Ciaran gave Lady Chase a bland smile. “I’ll escort you and Lady Atherton to Buckinghamshire, then I’m off to London for the rest of the season. You did say my brother needed me at Huntington House.”
“Yes, yes, so I did. Well, well, I always said you were a good boy, despite your lurid debaucheries.”
“Is that why you waited up for me to come home this evening, my lady? To quiz me on my lurid debaucheries? Because I’d be happy to go into detail if you—”
“Hush, you dreadful boy. I don’t care a whit for your debaucheries, as you put it, and I most certainly wasn’t waiting up for you. I just, er…came downstairs to fetch a book from the library.”
Ciaran gave her a pointed look. “I don’t see any book.”
Lady Chase huffed out a breath. “I couldn’t find what I wanted, if you insist on knowing every detail of my evening. I was on my way back to my bedchamber when you came in.”
“May I take you up?”
He offered her his arm, but she waved him off. “No, no. I’ll go myself.”
He watched as Lady Chase shuffled up the stairs. Once she was gone, he let his head fall against the door at his back. He’d go to London, just as he’d told her he would. He’d stay long enough to make certain Lucy was safe. Before he left, he’d speak to Vale about keeping an eye on her once Ciaran was gone.
What he didn’t tell Lady Chase—what he wouldn’t tell anyone in his family—was he didn’t intend to stay in London for the season. As soon as he reassured himself Lucy would be taken care of, he was bound for Scotland, to see if he could find anything to salvage in the wreckage of his past life.
At best, he’d find love. If not, at least he’d find peace.
Chapter Eight
London, England
Eight days later
Le Pantalon, L’été, La Poule…
Lucy studied the dancers as they moved through the figures of the quadrille, her heart sinking. She did her best to follow the steps, but all those prancing feet seemed to tangle together until all she could hear was her dancing master’s despairing voice echoing in her head.
No, no, no, Lady Lucinda! Your entire set is falling into disarray!
She glanced down in despair at the fan clasped between her gloved fingers. After her disappointing performances at Thomas Wilson’s Dancing Academy this past week, she and Eloisa had decided to write a few discreet dance instructions on the back of Lucy’s fan, in case she forgot the steps again.
Well, she’d forgotten them, and the fan wasn’t any help at all.
She darted a forlorn look at the blur of black-clad legs and pale skirts whirling across the ballroom, then back down at the tiny, cramped letters written on the bottom of her fan. Her brows drew together in bewilderment. She didn’t know how it was possible, but the steps made even less sense to her now than they had before yesterday’s ill-fated lesson with Monsieur Guilland. She’d made an utter fool of herself, stumbling about and tripping over her own feet as if she were a drunken lord.
Now she was about to do it again, except this time it would happen in front of all of London. It was the very first ball of her very first London season, and it was already a farce in the making.
Not for the first time since they’d arrived and taken up their lodgings in Portman Square, Lucy’s heart pinched with longing for Brighton. Everything had been so much simpler there—every day alive with the promise of something new. It had felt…miraculous, as if she were a bird, soaring through a wide-open blue sky for the first time.
Now, here in London, her wings had been well and truly clipped.
She missed the beach, the gentle splash of the waves kissing the shore, the smooth, cool glide of the ocean against her skin.
She missedhim.
She’d known she would—that she’d miss him terribly—but as with so many things, the reality was far worse than anything she could have imagined. It was a sharp, painful ache deep inside her chest, the fissure there wide and empty even now. He should have become nothing more than a pleasant memory, but she still carried him with her everywhere.
Lucy’s heart had never been broken before, but this felt just how she’d always imagined a broken heart would feel. Could it break your heart, to lose a friend? Or was it true, what her heart told her when she lay in her lonely bed at night, the house silent around her?
It was a whisper still, but growing louder with every day that passed.
Ciaran was more to her than a friend, so much more—
“Smile, Lucy,” Eloisa hissed from between gritted teeth. “If you keep scowling like that, no one will ever ask you to dance.”
