Page 62 of Give Him a Chance

And Lucy’s breath caught in her throat.

He had to have meant her. After all, what gentleman would say such a thing in such a pointed manner if he did not intend to…

But Bernard Dixon was not a gentleman.

She had refined him, she knew… Well, he was an eager learner, and it all seemed to come to him naturally. But he had not been born a gentleman’s son, and so he would never be one himself.

Nonetheless, each time she stepped forward to take Bernard’s hands in the dance, she felt—oh, she felt a rush, and a pulse, and that pulse was quick but she could not tell whether it was hers or his own.

There was something between them. She could no longer deny it. She did not want to deny it.

How they could be together in the future, a man who was a criminal. Who refused to speak of his past.

A man who had no past could have no future, Lucy decided. And whatever his past, it made him ill-suited for an earl’s daughter. No, she would have to put her foot down.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Lucy said hastily, cheeks burning as she watched Bernard hobble back to his place in the set. “Sorry. Mind elsewhere.”

He chuckled, though he had clearly been pained when she’d stamped on his foot. “That’s one of the things I like about you, Lucy. You’re always thinking, always planning. You’re never happy unless you’re moving forward.”

Lucy blinked.Is not everyone like that?“What is the point of me if I am not productive?”

She had not thought the words. They had just appeared, fully formed, in her mouth.

Bernard’s eyes widened as he stepped forward, placed his hands around her waist, and lifted her bodily with a twist—as the dance dictated, Lucy reminded herself, even if the moment felt strangely intimate.

“What is the point of you?” he repeated as he took one of her hands and snaked his other around her waist before they started to promenade slowly and sedately down the set. “Lucy, you—you are the most precious, the most interesting, the most passionate woman I have ever met. To not know your own value…”

His voice trailed away and Lucy knew she should breathe, she had to. If she ever wanted to hear Bernard say another wonderful thing to her, she had to be alive to hear it—so why were her lungs so rigid and her chest uncooperative?

“You,” Bernard said quietly as they reached the end of the set, though he did not release her when he ought. “You are worth everything.Youare the point of you. You could stop doing anything for anyone else right now, and you would still be worthy of adoration.”

All Lucy could do was stare in wonder.He… He truly feels that way?

“Besides, I do not think it is within you to stop helping others,” Bernard added in an undertone, his hand warm throughhis glove as he finally released her. “And I suppose that is the paradox. Lucy, all those other women”—he gestured at the ladies in her line—“they are all self-centered. You… You are the one with real substance.”

It was difficult not to float after such pronouncements. Lucy knew she should probably say something—really, she should praise the man in turn—but it was all she could do to stand and follow the rigorous demands of the dance.

By the time it was over, she was panting, desperate for the night never to end, and desperately in love with Bernard Dixon.

All of which was moderately inconvenient.

“You stay here, I’ll procure drinks,” Bernard said brightly. “You look done in. Half a minute.”

It was not, Lucy reflected as she sat in a chair beside a large fern, perhaps the most elegant description—done in—but coming from Bernard’s lips, it was praise she would wish to hear every day of her life.

Every day of her life.

What was she going to do with him? Her mother had been right from the start. She could not keep him like a dragon; Bernard Dixon wasn’t a pet. He was a living, breathing man, and one she greatly wished she could kiss again.

But that meant she would have to make a decision about what to do with him. Would Zander’s factory need a foreman? Did Bernard have any experience with such a thing?

Lucy bit her lip. It was becoming more and more obvious that Bernard’s complete lack of past—as though he had sprung up fully formed in Brighton Prison—suggested something truly dark in his history.

But what could it be? Theft? Burglary?

Murder?