Page 37 of It's In The Duke's Kiss
He chuckled and tilted his canvas toward her. “I believe I have a good start. What do you think?”
“Is it water by your home?” she asked, scrutinizing the painting.
“No. It’s the Serpentine.” He pointed to a white blob with black streaks around it. “That’s you.”
Emma’s heart tugged that he’d tried to paint her, however disastrous it was. Lucian may present a cold facade to the world, but she was positive his heart was warm. “What will you title it?”
He reached out, took her hand in his, and interlaced their fingers. “My Snow Fairy.”
Her heart thumped as she stared at the picture, savoring the feel of his large hand holding hers.His Snow Fairy.Lucian was stealing her heart, she realized with a start. She hoped very much that she had a piece of his, too.
Lucian called on her almost every day for the next couple of weeks. They painted, took carriage rides, read poetry, and he even showed her around his home and explained how different parts of his estate were run. When he brought her back home from that last visit, her mother asked to see her in her sitting room.
Since the talk with her father, Mother had not said much about Lucian’s courting Emma, nor had she really seemed overly changed, still regularly criticizing Emma’s hair, her dress, her too loud laugh.
“Has His Grace mentioned a future between the two of you yet?”
Emma’s stomach tightened. “Not yet.”
Her mother frowned. “We leave for London for the Season tomorrow. I would think if he wanted to make an announcement, he would have spoken to your father by now. Have you done something to muck it up?”
Emma gritted her teeth. “No, Mother, I don’t believe so.”
Her mother sighed. “Perhaps you were simply a diversion for him to pass the time.”
The breath whooshed from Emma at that suggestion. She didn’t understand her mother at all. She didn’t want Emma to have the sort of husband she had, and since Lucian was very different from her father, her mother should be glad. Yet she seemed jealous almost, as if she might be glad if Emma were rejected by Lucian.
Emma tried not to be too hurt, as she knew the reason why now, thanks to Papa. “Perhaps he’ll speak to Papa in London?” she offered, trying not to reveal in her tone how much she wanted that.
“We cannot waste the Season on hope, Emma. If His Grace does not make an offer for you within the first fortnight, then we’ll entertain other offers for you.”
Emma bit back a negative retort. It would do no good anyway. Besides, if she had captured Lucian’s heart as he’d captured hers, surely he would make his intentions known.
