Now there was no chance of holding back her blush. In fact, she suspected her whole body had gone a splotchy pink.
Aunt Cassandra took her shot, and the movement was so fluid that there was a kind of soothing beauty in it. Lucy immediately thought it would be fun to sketch her while she engaged in the game. If she were at all talented at capturing the human figure.
“So you became enamored with this man who owns Invermere in just a matter of a few days.” Her aunt turned back to her, gesturing with her cue. “That part surprises me. You had three Seasons and couldn’t be swayed by any man’s charms and now this... This man. You’re besotted with him in less than a week? What’s come over you, Lucy?”
Love.The simplest, purest answer welled up in her chest, like the moment before you draw in breath to break into song. But she resisted saying it aloud. James should hear it first.
Rather than answer, Lucy paced as her aunt did before a shot, lined up her puck and cue, and shoved with a confidence she hadn’t felt on her earlier tries. The puck slid gracefully across the polished wood with a satisfying woosh and settled in the number two box.
“Well done!” Aunt Cassandra came close enough to give Lucy’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “I suspected you’d excel at this. To be an artist, one must have a talent that joins hand and eye.”
“I’m not quite an artist.”
“You could be, my dear.” She lined up her last puck and pulled her cue back as if she’d make her move, but then hesitated. “What would he make of that? The new earl.”
“He’d encourage me.”
Aunt Cassandra pushed her puck with extra force and it spun off far ahead of the target, as Lucy’s first shot had.
“So, it’s love.” Her aunt breathed the word with such sorrow that Lucy immediately wished to comfort her. But she also felt free to admit it now.
“I think it might be. At least for my part.” Lucy distracted herself with deciding where to aim her next shot, but Aunt Cassandra seemed done with the game. She walked to the side of the ballroom and set her cue on a stand designed to hold the instruments of the game.
“How far has it gone, Lucy? Must you marry the man?”
“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I won’t be pressured to marry anyone.”
Never needing to marry was, Lucy realized, an enormous gift her parents had given to her. Papa might encourage her to be sociable, and Mama had attended to each of her Seasons with as much enthusiasm as the first, but they’d made it clear that in such a momentous decision the choice must be hers. And the implication had always been that making no choice—choosing no groom—could be an option too.
Yet, of course, Lucy understood her aunt’s meaning. By the judgment of most, the intimacies she’d shared with James in the carriage would make marriage a necessity, if one was interested in salvaging one’s reputation.
But she’d honestly never considered marriage to James. Not truly. Not until this moment.
He’d promised her nothing. She’d offered novows of her own. There’d been something wonderful in simply relishing each moment.
The unknown quantity they had together, expecting nothing more.
Perhaps they’d both always assumed their time together would end once the business of Invermere was settled. And then there had been the question of how her aunt would react. Neither of them had spoken to the other about the future because they’d been so uncertain of what lay ahead.
Perhaps it was part of why they’d bonded so quickly, why the usual boundaries were so easily overcome. They were living entirely and completely for the time they could share.
“We find ourselves in such an enormous tangle. But life is unpredictable at the best of times. And we simply must make the best of it.”
Lucy followed her aunt and placed her cue on the rack. “I’m very tired. I don’t wish to be rude—”
“Get some rest, my dear. If you feel all right by dinner, we can talk again then.” She cupped Lucy’s cheek as she always did, then placed a soft kiss on her other cheek. “Rest well, my dear.”
Lucy made her way to her room, undressed, washed, and lay on her bed, expecting sleep to take her instantly. She was exhausted. Not just in her body, but in her head and heart.
Like the stubborn fool she could be, she’d imagined that things would magically work themselves out once her aunt arrived. That James wouldcharm her. That her aunt would understand his predicament. That the money would be found, and her aunt would keep her home while James walked away with his funds.
And yet she couldn’t solve it. There was no simple, quick solution. No way to keep all the people she cared about happy.
Closing her eyes, she saw only James. She touched her mouth and traced her lips, remembering his kiss—the tenderness and the hunger.
Then she woke with a start, feeling as if only minutes had passed, though the darkness of the room told her otherwise.
But it didn’t matter what time it was. She had to see James. However long she’d slept, it had been the most fortuitous slumber of her life.
