to insult the young lady by telling her it would be a kind of insurance, to guarantee that she’d break the engagement once it had outlived its usefulness.
After all, it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind in matters of this nature. A mild local scandal might result, but little more. When a gentleman jilted a lady, on the other hand, it became the tattle of the ton—likely to end up in the law courts or, worse yet, the newspapers.
If what his grandfather had told him about Angela Lacewood were true, Lucius doubted she would betray him by insisting they go ahead with a marriage he did not want. A nobleman with a comfortable fortune could never be too careful, though. He would feel less uneasy about the whole enterprise if he had some influence he could exercise over her when the time came.
“Now that you understand my intentions, Miss Lacewood, is it possible you might oblige me?”
As he awaited her answer, it seemed to Lucius that all of his internal organs had contracted into one tight, heavy ball such as might blast from the mouth of a cannon. Finding that his palms had begun to sweat, he thrust his arms behind his back.
“It is…possible, my lord,” she said at last.
Lucius expelled the breath he had not realized he’d been holding.
“But I will need more information upon which to base my decision,” she hastened to add. “What would this engagement of ours entail, exactly?”
“How in blazes should I know!” Lucius flared.
This whole business had wound him far too tight. His struggle to project an unruffled facade had not helped.
“Whatever it takes to make grandfather believe we mean to get married, I suppose.” He was vexed with himself for failing to plan beyond this interview, which had not gone at all as he’d expected.
“Would we have to go out in society together?” Miss Lacewood looked as though she were wringing her hands. At second glance, Lucius realized she was twisting a slender ring on her little finger. “I mean, such society as one finds in this quiet corner of the country?”
Since he wasn’t certain what answer she wanted, Lucius gave her the one he preferred. “I don’t see why we should have to. I seldom get invited anywhere these days and almost always decline when I do. I don’t expect that to change simply because I’ve acquired a fiancée.”
A certain stiffness in her posture seemed to ease. Had she approved of his unsociable answer? Perhaps they might get along well enough after all.
“Would I be allowed to visit Helmhurst even more frequently than I do now?” This time there could be no question what she wanted to hear.
Though the notion of sharing the last few precious months of his grandfather’s company with another person did not appeal to him, Lucius made himself nod. “As much as you wish.”
Miss Lacewood made no effort to hide her bittersweet satisfaction with his answer.
It was beginning to look as though he might just succeed in winning her cooperation. The prospect made Lucius light-headed and off balance.
“Anything else?” he asked. The corners of his mouth arched upward and he could do nothing to stop them.
She greeted his question with a blush so intense Lucius could see it in spite of the dim light in the room.
“Kiss?”
The tremulous murmur of her query hit him like a hard, unexpected blow to the belly. Lucius ordered himself not to stare at Miss Lacewood’s wide, full lips. Under no circumstances should he imagine what it might be like to kiss her. Or speculate whether she’d been kissed by another man.
All at once, Lucius fancied he could hear bugles in the distance sounding retreat.
“I should never have come here.” He wheeled about and strode for the sitting room door, snatching up his cloak and wide-brimmed felt hat from the back of a chair where he had left them.
“This was a ludicrous idea—quite unworkable. I’m sorry to have troubled you, Miss Lacewood. I will see myself out.”
As he marched toward the entry hall, Lucius flung his cloak around his shoulders and jammed his hat on, pulling the broad brim low to shade his face.
Behind him he heard footsteps hurrying to catch up.
“Please, Lord Daventry, will you wait a moment?”
Lucius did not slacken his pace, though he fancied he could hear the Iron Duke bellowing, “The little baggage has you on the run, eh, Daventry? Stand and take it like a man, why don’t you.”
When he reached the front door, Lucius wheeled to face his pursuer.
Clearly Miss Lacewood had not anticipated this, for she failed to curb her headlong chase. As he pivoted toward her, she barreled into him. If the door had not been at his back, they might have crashed onto the floor of the entry hall in a tangled heap. Instead, Lucius felt his arms rise to enfold her for the third time that afternoon.
Her wild tumble of curls tickled his nose. They smelled as fresh and sweet as the garden from whence she’d been summoned by his call. If sunbeams could have substance and texture, surely they would feel like Miss Lacewood’s golden tresses.
She raised her face to his, and for one mad, fleeting instant Lucius wanted to give her the kiss she’d asked about. The kiss her lips had been made for.
But before he had the chance, words gushed from between those provocatively parted lips. “I’m sorry!”
It brought him back to his senses with the cold shock of ice water.
“I’m so sorry I bumped into you.” She sounded thoroughly rattled. “And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you with my question.”
She lifted her hand to his face.
Lucius flinched at the soft, pitying caress of her gentle fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated in a whisper as her hand strayed closer to his mask, making the mangled flesh beneath it burn.
Though part of him longed to thrust her away with all his strength, Lucius exercised every crumb of his considerable restraint to detach Angela Lacewood from him.
“That, my dear, is precisely the problem.”
Sorry? Angela fumed as she watched Lord Daventry ride away, the wide brim of his hat pulled low to his brow and his dark cloak billowing behind him. She was sorry, to be sure.
Sorry that insufferable man had come calling with his distressing news, his bewildering proposal and his abrupt departure! Yet it was only when he had disappeared altogether from sight that she marched back into the house.
For the first time in her life, Angela slammed the heavy front door of Netherstowe behind her. She had never been given to venting her feelings. Indeed, she’d spent most of her life trying to avoid strong emotions of any kind. They served no purpose but to cause a variety of unpleasant physical sensations—racing heart, breathlessness, bilious stomach, headaches.
In
