Chapter Sixteen
“We are to be married.”
Bernard’s pulse hammered so powerfully in his ears that he was rather astonished the entire Chance family did not inquire about it as he marched out of the drawing room.
But perhaps he was walking at too great a pace. Perhaps there was an expression on his face that brooked no interruption.
Perhaps they were still as shocked as he was.
This was not happening. Surely, this was not happening—maybe it was a hallucination brought on by too much champagne.
But no. The liquid in the glass he still clutched in his right hand, then hastily placed on a console table in the hall, was copious. He could not even recall taking a sip.
“Bernard!”
Bernard’s conscience twisted as he turned around to see Lucy standing in the door to the drawing room, staring in utter disbelief.
As though he had done the unimaginable thing!
“Bernard, what’s wrong?” she asked, not moving from the doorway—the doorway through which their entire conversation would flow, right to the ears of the Chance family.
“Lucy,” Bernard said quietly, jerking his head to the other side of the hall.
She followed him obediently, skirts swishing and form moving in that wonderful way it always did whenever she moved…but she left the door open, and it was with a rise of his temper that Bernard marched past her and closed the door.
None too quietly, either.
“Bernard!”
“Why?” he asked, no preamble required as he whirled around and stared in utter confusion. “Why did you do it?”
“I… I…” Lucy was blinking with just as much evident confusion as Bernard felt. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” he hissed, walking back to her and hoping to goodness that Cawthorne wasn’t going to return soon with a maid with a mop and disturb them. “Lucy, you could have least warned me ahead of time!”
“I… I didn’t know ahead of time,” she said blankly, a nervous smile gracing her lips. “It just sort of came over me, and before I knew it, the words were pouring from my mouth. Isn’t that strange?”
“‘Strange’?” Bernard bit back the other long list of descriptors which came to mind as heat burned through him.
Strange. Illogical. Irrational.
Dangerous.
What had those Frenchmen been doing here? Had they been looking for Hovell—how had they known he was connected to the man?
What else might they do to those who he cared about in order to get to Hovell?
Bernard tried to take a long, slow breath, but his inhale was caught short as a myriad of panicked thoughts roared through his brain.
The earl’s face, the horror, the way he had reacted so violently to the very thought of Bernard marrying his daughter…but then, they thought he was a criminal, didn’t they? No wonder they were against it.
And Lucy—Lucy announced our engagement.
Bernard tugged a hand through his hair. He had not been gone from polite Society long enough to forget precisely what that meant.
He would marry her.
He would have to. The idea of breaking an engagement, as if a man were allowed to—but it wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry her, it was that he couldn’t! Not anytime soon. Not until he located Hovell and made sure she’d be safe.
And finally, Bernard was able to put words around the frantic thoughts in his mind, words he spoke while looking carefully into Lucy’s eyes and hoping to God she would understand. “Lucy, you’ve put yourself in danger.”
Lucy blinked. “‘Danger’?”
“Lucy, while I am a spy, anyone connected with me—why do you think I didn’t see my father all those final years of his life? Why do you think I’ve been living under this name?”
“‘This name’?” Lucy’s brow furrowed as she stepped closer to him. “What do you mean, ‘under this name’?”
Bernard cursed silently and turned away from the woman he loved who had become the world’s best distraction.
Yes, that was what had happened, wasn’t it? All this time, he should have been hunting down Hovell, understanding why the Frenchmen had wanted both of them, doing his job.
And instead, he’d been gallivanting about town, attending balls, being ‘reformed’…and falling in love with a woman who had no idea of the dangers. The dangers they were now both in.
Blast it all to hell.
“If we love each other…” Lucy said quietly, reaching out for his hand.
Bernard pulled it away almost without thought. He couldn’t touch her now; he’d lose all self-control and the conversation would end with them kissing passionately in the hallway.
Probably not what the Earl of Lindow wanted to find when he left his drawing room.
All too late, Bernard remembered Lucy was not a mind reader and so had only seen him pull away from her. He looked up and saw the pain, the confusion of his rejection, and swore under his breath.
“Why not tell people?” asked Lucy, sticking out her chin and staring with the very same defiance with which she had confronted Judge Bonner. “Why not share the fact that we love each other? It is hardly a crime!”
“It is not about whether we tell people or not. Of course I was going to tell your family,” Bernard said hurriedly.
Lucy raised both eyebrows. “Eventually, you mean.”
“Well, of course eventually!” Bernard tried to calm himself, tried to remind himself to inhale, but too many frantic thoughts were thundering through him and he could not parse a single one of them save for a memory.
A memory of something that had so recently been spoken.
“You can’t marry her. I won’t let you!”
“It’s…” Bernard swallowed. “Oh, Lucy.”
He couldn’t help himself; he couldn’t stay away from her a moment longer. Stepping toward her and taking both hands in his own, he resisted the urge to kiss her.
Lucy did not have such powers of resistance. She lifted up her lips and Bernard could not help but meet them, worshipping her with his mouth, trying to show him through the kiss that he was not angry with her, not upset with her, just overwhelmed and unsure and confused.
When the kiss ended, it was all Bernard could do not to rush to the front door, hail a hansom cab, and ride all the way to Gretna Green. They were certainly not getting a special license for a hastened marriage here. One had to be on a nobleman’s good side for that.
But eloping would be the cowardly way out, and he was not a coward.
He would have to face this.
“Lucy,” Bernard said quietly, pressing his forehead to hers.
She smiled, her breathing shallow after such a passionate kiss. “Bernard.”
He sighed slowly, and the concern he had rose up before he could stop it. “You should have talked to me about this first.”
Suddenly, she was gone. Lucy had withdrawn, taking with her the presence that calmed him and the hands that kept him steady. When Bernard blinked, dazed by the sudden absence of the woman he loved, it was to see Lucy glaring at him.
Glaring at me?
“Why?” she said smartly. “Why do I have to gain your approval—your permission!—to tell my own family that we love each other and will be married?”
Firstly, Bernard could not help but think even as he wished she would keep her voice down, because I have not actually asked you to marry me.
Obviously, he would. He just hadn’t, not yet. It was galling to have the moment stolen from under one.
“It’s not about approval, or permission, it’s—it’s deciding to do things together, rather than one of us just going off and deciding for both of us!” Bernard tried to explain without allowing his temper to rise. “It’s about telling people at the right time!”
He had expected that statement to calm her, but somehow, it only seemed to make her more upset.
“Oh, so I suppose you never actually intended to tell anyone?!”
“Lucy,” Bernard said tightly, “you’re being ridiculous.”
Which was also the wrong thing to say.
“I am not being ridiculous,” snapped the woman he loved, glaring as though he had done someone, probably her, a real wrong. “What sort of person doesn’t want to share the fact that they love someone?!”
“I’m not saying it was going to be a secret forever. I’m saying that now probably wasn’t the best time!”
Honestly, could she not see? How was it possible that a woman as bright and as brilliant as Lucy could not understand?
“It’s like you’re ashamed of me—”
“Now, hang on, that’s utter tripe and you know it,” Bernard said firmly as he stepped forward, his need to be close to her overwhelming his need to be calm.
Lucy pushed aside his outreached hands. “Then why?”
He bit his lip as Bernard looked down into the eyes of a woman who had clearly been hurt and yet could not—seemingly would not—comprehend that rushing in and just doing what she liked wasn’t always the best way.
Hell, sometimes it was the only way. He’d had to learn that, that time in Kent when he—
Needless to say, sometimes rushing in was the only way to save your skin.
But not like this. Not for something as important as this.
“Lucy,” Bernard said quietly, hating the unshed tears sparkling in her eyes.
“Lucy, it’s… Timing is important. There’s the matter of the danger—I must make sure you won’t face any because of the work I’ve done in the past. And I did not tell you I wasn’t a criminal until I realized you loved me, did I?
Your love came first, and the truth followed.
I… Well, honestly I had expected to do the same here.
Our love can grow and then, when the time is right… we tell people.”
It had not been the most impressive speech of his life, and even Bernard could admit—though only in the privacy of his own mind—that there were certain holes in his argument.
But it was not a rational debate that Lucy launched into, dissecting his line of reasoning and pointing out all its inadequacies. All his inadequacies.
No, something quite different occurred. Lucy stepped back from him, a stagger, not a step, and was looking at him like—like she did not even know him.
“Lucy?” Bernard said, utterly confused at why she was staring like his hair had suddenly changed color. “What’s wrong?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.