Mrs. Fox twisted her mouth in an expression James couldn’t quite interpret.
“There is a great deal of vehemence in your tone, my lord, for a lady you met last evening.”
“Yesterday morning, to be accurate.” Good grief, they’d only met yesterday morning. How had she burrowed in so deep?
James wrapped a hand around his neck, bowing his head, seeking an answer both to Mrs. Fox’squery and the inexplicable draw he felt to Lucy. He could find no logic in it. Only that what he felt for her was undeniable, and that they’d formed a bond he wasn’t eager to lose.
“A woman like Lady Lucy Westmont makes a powerful first impression.”
A simple explanation that revealed nothing of what the lady did to him.
“I can see that, my lord.” Mrs. Fox cast her gaze toward a drawing room with its drapes pulled open. A view toward the opposite side of the house from his guest room, but much the same vista. Fog-covered fields and trees in the distance. “She reminds me a great deal of Lady Cassandra. It didn’t surprise me when she rose early and went straight out to the archery field as her aunt is wont to do.”
“She’s already up?” James snapped his gaze toward the window and spotted her. In a far leaf-strewn field, she stood with her back to the house and an enormous bow in her hands. Her hair hung in loose waves down her back and bounced above her waist as she reached for an arrow. “She looks like Artemis.”
When he turned back to Mrs. Fox, her brows had arched, but she ignored his comment.
“Seems that none of us are very good at sleeping in.” Mrs. Fox glanced at Lucy. “I did tell her it would be chilly at this hour, but she’s rather—”
“Stubborn.”
“Headstrong.” Mrs. Fox cast him a look that wassympathetic if not outright friendly. “She’s been at it awhile. I’ll go downstairs and have some coffee brewed. Perhaps you could determine whether Lady Lucy would like some too.”
“I’ll go now.” He gave the housekeeper a nod of leave-taking and strode toward the front door.
“Your coat, Lord Rossbury?”
He didn’t need his bloody coat. He needed to see Lucy.
In her dreams, she caught her books before they fell. There was no collision with Mr. James Pembroke, no vile Mr. Nichols, just hours of pleasant conversation with the Wilson sisters.
Only later, when the train pulled into the station, did she spot James.
He moved quickly along the platform as if searching for someone. Then their eyes locked as she stepped off the train, he lifted his hand, and asked her to dance.
It made no sense, of course. Dancing on a train platform. But when she woke before dawn, the memory of it was so sharp that her hand felt warm from the clasp of his fingers.
Her father would be horrified to know shehadallowed him to touch her, to hold her hand, that she’d spent time alone with a man at all. Behaviors that none of her family would expect of her. Certainly nothing anyone would expect of a joyless spinster.
Even now, as she stood in a field east of the house and watched the rising sun paint plumes of orange and gold across the morning sky, the thought of him still in bed made her pulse jump in her throat. Would his hair be tousled as when she’d found him drowsing on the settee? If she woke him, would he smile at her the same way?
Mercy, how she wanted him to.
How she wished he wasn’t the man who’d come to toss her aunt out of her home.
But, of course, he was, and she’d decided something when she’d woken early and searched for the bow and quiver her aunt mentioned so often in her letters. Striding through the overgrown garden to find the practice field, Lucy had repeated one phrase in her head.
I will not let him ruin my trip to Scotland.
Lifting the bow, she pulled the string taut. The heat in her muscles and the quieting of her breath as she aimed soothed the worry she’d felt since waking. She loosed the arrow and felt a rush of anticipation as it hit the target, but not nearly as close to the center as she would have liked.
Determined to do better, she turned to pull another arrow from the quiver and felt the ribbon she’d used to tie her hair back had given way. But she didn’t care. Alone in a Scottish field at the edge of morning, who would see? Besides, this trip was for being freed from everything expected of her in London society.
Lucy held her draw, savoring the tension in thestring and wood, sensing that same tension in her body. In an exhale that she could see in the cool morning air, she let go.
A squeal of victory emerged when the arrow thwacked near the center of the target.
“You’re quite good.”
