Chapter Eighteen
Lucinda awoke with a throbbing head. She looked around the room.
The sun was high up in the sky. She had overslept.
Last night was a hazy memory of bits and pieces.
None of them were good. She had embarrassed herself at the opera.
Argued with Tony. The duke carried her upstairs?
Then she remembered being hungry but must have dreamed about Tony kissing her and rubbing herself against him and…
surely not. A very vivid dream then. Her obsession with her guardian was growing, and she could not figure out how to stop thinking about him.
The last she truly remembered was their argument and how he must hate her now.
May came into the room with a tray. “A nice cup of tea will set things straight.”
“All the tea in the world cannot change what I did.”
“Come now. It isn’t as bad as all that. Lady Marianne told me the duke found it quite amusing.”
Lucinda groaned loudly and pulled the covers back over her head. Mortified that her memory of him carrying her was unfortunately true. What must he think of her? What must they all think? If that were true, were her other dreams true too?
Lucinda sat up, horrified. Had she and Tony…
? Her stomach roiled at the sudden movement.
May took one look at her and came running with the basin she usually used to wash her face.
She violently threw up and May, bless her, kept her hair away and rubbed her back as Lucinda groaned in pain and indignity.
“I think a day in bed would be best for you. I’ll let the duchess know you are unwell. I don’t think she will be terribly surprised.”
Wonderful. Just wonderful. She would have cried only she was too busy casting up her accounts.
“I am never drinking again,” she said to May.
May smiled handing her a cloth. “That’s what they all say, miss.”
Lucinda walked with the two women she had come to adore as they perused the shops on Bond Street.
Marianne and her mother oohed and aahed over the various bonnets, ribbons, and lace.
She tried hard to join in, but her heart was not in it.
She just wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed and wake up a week in the past.
She would not drink the champagne, and she would not fight with Tony, and she most certainly would not have made a fool of herself in front of Dunstan.
She had to put on a cheerful facade. Maintain the status quo. Easier said than done.
“Come along, dear, do not dawdle so.” The dowager glanced at her. “Is it your feet? Do they hurt?”
“A little. It is these new shoes.” A lie. One of many she had told today.
“Let us stop for tea at this cake shop,” Marianne suggested.
“Good idea. I could do with some refreshment.” The dowager sprang into action, striding ahead and into the shop.
“By refreshment she means cake,” Marianne said, pulling Lucinda along with her.
Once inside and seated, they were served an assortment of petit fours and hot tea. “Oh, no milk for Miss Sterling. She cannot have the stuff,” the dowager informed the server.
Lucinda smiled. The dowager duchess made a fuss over the cakes and insisted on pouring the tea. The dear lady was a good mother to her children, even if her intentions did not always turn out the way she intended them. It was clear how much she loved them.
Lucinda sipped her tea and tried not to think how disappointed Tony’s mother would be if she found out what Lucinda and Tony had done.
She would no doubt drag Tony by the ear all the way to the altar.
No doubt she would never speak to her again.
And the thought of losing the friendship of Marianne made her lose focus for a moment. She had to keep herself in control.
The dowager studied her over her teacup. “You are very quiet today, dear.”
“Ever since the opera, Mama,” Marianne chimed in with a frown.
“What insensitive thing did that boy say this time? I noticed he did not stay for the second half.”
“I heard him scold her for drinking the champagne,” Marianne said. “Really, he can be an ogre sometimes.”
“I did drink too much of it though. Good heavens, the duke had to carry me upstairs.”
Marianne took her hand. “Edward thought it amusing, let me assure you.”
Lucinda tried not to picture the duke carrying her half unconscious body up the stairs. “I don’t know why I kept drinking it after he left.”
“It does not matter why,” Marianne said. “In any case, you learned your lesson. May said you were quite miserable the next morning.”
“We do not hold it against you,” the duchess said. “If that is what concerns you. Everyone overindulges the first time they drink champagne. I think it is the bubbles; they are quite addictive.”
“That must have been it.” Lucinda did her best to smile and sipped her tea and ate her cake and listened to the casual, comfortable chatter of mother and daughter. Would one day she and her own daughter have such a relationship?
Tony was just coming out of the parlor when they arrived home. He saw Lucinda look at him, but she did not smile at him and hurried away. His sister grabbed his arm.
“Tony. I need to speak to you. In private.”
Oh God, had she told Marianne? “Of course,” he said and led her into the parlor. “What is it?”
“It’s Lucinda. Something has happened. She is not herself. She has been withdrawn all day. I think she is embarrassed about the champagne incident at the opera.”
“What champagne incident?”
“After you left she… imbibed quite a few more glasses. Edward had to carry her to her room.”
He knew she had been more than a little tipsy when she had fallen on him in the library. “I tried to warn her, but she took it as an order, which she obviously did not take well.”
“Is that why you left?”
“I didn’t want to be the one to ruin her fun.” Which was partially true.
She took his hands in hers. “Will you talk to her? Put her at ease and let her know there are no lasting consequences for that night’s folly.”
Oh, but there were consequences to his heart. “I will do my best.”
“Thank you. I know this whole thing has been hard on you. You are not used to being responsible for another person, who essentially was a stranger. It must have been difficult.”
“Are you feeling sorry for me, sister?”
“Not at all, you big cabbage head. Lucinda has become dear to me, and I cannot bear that she is unhappy. It is your duty to fix it.”
“Fine. I will go and see her.”
“Good.” With a swish of her skirt, she flounced out the door.
Lucinda was unhappy. She was embarrassed about the champagne. She was lamenting what happened after even more. He could not make himself regret it. If she were his, he would have kept her in his bed for a week, at least.
That afternoon Lucinda could stand it no more. She had to know if the night before last was a fever dream or whether it had actually happened. She found him in his study. He did not look happy to see her. Once fully in the room, she went straight over to his fossil, the one he loved so much.
“Ah, I was going to search you out, but you have found me first. I heard you were sick all day yesterday. Too much champagne maybe?”
How annoying he was. It certainly did not take him long to bring up the demise of her dignity. “You were right. I should have listened to you. I probably would not have drank so much if you had not told me not to.”
“Do you always do the opposite of what you are warned against?”
“You were being boorish and part of me wanted to prove you do not have the right to order me.”
“I suggested you take it easy. I never ordered you to stop.”
“You took my glass away.”
“And you gained another one within a minute, thanks to Dunstan.”
“Why is it that every time Dunstan is around you turn into this… beast?”
“Beast?”
“I get all upset and then I see you the next day. You apologize and all is well, until the next time we see Dunstan. I understand that you do not like him, for whatever reason, but I feel like you take it out on me.”
“I’ll admit that I do not trust him for some reason. I should not take that out on you, but you push and prod at every turn. I do not know how to be a guardian when you blatantly disobey me.”
“And I do not know how to be a ward. I had hoped you would understand my need for freedom after being confined to a school for the last decade. I am still learning my way and you keep standing there… in my way.”
“Do you want to talk about that night?”
“That night?”
“When you came down to the library still half full.”
Oh no. It wasn’t a dream? “Did we… did we kiss?”
“Yes. Yes, we did. You were quite insistent about it.”
“And then I went upstairs?”
“Not exactly. When you straddled my thighs and had me pinned beneath you I was quite… enthralled.”
Enthralled? She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing that when she opened them, she would no longer be in this situation, in this room. When she opened her eyes, he was still there, watching her. “Then… then what did I do?”
“Relax. You did not lose anything of value to your future husband. You did gain some new experiences though.”
She put her hand over her mouth in horror. She remembered rubbing herself against him and then, oh Lord!
“I cannot let you take all the blame. I should have stopped it, but I too was enchanted. We are equally to blame. I too had been drinking but you were a giggling mess, and I should have pushed you away.”
“I am not sure how I should… what I should do now?”
“Lucinda. You don’t need to do anything.”
“But we kissed we… rubbed.”
“It was a mistake in judgment on both sides.”
“I did not know it could be like that between a man and woman. I do not know anything.”
“And that is perfectly as it should be.”
“I feel so guilty. Like I committed a crime.”
“It is only I who should feel any guilt, and I do. I’m sorry.”
“We both like kissing each other. Perhaps we should keep kissing.”
“That is a bad idea.”
“It probably is, but I like kissing you. If no one finds out, is it so bad?”
Could he keep kissing her and do nothing more? Could he keep his desire for her in check if they found time to be together?
He would have to push Dunstan into proposing, and fast. And then he would take an assignment, any assignment that took him out of the country and away from his misdeeds. And her. Running felt cowardly, but he would do it for her. It was the least he could do.
She would never forgive him for how this had turned out. And why should she? Despite his best efforts and perhaps not his best judgment, he had not lived up to his role as guardian. He had let her down at every turn.
He would go and see Dunstan tomorrow and see if he was truly interested in Lucinda or just playing the marriage mart for entertainment. He would make it clear that marrying Lucinda on the first convenient day would ensure him thirty thousand pounds of her dowry.
If the man had bats in the belfry and did not want to commit to marriage, Tony would have a right royal mess on his hands.