Page 44 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
“Your Grace, I hardly know what you mean,” she said, sitting primly in the chair next to his, hands folded neatly in her lap.
He cast a very pointed look at the letter still lying next to his place setting. “I think you know full well what I mean. Look, if we are to talk as equals the least you can do is to help yourself to something. A muffin perhaps?” he asked, offering her the basket. “It is impossible to eat with you sitting there staring at me like that.”
She stared at him a long moment, finally taking a muffin and setting it before her, though making no move to eat. Her eyes were troubled as she glanced at him, at once wary and unsure. “You will go, then? Though it will storm ere long?”
“It is not so far as that. I shall be fine, Lucy,” James said, picking up his fork and concentrating on the food before him, even if she were not, knowing full well it was not the weather that troubled her.
“Is it true then? That your Lady was set upon by a dozen thieves and she fought them off single-handed?”
His laughter caught him by surprise, near choking him. He grabbed for his juice, drinking deeply before answering. “Lucy, you should know better than to listen to kitchen gossip. You know it all gets blown out of proportion.”
“But your Lady?” she prompted as he addressed his breakfast again.
James sighed and laid down his fork. “My Lady, as you so put it, is quite a capable personage in her own right. Which is all I will say on the subject. I suppose you have conjectured to lay together that story and this rather…” he waved his hand over the letter, turning up his lip with a certain distaste, “…rather imperious order demanding that I show myself upon the Duke’s doorstep at half past ten.”
“Are they not connected then?” she asked, picking up her muffin and taking a cautious bite, almost without thinking.
“They are, though there is little to worry about. I hardly think he would call me out, though I expect to hear something of a well-deserved tongue-lashing. I would much rather have had it done and over with last night, but the Duke is a calculating sort. Likely he rather hoped I would stew in my own juices for a bit before having it out with me.”
“And did you?” Lucy asked, rising to fetch a plate from the sideboard and an extra place setting.
“Stew? I suppose I did. I know I scarcely slept, not that such a thing is any of your concern.”
“It was once,” she reminded him, sitting and reaching for the plate of bacon, helping herself liberally and adding several slices of bread from the basket.
“Not for a long time,” he reminded her gently and saw that she at least had the grace to flush. “Lucy, have I perhaps done you a disservice?”
Her head came up sharply. “Your Grace?”
He sighed a little. “I am sorry I ever said a thing about the use of my title between us. I rather miss being your little ‘Jamie,’ he said and shook his head. “I am wondering if I should have sent you to another household from here, to someone else with children who needed raising as I once did. Would you have been happier there?”
Lucy’s eyes went wide, and she nearly dropped the fried egg she was spooning onto her plate. “Have I been as much a burden as that?”
“Never! You have never been a burden to me,” he said and leaned back in his chair to study her earnestly. “I had rather thought we had become something…like family.”
“I have always felt you were…family,” she said softly.
“But it has left you in an awkward position here,” he pointed out.
She shook her head. “I am content and have nothing for which to complain.”
He let that go, for he’d heard her complain mightily over the years. “At some point though, you must decide that I have fully grown and can manage my own affairs,” he said, gently, and placed his hand on the letter, which crinkled under his touch. “You had worked yourself into a frenzy here.”
She dropped her eyes to her plate but had no answer for this.
He reached for another slice of toast and found it gone. James stared, for in fact most of the serving plates upon the table were quite empty and he didn’t remember eating more than that initial slice of bread. Lucy’s plate, on the other hand, held the dregs of what looked to be a rather large and appetizing breakfast.
He watched in wry amusement as she daintily set her napkin over her plate and rose. “I shall see about getting this cleared…” she murmured and started for the door.
“Lucy…”
She paused on the threshold and turned as though expecting a scolding. “Yes, Your Grace?”
He would have laughed had she not been so much in earnest. “You do not need to worry any longer,” he said softly. “Whatever the Duke of York has to say about the matter, I have not revealed your part in any of this, nor will I. I am sure Lady Barrington received back the token, and while I still seem to be beholden to courting the Lady, it is not so much a chore as I may have thought initially.”
Bright hope flared in Lucy’s eyes. She stepped back toward him, hands clasped in delight. “So, you care about her then?”
James raised an eyebrow at her. “Would it matter so very much to you were I to admit that I did?”
