Page 93 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
His expression turned grave. “Vanessa and I were never lovers.”
“I know that. Now.”
Juliet couldn’t help recalling that night in London, when thanks to Vanessa, she finally realized just what a special man she’d rejected.
“She and I had always been best friends. We grew up together. In so many ways, we were both misfits. I couldn’t stand by and watch her parents bully her into marrying Granville without doing something about it.”
“Not when she was in love with her music master.” Juliet felt such compassion for the innocent young girl, trapped in the web of family ambition.
“Johann Brandtner was a fine man, but he couldn’t win against the Goulds, who were a grasping, ruthless bunch. They were ready to do anything, including commit murder, to get a duchess in the family. If they’d had the slightest idea that Vanessa was respectably wed and living near Cologne, they’d have hunted her down and done away with Johann. It was more difficult to threaten the powerful Duke of Evesham. Not to mention, if the world thought Vanessa had given her maidenhead to a roué who wouldn’t marry her, she lost her value on the marriage market.”
“But you must have known I’d never betray her secret.”
“I’d given her my word.” His jaw set. “You trusted me enough to come to my bed, Juliet. You should have trusted me the rest of the way. You said you loved me, but it was love that had too many limits.”
Another stab of guilt. Because, curse him, he was right. “I wasn’t brave enough,” she said in a low voice.
“No, you weren’t.”
She should have been more generous. She should have been more perceptive. She’d spent all her life listening to her head and ignoring her heart. In Lucas’s case, her heart had always known best.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ve been so wrong about everything, and I’ve caused you such unhappiness. Can you forgive me?”
Lucas leaned in and kissed her with a thoroughness that soothed her self-hatred. His kiss spoke forgiveness even before he uttered the words. “I love you, Juliet. Of course I forgive you. And you’re right. I should have told you.”
Still hardly able to believe that they were together at last, she surveyed his beloved face. “I’m not sure I could have gone on without you, even if Vanessa hadn’t visited. These last months have been intolerable.”
His smile promised eternal love. “Let’s make up for that with joy.”
“Joy sounds good.” Emotion thickened her voice, and a tear escaped to trickle down her cheek.
“You don’t look very joyful.” Wry amusement lightened his expression, as he caught the tear on one finger. “You look like you’re about to cry your eyes out.”
A soggy laugh emerged, and one hand sneaked up to tug at a curl at his nape. His hair was still a complete mess. That was her Lucas. “I used to pride myself on my self-control, but since a certain ramshackle duke barged into my life, I’m at the mercy of my feelings.”
“Not the proper and restrained Lady Juliet Frain?”
She gave another soggy giggle, torn between poignant emotion and the laughter that had always been Lucas’s gift to her. “I don’t think anyone calls me proper and restrained these days. I’m free to decide what I want and where I go.”
He arched his eyebrows in mock dismay. “I’m hoping you’ve decided that you’re coming with me.”
She dredged up a misty smile. “Never doubt it.”
For a long moment, they held each other in silence. A healing peace descended. Juliet hadn’t known peace since she’d met Lucas, but now she was with him and set to stay that way.
“To think, if Papa hadn’t cheated at cards, we’d have missed out on this.”
She felt surprise ripple through him. “What the devil?”
Juliet started to laugh, in a way that she hadn’t laughed in months. “Lucas, don’t tell me you never guessed.”
“The old rogue sharped me?”
“Of course he did. He’s very good at it.”
“And he looks as innocent as a lamb, which helps. That’s an infernally dangerous trick to play. Men have been shot for less.”
“He only does it for the sake of art.”
