Page 25 of How to Seduce a Viscount
‘I wanted to make sure everyone knew who I was with.’
He grinned and then proceeded to study her. ‘You do look quite fine, Wren, but I think something is missing.’
For a moment she panicked, a hand going to her hair, almost missing the glimmer of mischief in his eyes as he pulled a slim velvet box from his inner coat pocket.
‘A neckline like that needs jewellery.’
She swallowed hard, fighting to hide the inordinate and irrational amount of emotion the blue velvet box raised. Whatever was in there would be on loan only. But like the dress, it was the thoughtfulness that mattered.
She put a hand to the decolletage, doing a little teasing of her own to cover her surprise. ‘Are you suggesting my neckline is too low? This is in keeping with current fashion, and I must tell you that I had gowns in Paris that were cut far deeper than this.’ She slanted him a flirty smile. ‘I had one gown that was cut to here.’ She drew her finger down her breastbone and his gaze followed. She leaned forward. ‘If a man slanted his gaze very carefully, he could see straight down my gown.’
‘Minx.’ Luce gave a husky chuckle. ‘Then, I’m glad this dress is cut no lower than it is. No one needs to be seeing any of your charms tonight. No one except me.’ He flipped open the lid of the box, revealing a simple strand of pearls. ‘Will this do?’ he asked solemnly, all teasing gone as he lifted the necklace from the box.
‘Yes.’ It would more than do. She turned swiftly and gave him her back, lifting the length of her hair. She blinked hard against the tears that threatened as he put the necklace about her neck and fastened it.
His hands lingered at her shoulders. ‘What is it, Wren? Has the necklace upset you?’ She had not been discreet enough to hide her tears.
‘No, just the opposite.’ She faced him, her fingers gently touching the pearls. There was comfort in their smoothness, their symmetry. ‘It pleases me greatly. No one has ever given me jewellery before, not voluntarily at least.’ She hastily added, ‘Not even for a night. I know I have to return them, that they are merely on loan. Of course, the earl made sure I had jewels but they were for work and this is…not for work.’
Luce gave a quiet grin just for her. ‘That’s right, there’s to be no work tonight. Just fun. Just dancing.’
‘Just dancing?’ She made a coy enquiry and then gave a teasing pout. ‘I was given to understand there might be a little more on offer than just dancing. Did I misunderstand?’ She pressed the flat of her palm to his trousers. ‘Seems like there might quite a bit more than a little on offer.’
‘There most certainly is. Later. Don’t start something we can’t finish in five minutes,’ Luce growled against her throat. ‘I am sure it took more than five minutes to get you into that dress. And we are expected.’
She gave him a knowing smile and a last caress. ‘I will hold you to that.’ The promise would definitely add a delicious edge to the evening.
The evening was made to be enjoyed—brisk, cold and clear. They took their time with the short drive enjoying the winter air and the bright stars overhead from beneath the luxury of warm furrobes. Before they reached the village, Luce pulled the horse to a stop. ‘Look, the winter hexagon is out tonight.’ Luce traced the sky with a hand.
‘Show me.’ She used it as an excuse to lean close to him, to breath in the spicy winter scent of him, knowing the opportunity to do so was not infinite.
‘It starts with the star, Rigel, at Orion’s foot.’ His mouth was close to her ear and he took her hand, raising it to the sky with his, so that they traced the stars together. ‘Then we move clockwise to the tail’s end of Canis Major, on to Sirius in the dog’s chest. Then, to Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Follow the line to Auriga, then finish at Aldebaran, the star that makes up the eye for Taurus. For a bonus, Betelgeuse can be found at the middle of the hexagon.’
‘Amazing.’ Not just the stars, but the man beside her. She sighed against his shoulder, content to linger with the stars, the allure of dancing paling against this quiet moment. ‘How do you know so much and remember it?’ Astronomy had not been among her subjects.
Luce laughed, a soft sound in the night air. ‘The four of us liked to be outdoors. We’d camp near the lake at Sandmore during the summers and Grandfather felt it was not an opportunity to be wasted. He sent our tutor with us to teach us the stars at night. I liked it because of the Latin. But it was Stepan who was the best at it. We all had our gifts. Caine was an excellent marksman at an early age. Kieran is an all-around talent from weapons to conversation. He’s always mastered anything he’s set his mind to. The problem with him is that he doesn’t set his mind to everything. He is rather selective.’ Luce chuckled. ‘I excelled at language and academia—probably more from circumstance at first than choice.’
‘Why is that?’ She smiled up at him, enjoying this intimate look into the brotherhood, intohim.
‘Well, I was the youngest by six years and we’d have this swimming competition every summer to see who could race out to the island in the lake fastest. The loser had to do the others’ homework for a week. I couldn’t hope to compete with them although I tried my best. Inevitably, I ended up doing four Latin assignments instead of one quite often. Later, I was glad for it. I enjoy books and history and languages. They weren’t hard for me and my father was a great supporter of learning. We’ve bonded over books throughout the years.’ He gave a teasing smile. ‘May I tell you a secret? I think my father likes me best because of it.’ He laughed. ‘I am joking of course. My father loves all of us.’
Wren thought it was wondrous to have a father at all. To have one who loved you, who shared such a deep abiding interest in something that also interested you, was beyond her scope of imagining but not beyond her scope of wanting.
A little silence stretched between them. Luce sighed, his breath coming out frosty. ‘Stepan was the best at astronomy, though. He was the consummate outdoorsman out of all of us. He could swim like a fish, hike like a bear and track like a fox. He’d take off on day treks and come back with a knapsack full of plants and herbs. He’d spend the next day analysing them. Or he’d go out to the home farm. He loved to work with the farmers and talk about crop rotation. Country folk were his folk. He might have struggled with Latin but the language of the countryside washislanguage. Crops, yields, fallow fields—he knew it all.’
‘You miss him.’ He’d not talked about Stepan in the weeks she’d been here. For a man who spoke six languages, such silence was an indicator of the depth of his pain. The subject of his brother simply hurt too much yet. What he had mentioned in passing had been perfunctory.
She squeezed his hand beneath the robe in quiet gratitude for the story. No words were necessary. Words would only make it worse. It was enough to be the recipient of these beautiful stories tonight, to be given this rare look inside the Parkhurst world and yet her secret kicked at the bars of its cage with a new ferocity.Tell him! Tell him! Tell him his brother may be alive. Take away his pain.
‘Luce, I…’ she began. The words were nearly there, nearly breathed into existence on the wisps of a frosty night, ‘…I am so sorry.’ Truth faltered in the silence, the secret intact and yet Wren felt as if in keeping the secret she’d somehow failed.
After a while, Luce picked up the reins and chirped to the patient horse. He turned to her all smiles and mischief, as if he hadn’t been entirely vulnerable just minutes before. ‘I believe I’ve promised you some dancing tonight.’
‘More than dancing I believe was promised.’ She smiled back, willing to play along. She understood it all better—the flirting, the fun, the projects and the passions. They were all ways to drive the hurt into oblivion, whether it was late nights spent working on his grandfather’s memoir, restoring his home, or solving codes. If he was busy, if he was working on something meaningful, it held the pain at bay and perhaps in its own way kept alive hope that Stepan was out there. Somewhere. And someday he’d find his way home, perhaps guided by the very stars he loved so much.
A wave of guilt over her failure earlier swept over her. She had the power to give him some hope, real hope. But she’d promised the earl to say nothing until they were sure. That promise grated on her tonight. The man she loved was in pain, living daily with an anguish he kept hidden, and she was sworn to do nothing about it.Yet. She consoled herself. She was doing something about it, she simply couldn’t tell anyone.Yet. In many ways yet was a word of hope, a promise of things to come.
Luce parked the cutter in the tavern’s stable yard and helped her down with a laughing caution about watching where she stepped. She laughed, too, their laughter restoring some of the mirth of the evening. For her, though, the evening was already tainted. The secret was eating her alive. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Tonight was supposed to be magical, a moment out of reality, her very own fairy tale. She touched the pearls one last time before they stepped inside. She’d played parts before but never one as difficult as the one tonight.
