Chapter Seven #3
Lucy tried to smile. Then she tried to remember what smiling was. “Oh?”
“You. You rescued me,” Bernard said quietly, and he took another step toward her. “I cannot thank you enough.”
“Oh.” Blast it all, she wrote eloquent letters every day of the week. She must be able to say something more riveting than the fifteenth letter of the alphabet!
“And you have introduced me to Lady Romeril, and to Miss Eaton, a most charming woman,” Bernard continued.
Lucy’s stomach plummeted. “Oh.”
Of course.
Of course the man had taken one look at Miss Eaton, for that must have been what her name was, and realized that next to her, Lady Lucy Chance was absolutely nothing.
That is the trouble with men, Lucy thought viciously. They only think with their eyes. Their eyes or their…their trousers!
Oh, God, do not look at his trousers…
“Yes, she is very beautiful, very charming, of an excellent family,” Bernard said lightly with a shrug as he stepped closer.
Now he was standing but inches away from her, and Lucy wondered how she was still standing up.
Perhaps she would not have been, if she did not have a handy pianoforte behind her. “But she’s not you.”
Four words.
That was all it took, Lucy realized as she smiled up at the man like a complete idiot. Four words, and she was utterly at his mercy.
This man had to be a confidence trickster, that had to have been his crime of choice. Lucy could well believe the man would have ladies handing over their jewels in their droves. Ladies had shown up to support him at court, even.
Right now, she would hand him almost anything he wanted. Anything.
“You’re smiling.”
Lucy’s smile immediately vanished. “No, I’m not.”
“But you were, and when I said that Miss Eaton was not you,” Bernard pointed out, his voice a low, gravelly husk that was absolutely not making her knees weak.
“Well, it’s true.” That’s it. Stick with the facts. “Miss Eaton isn’t me, and I’m not Miss Eaton.”
“No. No, by God, you are not.” And it was a growl now; there was no other word for what had been uttered through Bernard’s lips. “She is vapid, Lucy. She is interested in nothing but herself and her own interests, and she has no conversation and no wit and—and she’s not you, Lucy.”
If he does not stop saying my name like that, Lucy thought, her mind spinning, then I’m going to do something drastic.
Bernard leaned closer, his nose grazing hers, and though his hands remained at his sides, it could not have been more clear by the fire within his eyes that he wanted to take hold of her and pull her into his embrace. “Lucy…”
And that was when Lucy kissed him.
She hadn’t meant to.
Well, she had meant to, but not properly.
Well, not properly, but not with her hands around his neck.
Well, not with her hands around his neck pulling him closer, closer, because she needed to drink him in, this freshness and vibrancy to her life that Lucy had never known she’d been missing until Mr. Bernard Dixon had walked out of that dock and into her life.
And his lips were parting hers, and his excellent kissing was making pleasure roar through her, and Lucy could do nothing but hold on for dear life as one of Bernard’s hands slipped around her waist and the other cupped her cheek, tilting her head, deepening the kiss as his tongue trailed—
“Lucy? Lucy, are you in here?”
Lucy froze.
With Bernard Dixon’s lips on hers.
Her mother. Oh, dear God, it was her mother.
Her mother. Without the spectacles she needed to properly see. Staring into a dark room.
“Lucy?”
Slowly, very slowly, but still too fast, Bernard released her lips.
“I’m—I’m coming, Mama,” Lucy croaked. “Just… Just needed a moment of quiet before the next game.”
“Right you are, and don’t forget to count your spades. You always forget to count spades when you’re playing and it shows,” came the response from her mathematically minded mother. “Have you seen Mr. Dixon? I’ve momentarily lost him.”
Lucy swallowed as she looked up into the eyes of said Mr. Dixon, which were about two inches away from hers. “I… I’ll let him know you’re looking for him if I see him.”
“Thank you, darling,” called the Countess of Lindow, who shut the door behind her.
Well. There was nothing for it. Lucy was nothing if not obedient.
“My mother is looking for you,” she said weakly, blinking up at the man who had just given her the very first kiss of her life.
The man who had just given her the very first kiss of her life swore under his breath.
“Bernard!”
“I’d prefer to stay here,” he said in a ragged voice, finally releasing her waist and stepping back with a rueful expression. “And damn it, Lucy, but I shouldn’t have done that.”
‘Shouldn’t have’?
Shouldn’t have given her the best moment of her life? Shouldn’t have made her feel like the most beautiful, the most wonderful woman in the world?
Lucy glared and stomped around the irritating man whom she would surely be getting rid of any day now, and shot over her shoulder, “I’ll let Miss Eaton know you’ll be returning shortly,” before slamming the door behind her.