She wondered if they were standing there because it was the perfect spot to watch where she was. But that was—that was ridiculous!
Still, the young women, each linked with a handsome partner, watched her with predatory stares. Cecily leaned in to whisper to the young lord she had managed to win for the night. The man looked Lucy up and down and burst into laughter.
It was cruelly direct. Lucy clenched her fists at the thought of having to spend more time being the object of people’s cruel jests.
When she gave herself the opportunity to think about her situation, the walls seemed to shrink around her. The high collar of her dress felt like it was strangling her. She could not breathe.
All around her was laughter and heat. She could not take it anymore. Her hand pulling her collar down, she turned on her heel and bolted.
Young, unmarried, and unchaperoned women should not be running outside the houses during parties, especially not at night. Yet the thought never came to her. All she knew was that she needed to breathe.
In the garden, she swallowed gulps of cold air.
The chill soothed her skin, feeling almost like a blessing.
She half-stumbled toward the stone fountain, gasping for breath like a true fish out of water.
There, she fumbled at the lacing of her bodice, desperate to loosen the fabric.
She managed to undo some hooks before she realized what she had done.
“No.”
The library! That same place where Daphne caught her and Daniel in what seemed like a compromising situation. It was hidden enough. It should suffice, and it was close to the side of the house. She could enter unremarked by anyone. Artistic memory made her connect the dots.
Thankfully, the side door was unlocked, perhaps for the ease of entertainment, unless someone had completely forgotten to lock it.
Panting softly but trying not to make noise, she was able to navigate the darkened, narrow hallway. She needed a place to fix her stays. It would be scandalous to be caught looking like she did.
In the library, she hastily tried to take deep breaths before lacing herself as best as she could. It was infinitely more difficult to do so without any assistance, but she somehow managed.
Her hands were still shaking when a voice spoke behind her.
“Lucy?”
She spun around.
Daniel stood in the doorway.
Moonlight framed him from behind, outlining his broad shoulders as he stepped into the room. Concern was written plainly across his face as his gaze swept over her disheveled state.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly. “I saw you run out of the ballroom looking pale.”
He saw her.
Her heart lurched.
If he had seen her… how many others might have seen her too?
“Please, leave me be,” she whispered, her voice cracking despite her effort to sound composed. “Return to the ball, and to all the people who belong to that world.”
He did not leave. Instead, he stepped farther into the room, the door closing softly behind him.
“Tell me what happened, Lucy,” Daniel said firmly.
He moved closer. Too close.
“Nothing happened,” she said quickly, though the lie sounded weak even to her own ears.
His brows drew together slightly.
“You ran from the ballroom as though the room itself had caught fire.”
Heat rose to her cheeks.
“It was foolish of you to follow me,” she said instead, lifting her chin. “You should return before someone notices your absence.”
“And leave you alone out here?” he asked.
“I want to be alone.”
The words came out sharper than she intended.
Silence stretched between them.
Lucy looked away first, her fingers tightening in the fabric of her skirt.
“Everything,” she finally said in a low voice.
“Everything is wrong. I am nothing but the object of cruel jest in my plain shroud of a dress.” Her laugh came out thin and brittle.
“My brother will forever keep me in a cage. He treats me like a child. And the ton… the ton seems to find endless amusement in reminding me of my place.”
Her gaze flicked back to him.
“Are you here because of pity?” she asked quietly. “If so, I would rather you leave.”
Daniel stilled. “It isn’t pity that I feel.” His voice had lowered.
Here they were again, alone in a darkened room.
Why did he have to follow?
Being caught here with loosened stays and without a chaperone was already enough to ruin her. But to be seen with him—
The scandal would be far worse.
Her throat tightened.
“What is it, then?” she asked, forcing her chin higher. “Why follow me?”
He hesitated.
The pause startled her.
Daniel never seemed like a man who lacked words.
“Because…” he began.
Then stopped. Their eyes met, and for a fleeting moment she glimpsed something unfamiliar in his expression, something that slipped past the controlled mask he always wore.
“Because?” she pressed softly.
He took another step closer, and she could feel the warmth of him.
“You looked as though the entire room had turned against you,” he said quietly. “And I could not pretend I had not noticed.”
Lucy swallowed. “You should have,” she murmured. “It would have been the wiser course.”
“Perhaps.” His gaze dropped briefly to the ribbon at the front of her bodice before lifting again. “You should not have had to run away just to breathe.”
The gentleness of the remark unsettled her far more than the teasing cruelty of the ballroom ever had.
“You do not understand,” she said. “You belong in that world. People admire you.”
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth. “And yet I left it.”
Her pulse quickened. “Why?”
For a moment, he simply looked at her.
Lucy’s pulse quickened beneath the weight of his gaze. This was a mistake. A terrible one. They should not be standing this close in a darkened room.
She took a small step back.
“You should go,” she said quietly. “Before someone comes looking for you.”
Daniel did not move. If anything, he seemed to step closer.
“Because I wanted to,” he said, his voice low and rough.
He stepped closer, and she felt the heat radiating off him.
“Lucy… do you have any idea how impossible it has been to stand across that ballroom from you and pretend I do not want you?”
His gaze dropped to her lips, then back to her eyes, dark and unrelenting.
“Every glance. Every laugh. Every breath you take…” His voice dropped, sharp and low, like a growl meant only for her. “It burns me alive, Lucy. I ache for you—need you pressed against me, your lips under mine, your body close. And I will not, I will not, stop myself any longer.”
Lucy gasped.
And then, before she could question the reckless flutter rising inside her chest, he pulled her against him…
And kissed her.
His fingers slid into her hair, tilting her head back. The slight sting against her scalp made her gasp softly with a sudden rush of sensation.
There was nothing polite about the kiss. Nothing distant.
It was molten. Fierce.
Lucy wound her arms around his neck, pulling herself closer as the kiss deepened into a hungry exploration that sent warmth coiling low in her belly.
For a moment, the world beyond the library ceased to exist.
Daniel finally pulled back, though his hands remained firm at her waist.
She could not suppress the small sound of disappointment that escaped her.
He rested his forehead against hers as both of them struggled to catch their breath.
“Daniel,” she whispered his name like a plea.