Pride & Passion (6 page)

“Nothing that need concern you,” Elizabeth muttered.

“Ah, gossip, then,” he said then focused his attention on Lucy. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what, your grace?”

He didn’t blink, but kept his cool, steady gaze upon her. His mouth was set in a grim, disapproving line. “Gossip, Lady Lucy. Do you enjoy indulging in such pastimes as spreading tales about others?”

The censure with which he had asked his question
did not dissuade her from answering. “You would be hard-pressed to find a tea table devoid of gossip.”

“But it is not others I am inquiring about. I am asking about you. Do
you
, Lady Lucy, enjoy gossip?”

She met his gaze head-on, refusing to be intimidated by his blatant reproof. Obviously he held himself above the lesser mortals who found tittle-tattle a tempting sin. Such a virtue he was! Lucy could not admit that she was of a like mind. She had found gossip much too helpful to disregard it altogether.

“Well?” he asked again.

“I, like so many people, find it vastly amusing, your grace.”

Cocking his head, he studied her through narrowed eyes as though she were a new species of beetle stuck to a felt board by a stickpin. “I don’t think you do. You merely partake of it because it is an expected requirement at such gatherings, as well of your station. Your heart, I think, is never fully in it.”

She flushed, but forced herself to stay steady and still. “I wonder why you asked then, in the first place?”

“I am merely trying to make out your personality, Lady Lucy. There are so many sides to it, one wonders who you truly are. Or indeed, if
you
know who you are.”

“Your grace, you are too bold.”

“Insufferable, isn’t he?” Elizabeth said as she glared to where Sussex sat next to her on the settee. “Very bad manners, Sussex.”

“Apologies. It is just that I cannot imagine that you take joy in laughing at another’s expense. To be amused
by someone else’s misfortune or folly? You are too soft-hearted for that.”

She sniffed, despising him for making her feel things she did not care to admit to, for seeing that beneath her aloof facade to the soft core she had tried to harden through the years. She didn’t want him to know she was soft and kind and so easily hurt. She would rather he think her a lofty, snobbish woman who had fallen low for the sins of the flesh. Far better to be considered a cold woman than a weak one. One could not be timid and easily damaged when one moved about the ton. It was as deadly as a three-legged gazelle amidst a pride of lions. With such an obvious weakness, they would run her to ground and devour her whole. Far better to possess the hide and horn of the rhino.

The facade of the uncaring society lady was her favorite and most often employed shield, and to have his grace take it from her, really was rather harrowing. Having him peek deep inside her was downright frightening. She had not shared herself with another since she was twelve—not even Thomas had been given a look into her soul.

“I am right, aren’t I?” he asked, his voice dropping to a husky purr. He spoke as though they were alone, as if his sister and Isabella were not present. He was far too familiar, and she didn’t like it. How he seemed able to command the room, the conversation, and even more frightening, her emotions.

Gathering her courage, and stiffening her spine, Lucy prepared to meet his challenge. “I suppose you think you’re always correct in your assumptions and es
timations, your grace. But in this matter, I must strike a blow to your vanity, for you are indeed wrong.”

His smile temporarily disarmed her. “No, I don’t believe I am. You talk of gossip because it is expected. Not because you enjoy it, and the pain it causes others.”

She was right. The duke did see far too much—she could not run from the truth now. “Well, it is vastly more entertaining, and I suppose ego sparing to talk of another than our own follies, wouldn’t you agree, your grace? It at least allows one a moment of reprieve from the prying eyes of others,” she snapped, while shooting him a meaningful glare.

“You use gossip as a shield, then?”

Lucy was conscious of the way Isabella’s head seemed to volley back and forth between their increasingly heated banter. If she were thinking clearly, Lucy would back down, but there was something about Sussex that riled her. She would never bow to him, never let him needle her. Therefore, she would continue this strange, far too familiar conversation. “Who does not use gossip as a weapon, or defense, your grace?”

“And what secrets have you to hide that you would not wish others to pry into?”

“Adrian, you beast!” Elizabeth scolded. “I vow you are merely toying with my guests, much like a cat with a mouse. Pay him no heed, Lucy. He enjoys these little debates, you see, and has quite forgotten that he is in polite company, and not the men of his club.”

Sussex blatantly ignored Elizabeth, and kept his gaze trained on her. “Or do you use it to keep others at bay, Lady Lucy? From straying too close to what you do not
wish them to discover, which would be you, and who you truly are?”

How had he guessed? she wondered. Everyone who looked at her believed her to be a spoiled, shallow society miss who cared for nothing but fashion and parties. Certainly no one had ever thought she might have a heart and conscience. Yet with one sweep of his storm-gray eyes, Sussex had seen to the core of her, and what she kept hidden.

“Sussex, stop this at once,” Elizabeth demanded. “You cannot come in here and start such a bold discussion without first at least inquiring as to our company’s health and spirits.”

“Absolutely. It was unpardonable of me. Forgive me. Now then, how are you ladies today?” he inquired politely as he placed four of the pink custard squares on his plate, but not before his gaze flickered to hers and he grinned. Such a cheeky grin, she thought as the hair on her arms stood straight on end.

“O
H, WE ARE
very well, your grace,” Isabella replied as she stole a perplexed glance at Lucy. “Now, if only the weather would cooperate and allow the sun to shine, if only for a few hours, we would be much better off.”

Sussex glanced over his shoulder and out the tall window that was behind the settee. “Mmm, yes, it is gloomy. Makes one long for the comforts of bed.”

Isabella flushed delicately, and Lucy struggled to swallow the mouthful of hot tea she had just taken. The word
bed
was one she would have preferred not to hear coming from Sussex’s mouth. It was far too familiar, and she could not put aside her fears that when he said it, he was recalling the moment between them when he had returned the bit of lace to her, and discovered her most carefully guarded secret.

How she wanted to quit this house, to leave Sussex and his strange conversation behind. She was on tenterhooks, she realized. Disconcerted by every glance, and word. She could not endure this, not while trying to stay polite and removed.

Studying Lizzy, Lucy looked for any signs from their host that the tea was over, and they should take their leave. Unfortunately Lizzy had only managed to appear more comfortable on the settee, as if she were settling in for a much longer conversation. Even Isabella, who
had looked extremely uncomfortable during their discussion of gossip now looked at ease, and was even in the process of pouring herself more tea.

Traitor,
Lucy wanted to shout at her friend. Did no one understand how horrid it was to sit across from his grace and suffer through his stare? Of course they did not. Because neither Lizzy nor Isabella knew what had transpired between them. Only Sussex knew, and Lucy could not help but imagine what thoughts were running rampant in the proper duke’s mind. “Oh, yes, I adore afternoon naps,” Elizabeth said on a sigh, “especially in the rain. Just lying there, listening to the raindrops rattle against the windowpane is so soothing. Don’t you think, Lady Lucy?”

Determined to ignore Sussex, she focused her attention on answering Elizabeth. “I am afraid I am not a fan of rain, but I am rather fond of the feel of cool grass beneath my feet on a warm spring day. I like to hear the chirping of birds, and see the swelling of flower buds. I like the wind not to be cool and bracing, but warm and scented with the aromas of the sun and earth.”

Sussex met her gaze, allowed it to linger, then slowly he slid it away, down to his plate where he picked up a custard slice, and popped it into his mouth.

“Oh, I enjoy that too,” Elizabeth said wistfully. “When I was younger I could lie in the grass for hours and stare at the sky and imagine the clouds were all kinds of fanciful shapes, and animals.”

Lucy knew her expression was not one of rapture at Elizabeth’s description, and the duke noticed and said, “Do you not approve of the pastime, Lady Lucy?”

She was forced to raise her gaze from the teacup and
saucer that was balanced on her lap and look at him. That stare…it made her tremble once again, and she despised how easily he could disconcert her. No one had ever had that ability, she’d made certain of it, but when the duke came into her life, he had torn down those safe walls she had erected.

Now here she was, feeling vulnerable and cornered, held hostage by eyes that bored deeply into hers as he patiently awaited her answers. And he would wait. She had learned that about Sussex, he was the most patient man on Earth—maddenly so—and she knew he would sit there all afternoon, his plate of pink sweets balanced in his palm while he watched her with his eyes that saw too much. Nothing dissuaded him when he wanted something; she had learned that much about him.

“Stonebrook wouldn’t have allowed it,” he replied for her, his gaze unwavering. “Your father is a difficult man to please, not given to gaiety or lenience.”

Yer papa will tan my hide if he finds ye getting yer ’ands dirty wit the likes o’ me. I’m yer lesser, or so Mr. Beecher says. No lady of Gov’ner Square will look at a little street urchin the likes o’ me.

Lucy recalled that day in the kitchen, as she and Gabriel sat at the table and talked. She had made it her business to be in the kitchen on Tuesdays when the butcher made his deliveries. It had been curiosity at first—the quiet, sullen boy who had accompanied Mr. Beecher had captured her interest. But after a few visits, and some shared stories, it became something more than curiosity, but infatuation. They had become friends, borne out of common circumstances, their dif
ferences ignored as they shared whatever treat Cook had left at the table for them.

“I don’t care about such trivial things such as stations in life,”
she had boldly stated.
“Are we not all created equal?”

“No, Miss Lucy, we ain’t. Ye were made better ’n me. And that’s why I’m to leave ye be and not look at ye. I’m beneath ye.”

She had glared in the direction of the butcher, then.
“Never mind him,”
she’d ordered.
“We’re friends, are we not?”

“I ain’t never ’ad a friend.”

“I ain’t never, either.”

They had dissolved into a fit of laughter, which had died as suddenly as it sprung up when a dark shadow emerged in the kitchen…

“He would have had you kept inside the schoolroom,” his grace continued on, pulling her from her memories, making her confront a reality she had no wish to contemplate. “A young lady meant to remain pale and unmarred, her mind filled with useful information, her days occupied with learning tasks that would set up her future. He would have frowned upon frivolous pursuits such as daydreaming and cloud watching.”

She swallowed, and he followed the action of her throat, his long, dark lashes shielding the expression in his eyes and the thoughts behind them. How Lucy wanted to rail at him for it.

“Is my brother right?” Elizabeth asked sympathetically. “He paints a rather bleak picture of your childhood.”

“Yer just as lonely as me,”
her friend had once told her.
“I guess it don’t make no difference if you live on a pallet of straw before a fire, or in a great big palace like this one. I’m a prisoner of St. Giles parish, and yer a prisoner of this world. We are what we are, so different because ye have money, I have nothin’…but that’s just the outside. Inside I think we’re more alike than any two people could be.”

That was when their connection had been made, when she realized there was someone else like her, who felt the same way, who was trapped in a world they did not want, and did not choose.

“Promise me, then,”
she had pleaded with him,
“that you’ll always think this way of me. That when we’re grown you’ll come back and rescue me from this life.”

“All right, then, after I own me own butchery and get meself set up. I’ll come back for ye, and ye can be me wife.”

In her innocence she had believed it possible. That was, until her father had shown her just how impossible it truly was. How futile it was for her to believe a world where young girls’ dreams might one day become reality—where the world and everything was treated equally.

Bristling, Lucy set her cup and saucer aside, struggling to shield the emotion she knew would be brimming in her eyes. She loathed talking of her past, and especially her parents. She especially despised speaking of it knowing it was the privileged Duke of Sussex who had brought it up.

“Well?” Elizabeth gently prodded. “Is Sussex correct in his estimation?”

“My parents held particular views when it came to child rearing,” she said carefully. “Neither of them was possessed of a frivolous personality.”

“In other words,” Sussex drawled as he finished another custard square, “they were all work and duty, and no play.”

Lucy felt herself sneering, the memories of her lonely, isolated childhood tasting like acid in her mouth. “Succinctly put, your grace. Indeed, my parents found not much in life amusing. My mother lived to advance my father’s goals, and to uphold his hallowed title. My father existed, and still does, in the sanctity of his very male domain. As an only child, and a female at that, my parents’ goal for me was simple—to marry well, and to manage my husband’s home with dignity, decorum and efficiency, while providing him with the requisite heir. An heir that would not only inherit his father’s title, but my father’s as well. I was always very conscious of my role, and the inferiority—and disappointment—of my sex.”

“And that did not sit well with you,” he said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “I can see the truth in your eyes. You can hide nothing beyond those emerald depths, Lady Lucy.”

Nervously she glanced over and noticed how Isabella was trying her best to study the painted flowers on the delicate china cup. The air was quite thick with a new intimacy that was completely inappropriate. Such intimate discussions were not to be borne at tea, and Lucy tried her best to deflect the conversation to a more tactful and less revealing place.

Casting a gaze about the room, she sought an ap
propriately benign topic, and remembered that she had wanted to invite Elizabeth to an evening out.

“Before your untimely arrival, your grace, I was about to ask Elizabeth if she was interested in accompanying me to the Sumners’ musicale this evening.”

There was a flicker of amusement in his eyes, before he sat back against the settee, his plate in his lap, his long fingers wrapped around the rim of the teacup. He thought her a coward, she knew, but she didn’t care. He touched too close to the truth, and she would run from it. No one came to know her so intimately. Isabella was possibly the only person in the world who had ever come close, but even still, her cousin did not know all.

Even Thomas, through their shared encounter of passion had never known her so well. She shared her body with him, but nothing else.

“Oh, I would love to,” Elizabeth said. “I haven’t been to a musicale in years. Adrian despises them.”

“You mistake me, Lizzy,” he said silkily as he rested his cup on the arm of the settee. He met Lucy’s gaze, and she noticed the coolness was back in his eyes. “I am inclined to enjoy them, if the company is agreeable. I would be delighted to escort you ladies.”

Like a fish out of water, Lucy floundered for a way to deny the duke. She did not want him with her this evening, did not want to sit in a carriage, or make conversation with him. She didn’t want him looking at her, and seeing her, seeing the things she tried so hard to hide.

Thankfully she hit on something that Sussex would not be able to refute. “But what of your lodge meeting tonight?” she inquired. Thank heavens her father had
thought to remind her of his Freemasonry meeting. As part of the Grand Lodge, Sussex would be obliged to attend, thereby forcing him to forgo his attendance to the musicale.

Lucy gave a small smile of triumph, which faded as the duke perused her slowly.

“I think your friend would like it if I were not to attend,” he drawled, making Lucy’s face flame.

“Oh, Adrian, do not tease. Lady Lucy means nothing of the sort…she only seeks to remind you of the obvious. Tonight is lodge night.”

“Ah, yes, but one only has these special opportunities arise so infrequently. The lodge can wait, I believe. Yes,” he murmured thoughtfully as he watched her. “I think I shall send word around to Mrs. Sumner that the three of us shall be attending. If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”

And that was the end of it. Of course, Mrs. Sumner would be ecstatic to receive the Duke of Sussex. The man was a paragon in society, and every matron swooned at the thought of having the duke attend their gathering. There was no possible hope for it now. She was committed to an evening out with Sussex. And she knew very well what everyone in the ton would be speculating come the morning—that she and Sussex had an understanding.

Blast him for so easily commanding the upper hand!

“You are in for it now,” Isabella whispered into her ear. “Here is the end of your avoidance of his grace.”

Refusing to acknowledge Isabella’s outrageous, but truthful, claim, Lucy stared out the window, wonder
ing what dreadful illness she might concoct to relieve her of the night’s invitation.

“I cannot say how excited I am,” Lizzy said with a smile that was beaming. “I adore music. One doesn’t need the gift of sight to enjoy it. And it’s been such an age since I left the house to do more than shop, or visit Isabella. Thank you, Lucy, for inviting me. What wonderful friends you and Isabella have become.”

How could she do this, deny Elizabeth an outing? Lizzy was a good friend, and Lucy was being a poor one, thinking of nothing else but her own discomfort. No, she could not do this, hurt Elizabeth. One insufferable night with his grace. She could tolerate it, if for nothing else but the enjoyment of her friend.

“Lucy and I feel very much the same, Lizzy,” Isabella added.

“Well, then,” she said, while checking the door. His grace had left for his study, and Lucy wanted to be far, far away if he decided to return to the salon. “Shall we go upstairs and choose your gown for the evening?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. You and Isabella have such a way with descriptions. I can almost see when you two are around.”

Lucy dearly wished her knack with descriptions worked with words of denial. Because she truly wished she would have found the right words to say to make the duke leave before their conversation had even started.

“But first, Lucy, I think you must take a few minutes to peruse the conservatory. We had planned on it during your last visit, and time got away from us, if I recall.”

The idea of a few stolen moments of silence and
solitude lured her to agree. That was what she needed, a moment or two to gather her spiraling thoughts, and set herself to rights.

“If that would be agreeable, I would love to. There was a beautiful, bright pink flower that needs further investigation, I believe.”

“Oh, the lily. Yes, yes.” Lizzy nodded. “And wait till you smell them. Gorgeous scent—heady and exotic. I’ve asked Sussex for an accurate description, but I shan’t bore you with what he told me.”