Chapter Two
Lucas
Once I’m back in my office I call Peregrine, who picks up on the sixth ring, breathing like a man walking uphill.
“Lucas! I was going to call you.”
“You've blocked the courtyard. I have a crane that needs to leave the property.”
“Have I? The fellow said anywhere.”
“There is no fellow. Move the van.” I watch two of the marquee crew edge a rolled length of canvas past the van’s back bumper with about four inches to spare. “And then tell me about the dog.”
Wind comes down the line, and a long, wounded pause. “Nester is perfectly well.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, praying for patience. “You know that wasn’t what I was asking.”
“The vet said it would be the second week of the month. There’s plenty of time yet.” The sound of a van door opening and closing punctuates his sentence for him.
“The second week of the month starts on Monday,” I say through gritted teeth. My patience is fraying faster than usual, and the reason why is currently eating lunch with my sister.
“Which is after Saturday,” he says, in the voice of a man laying down a winning card.
I have been managing this family's arrangements since I was twenty-six, and the single most useful thing I've learned is that the fastest route through my uncle is agreement.
“You're right. Which is why she can't be in the house on Saturday, because on Saturday the house will contain a hundred and sixty people. It would be far too stressful for her.”
“Well, I’m not leaving her in the van,” comes his startled reply.
“She's a lurcher, Peregrine. She'll want somewhere dark.” I'm already going through the ground floor in my head. “Put her in the old laundry. It has a Dutch door , it's cool, and nobody uses it. I'll call the vet and have him on standby from Friday, just in case.”
“The old laundry.” He turns it over, and I can hear him deciding it was his idea. “That's rather perfect, actually. She'd like the tiles.”
“I'm sure she would. The van, please, Peregrine.” I hang up.
I find myself looking through the lead glass window, out over the south of the property.
The marquee, or the skeleton of one, is standing proudly in the centre, canvas half laced and guy ropes still slack in the grass.
Rochelle has appeared, a sandwich in her hand, and is walking the length of the marquee beside the foreman, pacing out the distance in her own strides, floor plan folded down to a quarter of its size in one hand and a highlighter tucked behind her ear like she's forgotten it's there.
The last time I saw her, it was the twenty-sixth of December, somewhere past one in the morning. Everyone else had retired to bed for the night, but she’d gone to the library.
She had taken her shoes off at some point during the evening. I’d found them and wanted to return them to her.
I thought about waiting until the following morning, of just putting them in front of the door to the bedroom I knew she was using…but when I walked past the library, I figured I’d just give them straight to her.
She had laughed initially, when she saw the two strappy heels hanging from my fingers. She made a joke about the big bad duke looking after little old her.
Then my free hand was in her hair, pulling her towards me.
She didn’t pull away. Instead she wrapped her hands in each of my lapels and leaned into it. Putting every ounce of her into the place where her lips were pressed against mine.
I’d hardened instantly, and something about that fact made me come to my senses. I pulled away and stepped back. Looking at her for a long moment while she looked right back at me, her skin flushed and her eyes wide and searching.
I told myself at the time that I was being decent. That she was Cassia's closest friend, and the house was full of relatives. That I had nothing to offer her past the end of that night, and no business taking anything from her on those terms. All of which was true.
But I couldn’t make myself believe it.
Four years is a long time to keep telling yourself something you don’t entirely believe.
Now she is here, looking more radiant than ever, directing men around my property with an authority I can’t help but admire.
My mother has the seating plan spread across the morning room table when I come in, which is an issue, because I know this room is being used by Rochelle.
“There you are.” She doesn't look up. “Honora thinks the Ravenel’s can't go near the Fitzhugh’s.”
“The Ravenel’s can't go near the Fitzhugh’s,” Honora confirms from the chair that faces the large window, where she is doing nothing whatsoever with tremendous authority. “Not since the summer of oh-seven.”
“Then don't seat them together,” I say, like it’s obvious.
“It isn't as simple as that, darling.” My mother moves a card two inches and looks at it with dislike. “Everything is load-bearing.”
I lift the corner of the plan and find, underneath it, a lever arch file, a column of figures in handwriting I don't recognize, and a page headed COMPLETE with about a third of the boxes filled in.
“This table's in use.”
“By your sister's friend, yes.” My mother straightens. Vivienne has a way of saying entirely pleasant sentences that arrive with the corners filed off. “What a mercy she could take the whole week off. I did wonder what sort of employer allows that at such short notice.”
“A good one,” I say.
“Mm.” She moves another card. “Delphine arrives on Friday, by the way. The Corvain’s are staying Friday through Sunday, and I've put her in the blue room, and her parents in the rose room.”
The blue room is at the top of the east stairs, four doors from mine, and I know that’s the room Cassia always puts Rochelle in.
“It’s Cassia's wedding,” I say by way to explain her best friend managing to get extra time off. “And the blue room is taken, it’s the one Rochelle uses when she is here.”
My mother mostly ignores me.
Aunt Honora makes a small noise.
“It's simply that everybody will be here, and people notice who's beside you in the photographs. That's all a wedding is, in the end. A photograph everyone keeps.”
“Xanthe Bodaville's been settled at last,” Honora says. “Hugo Vance. Announced last month.”
Settled, like an account. I've known Xanthe since she was nine, and she is nothing if not dutiful. “How lovely for them both,” I say, and my aunt gives me a look that says she heard exactly what I was thinking.
I take the seating plan off the table, roll it, and hand it to my mother.
“Use the dining room or the drawing room or even father’s office,” I tell her. “This one's spoken for.”
***
Somehow, I survive dinner with Rochelle sitting three seats down from me on the left.
When I overheard Cassia calling Rochelle and begging her to come and help prepare for the wedding, I cleared my week instantly.
I've been telling everyone since that I cleared it for my sister, but truthfully, I doubt I’d be any use to her when it comes to this stuff.
The truth is I’ve been purposefully avoiding being on the estate when Cassia has Rochelle around.
I thought after four years I would be able to see her and not feel the emotions from that night.
I was wrong.
Apparently, those feelings are stitched into my actual soul, there’s no escaping them. Rochelle is polite, and respectful, and here to help her best friend… and it’s taking every ounce of what I am to not say or do anything about the way I feel.
Once everyone retires, I go to the only place on the estate where I know no one will look for me.
The library.
I’ve been coming here with a regularity I can barely admit to myself since that night.
I pull a chair around so it faces the window seat where she sat, and I stare at it, a glass of scotch in my hand.
If I can just get through the wedding, I tell myself, Rochelle will leave, and I can go back to being able to focus on my work. Go back to being alone and trying to figure out how the fuck I’m going to ever forget the way she felt when I kissed her.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the chair. Just knowing she is in the same building as I am, I can’t focus on anything else.
My cock hardens. I usually don’t let it. Force myself to think of anything else. I’ve even tried watching porn and imagining myself with any one of those women, willing and eager, anyone but her. But nothing ever works. It’s always her in my mind when I come.
The sun has fully set now, and the room is dark save for the glint of pale moonlight that pushes through the windows. One-handed, I open my belt and fly, pulling my cock free and stroking it slowly from base to tip.
I place the scotch on the small side table and bring my other hand down to cup my balls, thinking about her pillowy lips and big, bright eyes. Imagining what she would look like on her knees before me now, working me with her hands or maybe even her mouth.
A fizzing, popping sensation sparks at the base of my spine.
I’m using both hands on my shaft now, pumping in a rhythm that will get me there while remembering the taste of her in my mouth.
I wanted to taste every part of her. The skin at her neck, her nipples, her pussy.
I wonder about what she might like. Would she like being eaten out?
Would she prefer one finger pleasuring her or two?
How long would it take her to sink onto my cock?
How wet does she get? Does she squirt when she comes apart?
That’s what sends me over the edge, the thought of her juices soaking my face. I come hard, spurting onto my shirt with a groan I barely manage to suppress as my body racks and jerks. My head falls back, my eyes are closed, and it takes everything in me not to call out her name.
The worst thing about all this?
I don’t even feel like it’s scratched the surface.
My balls still ache desperately, my cock is still hard in my hands, and my blood is still running too hot.
I don’t think I’m going to survive until the end of the week.