Page 94 of A Gentleman's Wager
Charles had his eyes closed, and his head was already lolling towards his chest. Louisa sat with her back to the two men, so only Bella had a view of them. Vaughan ran his index finger around the rim of his glass, then dipped it into the sticky sweet liquid. He sucked his fingertip suggestively, delighted by her scowl, which further broadened when he slipped an arm around Lucerne’s shoulders and stroked the line of his jaw.
Lucerne turned to him, lips parted so that the perfect Cupid’s bow of his lips was displayed. They didn’t kiss, but they may as well have. It was clear that was in their thoughts… their hearts… It was there in their eyes, the way they looked at one another—that in all the universe only they existed, and all else was fancy.
Their love did not enchant her. It intrigued her, yes. But it provoked a rage in her that bubbled hot and fierce inside her chest.
Lucerne was supposed to be hers. Her escape. Her salvation. And she had been so convinced that he wanted her too.
Sadly, that did not make it true. It was all too apparent that Vaughan held the largest part of Lucerne’s affections.
Noticing her scrutiny, Lucerne flashed her a smile, but the acknowledgement did nothing to reassure her. So long as Vaughan remained part of his life, then Lucerne would never be hers.
That realisation caused the tightness in her chest to increase. It spread, constricting her throat. She wouldn’t stand by and watch them any longer. What could be the benefit in torturing herself with more images of them entwined as though they were wed? Too many such visions already haunted her dreams.
“You look like you’ve lost something,” Vaughan remarked. All she could offer in retaliation was a wounded look, and to scamper away like a kicked puppy.
“Was it something I said?” he called after her as she dashed from the room, as if he wasn’t fully aware of the pain every one of his barbs had caused.
Bella fled with no destination in mind, only a need to place some distance between herself and the source of her distress. She nearly crashed into a suit of mail by the door to the guard room. Twas only named that by virtue of housing a collection of mediaeval mail and weaponry, no type of guard had ever been resident at Lauwine. It was often where Lucerne’s pack of wolfhounds could be found lazing before the fire. True enough, one looked up at her with its big brown doggy eyes before returning its head to its paws when she didn’t produce either food or ear scratches. It was only when Bella reached the back stairs that she finally stopped and slumped against the bare stone wall.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. She could not stop shaking. Dammit, just for a moment she wished for her brother and his protection. Joshua would not understand or approve of the mess she had got herself embroiled in, but he did care for her. He would wrap his arms around her and say the right things like the conscientious big brother he was.
Lucerne appeared at the bottom of the steps. “Bella?” he reached out and clasped her hand. “Are you feeling all right?”
The answer to that was clearly no. “Lucerne,” she said, her voice thick and grindy. “Do you love me?”
It was as if she had uttered a magic spell that sucked all the warmth out of the room. The rasp of his indrawn breath squeaked like air being release from a bladder. He opened his mouth, then promptly closed it again.
“I guess that’s a plain enough answer.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. He coughed loudly into his hand. “Just that it was rather… You have taken me by surprise.”
What he didn’t do was contradict her conclusion.
Heaven help her, she ought not to be surprised, being perfectly aware that men did not consider love and sex the same thing. One was all encompassing, familial. The other, a momentary passion or diversion.
It was not even as if she needed Lucerne to love her. Only that she wanted reassurance that she was more than a fleeting distraction for himself and Vaughan while they were away from Society. That she wasn’t destined to be left behind.
Honesty blazed within Lucerne’s cornflower-blue eyes. “You’re precious to me – is that enough?”
It would have to be.
Perhaps it was too soon for declarations of undying love. Love struck her as rather a serpentine thing anyway. In a moment you could be swaddled, the next have spit in your eye and sluggish pulse. And love had served Louisa ill.
Lucerne opened his arms to her, and foolish as a baby bird, she went right to him.
“Don’t let him get to you,” he muttered. “I want you here, in my house, my life, and my arms. That is all that matters.”
-52-
Louisa
November arrived, crisp and chill. The crunch of overnight frost supplanting the endless downpours. For Louisa, one day drifted into the next without noticeable division. Day and night, Frederick Wakefield haunted her. She had tried in multiple ways to scourge him from her heart, but without success. He still crept upon her in random moments, conjured by a sentence in a story, a particular turn of phrase, or the way the light filtered through a certain window. Hence, some areas of the house she avoided altogether. The long gallery being one. Here, he had once pulled her behind the curtain of the bay window for a heavenly kiss. The memories caused such sharp pain that she preferred to avoid them altogether. Moreover, it served no good to have her thoughts forever skittering off on excursions into what might have been. It was over. Their love snuffed out of existence as one might extinguish a candle flame.
It had become her habit to rise early in the mornings. The house was at its quietest then. The master commonly didn’t rise before ten. This day, she had set her painting easel before the French doors in the drawing room. The light being of a particularly good quality. She had just finished the first wash of colour on her depiction of the courtyard, when a lone, great-coated figure came trooping over the cobblestones.
The figure strode right up to the glass doors, and peered in at her, revealing himself to be the marquis. On spying her, he knocked a knuckle against the pane. Tempting as it was to leave him outside to freeze, Louisa opened the latch.
He entered, along with an icy blast of wind and a swirl of fallen leaves.
