“Well, that’s true,” Lucy said, a little flustered.“But she shouldn’t have had to find out that way—and it was certainly no one else’s business!To have her most private affairs splashed across the Ton, page after page of gleefully vicious commentary and grossly insulting cartoon drawings—and for what?Because Thornecliff thought it all a good joke?Would you have laughed, if you’d been in London to see it?”
Fitz winced.“I hope not.Gemma was a friend of ours—I hate to think of Thorne being so careless with her feelings, and with her reputation…but I can well believe it.He can be callous.”
“Heartless, I would say.”Lucy felt a bit better.“And now he expects us all to forget what he’s done and be friends!”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t advise you to forget.”Fitz shook his head, looking troubled.“Thorne’s waters run deep, as I said, and there be dragons, if you catch my meaning.He has behaved abominably, and he will likely behave abominably again.He’s not a tame animal, Lucy.You’d do well to remember that, even if I hope you will also consider that he may be trying to do better.To be better.”
“You’re a more forgiving friend than he deserves,” Lucy told Fitz.“And more optimistic about human nature than I think I can be, at least in this instance.”
“I tend to hope for the best.Which I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to apologize for, as though it’s a failing, or a foolish way to be?But I’ve never known anyone to benefit from hoping for the worst.”
“You are a philosopher, Fitz,” Lucy said with an unwilling smile.“But that doesn’t mean you’re right about Thornecliff.”
“Well, as my perfect, exquisite, clever wife would say, I’m only observing the data and drawing conclusions.”Fitz grinned, lifting his chin to indicate the others.“This is not the same Thorne I left behind all those years ago.A new variable has been introduced.”
Lucy followed his gaze across the blanket to where Kitty had fallen asleep with her head on Thornecliff’s shoulder.His large, bare hand was splayed across her back, holding her gently in place, and as Lucy’s heart stuttered in her chest, he glanced up and locked eyes with her.
Something sizzled down Lucy’s spine, a shock of awareness she didn’t want, but couldn’t deny.
“I wonder,” Fitz mused in her ear.“What could that new variable be?”
* * *
Lucy had barely been able to look at Thornecliff for the rest of the picnic.She was afraid she must have seemed terribly sullen and out of sorts—Bess said as much, and Nathaniel silently gave the same impression—but the truth was, Lucy was shaken.
When Thorne first declared his intention to seduce her, in that careless, cocksure way of his, she had scoffed.
She’d been annoyed at his arrogance, his surety that Lucy would be as susceptible to his so-called charms as every other woman in London—but she hadn’t hesitated to accept his invitation to accompany him to Sharpe’s because she hadn’t thought herself in any real danger.
Lucy had to admit, if only to herself, that she had been as arrogant as he when she assumed she could never be tempted by the Duke of Thornecliff.
That had been pure folly, for Thornecliff had learned the art of temptation at the Devil’s knee.And he was clever, so much cleverer than Lucy had wanted to believe, because he wasn’t plying her with empty kisses and illicit touches, flirtatious nonsense and pretty compliments.
He seemed intent on plying her with glimpses of his true self instead.
And to her everlasting dismay, Lucy was finding that much more difficult to withstand.
“If I had any sense,” she said, staring at herself in the mirror as Molly stood behind her, arranging her hair, “I would turn him away tonight and refuse to ever speak to him again.”
“But you’re not going to.”Molly’s voice was free of judgment, but Lucy felt defensive all the same.
“I promised The Gentle Rogue I would give Thornecliff the benefit of the doubt.And the place he’s taking me tonight is somewhere I could potentially find a clue as to the Rogue’s identity!I’d never be admitted there without Thornecliff.Really, I don’t have a choice.I have to go.”
“Sounds to me as if you want to go and are looking for a reason,” Molly observed, finishing Lucy’s coiffure by tucking a pearl and sapphire comb into the coils of glossy dark brown hair piled atop her head.
“Molly!I never!”Lucy cried, then bit her lip.“All right, yes, protesting too much.I heard it as I said it.But?—”
“But me no buts, my lady,” Molly said firmly, going to the armoire to pull out Lucy’s evening wrap, a large ivory cashmere shawl with a broad border embroidered in blue and green silk.“I don’t care what you have to tell yourself about why you’re going to that gaming hell tonight, so long as you go.You were invited by a duke!Catch yourself a nice duke and leave the highwaymen alone, I say.”
“Molly, for a woman who is in love herself, you are terribly cold-blooded about the affairs ofmyheart.”
“One of us has to be.And my Charlie is a man with prospects, if Mr.Goring would only retire!Better than some masked scoundrel.”Stepping back, the maid surveyed Lucy critically from the comb in her hair to the tips of her cream-colored slippers peeking out from beneath the hem of her peacock satin skirts.“There, you look a picture!If I do say so myself.”
A discreet knock at the door had Lucy’s heart racing.
“He’s here!”Lucy leapt for the door handle and darted out into the hallway, excitement shivering along her nerves.She hurried down the stairs, Molly following at a more sedate pace, and waited impatiently for Mr.Goring to stand aside and reveal Thornecliff.
He stood framed in the open doorway of Ashbourn House as though he was posing for a ducal portrait.
