Page 48 of The Misfortune of Lady Lucianna

Chapter 18

Lucianna allowed Roderick to guide her back into her bedchambers as she walked on shaky legs. She still held out hope that her father cared about what she wanted for her own future, but when Roderick—with all her friends in tow—had shown up below her veranda, she more than suspected that her father had chosen Abercorn to be her husband.

She’d been mastered, conquered, and bested by the one man who should care most for her. To know the man she’d grown up trying to impress, the man Luci currently did her best to emulate, didn’t care a whit for her…hurt. Her father didn’t bother himself with grandiose thoughts of love, devotion, commitment, and friendship.

Her head spun when she lowered her chin to hide her feelings.

The Marquis of Camden did not have those things in his marriage, and so, he did not think it of value to his daughter.

Well, the marquis was gravely wrong.

Those were the qualities Luci searched for in not only her future husband but also her friends.

She and Roderick stood before her hearth, facing the flames, their fingers entwined; everything and everyone receding as she could only see him.

This was exactly how Luci saw herself with her husband: at peace, trusting one another, and forever entwined.

She wanted not only their fingers intertwined but also their minds, bodies, and souls.

So fused together people around them wondered how had they achieved such elevated love.

It would never be about one dominating the other—not with she and Roderick. Never would they make the other feel insignificant, unheard, or unwanted.

“Roderick,” she gulped. When he looked down at her, his normally intense blue eyes were a meadow of blue blossoms, welcoming and inviting. “I am ready to see what simple looks like. Show me?”

He needed no other encouragement. Roderick swept her into his arms and crossed the room to her lilac fabric-covered bed and pushed aside the white, eyelet drapes.

The feeling of her of bed coverlet against her back had never been so soft or welcoming. In fact, she’d always seen the room as childish, but with Roderick’s dark presence in the small space, the room took on an entirely new feel. The lilac and deep violet were exotic hues—begging for the couple’s weight.

Roderick paused above her, fanning her dark hair out around her on the bed before pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. “I have long wondered how beautiful you would be with your hair spread across my bed. I’ll compromise for your bed, just this once.”

“Your Grace!” Luci’s cheeks heated at the meaning behind his words, only to flame further with his final words. He planned to take her to his bed soon. “What if someone enters my chambers?”

“Let them,” he mumbled, placing tiny kisses along her cheek, down to her jaw, and over to her ear.

He was unafraid of the scene they’d cause if caught tonight in her chambers, and neither was she concerned. Luci and her friends had spent years whispering about what happened behind closed bedchamber doors…and Roderick was the perfect—the only—man to show her, teach her.

Her body melted into the contours of the bed at the confidence in his words.

Roderick placed several kisses on her neck before pushing back and balancing on his hands above her.

“There is something I need to tell you before we continue,” he sighed.

He was going to tell her he loved her again.

And by all that was holy, Luci would have to admit she loved him too or risk seeing him leave her and pull away for good.

And it would be what she deserved. To love someone meant to trust them implicitly. Luci wondered how long love could last when trust was unspoken…

“I am bankrupt, without funds beyond those necessary to keep my lands and tenants’ homes out of disrepair.” He lowered his head, their foreheads touching. “When my father died, I found out that he’d willingly given over all of my family’s money to a corrupt gambling hell ring. No paperwork, no names, no way of finding what rightly belongs to me and mine.”

She gasped, and he instantly pulled back further, sliding his body off hers to lie beside her.

Love was not about money or belongings.

It was about belonging to someone who loved you more than money.

The void above her made her long to cry out, demand he return and lay his body atop hers once more.