Читать книгу Pride & Passion - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 7

“MY DEAR, YOU have been looking forlornly out that window for half an hour now. Why do you not go and call on Lady Black?”

Lucy tucked the bit of lace she held in her hand between the voluminous folds of her rose-colored silk and velvet skirts, as she gazed over her shoulder at her father. It was early November, and the day was gray with drizzle that promised to turn to sleet. She pulled the fur shawl a little tighter about her shoulders. The fire that had been laid was crackling, the amber flames flickering with warmth, filling the room with the comfort that only a roaring fire in late autumn could bring. But still Lucy was cold. She had been for months. Nothing seemed to warm her.

“It is early yet, Papa,” she answered. “Too early for calls.”

“Nonsense, the new Lady Black is your cousin—I daresay almost your sister. It’s never too early to call on family. Besides, I’ll be leaving now for my club, and I would like to know that you’re not at home, hanging about at loose ends.”

A wry smile escaped her as she cast her gaze once more out the window, to the mammoth black iron gates that stood across the street. How strange it was, that after all these years—decades, actually—her father cared about what she might—or might not—be doing. Her loneliness, and it had been substantial, had never mattered to him before.

The Marquis of Stonebrook was neither a heartless nor an intentionally cruel man. Lucy could not say that about her father. Only that he wasn’t mindful of others and their needs. He was emotionally absent—not mean or quarrelsome. Just … absent. There was no other word for what her father, and her mother, had been. Although, perhaps uninterested might be a close second. The long-held adage of “seen and not heard” did not pertain to her upbringing. For her parents had seen very little of her, and heard her? Not at all.

Her parents had been more concerned with their own lives than that of their child. She had been of little consequence to them, bringing to them little enjoyment. Her conception had been an obligation to further the title, and when she had turned out to be a girl, and no other children followed her, her parents had resigned themselves to the fact that their legacy would live on through the husband they would choose for her.

And Lucy knew without a doubt who her father wanted her to take for a husband. The passionless and priggish Duke of Sussex.

The duke was a sedate, dull and frightfully proper man—nothing like the man she dreamt of when she imagined a husband. Nothing like those dreams she had entertained when she was younger, when the butcher’s boy would come round with his master and keep her company in the kitchen while the butcher haggled with Mrs. Brown, their old housekeeper. Those had been silly, girlish fantasies of what it might be like to follow one’s heart and dreams; those fantasies had swiftly been dashed by her father, and she soon learned what being a marriageable woman in her world truly meant.

And such was the essence of her life. Until eight months ago when she had taken her future into her own hands, seeking out what she felt her life lacked in the arms of an artist. The warmth and acceptance she had found with him would not exist with the duke. Their union would be an alliance, not a relationship.

“Come, my dear, I’ve been watching you for a while now, sitting on that window box, lost in thought. Surely whatever it is you’re hiding there beneath your skirts isn’t so serious for one as young as you?”

A bit of Brussels lace, that’s what she had buried beneath the folds of her skirts. It was embroidered with her initials, and given to her lover on the night she had offered herself to him. And then he had died. Or at least, she had believed he’d died in the fire that had consumed his rented rooms.

She had grieved, wept and despaired over never feeling alive again, until a fortnight ago, when the lace had been resurrected and delivered to her hand. That it had been his grace, the Duke of Sussex, who had delivered the handkerchief to her never ceased to perturb her. Why he had been the one to return it to her was still something she mulled over during the long, lonely nights spent alone in her father’s town house. She did not care for the notion that Sussex knew of her dalliance with another man. She didn’t care what he thought of her, or what he made of the handkerchief—or if he thought her fast and immoral, and so far beneath him for indulging in base pleasures.

It did not matter what his grace made of it all, for Lucy cared about only one thing: Thomas was alive, she was sure of it. He had made her promises. He’d spoken to her of their future together. She had believed that future burned to ashes in the fire, but the lace that she rubbed between her fingers told her that everything she believed was about to change.

“You’re frowning. Your mama always said it would give you creases about your eyes.”

Lucy found herself smiling. “Yes, she did say that. But I haven’t gotten the wrinkles yet.”

It was her father’s turn to frown. “Dare I hope the reason for your deep rumination might be the subject of marriage, especially after you have witnessed the marital felicity between your cousin and her new husband?”

“I am afraid not, Papa.”

“I thought not, but one can hope, and I haven’t given up yet.”

Her father would never give up. It was his desire to see her wed to the duke, and nothing less would do.

“And that is all that you intend to say on the matter, is it? Well, then I shall let it rest for now. Come then, Lucy, I must be off. I shall escort you across the street.”

“Really, Papa, there is no need for concern. I am quite all right at home.”

“Alone?” he guffawed. “Absolutely not, you’re still recovering from your illness.”

There was no fighting him on this. A fortnight ago she had been gravely ill—her own stupidity, which she refused to think on—and ever since, her father made certain that she was never left alone, although it was not him who was a constant presence, but Isabella, whose task it now seemed was to hover about and mind Lucy’s activities.

Lucy thought back to those months ago, when, in an attempt to appease the loneliness left behind by the imagined loss of her lover, she had turned down many a dark and dangerous path, one of séances and scribing, and bargaining in her dreams if only she could find her lover once again. There had been that awful sense of incompleteness, having never had a chance to say goodbye. To see him one last time before he faded forever onto the other side, where breathing mortals could not follow.

Dabbling in the occult had been a way of idling her time away—and perhaps a somewhat foolish and desperate measure to find him in the ethers of the spiritual realm—it was then that she had come across the mysterious Brethren Guardians and their sacred relics—a relic she had stolen and used for her own purposes. The result had been disastrous, and nearly deadly.

It had terrified her father, and now he was hovering about, foisting her onto her cousin, and generally distrusting her, treating her like a child.

“Come, Lucy. I insist,” her father muttered in that voice that would brook no refusal. “There is no moving me on this. You will join Lady Black today and attend to those things that ladies do during morning calls.”

“I will just change,” Lucy sighed, quite resigned in the matter.

“Balderdash! You are quite appropriately attired. There is no need to waste time on changing your wardrobe.”

Her father wouldn’t hear of it. He was in something of a hurry to get to his club, and therefore, she was escorted out of the salon, and into the hall, where Jennings, their butler, assisted her with her cloak and umbrella.

“Damn this weather,” her father grumbled as he reached for her elbow and ushered her down the stone steps to the waiting carriage. “We’ll drive across the street, for there is no telling how long it will take Black’s footman to open the gates. I have no desire to wait in the rain for the gates to open. Don’t know why he needs them, anyway.” Because he was a Brethren Guardian. But she couldn’t very well inform her father of such a fact. She herself should know nothing of it. Lucy barely understood this strange Brethren that Sussex and Lord Black belonged to, but it didn’t matter. During her study of the occult, she had stumbled across it, discovering not only who the Brethren were, but the relics they kept hidden. She had sworn an oath of silence, promising never to speak of their little group to anyone. And in return, her own shocking secret would be kept from her father, and the microcosm that was their world—the ton.

She knew only bits and pieces of the Brethren Guardians’ secrets; it was an esoteric society made up of three influential peers: Black, Sussex and the Marquis of Alynwick.

Their business was mysterious and secretive, and dangerous. From what she knew of their secrets, there existed an onyx pendant, which was the very essence of evil, and some sort of chalice that they protected. But what they represented, she could not say, and could not find out.

Black, who had recently become the husband of Isabella, Lucy’s cousin, had been shot a fortnight ago during what was termed Guardian business. Well on the mend, Black pretended that naught had happened, and Isabella, a true and honorable wife, would not speak of it. Lucy had tried, but Isabella had remained stubbornly tight-lipped. And the pendant … it had belonged to Black and his family, and purportedly contained seeds with magical powers. Lucy had taken it, ingested a seed inside the pendant and wished with everything inside her in the hopes she might once more see her lover and say her tearful goodbyes.

Of course, the rash action had caused her days of vomiting, and a strange feeling of possession, not to mention the fact that her actions had both alarmed and angered not only Black but Sussex. But in the end, her goal had been achieved. Thomas was alive …

And the Brethren Guardians were not only looking for him, but watching her as well to see if Thomas would come to her. When Sussex had delivered the lace to her he had also informed her that the man who had dropped it was a man he and the Brethren were hunting. He was their enemy, Sussex had claimed, and that man, Lucy knew, was Thomas. Her lover from the past. And Lucy knew with every cell of her being that she must protect him from the duke and his two fellow Guardians, for they were powerful and influential men, while her lover was an artist, without influence of a title or the power that both peerage and money could wield.

Yes, those iron gates that surrounded his lordship’s home, standing sentry like a castle drawbridge against marauding knights, was a security measure—one Black would never abolish.

Her father cleared his throat several times, while glancing sidelong at her, all indications that something was weighing on him, something he felt compelled to speak of. “I’m afraid I cannot allow our previous conservation to lay fallow. I must speak plainly, Lucy. I’ve noticed, my dear, that Sussex hasn’t been by for some time. Two weeks, at least, I believe.”

Lucy refused to take her gaze from the rain-streaked carriage window. She would not talk of his grace, and she would not have this conversation with her father.

“I hope you have not had a falling-out.”

“I wasn’t aware that we had a falling-in.”

That quip made her father glare at her. “You don’t make it easy on the poor fellow. You hold him at arm’s length. He’s trying to court you, but you’re too obstinate to see it.”

“I am well aware of the fact, Father. You have made it too blatant for me to misunderstand. You wish me to marry the duke.”

“You say it with such disdain, as though he were a common laborer, when he is the furthest thing from it.”

She thought back to her young friend Gabriel, the butcher’s boy, and realized that they had shared something remarkable—the same sadness, the same loneliness, despite their stations being so opposite. “I am not at all opposed to a common man, if he were to feel a genuine sense of affection for me.”

“Affection!” Her father’s thick mutton chops twitched in irritation. “Good God, child, are we back to that? Those fairy-tale thoughts were amusing when you were twelve, now they are downright mortifying. Marriage is an institution—”

“Rather like one of those asylums for lunatics,” she mumbled, unable to help herself. She didn’t want an institution. She wanted a marriage. A friendship. A loving partner.

Her father sighed deeply, but did not bother to address her thoughts and instead began to talk to her as he had so many years ago, as she lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow after he had turned away the only friend she had ever had—Gabriel. Depriving her of that friendship had destroyed her, frozen part of her heart and soul. How wretched her father had been—how horrid it was to see her friend leave, and never, ever return. Internally she had railed against the injustice of it all, but she had been powerless then to take charge of her life, and her future. And now, here she was years later, still just as powerless, still enduring the same lectures on duty and the responsibilities of a female of her class.

“Now, Lucy, must I remind you that every station in life has its obligations, and the daughter of a marquis’s obligation is to marry well, furthering their nobility, and riches. You were put on this earth, girl, to marry a duke.”

How many times had she heard that particular lecture? Her entire existence in the world was based on matrimony and breeding. A harrowing thought, one that made her feel pity for all the other unborn daughters of the peerage.

“You won’t find a better man than Sussex. His reputation is impeccable. His bloodlines impeccable. He is well-respected, connected, titled and as rich as Croesus—”

“And as cold as the Arctic.”

“The man is conscious of propriety is all. As all gentlemen should be,” he reminded her.

“He only looks at me to pick me apart and draw attention to my flaws.”

“The man is a paragon, he can’t help it.”

“No, he cannot, but I don’t have to marry him. After all, I would not suit his ideas of an ideal wife.”

“Of course you would. You come with an enormous dowry, from a long and noble title. Your son will inherit not only a dukedom, but my title as well. Not to mention the fact you are a very lovely young woman. What more can a man want in the way of a recommendation for marriage?”

Finally she forced herself to meet her father’s eye. “Is there anything other than commodities to recommend our union, Papa?”

Stonebrook flustered and gripped the head of his walking stick with his gloved hand. “Come now, it’s time you gave a serious thought to marriage, Lucy. I won’t live forever, you know, and I would like to meet my maker knowing you’ve been set up in a proper home.”

“With someone to love me? Someone who will give me solace when you are gone?” she asked quietly, which made her father grumble and shift his weight on the seat.

“With someone who will keep you safe and fed, and well in hand,” he growled.

Of course. Well in hand. Someone to control her, to make her live in the confines of polite society, just like her parents had done all her life—like her father continued to do. To Stonebrook Sussex was the ideal candidate for her husband. It didn’t matter that they had not a flicker of attraction, or affection for one another. Why, Lucy still recalled the night Sussex had informed her of the fact that once they were married, there would be no more séances or anything of the like. Then he had kissed her, and she had felt nothing but his firm lips pinched into a straight line as they mashed up against hers. It had not been the stuff of dreams. In fact, his grace had been stiff and rigid as he held her, leading Lucy to believe that he had felt the same thing she had—distaste.

“I’ll have Sussex and his sister to dinner, and you shall see, my dear. His grace will make you a fine husband.”

“And am I to have any say?” she asked.

“No,” her father answered, “after that debacle two weeks ago we cannot trust your judgment. You will marry Sussex just as I wish. And you’ll be happy. You’ll see, my dear. Ah, here we are,” her father said with a great air of relief. “I see the footman is already opening the gates. Good,” her father muttered as he pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat and flipped the lid open with his thumb.

“Father, we are not done with this conversation, and I am perfectly capable of walking up the drive,” she said, annoyed by the fact her father kept glancing at his watch.

“Nonsense. Won’t be but a minute and I’ll be on my way.”

“I am not a child,” she mumbled as she watched the rivers of drizzle snake down the carriage window. From the corner of her eye, she saw her father turn his head. He was watching her from beneath his bushy white brows, and the thick mutton chops he was so fond of twitched with aggravation. While watching her, his lips thinned, and she could almost hear his thoughts. Yes, you are, or you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into trouble a fortnight ago.

Trouble, Lucy mentally snorted, wasn’t the beginning of what she’d gotten herself into. She’d been impulsive and headstrong, and yes … childish.

“My dear, I worry for your health is all,” Stonebrook said as the horses pulled the carriage up the sloped drive of Black’s town house. “You’ve not been yourself for months now, and while I know you would wish to have your mama here for these sorts of discussions, surely you must know that Lady Black would listen and help you with anything that might be troubling you. If it is Sussex, then may I suggest you talk with your cousin about it? Isabella will affirm what I’ve always believed, that you and the duke will get on well.”

Lucy hid her grimace. Her father had no idea what had happened all those months ago with Thomas, and she prayed he never would. He would never understand, never credit the notion of love and unbridled passions. That he was fobbing her off onto Isabella was very typical of the sort of parent he had always been.

“Ah, look, there she is now, waiting for us.”

Sitting forward, she saw Isabella standing just inside the covered alcove of her new home. She was looking radiant, and carried the expression of a woman well-loved—and loved passionately. A bitter tang of envy resonated through Lucy’s soul. She wanted the very same thing. And she would have it.

“Uncle. Lucy,” Isabella called as the footman opened door. “Come in.”

“I daresay I cannot, Lady Black,” her father returned as he ushered Lucy through the door, and out into the chilly drizzle. “But Lady Lucy is more than eager to take up your generous offer.”

Seconds later, Lucy found herself ushered up the steps, and into the warm entrance hall. Billings, the butler, was taking her bonnet and cloak, and Isabella was tugging her along, into the private salon she used to entertain Elizabeth and herself.

“When was it arranged that you would child-mind me for the day?”

Isabella’s lovely eyes widened with feigned shock. “Oh, Lucy, how can you say that?”

“Very easily, you’ve been my companion—I daresay my governess—for the past two weeks. And no doubt my father’s coconspirator in arranging my marriage to the Duke of Sussex.”

Flopping down onto the settee, Isabella began toying with the thick fringe of tassels that decorated a pillow. “Your father wants only the very best for you, and after you … well, after you were poisoned he became consumed with worry. He knows something is wrong, Lucy.”

“I don’t know how. He’s never home, and when he is, he spends hardly any time engaged in conversation. He’s perpetually buried in his study.”

“Do not be cross with his lordship, Lucy, for he is not the only one who is worried about you. I am, as well.”

Isabella reached for her hand; her smile was kind and filled with sympathy and it made Lucy want to run away and hide. She didn’t want to be pitied. “Is there anything I might do for you, Lucy?”

“Well, you might start talking some sense into my father.”

“About?”

“His dimwitted idea to thrust me onto Sussex as his duchess.”

“Dimwitted? I think it brilliant.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were the one that was being forced to marry him.”

Isabella glanced at her slyly. “The duke is very handsome, I dare say.”

Lucy glowered. “Handsome is only enticing when you are eighteen and a naive ninny.” Or twelve, and experiencing the pleasures of your first crush, and yes, absolute adoration if she must be honest with herself. She’d never forgotten Gabriel, and the sad, haunted look in his lovely gray eyes that were always a little too sunken from hunger.

“Lucy, handsome is an attribute appealing to any female, of any age.”

“I am afraid my requirements in a husband are rather more lengthy than just being handsome.”

“But you do agree he is handsome?”

“Among other things,” she muttered.

“Like?”

“Boring, staid, proper, passionless—”

Laughing Isabella held up her hand in defeat. “Lucy, you are unfair! How can you surmise the duke passionless? You aren’t even betrothed—well, not formally—ergo you cannot reasonably believe Sussex devoid of … well, the more amorous emotions.”

“Oh, and the lack of a formal betrothal stopped Black from acquainting you with his ‘amorous emotions’?”

“That’s different,” Issy sniffed. “And you know it.”

“No, Issy. That is touché.”

“We are not talking about myself and Black. We are talking about you.”

“Well, then, allow me to inform you of what I desire. I know that I want a man like Black, who looks at me with blistering heat, as your husband does you. I know I want a marriage based on love and trust, and a deep, abiding passion. Like yours. Would you so willingly deprive me of it, Issy, after tasting such bliss for yourself?”

Lowering her head, Lucy watched her cousin nibble her bottom lip. When she looked up, Issy’s eyes were bright. “I would never deny a woman what I have—it is what every young girl, young woman and spinster dreams of—and deserves. But,” Issy cautioned, “I cannot deny that I sense a very good match with Sussex. If you would but give it a chance,” Isabella said, raising her voice to be heard over Lucy’s grumbling.

“Are we finished with this discourse?” Lucy inquired. “I have already spent the better part of the morning with Father on this very topic. I am quite worn down by it, and any more time spent dwelling upon it shall put me in a mood most foul!”

“Very well. Our discourse on Sussex and his merits as a husband is tabled—for now.”

Lucy curtsied mockingly. “Why thank you, your ladyship. I am so grateful for the reprieve.”

“It will be short-lived, you know. Since having Black, I have become a shameless matchmaker, nearly rabid in my need to see all my loved ones as happy as I am.”

Lucy felt at once happy and envious for her cousin’s obvious adoration of her husband. An adoration that was all the more envious by the knowledge that her husband reciprocated Isabella’s feelings.

“Well, we were cooped up in here all day yesterday. I cannot stomach another day of listening to rain pattering against windowpanes. What shall we do?”

Isabella brightened, although Lucy saw the hesitation in her eyes. Her cousin wasn’t fooled but she was prepared to let it go—for now. “I had Billings send a missive to Elizabeth. We’re going to Sussex House for lunch—and gossip.”

Sussex House. The duke’s town house. The very place she did not wish to go. But then, she did wish to see Elizabeth again. The drizzle had turned to rain, which in fact sounded very much like icy pellets tinkling against the windows. The sound would drive her to bedlam, and the dreariness of the day would send her into even deeper melancholy. She did not want to be a morose little waif, taking to her bed consumed with grief and sadness. She wanted to be strong and tall, someone Thomas would come back to. Something different. She so desperately wanted to be rid of her old life, and become something—someone—else. A butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.

“What do you think, Luce?”

Standing, Lucy smiled—a genuine one. “I think it a sound plan. Lunch with Elizabeth is just the thing to bring some sunlight to this horribly dreary day. Besides, you will never believe the juicy tidbits I garnered at the Moorelands’ soiree last night. Positively shocking, and I know you will wish to hear all about it as you sip away on a hot cup of Darjeeling.”

“Oh, do tell,” Isabella said with a tiny pout. “Black hasn’t let me out of the house since our wedding. I’m in great need of a little bit of gossip.”

Lucy could well imagine what sort of activities kept the reclusive Earl of Black and his lady occupied. And while she was the tiniest bit envious that her cousin was married to a most passionate man, the feelings of happiness for Isabella far outweighed her jealousy.

One day she would have the same sort of passion.

“Well, you shall have to wait to learn of it,” she teased.

“Lucy!” Isabella chastised as she followed her out of the salon. “You cannot mean to make me wait until we reach Sussex House to hear the news! You fiend!”

“That is precisely what I mean to do! Thank you, Billings,” Lucy murmured as the butler helped her with her cloak.

“What shall I tell his lordship, your ladyship?”

Isabella slipped into a black velvet wrap, and reached for the bonnet Billings held out to her. “Tell Black that we shall be at Sussex House. We’re having lunch and indulging in gossip, Billings.”

Billings smiled ruefully before bowing. “Do enjoy, madam. Lady Lucy.”

Lucy shot Isabella a smile. Suddenly the day didn’t seem as miserable as she first thought. And maybe, during the course of lunch and gossip, she might find something useful that would aid her in finding Thomas—and keep him safe from Sussex’s hands.