“The French call it the little death for a reason.”
“I can understand why,” she said as she lay slumped above him. “It was amazing.”
“You should go to bed now, Lucinda. Do not tell anyone about this. What we just did was wrong.”
“But why? It felt so, so wonderful.”
“I am your guardian, albeit not a good one, and a man should not do what… we did with one’s ward.”
She frowned at that but acknowledged he was right. “Am I ruined?”
“Not if no one finds out, plus your virginity is still intact, thankfully. You should go to bed now, Lucinda.” He kissed her lips one last time and gently pushed her to sit up.
“Are we friends again?”
He chuckled. “Of course.”
She slipped off his lap and awkwardly bent down to pick up her shawl, nearly toppling over. Tony watched her and swore under his breath. He had just made a monumental mistake. He may not have taken her maidenhead, but he may as well have. Now she knew he had a weakness for her, and the Lord knew he did. His only hope would be that she would not remember it come morning.
Why did she have to come down tonight of all nights? She looked at him over her shoulder at the door. “Thank you,” she said, and he felt like an absolute arse. How was he going to let her marry Dunstan now? Now that he knew her passionate side, now she knew his? He was doomed. She slipped away, obviously more sober than she had been when she had entered. He heard her giggle in the hallway. Maybe not that sober after all.
He got up and went to the doorway and watched her cling to the banister and climb it hand over fist as she went up the stairs. Holy hell, what had he done?
Chapter Eighteen
Lucinda awoke witha throbbing head. She looked around the room. The sun was high up in the sky. She had overslept. Last night was a hazy memory of bits and pieces. None of them were good. She had embarrassed herself at the opera. Argued with Tony. The duke carried her upstairs? Then she remembered being hungry but must have dreamed about Tony kissing her and rubbing herself against him and… surely not. A very vivid dream then. Her obsession with her guardian was growing, and she could not figure out how to stop thinking about him.
The last she truly remembered was their argument and how he must hate her now.
May came into the room with a tray. “A nice cup of tea will set things straight.”
“All the tea in the world cannot change what I did.”
“Come now. It isn’t as bad as all that. Lady Marianne told me the duke found it quite amusing.”
Lucinda groaned loudly and pulled the covers back over her head. Mortified that her memory of him carrying her was unfortunately true. What must he think of her? What must they all think? If that were true, were her other dreams true too?
Lucinda sat up, horrified. Had she and Tony…? Her stomach roiled at the sudden movement. May took one look at her and came running with the basin she usually used to wash her face. She violently threw up and May, bless her, kept her hair away and rubbed her back as Lucinda groaned in pain and indignity.
“I think a day in bed would be best for you. I’ll let the duchess know you are unwell. I don’t think she will be terribly surprised.”
Wonderful. Just wonderful. She would have cried only she was too busy casting up her accounts.
“I am never drinking again,” she said to May.
May smiled handing her a cloth. “That’s what they all say, miss.”
Lucinda walked withthe two women she had come to adore as they perused the shops on Bond Street. Marianne and her mother oohed and aahed over the various bonnets, ribbons, and lace. She tried hard to join in, but her heart was not in it. She just wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed and wake up a week in the past.
She would not drink the champagne, and she would not fight with Tony, and she most certainly would not have made a fool of herself in front of Dunstan.
She had to put on a cheerful façade. Maintain the status quo. Easier said than done.
“Come along, dear, do not dawdle so.” The dowager glanced at her. “Is it your feet? Do they hurt?”
“A little. It is these new shoes.” A lie. One of many she had told today.
“Let us stop for tea at this cake shop,” Marianne suggested.
