Chapter 10 #3
“Has he not?” The countess smiled, that sly, knowing smile that made Verity want to squirm.
“Perhaps not in words. But words are the least part of claiming, my dear. A wolf knows his mate by scent, by touch, by the singing of blood calling to blood. Whatever passed between you today was not mere dalliance. It was recognition. Destiny, if you prefer.”
Verity’s cheeks burned. The old woman knew. Somehow, impossibly, she knew.
“My lady, I would never presume?—”
“Presume what? To become Countess of Blackfen?” Lady Blackfen waved a dismissive hand.
“You think your birth is too low, your circumstances too reduced. You think Lucien will come to his senses and cast you aside. But I tell you now, when a Northwood man finds his mate, there is no power in heaven or earth that can part them. My husband was not meant to marry me, you know. I was utterly unsuitable. But his nature chose, and that was the end of it.”
Verity did not know what to say. The countess’s words were fantastical, impossible.
The ramblings of a mind that wandered between lucidity and dream.
All this talk of mates and destiny and the singing of blood.
It was poetic nonsense, surely. The romantic imaginings of an old woman who had loved deeply and now saw such passion reflected everywhere.
She is merely eccentric. Touched by age and given to fanciful speech. I cannot take her pronouncements seriously.
But even as she formed the thought, she recalled the overwhelming pull she had felt toward Lucien from the first moment their eyes had met.
The way his presence made her pulse race and her thoughts scatter.
The inexplicable certainty that had washed over her as they lay tangled together on the hearthrug.
The sense that this was what she had been waiting for her entire life.
But even if that were true, it did not change the practical realities of her situation.
She had given herself to an earl. A man from her past had followed her across the country with unknown intentions.
And she was trapped in this remote northern hall, with nowhere to run and no one to turn to except the very man who had just claimed her virtue.
“Eat,” Lady Blackfen urged, her voice softening into something almost maternal. “You will need your strength. The nights can be long at Blackfen Castle, and tomorrow will bring its own challenges.”
Verity forced herself to take another bite, though the bread seemed to stick in her throat.
The countess occasionally offered observations about the food or the weather or some distant memory that surfaced without warning.
Verity responded when required, but her mind was elsewhere, caught between the memory of Lucien’s touch and the dread of Robert Fynn’s return.
She wondered how Lucien planned to resolve their situation of improper relations.
Marriage seemed too far above her to contemplate, and yet …
had Lady Blackfen not just spoken of her own unsuitability before wedding the late earl?
Had she not declared that when a Northwood man chose his mate, nothing could part them?
Sentimental whimsy, Verity chided herself. The countess spins fairy tales from thin air the way other women spin wool.
And yet she could not wholly dismiss the flutter of hope stirring in her chest. Lucien had spoken of it himself before running off so strangely.
She hoped, with a desperation that startled her, that whatever resolution he proposed would lead to more of what had passed in the study.
More of his hands upon her skin. His mouth claiming hers.
The solid weight of him pressing her into the hearthrug.
A proper young lady would have been ashamed of such brazen thoughts, such shameless longing for a man’s touch. Verity found she was not. Perhaps she was as unchaste as she had been accused of being. Or perhaps fate had indeed drawn them together, as Lady Blackfen had been intimating.
Perhaps that made her wanton as she had been accused of. But if this was what it meant to be so, this heady mixture of anticipation and longing and bone-deep rightness, then perhaps it was not so terrible a thing to be after all.
The fire crackled in the grate, sending shadows dancing across the walls.
Outside the windows, the last light of day had faded entirely, leaving nothing but darkness pressing against the glass.
Somewhere beneath the full moon, Lucien was doing whatever had called him away so urgently.
She wished she knew what it was. She wished she could speak with him now, tonight, rather than waiting for the uncertain promise of morning.
As they ate, Verity found she could not choose between her worries.
The memory of what she had done with Lucien, warm and troubling in equal measure, or the cold dread of knowing Robert Fynn had tracked her down.
Both concerns clamored for attention, weaving together into a tangled knot that made each bite of food feel like a stone dropping into her stomach.