While Bess rang for a footman to see Dr.Perry out, promising to send for him if there were any interesting developments in Thornecliff’s condition, Nathaniel spoke to a maid about setting up one of the guest bedchambers as a sickroom.
Lucy and Thornecliff were left alone, or near enough to it, for the first time since he’d awakened.
“You and I are engaged to be married,” he said, tone neutral.
Lucy couldn’t help stiffening, ready to be offended.Was he implying he would never have asked someone like her to marry him?“Yes.It’s rather recent, which is why my brother and sister-in-law were so surprised,” she explained stiltedly.
“I would have thought my betrothed would call me by my given name, not my title,” he mused.“Or even the nickname the duchess used.Thorne, was it?”
He was still holding her wrist, and as he spoke he absently turned her palm up and traced the lines on it with the tip of his forefinger.Lucy shivered, unwillingly aroused.
It was unfair that he did this to her so easily, she thought angrily.Her reply was perhaps unnecessarily bitter.“Only your friends call you Thorne.I never have.”
His finger paused.He looked up at her, and there was something in his face she’d never seen there before.A certain openness that startled her.“Were we not friends?Even at the start?”
Throat tight, Lucy admitted, “We began as enemies more than friends.”
“Another reason for your relatives’ startled reaction to our impending nuptials.But clearly we are no longer enemies,” he suggested, watching her carefully.Then he smiled with enough devilish charm and charisma to choke her.“I won you over.”
She swallowed another surge of anger.It simply wasn’t fair that he could still affect her.“Something like that.”
“So perhaps it might be time for you to call me Gabriel.And what do I call you?”
“Lucy,” she said, though in her mind she heard the Rogue’s rough, caressing voice calling herLively.
This was going to drive her mad.How was she meant to reconcile the different parts he had played with her, going backyears…
God.This meant that the night he rescued her from the carriage crash after she ran away from London, he had known exactly who she was.When he’d spoken to her so gently and taken her up on his big black stallion, he had known she was the same girl he’d insulted and antagonized on the Thames riverbank at the head of his pack of cronies.
But what did thatmean?Which was the real man?
And why did she still care?
“Lucy,” repeated the man in front of her now, going sloe-eyed and heavy-lidded.
Apparently, seduction was a reflex for him, no memory required.
She would have rolled her own eyes had it not been quite so effective.Instead, she felt her cheeks flame.Her tongue twisted around her reply.“Yes.That’s me.”
“How did we meet?”
“You and your sister and another lady spent a night at my family’s coaching inn,” Lucy said, deciding to stick as close to the truth as she could.She also watched him carefully, interested to see his reaction to having a prospective wife who was part owner of a roadside tavern.
His dark eyes lit with something like fascination.“The sister of a duke owning a coaching inn!Is that common in the future?”
“Not terribly.”
“But you own one.And I went there, and saw you across the crowded taproom, and instantly wanted you.”
“That’s not what happened.”Lucy shook her head, frowning at the memory of Thornecliff’s low, caressing tone shifting to bored dismissal when he found out she was Gemma’s younger sister.
The man on the chaise gave her a slow smile.“I may not remember the night in question,” he said huskily, “but I am entirely certain that I wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.I know, because it happened in this drawing room, not half an hour ago.”
This man was lethal, Lucy realized with no small amount of dismay.No matter what name he went by.
But Lucy wasn’t going to tumble into his arms so easily this time.Removing her hand from his before he could catch her, she gave him a brisk pat on the shoulder.“Aren’t you sweet?”
“Am I?”He quirked a brow, looking pleased, and Lucy realized that it was true.This version of Thornecliff—Gabriel—didseem sweet.There was an ease to him that she’d never seen in any other incarnation of the man.
