“Lucy… Do you love him?”
She pulled back. Sat up straight. The question had startled them both. But really, once it was out, he realised it was the only question worth asking.
Nothing else seemed to matter as she took a torturously long moment to answer, the whole world narrowed to his heartbeat—and her.
“I… He… He is a very good man.”
She was looking at the fire again, so he couldn’t read her eyes. He studied the side of her face instead, the sweep of her lashes, the tension at the corner of her mouth, grasping at straws.
“But do you—” He cut himself off. He didn’t want to know. Suddenly he didn’t want to know.
The question was impertinent. He couldn’t believe he’d asked it. He rubbed a palm over his knee as though chasing away a wrinkle, but it was more to relieve the sticky heat. What business was it of his?
Of course she loved him. A cold sweat spiked his chest. Of course she did. It was nothing but an insult to suggest she would marry where her heart wasn’t engaged. He might as well call her a fortune hunter and be done with it.
“I’m sorry. Never mind.” He had to swallow. The words were a mass in his throat, painful as a lodged brick. “I only want you to be happy.”
When she spoke, her voice sounded strange because it was her own normal voice, level and quiet and stout. Completely at odds with the clamour in his own mind.
“And will you ever trust that I know how to make myself so?”
“I…” He let out a breath, forcing his mind to quiet. “I want you to be loved as you deserve.”
“Do you think I don’t? But a woman…a woman needs more than just love.”
“More?” He could think of something else a successful marriage might need, but that was a censored topic. “Money, I suppose? Well, of course. We all need that.”
“I mean…I mean freedom, Jack. And respect. A woman needs love that includes that. And the ability to beherself, even once married.”
“Yes…” He said slowly, trying to understand. He respected women, of course he did. It was essential in a gentleman. But so was protecting them and guiding them. Wasn’t it? Everybody said so. “A good husband would obviously respect his wife.”
“And let themwork?I want to…to create things anddothings.” If he could see her eyes, he suspected they’d be burning like the flames she stared into. “I want to be Miss Lucy Fanshaw, artist. I want to stand up and beseen.”
“But you hate attention.”
She gave him a fleeting glance, then fidgeted with her skirt, pinching the green satin into a crease and then smoothing it out. “I think I could survive the right kind of attention.”
“A famed artist? Like Thornton? Going to exhibition openings and painting portraits of the queen…? Min, Lucy…if you think George… Devil take it, I wouldn’t speak ill of him for the world, but you have to know he’s a stickler for propriety, the whole family is. He’s not the man to let you have a career.”
Her cheeks went very red, and he hoped to hell it wasn’t anger, but he had to warn her. A good friend would, wouldn’t they?
She continued pinching the satin, gathering it into a tiny fan before letting it all go and starting again.
“He will listen to me,” she said. “And that is all I ask.”
Miss Sedgewick and George appeared in the doorway. Jack straightened in his chair, guiltily conscious of their cosy tête-à-tête. And its subject. He couldn’t quite meet George’s eye. He ought to be hung.
But neither Caroline nor George looked in the least perturbed, and Caroline advanced into the room with a wide smile. “The game is lost for good. But never fear, I have a better plan for our entertainment. We shall have a dance!”
Nineteen
At the very moment Caroline suggested dancing, Lucy was wishing fervently for an end to the evening. It was all too much. The heat of the room, Jack’s presence, and the heat ofhimas he leant toward her, talking about love…
Left to her own devices, she would’ve mumbled an excuse and flown to her bed, where she could sort through all the impressions and feelings of a day that had already been a sore trial, from Jack’s uneasy congratulations of the morning, to the exhausting but rewarding visit to Somerset House—Mr Thornton had given her the studio’s address, and it had taken all her small reserve of courage to bring up the topic—and now this awkward evening and Jack’s strange mood.
But he sat upright and energetic in his chair, laughing at Caroline’s suggestion. “A capital idea. I said I’d engage you a dancing master, Lucy, and I never did. But we can teach you ourselves. George is an excellent dancer, and Miss Sedgewick more than proficient on the pianoforte.”
“And what are you contributing to the lesson?” Caroline asked.
