Prologue #2
“You cannot know the joy it brings me to hear you say such a thing,” he murmured, as she released his hand. “However, there is something more I must say.”
“Oh?” The weight of his hesitation hung between them. She searched his face and found something there she had not seen before — a tightness in his jaw, a tension behind his eyes that looked almost like fear.
“There is a matter at hand that must be resolved.” He gave a slight shrug, but there was nothing casual in the set of his shoulders.
“It will not take long, I do not think. It all depends on my brother, and he is due to come to London within a fortnight. Once he has come and once I am certain all is well, then I will speak to your father.”
His brother. Susanna had heard Lancashire mention Lord Tunbridge only once or twice before, always in passing, always with that same flicker of something she could not quite name. Concern, perhaps. Or duty. Or both.
“Might I know what the trouble is?” she asked, keeping her voice gentle despite the dread pooling in her stomach. She watched his jaw tighten, watched his gaze cut briefly to the side — away from her, away from the question — before he shook his head.
“No, not as yet.” His words came carefully, as if each one had been weighed and measured before he permitted it to leave his lips.
“Once my brother comes, I will be able to know all, however.” When his eyes returned to hers, they were filled with a sincerity so fierce it was almost painful.
“I promise you this, Susanna. When I am certain all is well, I will go directly to your father.”
She studied him — the line of his mouth, the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hands had curled into loose fists at his sides — and understood that whatever troubled him, he could not or would not share it. Not yet.
Trust him, her heart whispered. He has given you no reason not to.
“Until then, I will wait.”
“I hate that I must ask it of you,” he admitted, something raw and almost bitter entering his voice.
“I would never presume upon your patience, but hearing what you have said — how it matches my own feelings entirely — I must beg you to wait.” His expression softened, and there it was again: that tenderness that made her feel as if she were the only person in the room.
“I cannot let you go, Susanna. You have utterly captured me.”
His words filled her chest with warmth even as his reluctance pressed against it.
She wanted to question him further, to peel back the careful layers of his composure until she found the thing he was hiding.
But her affection stayed her. He had been honest. He had shared what he could.
It would not be right for her to demand more, not when he had already given her the most precious thing of all — his declaration.
“Of course I will wait,” she said, and watched the tension drain from his shoulders. “My affection for you cannot be denied. I cannot give it to any other. If I must wait, then I shall do so willingly.”
Lancashire took her hand, bowed low over it, and pressed his lips to the thin silk of her glove.
The warmth of his mouth burned through the fabric, and her breath left her in a rush.
“I do not deserve such generosity from you, Susanna,” he said, straightening with his gaze still fixed on hers.
“My own feelings will torment me also, given that they run so deep — deeper than I have permitted myself to feel in a very long time.” A rueful half-smile crossed his lips.
“For the time being, I must keep them to myself. But they will not diminish. Not for a moment.”
She returned his smile, the tightness in her chest easing at last. “The wait will be worth it. I trust you, Lancashire.”
Something shifted in his expression — just for an instant, a shadow that passed so quickly she might have imagined it.
Then it was gone, replaced by a look of such open devotion that her breath caught.
“It most certainly will be.” His voice dropped, low and intimate, meant only for her.
“Until then, I shall dance with you this evening and mayhap steal one more moment with you.”
“You may steal as many as you wish,” she whispered. “For I will give you all of them.”
They danced together twice that evening — the waltz and the supper dance — and each time his hand settled at her waist, each time his fingers tightened around hers as they turned through the steps, Susanna felt as if the entire world had narrowed to the warmth of his palm against her back and the steady blue of his gaze upon her face.
The music swelled around them, the candlelight blazed, and she was certain — with the whole fierce certainty of her unguarded heart — that this was the beginning of everything she had ever wanted.
When at last the evening drew to a close, and she stood with her mother and Maude, waiting for the carriage, the Duchess was still fussing over Maude’s dance partners, tallying compliments like receipts.
Susanna stood a step apart, her hands clasped quietly before her, and watched Lord Lancashire cross the ballroom towards the doors.
He turned back once. Caught her eye.
The smile he gave her — private, warm, full of promise — settled into her chest like a flame that would not be extinguished.
She held that smile close for weeks afterward, turning it over in her memory like a treasured keepsake.
It sustained her through every quiet morning and every restless night, through the long stretches when no letter came, and the longer stretches when she could not bring herself to wonder why.
It was a promise. Soon, very soon, everything would change.
She did not know, then, that it was the last time she would see him smile at her for an entire year.