Chapter Eleven
Lucinda sat by the fire in her room and pondered the last few days and decided she was at fault.
If not for her hasty words at the exhibition he would not be so angry with her.
She needed to talk to him, but he was never at home anymore.
She had seen him briefly at the ball tonight, but he had not even tried to dance with her or Marianne. How long would he avoid her?
Deciding that action rather than more pondering was in order, she left her room and made her way down the stairs.
She took the book from a few nights ago, that she had yet to read, with her as an excuse if anyone saw her.
She had no intention of putting it back in the parlor and every intention of going to Tony’s study.
If he was not there, it would give her time to snoop about his room, even though she knew that was wrong.
If he was there, then she would use it as an opportunity to talk with him and apologize if necessary.
She could not stand him being angry with her for another moment.
There was a dull light coming from a brace of candles, but Tony did not seem to be there so, checking left and right, she stepped across the threshold of his room.
It was not a large room and held a small desk at one end and a chair set by the fire with a small round table that held a decanter and a glass, half full.
She went to the bookcase and used her fingertips to glide over the spines.
They were mostly travel journals or books on other countries.
How curious for someone who apparently did not like to read.
The trunk she had seen him in front of the other night stood open and so she leaned over to have a glance inside.
Clothes appeared to have just been tossed in, not neatly folded as one would expect, and why would he have a trunk full of clothes in his study when he had a bedroom and a valet upstairs?
She was aware that the door to the garden was not far down the hall. Easy to come and go as he pleased.
Lucinda took note of the framed maps on the wall and his military saber mounted on the wall above the fireplace. She reached up and took what looked to be a rock off the mantelpiece. She turned it over several times tracing the pattern inside with her finger.
“I would be careful with that.”
Tony’s voice made her jump, and she stumbled back. He grabbed her flailing arm and pulled her towards him, saving her backside and her ego from a bruising.
He had been seated in the large wing chair, so she had not seen him. Lucinda went to turn towards the door, but his grip on her arm kept her in place. It was only when she turned towards him that she saw concern in his eyes.
“Oh! I am sorry… I… was… and… the light.” He simply stared at her, his eyebrow raising with her every attempt to speak a coherent sentence. She could feel her face heating to the point she thought her cheeks may go up in smoke.
“Did you find what you were looking for, Lucinda?”
She squirmed. “I was trying to find you, actually.”
“Is that so?” His grip did not loosen so she stepped closer.
“Yes. Will you please release me?” It was a half-hearted plea.
“Oh, not just yet. You have some explaining to do.”
She studied his face for a moment. His eyes were glassy, and his cheeks were flushed. “Are you drunk?”
“Not nearly enough,” he replied.
She wrinkled her nose. “And you smell of whiskey and smoke.”
“Do I? Well, pardon me.” He pulled her closer. “You smell of roses and lavender soap.”
She fell into his lap and went stiff with panic. He tugged gently on her braid until she turned to look at him.
“You are so beautiful.” He loosened his grip on her arm.
Summer-blue eyes studied her. She loved his eyes. They were the first thing she had encountered that night when he had turned towards her, his expression shocked. What was he looking for now?
The rock on her lap nearly slipped from her grasp. She wanted him to kiss her, but he took the item from her hand instead. So, she rested her head on his shoulder, and it felt natural to do so, which was not what she had expected sitting on a man’s lap.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“A rock?”
“It is a fossil. See here, the imprint of a sea animal that lived thousands of years ago.”
She raised her head off his shoulder. “Really?” Then she traced the imprint in the rock. “It looks a little like a large snail. Where did you get it?”
“I was in Lyme Regis. It was just lying there at the bottom of a cliff. Face up as if begging me to pick it up. They call it an ammonite. It is one of my most precious possessions.”
Thousands of years old?
“It would have been trapped in between layers and layers of rock until one day the waves of the ocean dislodged it and I picked it up.”
She had never touched anything so old. She had been trapped at Miss Covington’s until she too had been picked up and Tony became her guardian. She wanted to be precious to him too.
He gently took the fossil from her and placed it on the table beside him. It should have been her cue to get up but instead she stayed there, on his lap, and she let her head fall onto his shoulder again.
*
Tony picked up her hand and moved it about, intertwining their fingers.
This was not how he planned to question her, had been wracking his brain as to how to do it without it seeming like he was interrogating her.
And then she was here, right in front of him.
He was not prepared to do this properly, but the alternative was to kiss her and that would not get either of them anywhere but into more trouble.
“You are a good girl, Lucinda.”
“I try to be good but really, I have always been a little too honest. It used to get me in trouble. The other girls did not like me.”
He could hear the sadness in her voice and wanted to soothe her. “I cannot believe that. You are lovely.”
She sat up studying his face. “Are you just saying that because you have been drinking? I thought you did not like me anymore.”
Well, that shocked him. They had a disagreement, but that did not mean he hated her. “Why would you think that?”
Small frown lines appeared between her brows. “You have not spoken two words to me since the exhibition. I know you are angry with me and I…”
He shook his head. How could she have been so wrong? “I was angry with myself, not you. I was acting jealous when I had no right to. I am sorry I ruined your time at the exhibition.”
“You are jealous? Of Dunstan?” she said in a shocked tone, her eyes searching his.
“Should I not be? He likes you, and you seem to like him.” She was so close, an inch closer and he could kiss her. This was madness. He had to control himself. She was not for him.
“I hardly know him. I mean I would like to get to know him, but balls really do not allow for a good conversation. In any case, I would rather be here with you.” She kissed him then. Soft lips, searching, her inexperience showing. Damn him, he kissed her back.
This was where he had to let her down again, for both their sakes, but he hated this feeling.
“That is the thing, Lucinda. We should not be doing this. I do enjoy kissing you but if Mother were to catch us, or anyone really… the consequences are not worth thinking of. I can see in your eyes that you want me to keep kissing you but to what end? I like you. I like kissing you a lot, but I will not marry you. I cannot marry you.”
Her face fell, and she nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Please don’t send me to Ashtonvale.”
What? Rocked by her passionate plea, he was tempted to kiss her again. To assure her she was safe here. Why would she even think such a thing? “Why would I send you there?”
“So I will not cause you any more trouble. I promise I will marry the first man who asks and let you get on with your life, but please don’t send me there alone.”
“Lucinda. I will never send you away. I take full responsibility for what has happened between us. I should not have kissed you that night or this night.”
“Even if I don’t marry this season?”
“No. Not even if you don’t marry this season.” By God she had better marry and soon because he had a weakness for her and that was bad news.
“I have never kissed anyone but you. I should thank you for showing me how… for the future I mean.”
Silence fell for a few moments where he battled his guilt and his want to kiss her tears away. He had to change the subject quickly. Still holding her hand, he studied the small enamel ring on her finger. “Where did you get this ring?”
“My father gave it to me just before he left. A keepsake, to remember him by. I did not want a ring; I wanted my father, but it is all I have of him now. I have had to move it to different fingers as I have grown but other than that I have not taken it off.
“What else do you remember about your father? Did he leave you anything else? A letter perhaps? Something he wanted you to keep safe for him? A secret?”
“A secret? No, nothing. I suppose that was because he told me he was coming back. Just a few months, he said. He lied.”
“How did you find out he was dead?”
“Captain Markham’s father came to the school.
He took me out and we traveled to Miss Covington’s.
He told me that my father had died and that he was now my guardian.
I asked him questions, but he simply said it was better to just remember he was in heaven now with my mother.
He said that once I was grown, he would come back and help me find a position somewhere.
I did not know any better and I do not think I even understood what he meant.
He lied too because I never saw him again either. ”
“What happened when Captain Markham came to you?”
“I was called to Miss Covington’s office where he introduced himself as my new guardian.
He regretted the circumstances, but I would need to stay there for a while longer.
He did not have the capacity to look after me.
I translated that to, he did not want me either.
That was it. Two visits in ten years and still no one could tell me anything.
All three of them left me behind without a backward glance. ”
“I’m sorry.” And he was because he had always had the luxury of his family, his status and in turn, its wealth. “I promise I will never force you to do anything you do not want.”
He had lost his own father only seven years ago, and it had been a great loss to the family.
His mother had thrown herself into marrying off all the children, most likely as a way to channel her grief into action.
His father had only asked one thing of his boys on his death bed and that was to look after their mother.
Lucinda had never been able to say goodbye to her father.
No luxury of closure. Or hope, it seemed, for her own future.
“I had no choice in the end about anything,” she said.
“I shut myself away after that. What was the use of making friends? What was the use of wanting more? I still dreamed of leaving, of having a life of my own, but now I see how woefully unprepared I am. I know nothing of high society, Tony, and it scares me. What if I disappoint my husband and he punishes me because I do not know how to run his house? I was taught how to add household accounts but not how to plan a party. I fear I do not know what I am doing.”
Lucinda buried her face in his shoulder. “Don’t you see I am a failure. A failure as a daughter and now your ward.” The shimmering of her tears turned her eyes a deeper green. “And most likely as a wife as well.”
He patted her back and said soothing words, but it did not help. After a while, she sniffed back her tears and got off his lap and placed his precious fossil back on the mantel, gave him a shaky curtsey, and left the room.
He watched her go, wanting to reassure her, but knowing it was better if he did not follow her.
He had just made her even more miserable and got no new information, either.
He was convinced that she was innocent, that she knew nothing about what her father was up to.
If that were the case, he was in even more trouble than he thought.
What had her father been about? He had risked everything and for what?
He had lost his life to keep the secret he had stolen out of the hands of the Prussians, but to what end?
What if the Prussians had found the missing item?
Maybe he had it on him when they murdered him and there was no danger at all to Lucinda?
Other than assumptions and fabrications made up by the Machiavellian minds of the ton, he had nothing.
Tony thought about finishing the bottle beside him, but suddenly he was tired, exhausted. He had been running two missions at once. It was surely why it was taking such a toll on him.
He went to bed but could not sleep thinking about her, how sad she was. How she believed no one wanted her. It was madness because he wanted her. No woman had ever had this pull over him. And worse, he did not know how to control it let alone sever it without hurting her.