Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You are silent,” Rudyard observed as they retraced their route to town, past the Queen’s Elm, past the tavern known as the Bell, back toward Knightsbridge. “Did we tire you?”
“Not at all. That was one of the most pleasant afternoons I’ve spent. Thank you.” Lucasta turned to include Bertie in her gratitude.
Bertie smiled sweetly in return. “Judith liked you,” she remarked.
“I like Judith,” Lucasta answered, and said the next without thinking. “I hope I might see her again.”
Though doing so would put her too near Rudyard’s orbit, make her aware of his every move, his mere presence. Such foolishness fed infatuations, rather than throttling them in the least painful manner possible. She knew that from experience.
“I do not imagine my siblings would be considered good ton,” Rudyard said, his mouth set in a grim expression. “I barely am myself.”
“You? Smart Jeremy?” She saw his eyes narrow and understood. “You do not believe you are admired?”
He clucked to the horses to wait their turn at the Hyde Park toll gate. “I believe it amuses women like Clara Bellwether to admire me,” he answered. “And then a new fancy will come along, as one inevitably does.”
She had seen the truth of this for herself already this season. “But you have your business,” she said. “You do not depend on the goodwill of the grand.”
He raised a dark brow. “My business profits from the goodwill of wealthy patrons. Indubitably.”
“You forget about Arendale, Jem,” Bertie said from the back seat. “You will be our grandfather’s heir.”
“My father is the heir,” he replied with a bitter twist to his mouth. “And I am likely to be my father’s heir, in consequence of which I will inherit whatever my father chooses to leave of the estate and its various incomes, as well as the burdens and debt.”
He did not think much of his father, that was clear. Lucasta combed her memory for information about the Falstead family but came up with precious little.
“Your mother?” she asked cautiously.
“Inherited the draper’s business and died when I was young, and Judith younger,” Jem said shortly. “Dixon she lost nothing by being honest. “What is it you despise, Rudyard? The institution of slavery, or the mixing of races?”
This time his furious expression was directed at her. Lucasta lifted her chin.
“You can still ask me that?” His voice sounded pained, rather than threatening.
“I’m afraid I must. You called my friend a zebra.”
“Oh, Jem, that was true?” Bertie said with dismay. “I was hoping it was simply Clara Bellwether being vicious.”
“I was remarking on her gown!” Rudyard shouted, jerking on the ribbons as the vehicle in front of them stopped abruptly. “Those stripes were an offense to the eye.”
He turned his body to face her, hands clenched on the ribbons, and Lucasta drowned in a wave of heat as his eyes burned into her.
“Let me be very clear, Miss Lithwick, about what I detest. Not only do I regret that the vile institution of slavery has enriched the Falstead family to the violence and ruination of a great many human lives, but I find my father’s behavior reprehensible.
Even if Portia were a British citizen, I doubt he would do her the courtesy of marrying her and legitimizing her children.
I have made my feelings clear to him with very little effect. ”
He turned back to face the street. “And since he knows I plan to get rid of the plantation and free its people the moment the title passes to me, he runs the estate for no other purpose than his own immediate enrichment. It is a belief my uncles before him held, and my grandfather still holds, I am sorry to say.”
At Bertie’s stifled moan, he threw a pitying glance over his shoulder. “Not you, Bertie. I know that.”
“I still benefit,” Bertie said, her tone hollow. “We all do.” She looked down at the picture hat in her hands.
“I do as well,” Lucasta answered. “I eat sugar. I wear cotton, which British ships will no doubt begin bringing from the American colonies again, now that hostilities have ceased.”
Rudyard regarded her sternly. “You ought to wear linen, bought only from my shop.”
“Perhaps I shall.” Ah, another reason to draw near to him, stay close, live within his realm, and know whatever she might be foolish enough to long for could never come to pass.
Lucasta tugged at the worn finger of a glove.
“Thank you for introducing me to your family, Rudyard. I consider it an honor.”
He kept his profile to her. “Enough to forgive me for being a dandy concerned only with the arrangement of my necktie?”
She allowed herself a smile, relieved at his lightening of the moment. “You may show great care for your neckcloth and still entertain other attachments. I see that now.”
Again he shrugged, as if he were throwing off some unwanted touch.
Lucasta studied the breadth of his shoulders beneath the finely cut coat.
However thin the approval of the fashionable world might appear, he had it.
In addition, he ran a successful business and was heir to a wealthy estate along with one of the highest titles in the kingdom.
Add to that his physical stature, and Jeremiah Falstead was a powerful man, a man of presence and command in addition to his wealth.
None of that seemed like him. He’d seemed most authentic, most at his ease, in the tiny parlor of his Little Chelsea cottage, watching his family interrogate her.
Watching her sing. Singing with her. A shiver moved over her neck at the memory of his delicious voice. That sound would follow her into sleep and twine through her dreams.
As the sky began to glower with the smoke of civilization, Rudyard let Bertie down first at Arendale House.
The two girls parted with a squeeze of hands, Bertie exacting a promise for Lucasta to visit soon.
Rudyard steered the horses the few blocks to Caroline Street and the town house the Pevenseys had rented, drawing up before the door with its scrubbed steps and large, ornate knocker.
“Bertie means it, you know,” he said as he walked around to help Lucasta down from the vehicle. “She would adore for you to call on her.”
“I should adore calling on her,” Lucasta admitted, putting her hand into his. His grasp was strong, warm, firm. “But it seems out of place that I should make free at Arendale House.”
“She needs friends,” Rudyard said. “The loss of her brother has laid her quite low. Perhaps you could introduce her to the Gorgons.”
“I thought the Gorgons were to be despised.” Lucasta gathered her skirts with her other hand to begin her descent. “Thus the name, unless I am mistaken?”
A sedan chair jogged by them. The men carrying it shouted and jostled Rudyard’s coach, and the horses stomped and jerked in their harness.
Thrown off balance, Lucasta tumbled forward, only to collide with a firm surface.
Rudyard’s arms clamped about her and remained there as he lowered her feet to the pavement, well away from the muck accumulating in the street.
A lightning bolt fell from the sky, shearing through her.
She was encased in heat, like a jacket potato.
He held her as if reluctant to let go, his face a hand’s breadth away from hers.
She stared into his eyes, overcome by a new and incomprehensible sensation.
He was hard and yet yielding at the same time, solid as a wall and yet pliant.
A man, a powerful man, as she had thought, yet with secret currents she had never guessed at before today.
The air between them crackled like a sky before a thunderstorm.
“I wonder, Miss Lithwick,” he said, his voice a low, sensuous rumble, “if we have both been mistaken about a great many things.”
She would touch her lips to his if she simply rose on her toes. His voice resonated in her chest, a rich, decadent chord. She had the insane urge to graze her teeth along the shadow of his jaw.
She could not kiss Jeremiah Falstead in the street. She ought not even think about kissing him, here in plain view of their house, the passing traffic, the curious eyes of the neighbors. Had she taken leave of her senses?
He released her and stepped back. Lucasta fought for balance. It was beyond her yet to attempt speech.
“I hope you will call on Judith as well. She gets lonely for company.” His voice was rough and low.
“I…” His touch had left her light-headed, wanting air. “I should like to see her again,” Lucasta gasped, her wits still at sea. “But I’m afraid I do not have means of transport.”
It was beyond her funds to hire a chair and beyond her stamina to walk that distance. She could request use of the Pevensey carriage, but then she would have to explain her destination, and her aunt would have too many questions.
Lucasta already knew she had been drawn into a great secret. Jem did not talk about his family, and neither would she.
“I can arrange it,” he said simply. “Send me word or tell Bertie when you are free. I shall drive you whenever you wish.”
Leaving his business and his other affairs to follow her whim, and putting his large, distracting presence in proximity to her. What a lovely, treacherous thought.
Lucasta stepped back, hoping the distance would repair her presence of mind. The burning look in his eyes made her want to sway toward him. Had she ever thought this man a shallow, useless dandy? He was a mine of rich ore and she wanted badly to explore his depths.
She could not be in the pocket of Lord Rudyard. The complaints of Aunt Pevensey or the town gossips were the least of her worries. This man threatened her peace of mind.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, her eyes burning with the threat of tears.
She felt his gaze scald her like a torch as she clutched her shawl and hurried inside. She needed her music room, her refuge, to soothe and order her thoughts before she must face anyone. There were so many revelations, so many sensations of the day to sort through and put in their proper place.
“Lucasta. There you are.”
The Baron stood in the hallway, blocking her progress toward the stairs. “A relief you’ve finally been able to tear yourself away from Rudyard. I’ll have a word with him if he bothers you in future.”
All the oversetting heat of her day with Jeremiah Falstead puffed away under the Baron’s cool stare. Lucasta followed the hand he flicked toward the green parlor, resenting that he could so quickly drain away all her pleasure.
“There’s someone you need to greet.” The Baron herded her toward the parlor, and she stopped in her tracks at the doorway.
Lady Pevensey perched in her favorite chair, her expression strained. Cici’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling with joy as she stared adoringly at the stranger in the room.
“Trevor,” Lucasta whispered. “I mean, Mr. Pevensey.”
“Of course he’s Trevor to you,” the Baron said with a slow, crafty smile. “Your dear, very dear cousin. He’s finally come home.”