“It does not look pretend to me,” Charlotte said. “He continued to steal glances at you all evening long.”
Marianne bit her lip, unsure of what to say. She had noticed that Lucien was looking at her time and again, but she hadn’t wanted to make assumptions. After all, she had been placed beside Henry and was supposed to look after him. Most likely, he just wanted to assure himself that she was not making a mess of it all. However, when she related this to her sisters, they both shook their heads.
“He looks at you not the way a man looks at someone he has a business arrangement with, but the way a man looks at a woman he is madly in love with. He has been mooning over you, believe me.”
“He is trying to make it look believable that we are leg-shackled,” she replied. “And he is doing a very good job of it, given your reactions.”
“Trust me,” Evelyn said. “This was real. Thisisreal. This is not for show. Everybody could tell.”
“No,” Marianne said. “Stop saying such things. The two of us will part ways soon enough.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Charlotte said. “And the way you’re looking after Henry? You look like you’re taking to the little boy, aren’t you? You adore him, to tell the truth.”
“He’s a lovely little boy. But he, too, is part of the arrangement. I am to be a loving aunt or a friend to him, nothing more.”
“I am unsure if the boy will understand that,” Evelyn said, her tone sounding a little judgmental now. “It isn’t right to insert yourself into his life only to disappear.”
“I am not inserting myself into his life in any manner or form. Nothing beyond what his father and I agreed, and he understands very well that I’m not his mother.”
Her sisters exchanged a look, but before anything else could be said, her aunt entered the room.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur. The men eventually joined them in the drawing room, and they all played several rounds of cards together before she and Lucien departed with Henry, who had been looked after by a maid so the adults could engage in entertainment.
By the time they made it into the carriage, Henry was asleep on Lucien’s shoulder. They rode in silence for a little while, but then Lucien broke it.
“We did very well, I think. Gideon certainly believed that we were madly in love.”
She looked up. Should she tell him that her sisters had said the same? But that would make it strange, wouldn’t it? Her sisters already knew that this was all pretend. So bringing up what they had said would only make things stranger still.
“That is good,” she said. “And we shall have to pretend again at this ball. Do you suppose we will have to dance together?”
He looked at her, eyebrows drawn together. “You sound worried about dancing with me. Is it because you dislike the idea so much, or because you think I might step on your feet?”
“Neither,” she said. “But I am not a skilled dancer, so if anyone will be stepping on anyone’s feet, it shall be me on yours.”
“Well,” he said, “Henry often likes to stand on my feet, and I will dance him around the room. So do not worry. I am quite used to people stepping on my feet.”
“I dare say my feet are rather larger, and I am much heavier than Henry.”
“You think me a weakling?” he said and chuckled. “I can manage. Besides, a dance or two shall be all we shall have to do. A little conversation, a little beaming at one another, and everybody shall believe that we are quite mad about each other. And it will be good, too.”
There was something in his tone that gave her pause. “What do you mean?”
“You have not read the scandal sheets of late?”
She shook her head. “No, I do not consume such nonsense. Half the things that are written there are lies, and the other half gossip.”
“Well, there are lies about us, I will tell you that. There are doubts that our marriage is real because we have not been seen out and about together just yet. Because we did not go on a proper honeymoon.”
She groaned. “Is that so? What are they saying?”
“They are writing about your time at the convent and how odd it is that you and I should’ve married so quickly after you left there. They are wondering what the reason was, if there was some sort of impropriety. I have read rumors that I supposedly compromised you and left you in an unfortunate condition.”
This made her laugh. “An unfortunate condition? Me? They do not know me at all, do they? I have seen many a girl in an unfortunate position at the convent. I would never allow myself to be put into such a situation.”
“Good. And I assure you, I am not the sort of man who would leave a young girl in such a condition.”
His tone told her that he had somehow taken offense to her insinuating that he might, although she hadn’t meant that at all. Why did he have to be so odd at times? Sometimes he was warm and kind, and she even believed that he cared for her, and then he turned cold. If her sisters could see him now, they would not think that he was so madly in love with her.
