“I ought to return to my chamber,” she protested sleepily. But her body was humming with sensation, and the muscled warmth of him at her back proved too tempting a lure.
“Hush,” he commanded, his arm going over her waist, as if that was where it belonged. “Stay with me for a time.”
She was tired, so tired her bones melted, her body sated in the most glorious fashion possible. And nothing could rival the feeling of Lucien’s big body wrapped around hers, his heart beating against her shoulder.
“Only for a bit,” she acquiesced, on a sigh of pure contentment.
“For as long as you like.”
She felt his lips upon the crown of her head, a simple kiss that landed somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. She allowed the false joy to remain, even though she knew this was a fleeting happiness, that they came from opposite worlds, and all too soon, she would return to hers. Or to her next adventure. Whichever felt right. Whichever came first; the need for duty, or the need to wander. She had devoted herself to both in her life.
She would miss him, Hazel thought, when she left, and this realization, more than any other that evening, was a revelation. Hazel snuggled more firmly against him, taking what comfort she could get from him while it lasted.
Lucien awoke, burningwith an absurd desire which refused to be ignored, along with an inevitable sense of realization. A realization something had changed inside him. Perhaps it had been gradually altering over the course of weeks. Perhaps it had been sudden, spurred by his weakness last night. He did not know.
It was a new sort of desire. Not one of the flesh. It nattered at him as he rose from bed. It battered down his defenses as he rang for his valet to help him prepare for the day. No matter how hard he tried, the desire would not dissipate. If anything, it gained strength and insistence, prodding at him, until he acknowledged it with a sigh as he tightened the belt of his dressing gown with an irritable yank.
He wanted to make Hazel happy.
There it was; that foreign, undeniable sensation, rising up within him. For the first time, he wanted more from a woman than the slaking of his bodily needs. He did not just want a bed partner. He wanted to make her feel protected and wanted and cherished.
He could do none of those things now as the sun rose over London. She was long gone, of course, having once more slipped from his arms and from his bed in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen. He had watched her in the moonlit shadows as she donned her robe and belted it firmly at the waist. Her pale curves were glorious, even in the darkness.
But it had not been her luscious feminine form which had stirred him the most. Rather, it had been the way she had quietly padded to his side of the bed and bent down to press a kiss to the top of his head. He had closed his eyes and feigned sleep for her approach, keeping his breathing even and rhythmic.
A simple gesture, a mimicry perhaps, of the kiss he had bestowed upon her before they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. But it had crept inside him, that kiss. She had lingered for a moment before leaving the chamber, and even then, not without kicking a chest of drawers and cursing beneath her breath, which was altogether Hazel, and somehow, also altogether endearing.
For a long time, he had lain awake after she had gone, staring blankly at the ceiling, her final, gentle kiss haunting him. She had kissed him as if he mattered to her. As if she cared. And it did not stop haunting him now, as his valet appeared and went through the motions of preparing him for the day. Fresh shirt, waistcoat, and neck cloth laid out, new trousers, and a shave.
Through his daily ritual, he ruminated in silence, wondering what this newfound desire to make Hazel happy meant. He had been accustomed to looking after himself and Violet. Was it the notion of potentially fathering a child, after all the efforts he had made to avoid doing so all these years, that had affected his wits? Or was it Hazel’s unprecedented reaction to his proposal?
She had denied him.Christ, she had dared to laugh first. He ought to have been infuriated. Insulted. After all, they were as disparate as she suggested on the surface. She was an American; he was an Englishman. She had been raised in an orphanage, and he had been born the son of a duke. His wealth derived from the Dukes of Arden who preceded him. Hers was earned.
As she had pointed out, she was no debutante. She swore when she thought no one else could hear her. He had no doubt she could not play an instrument or sing, that she had never dabbled in watercolors or needlework, or any of the other feminine arts. Undoubtedly, she would not even know the proper manner in which one poured tea. She shook hands, she wore trousers, and she fell into her seat as if she were a sack of flour.
There was no reason why he ought to suddenly be seized by the urge to buy her flowers as if he were a suitor. Or to make her laugh. To make her smile. To watch her bright eyes light with inner joy.
And there was damn well no reason at all why he ought to feel disappointed she had turned him down. Why he ought to sit as his valet neatly shaved his jaw in swift, efficient strokes, and think about ways he could change her mind. He had vowed to never marry. The title could pass on to a distant cousin. The tainted bloodline would stop with him.
Yet, in the wake of his lapse of caution last night, the notion of siring a child had seemed real to him for the first time. Not just real, it had seemedpossible. And as he had pressed his palm over the softness of Hazel’s bare belly, envisioning it swelling with his child, he had been attacked by a vicious surge of longing, accompanying the familiar dread. The two opposing emotions had blended into a confused tangle he was still attempting to sort out by the light of day.
“Dobbins?” he said into the silence, as his valet finished the shave.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Why did you marry Mrs. Dobbins?” he asked.
Ordinarily, he preferred to keep to himself and did not attend to the matters of his domestics. He usually kept busy attempting to manage his investigations for the Home Office and the Special League. But his manservant was enough a part of his daily routine, and he knew Dobbins had gotten married in the last few years.
If his valet thought it strange Lucien had chosen to discuss his personal life with him, he did not allow it to show. His expression remained implacable as he restored the razor to its case. “I married her because I love her, Your Grace. I determined I wished to spend the rest of my life with her, to have children.”
A normal response, Lucien supposed. Expected. In Lucien’s world, most peers married to either preserve or restore fortunes and old familial dynasties. Ladies married to save their fathers and brothers the burden of supporting them. Romantic love was often an afterthought, if one even believed it existed. Which Lucien did not. He loved his sister and Aunt Hortense, but that was different.
“You believe in romantic love, Dobbins?” he queried next, striving to keep his voice even, perhaps a touch disinterested.
The servant looked surprised for an instant, before he schooled his expression. “Of course I do, Your Grace.”
“Hmm,” he said noncommittally, as he shrugged into his shirt. He was not certain how to answer a man who seemed to believe love was as real as the sky overhead. “What would you have done if Mrs. Dobbins had refused to wed you?”
