later, Lucy found herself ushered up the steps, and into the warm entrance hall. Billings, the butler, was taking her bonnet and cloak, and Isabella was tugging her along, into the private salon she used to entertain Elizabeth and herself.
“When was it arranged that you would child-mind me for the day?”
Isabella’s lovely eyes widened with feigned shock. “Oh, Lucy, how can you say that?”
“Very easily, you’ve been my companion—I daresay my governess—for the past two weeks. And no doubt my father’s coconspirator in arranging my marriage to the Duke of Sussex.”
Flopping down onto the settee, Isabella began toying with the thick fringe of tassels that decorated a pillow. “Your father wants only the very best for you, and after you … well, after you were poisoned he became consumed with worry. He knows something is wrong, Lucy.”
“I don’t know how. He’s never home, and when he is, he spends hardly any time engaged in conversation. He’s perpetually buried in his study.”
“Do not be cross with his lordship, Lucy, for he is not the only one who is worried about you. I am, as well.”
Isabella reached for her hand; her smile was kind and filled with sympathy and it made Lucy want to run away and hide. She didn’t want to be pitied. “Is there anything I might do for you, Lucy?”
“Well, you might start talking some sense into my father.”
“About?”
“His dimwitted idea to thrust me onto Sussex as his duchess.”
“Dimwitted? I think it brilliant.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you were the one that was being forced to marry him.”
Isabella glanced at her slyly. “The duke is very handsome, I dare say.”
Lucy glowered. “Handsome is only enticing when you are eighteen and a naive ninny.” Or twelve, and experiencing the pleasures of your first crush, and yes, absolute adoration if she must be honest with herself. She’d never forgotten Gabriel, and the sad, haunted look in his lovely gray eyes that were always a little too sunken from hunger.
“Lucy, handsome is an attribute appealing to any female, of any age.”
“I am afraid my requirements in a husband are rather more lengthy than just being handsome.”
“But you do agree he is handsome?”
“Among other things,” she muttered.
“Like?”
“Boring, staid, proper, passionless—”
Laughing Isabella held up her hand in defeat. “Lucy, you are unfair! How can you surmise the duke passionless? You aren’t even betrothed—well, not formally—ergo you cannot reasonably believe Sussex devoid of … well, the more amorous emotions.”
“Oh, and the lack of a formal betrothal stopped Black from acquainting you with his ‘amorous emotions’?”
“That’s different,” Issy sniffed. “And you know it.”
“No, Issy. That is touché.”
“We are not talking about myself and Black. We are talking about you.”
“Well, then, allow me to inform you of what I desire. I know that I want a man like Black, who looks at me with blistering heat, as your husband does you. I know I want a marriage based on love and trust, and a deep, abiding passion. Like yours. Would you so willingly deprive me of it, Issy, after tasting such bliss for yourself?”
Lowering her head, Lucy watched her cousin nibble her bottom lip. When she looked up, Issy’s eyes were bright. “I would never deny a woman what I have—it is what every young girl, young woman and spinster dreams of—and deserves. But,” Issy cautioned, “I cannot deny that I sense a very good match with Sussex. If you would but give it a chance,” Isabella said, raising her voice to be heard over Lucy’s grumbling.
“Are we finished with this discourse?” Lucy inquired. “I have already spent the better part of the morning with Father on this very topic. I am quite worn down by it, and any more time spent dwelling upon it shall put me in a mood most foul!”
“Very well. Our discourse on Sussex and his merits as a husband is tabled—for now.”
Lucy curtsied mockingly. “Why thank you, your ladyship. I am so grateful for the reprieve.”
“It will be short-lived, you know. Since having Black, I have become a shameless matchmaker, nearly rabid in my need to see all my loved ones as happy as I am.”
Lucy felt at once happy and envious for her cousin’s obvious adoration of her husband. An adoration that was all the more envious by the knowledge that her husband reciprocated Isabella’s feelings.
“Well, we were cooped up in here all day yesterday. I cannot stomach another day of listening to rain pattering against windowpanes. What shall we do?”
Isabella brightened, although Lucy saw the hesitation in her eyes. Her cousin wasn’t fooled but she was prepared to let it go—for now. “I had Billings send a missive to Elizabeth. We’re going to Sussex House for lunch—and gossip.”
Sussex House. The duke’s town house. The very place she did not wish to go. But then, she did wish to see Elizabeth again. The drizzle had turned to rain, which in fact sounded very much like icy pellets tinkling against the windows. The sound would drive her to bedlam, and the dreariness of the day would send her into even deeper melancholy. She did not want to be a morose little waif, taking to her bed consumed with grief and sadness. She wanted to be strong and tall, someone Thomas would come back to. Something different. She so desperately wanted to be rid of her old life, and become something—someone—else. A butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.
“What do you think, Luce?”
Standing, Lucy smiled—a genuine one. “I think it a sound plan. Lunch with Elizabeth is just the thing to bring some sunlight to this horribly dreary day. Besides, you will never believe the juicy tidbits I garnered at the Moorelands’ soiree last night. Positively shocking, and I know you will wish to hear all about it as you sip away on a hot cup of Darjeeling.”
“Oh, do tell,” Isabella said with a tiny pout. “Black hasn’t let me out of the house since our wedding. I’m in great need of a little bit of gossip.”
Lucy could well imagine what sort of activities kept the reclusive Earl of Black and his lady occupied. And while she was the tiniest bit envious that her cousin was married to a most passionate man, the feelings of happiness for Isabella far outweighed her jealousy.
One day she would have the same sort of passion.
“Well, you shall have to wait to learn of it,” she teased.
“Lucy!” Isabella chastised as she followed her out of the salon. “You cannot mean to make me wait until we reach Sussex House to hear the news! You fiend!”
“That is precisely
