A bleakness that had nothing to do with the weather settled into his bones.
“She would prefer me to be different,” he said quietly. He was certain this was true in about a thousand ways.
“Hmmm. Well, I shouldn’t mind changing a bit for the right someone,” Delacorte mused. “A cozy sort of woman, with a big laugh, who’ll say, ‘oh, Stanton,’ very fondly quite a lot. Perhaps with a little sigh. Brownie and Goldie are angels on earthand thanks to them, I feel I’m becoming more refined by the minute. Hard not to say ‘bloody’ when I’m excited about something, which is most of the time, but I like a challenge. It’s lovely, don’t you think, finding the ways you are the same and the ways you are different. Like fitting a puzzle together.”
He thought, but wisely did not say, that Brownie would have to be an angel to put up with Captain Hardy. How had a woman who seemed so gentle and kind wound up with a man that hard?
But then he was coming to realize why a man like Hardy could crave something gentle, and kind, and soft. How it could feel like respite.
He thought about what Delacorte had said about puzzles.
And how anyone looking at Lorcan St. Leger would never dream anything at all about him was soft. Would assume that not one vulnerable place on him existed.
“She called me a heathen.” In truth, it was the rest of what she’d said which had landed on the raw.You have no one.As if it was the worst indictment she could conjure.
Delacorte hissed in a sympathetic breath. “That’s a hard one, especially when it’s true.”
“Ho there, now!”
“It’s true. We’re all of us men bloody heathens under the skin. If it weren’t for women’s efforts we’d run amuck, scratching, swearing, farting, fucking, chewing with our mouths open, and throwing our bones down on the floor. Even St. John. And there’s something about the fussing ofa womanly woman that makes me feel more like a man and I quite like it, bless ’em. It makes me feel cared for.”
It was quite a vivid point of view. Lorcan wasn’t sure he concurred entirely.
He hated to admit to himself that some tiny part of him, in fact, yearned toward Daphne’s refinement, her delicacy, and her otherness. It was the same small part of him he’d hoped was dead forever. If he was Achilles, it was the part of him that hadn’t been dipped.
He sighed. “So, you want to be a husband, eh, Delacorte?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I expect I shall be soon enough. I’m in the prime of my life. I’ve time,” Delacorte said comfortably. “And people always seem to leave The Grand Palace on the Thames with a wife. Although maybe she’d like to live here, too,” he added hopefully.
They lay quietly for a moment, listening to the rain.
“Do you worry about the ship not coming in?” Lorcan asked.
Delacorte pondered this. “Oh, aye, I do. A bit. But worrying won’t make it get here any faster. I worry more about Hardy and Bolt taking it to heart. They’ll feel guilty about me but I went into the endeavor with my eyes open and I’m proud to be a part of the Triton Group. Those blokes are the best friends I’ve ever had. As long as we have The Grand Palace on the Thames, we’ll all be fine, no matter what.”
“Well, I’m glad you have it, then, Delacorte.”
He thought of Daphne, who had her father and her brothers, fat lot of good it did her.
“Shall we go to sleep now?”
“Why not? Good night, Delacorte.”
“Good night, St. Leger.”
They each settled into their pillows.
“Fair warning, I snore a bit,” Delacorte told him, as he turned down the lamp.
Like most nights during the previous few busy weeks, Angelique’s beloved husband crawled into bed smelling of cheroots and brandy a good half hour after he normally did.
She reflexively scooted over to touch her bottom to him, her typical way of helping to warm him whenever business kept him up late. He draped his hand absently, affectionately, over her hip. Lucien usually liked to sleep naked, which she usually counted as just one of the delicious bonuses of being married to him. They kept the fire burning high and hot in the room and indulged in lots of blankets.
They lay for a moment in familiar and contented silence.
“Lucien... do you ever think you married beneath you?”
He gracefully rolled over, propping himself on his arms over her, and gazed smolderingly down. “What’s that you said about wanting to be beneath me?”
