“What do you mean by—” He turned to face her, but when they were face-to-face, the harshness left his visage, and the softness returned. He cupped her face with his hand, and she pressed into it.
“I do not wish to discuss my former marriage anymore. It is long since passed, and it is not a topic I enjoy discussing, especially not with you. Not when we have only just come to have—” he shrugged, “an understanding?”
“Do we have an understanding?” she asked.
He smiled and raised his other hand, cupping her other cheek, so her head rested entirely between his hands.
“I dare say I think we do.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Marianne’s lips parted at once as she returned the kiss, rising up on her tiptoes to be more on the same level as him. He wrapped his arms around her back and drew her close, his kiss warm and tender. Although unlike the kiss the night before, when they had been lying in bed together, this kiss was more insistent. There was a desire in it. A want.
She drew him closer so their bodies were pressed against one another. He pushed her gently until her back was against a hedge. She felt the branches and twigs poking at her. Still, it hardly bothered her. Her focus was on him. His hands were racing up and down her back and down along her spine before coming to rest at her hip. They grew warmer and more ardent with each passing second, and she had already forgotten they were in a public place — albeit a hidden one.
But then Lucien stepped back.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I fear I have quite forgotten myself. It has been a long time since I kissed anyone in such a manner.”
“I have never kissed anyone in such a manner,” she said bluntly.
“No?” he replied, tipping his head to one side, that roguish gleam she had seen there early on in their arrangement returning.
“And have I ruined you for any other man in the future?”
“I would hope that there would be no other men in the future,” she said. “Considering we are wed and given that we have come to an understanding.”
“Yes,” he said. “Our arrangement. Which is filled with unspoken understanding. One of which I take it includes you never kissing any other men again? Is that understood?”
“It is,” she said, smiling. Although she noticed that they were talking around the issue. They hadn’t yet said out loud that they were going to be more than just an arrangement now.
“Lucien,” she said, her hands resting lightly on his hips on either side.
“Yes?”
“What is our arrangement now? What shall our future be?”
He blinked, his eyelashes fluttering.
“What do you want the future to hold? Do you want to give up on your plans for freedom and for exploring the world with your maid at your side?”
“No,” she said. “I do still want that. I want to see the world. I want to experience things. Although I had hoped that perhaps now there might be somebody else at my side alongside Juliet. I should like the three of us—you, Henry, and I—to explore the world together with Juliet as our companion as well. And perhaps your valet, and Mrs. Greaves...”
He let out a laugh. “We shall be rather a large band of travelers.”
“We shall,” she said, “but it would be wonderful. We could go to Rome and see the Colosseum, and we could go to Greece and see all the ancient temples. And we could go to the Holy Land and see the artifacts from long ago and the pyramids in Egypt.”
Lucien chuckled. “You have been reading rather a lot of books on distant shores, haven’t you?”
“I have,” Marianne replied with a smile. “Ever since you showed me the ruin and we explored together, I have thought about where I wanted to go, and my heart swells with anticipation for it. I yearn to see the world. With you and with Henry. He would like it so very much.”
“I am sure he would,” Lucien confirmed. “Perhaps we ought to do that. Travel. See the world, although I do not think that Mrs. Greaves is very seaworthy. I once took her on an afternoon boat ride down the River Thames, and she grew rather green and spent the rest of the time lying on the floor.”
“Very well, perhaps she’ll have to mind the household. Come to think of it, I do not know if Juliet is fit for sea travel. I don’t think she ever has been on any moving body of water.”
“And she may not wish to travel with me. I fear I am not in her good graces,” he said.
“That is because she does not know you.”
He tipped his head to one side. “Do you know me? I know that we have been swept up for these last few days in events that were unforeseen—between Henry’s illness, and now—” he raised his hand from her hip and swirled it in the air as if to indicate all of this, “but we do not truly know one another.”
“But we shall have our lives together to figure out who we each are.”
