Page 206 of Morally Black Betrothal
“H-hello, Mr. Lyons,” I said to the third button of his shirt.
Not for the first time, I was struck by how vastly different Lucas and Daniel Lyons were.
It was a phenomenon I was familiar with, given the way my younger sister and I, despite being born only ten months apartand having shared a room most of our lives, were also polar opposites. Joni was the life of the party. I was Debbie Downer. She was effervescent, beautiful, and impossibly charismatic. I was plain, unremarkable, and basically the human embodiment of a shadow.
Similarly, Lucas was his brother’s foil. While Daniel seemed to have walked directly out of the sun with his golden hair, California-bright smile, and shining blue eyes, Lucas was more like the storm cloud arrived to blot out the light. He was just a little too tall, had dark hair that was always immaculately trimmed and combed, always wore a full suit and tie, and wore a persistent scowl that would make a sunflower wither down to seeds.
A scowl that was currently focused on me.
“What are you doing in Daniel’s room?” he demanded. “You haven’t worked as a maid for at least seven years.”
I swallowed. Lucas and I had spoken maybe four or five times. I wasn’t even aware he knew my face, let alone my name or what exactly I did for his family.
Perhaps I should have expected it. Lucas Lyons knew everything about everyone who worked for him, his family, or any related project or company. The man had a notoriously encyclopedic memory, which the staff murmured was photographic and not particularly forgiving.
“I—I was just—” Usually, stuttering was only a problem around Daniel.
Lucas glanced around the room. “Are you here to bring back Daniel’s dishes?”
I followed his gaze to the pair of champagne flutes and the open bottle on the bureau. One of the glasses had a lipstick print on the rim.
I barely hid my glare.
“Yes.” I decided to accept the alibi. “That’s right.”
Out of instinct, I attempted something like a curtsy, except I’d never been taught how to curtsy, nor was I a servant at Downton Abbey. So, it was just an awkward sort of bob. One that sent me sprawling to the floor.
That fall was apparently the last straw that evening for my sanity. Like a button had been pressed to open the floodgates, tears fell down my face in torrents.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The deep, take-no-prisoners voice I usually heard from rooms away quieted to a hushed purr. “Here, let me help you.”
I looked up to find Lucas’s broad palm extended toward me. Reluctantly, I let him pull me back to standing, then steady me with both hands on my shoulders.
Those hands were broad and heavy. Warm and surprisingly grounding.
I sniffed back my tears, wiping furiously at my cheeks. God, this wasmortifying.
Two fingers slipped under my chin and tipped my face up toward his.
“I’m—sorry,” I managed to squeeze out around hiccups. “I’m n-not usually like this.”
“I know you’re not.”
He did?
We stared at each other for a good long minute.
Up close, I had to admit that Lucas was better looking than he was given credit for. Younger, too. As the story went, he was an accident, his father’s first child at a much younger age. To hear the staff gossip, Lucas was old enough to be Daniel’s father. Fifty, they alleged. Sixty, even.
Up close, I doubted he was even forty. He was quite handsome, with intense blue-gray eyes, chestnut brown hair that matched his ruddy skin, and a serious, purposeful manner that seemed to see right through me.
He wasn’t Daniel. No one could be Daniel. But for a split-second, I wondered what Lucas Lyons might look like if he smiled as much as his younger brother. If he might charm the world a little bit more. Maybe he’d be happier too.
“Thank you.” I found my voice again now that the tears had abated. “I just…had a moment.”
Lucas stepped back and shoved his hands into the pockets of the staid black tuxedo that had to be custom-made, just like all the Lyonses’ clothing was. How could it fit those strangely broad shoulders so well otherwise?
“I’m admittedly not the most perceptive man in the world,” he said. “But I don’t think a little stumble is responsible for the waterworks.”
