Page 85 of Give Him a Chance

Chapter Sixteen

“We are tobe married.”

Bernard’s pulse hammered so powerfully in his ears that he was rather astonished the entire Chance family did not inquire about it as he marched out of the drawing room.

But perhaps he was walking at too great a pace. Perhaps there was an expression on his face that brooked no interruption.

Perhaps they were still as shocked as he was.

This was not happening. Surely, this was not happening—maybe it was a hallucination brought on by too much champagne.

But no. The liquid in the glass he still clutched in his right hand, then hastily placed on a console table in the hall, was copious. He could not even recall taking a sip.

“Bernard!”

Bernard’s conscience twisted as he turned around to see Lucy standing in the door to the drawing room, staring in utter disbelief.

As thoughhehad done the unimaginable thing!

“Bernard, what’s wrong?” she asked, not moving from the doorway—the doorway through which their entire conversation would flow, right to the ears of the Chance family.

“Lucy,” Bernard said quietly, jerking his head to the other side of the hall.

She followed him obediently, skirts swishing and form moving in that wonderful way it always did whenever she moved…but she left the door open, and it was with a rise of his temper that Bernard marched past her and closed the door.

None too quietly, either.

“Bernard!”

“Why?” he asked, no preamble required as he whirled around and stared in utter confusion. “Why did you do it?”

“I… I…” Lucy was blinking with just as much evident confusion as Bernard felt. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” he hissed, walking back to her and hoping to goodness that Cawthorne wasn’t going to return soon with a maid with a mop and disturb them. “Lucy, you could have least warned me ahead of time!”

“I… I didn’t know ahead of time,” she said blankly, a nervous smile gracing her lips. “It just sort of came over me, and before I knew it, the words were pouring from my mouth. Isn’t that strange?”

“‘Strange’?” Bernard bit back the other long list of descriptors which came to mind as heat burned through him.

Strange. Illogical. Irrational.

Dangerous.

What had those Frenchmen been doing here? Had they been looking for Hovell—how had they known he was connected to the man?

What else might they do to those who he cared about in order to get to Hovell?

Bernard tried to take a long, slow breath, but his inhale was caught short as a myriad of panicked thoughts roared through his brain.

The earl’s face, the horror, the way he had reacted so violently to the very thought of Bernard marrying his daughter…but then, they thought he was a criminal, didn’t they? No wonder they were against it.

And Lucy—Lucy announced our engagement.

Bernard tugged a hand through his hair. He had not been gone from polite Society long enough to forget precisely what that meant.

He would marry her.

He would have to. The idea of breaking an engagement, as if amanwere allowed to—but it wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry her, it was that he couldn’t! Not anytime soon. Not until he located Hovell and made sure she’d be safe.