Page 85 of Forget Me Not

“None whatsoever,” His Grace added.

Hand in hand, they slipped away.

Once out of earshot, Lucas said, “Excellently managed, darling.”

Rather than appearing pleased, her expression remained heavy. “Do you suppose they realized I was fabricating an excuse? I do not wish to add to their obvious tension, but I could not bear to remain while they argued.”

“They might very well have realized the escape for what it was, but you executed that departure as expertly as you did the allemande.”

He took her to a passing servant bearing a tray of ratafia. They soon had cups in hand, but she didn’t take so much as a sip of hers. The worry didn’t leave her expression.

“Julia?” he pressed. “Is something weighing on you?”

“I am simply out of my depth,” she said. “I will rally after a moment to catch my breath.”

He ran his free hand down her arm. “Take whatever time or space you need. I want this to be a happy evening for you. And the Gents are determined to do the same.”

“The lot of you will spoil me.” Her smile was a little forced but proved relieving just the same.

“That is the goal, Lady Jonquil. That is always the goal.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After the allemande, the ballhad passed in a blur. Julia’s mind had spun as ceaselessly as the shimmering gowns that had filled the elegant space.

“Do you, Lord Jonquil, ever feel as though you are suffocating when you have not journeyed in some time?”The duchess’s question still echoed in her thoughts as Julia finished her breakfast the next morning.

Suffocating.Lucas had readily agreed with the description. When he was not in the middle of a journey, when he wasn’t away and traveling and seeing the world, he felt as though he were suffocating. Suffocating.

Leaving was what Lucas Jonquil did. It was who he was. As a little girl, she’d had the cold comfort of believing he left her behind only because she was so much younger and, therefore, not terribly near the forefront of his considerations. As his wife, she could no longer dismiss his departure that way.

They were married. She was supposed to mean more to him now.

He’d been planning a trip and hadn’t said a word to her. He hadn’t mentioned a thing: where he was going, when he was leaving, how long he’d be gone. He’d not included her in any of his planning.

Was he simply going to leave one day without warning, like when he’d decided to move away when she was twelve and hadn’t even told her? That she’d not warranted considerationthenhad hurt. That nothing had apparently changed was devastating. She’d let herself believe she mattered to him more than she had eight years earlier. But she was wrong. She’d misplaced her trust. Again.

Upon finishing her morning meal, she slipped quietly into the Falstone Castle sitting room. The other guests who had stayed overnight, living too far distant to safely make the journey home after the ball had ended in the early hours of morning, were not up and about yet. Lucas had told her they would be making an early start. They would be returning to Brier Hill that day. Apparently, his definition of “early” did not match hers; she was the only one of their entourage who was out and about.

The sitting room, however, was not empty. Little Lord Falstone knelt in a chair, elbows on the round table in front of him, head bent over a backgammon board. Across from him was an older woman in the clothing of a servant, likely the nursemaid.

“Mother doesn’t like to play backgammon,” the boy said to his nurse. “I don’t know what she likes, except going away.”

“Your ma does like to travel about.” The observation was not made unkindly.

“Why does she not like to be here? I am here, and Father says I am the very best of sons.”

“And so you are, my sweet Adam.”

Lord Falstone shifted, sitting back, slumped against the chair back. “Then why does she go away all the time? We have a nice castle, and Father is a very good duke, and I am the best of sons. It isn’t sensible to leave when we have this home. It is ridiculous.”

The nurse took her turn at the game, speaking as she moved a checker. “Not everything can be ridiculous, wee boy. You’re in need of a new word.”

“I like that word.” He returned to his kneeling position in order to take his own turn at their game. “I especially like it when it is therightword. It is often the right word.”

“Is it the right word for your ma leaving again?”

His brow pulled, the movement puckering his vast array of scars. “That she does not like to be home is ridiculous. But Mother leaving makes me feel sad.”

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