Page 45 of The Gentleman's Deception

But she’dhadHannah, and Hannah had stood up to Lavinia’s father when she was young and had stood by Lavinia when she had gotten older and had been strong enough to stand up to her father herself.

“Why don’t you sit on this branch before you get so lost in your thoughts you fall out of the tree?” Lucas said to her. “Where were you?”

She’d been wishing she’d had parents like other children did, like Lucas and his siblings did, thankful she’d at least had Hannah. What would it be like to share part of herself with him?

Could she trust Lucas enough to tell him about her childhood? Her dreams?

It was a terrible risk. She could barely breathe, she felt such anxiety.

“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to,” he added gently. “If you’d rather simply sit and enjoy your first tree-climbing experience quietly, that is your choice to make.”

There he was once again, acting honorably. Perhaps she could share part of the truth with him.

“I was thinking about my father,” she said.

“Here, sit, and you may tell me about him, but only if you wish.”

He assisted her as she maneuvered herself into a sitting position on the branch, her back against the trunk. He stood where he was and held on to a branch above their heads. The arrangement put their faces close together, nearly eye to eye.

“He was a handsome man,” Lavinia began, “at least when I was a small child, he seemed that way to me. Tall—though not as tall as you—with deep auburn hair and gray eyes.”

“That explains a few things,” Lucas said.

She smiled wanly. “My hair is much redder than his ever was. He had beautiful hair. Thick and wavy, and he was forever brushing a lock away from his eyes. This one unruly curl . . . I imagine that is why my mother and all the other women, for that matter, were attracted to him.”

“Your mother . . . ?” He left the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“I scarcely remember my mother. Hannah has always been more of a mother to me than she was. I recall blonde hair and the scent of lilies. Snatches of songs she must have sung to me. Kissing my cheek, asking me not to forget her.” Lavinia rested her hand on her cheek and could almost conjure the sensation she’d felt back then. “I have forgotten so much. I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered.

“She loved you,” Lucas said. He set his hand on her shoulder, offering comfort. How odd it felt to have a man touch her and know it wasn’t because he wanted something for himself. Lavinia’s eyes burned.

“She left me, Lucas. She could have taken me with her, but she didn’t.”

“Perhaps she had no choice.”

“Her name was Sally. That’s all I know about her. Just Sally. I don’t even know if my father was married to her or not. He never spoke of her.” She blinked away her tears and then turned to smile at him. Here, in the willow tree, with his face just inches from hers, she could see a scar, a fine white line that ran along his hairline near his forehead. His eyes, though hazel, were predominantly green. Clear, sober eyes that looked steadily back at her.

She had told him of her parents. It felt freeing somehow. But now she wanted to learn more about him. “We have spent all our time talking about me, even after you said I could question you to my heart’s content.”

“You have only to ask,” he said.

“Good. Tell me about Isobel,” she said. She’d wondered about Isobel since she’d witnessed the woman’s reaction to Lucas’s return.

“Isobel is my eldest brother, Thomas’s, wife, as you already know,” he answered simply.

She stared at him.

He heaved a sigh. “You’re not going to let it go at that. Very well. Aschildren, Isobel and I had an affection for each other that had grown—I mistakenly thought—into something more by the time I went away to university. During my brief absence, she and Thomas formed an attachment and married soon after.”

“Brief?”

“You don’t miss anything, do you? Yes, brief. Shortly after their marriage, which occurred at the end of my first term at Cambridge, I enlisted in the army.”

Isobel had quickly turned her affections from one brother to the other. A single university term was a mere few months. “She broke your heart.”

He snapped a twig near his face and tossed it to the ground. “If so, it has mended.”

“Has it?” she asked him softly.

---