Page 38 of The Luckiest Lady in London

People smiled at him all the time, but when she did it, he felt…supremely accomplished.

The thought gave him pause. Wasn’t that how he had felt earlier, when he’d made her testy?

He ignored that particular insight. “But it is hugely unsatisfying to be told that one’s present is hundreds of miles away, so I brought you this.” He took out a book from his pocket and handed it to her. “A telescope is useless unless you know what you are looking at.”

The book was a first-edition copy of Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d’Étoiles, otherwise known as Messier’s Catalogue.

She frowned. And suddenly he stood chest-deep in uncertainty, not knowing how his present would be received, fearing that it would be cast aside as soon as he left the room.

It wasn’t even a real gift, just something he had taken from his study at Huntington on his way out to meet the train, after he was satisfied that the telescope had been correctly set up, because he thought it would please a girl who loved the stars.

“Don’t worry if you can’t read French.” His tone was stilted and formal. “There are far more comprehensive catalogs and star maps published these days.”

“I’m sure there are better works published these days, but this is the one I have always wanted to have,” she said, her eyes downcast, her fingers rubbing against the binding of the catalog.

He wasn’t sure he believed her. “Then why do you look so consternated?”

She turned the book around once in her hands. “Because it disconcerts me that you can so easily guess my heart’s desire.”

All the apprehension drained away, replaced by a startling buoyancy. How silly he’d been to be prey to such needless concerns. “I am to be your husband. I should be able to read your heart’s desire.”

She looked up, her gaze meeting his. “You are the sort of man who is just as likely to grant a woman her heart’s desire as to torment her with it.”

And she was the one woman who knew that he was the furthest thing from The Ideal Gentleman, yet still wept when she thought he would never have anything more to do with her. “May I remind you that you were willing to take me and my lady-tormenting ways for a measly eight hundred pounds a year.”

That brought a reluctant smile to her face. “I haven’t been able to make a single good decision since I fell in lust with you.”

Her sexual infatuation with him had always gratified him immensely. Yet for some reason, this iteration of the fact didn’t thrill him as much as it usually did. It was as if he wanted more.

What more, he couldn’t say—if the girl was any more willing, they would be copulating in the streets. Perhaps he was simply impatient to at last pin her underneath him, and watch her face as her pleasure gathered.

“I will leave you to study your new book then.”

As he turned to go, she took hold of his hand. They touched as infrequently as they ever did, and the sensation of her skin on his was almost numbing in its intensity.

“I do not mean to imply that I am not grateful,” she said.

“But you are not,” he pointed out.

“I am. I am just also wary, as any woman with half a brain ought to be, when it comes to you.”

And with that, she kissed him on his cheek. “I will see you at the wedding.”

Chapter 8

The wedding was a tremendous success, not that it was ever intended to be anything else. The bride’s gown, the wedding breakfast, and the greenery that filled the interior of the cathedral—each aspect of the occasion was praised as sumptuous yet tasteful. Everything The Ideal Gentleman’s wedding ought to be.

“I am pleased to have been accessory to one of the most perfectly orchestrated ceremonies of our time,” said Felix’s new wife, when they were at last alone in his private rail coach, speeding north toward Huntington.

It was her way of telling him that this entire ceremony had been all about him—his good name, his stature, his importance.

He smiled. “And thus concludes my reign as the most eligible young man of the realm. It is the end of an era.”

She rolled her eyes.

He smiled more broadly. “The same could be said of you. When did you start preparing for your London Season?”

“Eight years ago.”