Page 37 of How to Seduce a Viscount
‘Perhaps I can change. Perhaps I can accept those limits if it means having this wondrous thing between us.’ His hand on her arm stilled, its grip tightening. She braced although she doubted it would offer any protection. Luce was good at overwhelming people with his charm, his reasoning. She was no more immune to him than he was to her. ‘I want you to stay.’ Five words said quietly in the dark but which carried with them the power to alter lives. Not just hers, but his.
She sighed, breathing in the possibility those words offered and breathed out the improbability of them actually happening. Her hand played on his chest, drawing the slow circles he liked.
‘Luce, I am flattered to be asked but it can’t change anything, only prolong it, which might be quite dangerous for us both. I do not want Gerlitz’s men to come to Tillingbourne or the village. I do not want to watch you ride away in the spring to London knowing that you will return with a wife. I’d rather be the one who rides away first.’ She mounted her protest gently.
‘Come spring,’ Luce broke in fiercely, his hand trapping hers on his chest. ‘Nothing will change. I am not asking you to stay temporarily, Wren. I am asking you to stay for ever. As my wife, as my partner in my home and with the Horsemen.’
Luce Parkhurst had just proposed. In bed, nonetheless, and the one thought running through her head was that when something sounded too good to be true it probably was. This proposal was not the exception. She levered up on one elbow to face him, finding the strength from somewhere deep inside to let logic do the reasoning for them both. ‘You need to go to London and find a wife there for the sake of your title and your estate.’
Luce rolled to his side, matching her in posture. ‘Why would I do that when I have a perfectly good wifely candidate right here? One that Icansee myself with for the rest of my life.’
‘You are compromising your principles for me. I don’t want to be another trade you make in life.’
‘When a rule doesn’t make sense it should be changed. Perhaps it was wrong to cast truth and trust in absolute molds to begin with. Why should those things be absolutes when nothing else in the world we inhabit is? Perhaps it was never right to think they should be. Maybe the Horseman in me was right all along and the man was simply too stubborn to see it.’
The words shook her. To be wanted by this man who knew exactly what she was—a street rat, an informant, a woman who’d lived a less than pristine life albeit an adventurous one—was overwhelming. ‘Women like me are not viscountess material.’
‘Men like me—fourth sons of third sons—are not precisely viscount material either. But here we both are.’ Luce gave a shrug of his shoulder. ‘I had no title until six months ago and it was most unorthodox in how it came about, as were the reasons for it. Perhaps it makes sense that such an unorthodox viscount should have a viscountess who is the same?’
‘I can almost hear you smiling,’ she replied wryly. ‘Stop right there. You know you have a silver tongue. You can make it sound plausible in the moment. Long enough for me to say yes.’
His hand was at her hip. ‘Then say yes and we can celebrate right now in bed.’ There was a flirting lilt to his voice and she wanted with all of her heart to say yes. To be loved, to be cared for by this man, to be part of his family, his world, meant everything. It was beyond all expectation and for good reason.
She stroked his cheek with a soft hand. ‘What happens when the moment is over? Persuasion only alters perception, Luce. It does not alter reality. Reality is solid. Immoveable. Empirical.’
He captured her hand and kissed her palm. ‘Reality is what we make it. I thought we were agreed that people see what we show them.’
Heavens, he never gave up. ‘I am to vanish. How can I stay? We can change my name. We can make up a history and that will fool people in society. But someone, somewhere, knows better and they will come one day. They will put you, our family, the network, all the things I care for, in danger.’
‘I will protect you, our family, all of it. This is the promise Kieran made Celeste and that Caine made Mary. Now, I make it to you. A Horseman’s life is inherently dangerous and the game does not stop. What you say for yourself is also true for me. In that, we are together.’ He insisted on spiking her guns. ‘Why should we let the potential of risk keep us from the reality of happiness?’ He paused. ‘Unless youwantto vanish? I was under the impression you did not prefer it, that it was something you were compelled towards.’
‘It is because it makes sense. I can be responsible for my own fate without entangling others.’
The sacrifice of one for the benefit of many. That was how the earl had put it to her when she’d protested. Wasn’t that what the whole purpose of the network was? What the purpose ofthe work of the Horsemen was? A few might sacrifice in order to prevent war, to stop the slaughter of thousands. Stepan’s sacrifice had secured safe delivery of arms to Greece so that the cause of independence might continue.
‘If I am found, Luce, no one will suffer. No one depends on me.’ Perhaps she didn’t have enough courage to be part of a family. How brave the Parkhursts were to love so openly, to care so deeply for one another. The risk of one was a risk to all and yet they embraced it.
Luce let go of her hand and rolled onto his back, a hand behind his head, but he did not let go of the issue. ‘It is natural to choose what seems safest to you when faced with a difficult decision. Easy decisions have clear alternatives and clear consequences. This does not. One might say there is danger either way. It is just which risk you’re willing to take. I’d like you to take that chance on me. On us. Aristotle says…’
‘Donotquote Aristotle to me while my heart is breaking. Imustrefuse, Luce, and you damn well know it. What would your grandfather say?’ They hadn’t even discussed the earl. That was just one more ripple on a pond already flooded with ripples, with consequences, if they were to wed. ‘He’d be furious. His grandson married to Falcon. To a street rat.’
‘I think we should ask him instead of deciding for him. He had no problem with Kieran marrying Cabot Roan’s ward—his enemy’s ward—this would be a far more amicable arrangement.’
His tenacity was wearying. He would wear her down at this rate. ‘May I think on it, Luce?’ She moved back into his arms, hoping to put an end to the conversation. Shewouldthink on it, she just wasn’t sure she’d come to a different conclusion. But Luce would keep them both up all night with his arguments if he thought there was a chance.
‘You may think on it, but not indefinitely. I will demand an answer.’
She knew he was only half joking despite his playful tone. Damn it all, she’d hurt him. Again. He wanted her and she’d made him fight for her only to be rebuffed. But she couldn’t say yes until she truly believed it was possible. She thought for a moment of Stepan and Ellen. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who was holding back.
‘Luce, do you think Stepan doesn’t want to be found?’ she asked quietly.
‘Why would you think that? Why wouldn’t he want to be found, to have the missing memories restored at least factually even if he can’t restore them for himself?’
‘Because he’s content. Remembering means he’ll have to choose. He cannot have both lives: the peaceful Quaker farmer and the gallivanting, rakish, sometimes-violentHorseman. He cannot have both families. You saw how he was today with those boys. They worshipped him, responded to the slightest glance from him. He has made that family his own in the short time he’s been there. Our presence here threatens that.’
‘Wethreaten nothing.’ Luce’s admonishment came softly in the dark. ‘His choice has already been made. Hecan’tchoose them. It doesn’t change what he is, what he’ll always be.’
My point exactly, she thought silently. Did Luce realise he’d turned his own argument from earlier? Reality was unalterable. Stepan could forget who he was, put on a farmer’s boots and tramp fields, but he would still be a Horseman. She could call herself a viscountess and be the lady of the manor, but somewhere out there someone would know she’d been a spy. The past would always be there in the background. No one walked away from anything. Except perhaps happiness.
