Chapter 10

Ten

K eats leaned against the window, looking down the drive that eventually met a road, which eventually led to London. To his old life. To the Marquess of Rainsly's new life. It looked like his father's life—cold and empty, a series of young wives whose bodies gave way, meetings where you sold off your daughter to the highest bidder, raucous laughter and winking when your son acted like a cocksure arse.

Made Keats sick. He stabbed his elbows into the windowsill and dropped his head into his hands. "I want to do something of substance with my hours. I want to protect those in my charge, not neglect them. I want… God, Griff, I want her ."

"The vengeful Venus?" Griff said from the bed where he lay stretched out, counting the cracks in the ceiling. "Who exactly is she, other than the woman most likely to put a bullet through your heart?"

"Miss Lucy Jones. Farmer's daughter, viscount's granddaughter, daughter of a lady who caused quite a scandal in her own time, heroine in her own right, and, I hate to say it because it sounds maudlin as hell, but she's the woman I love."

"You can't marry her. She sounds entirely improper as a possible marchioness. Besides, she said quite forcefully she will not marry you."

"I lied to her." But at the same time, he'd been utterly truthful with her, never more himself than these last weeks. Imagine growing up an earl and finding, after a small amount of time in the country, that you prefer being a stable hand. Because Miss Lucy Jones respects you. Because you respect yourself.

Could he convince her to respect him once more?

"You know," Griff said, "you could always court her properly. If you're set on her, and I don't think you should?—"

The door swung open, and Keats and Griff bolted to their feet.

Lucy stood wide-eyed in the doorway. She'd looked lovely and tumbled this morning when he'd left her at the cottage, and she'd looked regal and distant when she'd found him out. Now, she looked as if the ground was opening up before her, and she had no choice but to stagger forward into the abyss. The hem of her skirt was dark and wet, and grass clung to her boots like desperation clung to her eyes.

"What's wrong?" He made it to her in two long steps.

She lurched away from him. "Everything, my lord. Two?—"

"No my lording me." Grated on the ears like the wail of a cat in heat when you're trying to sleep off too much drink. "‘My dear.' ‘My darling.' ‘My God, Keats, it's so big.' All of those are acceptable." My lord? Anything but that.

"We've no time for your absurdities."

"He'd lost all of them a minute ago," Griff said, plopping back down to the bed. "You brought them all back with you, Miss Jones."

"Some help you are wooing a lady." But Keats did feel better. Lucy needed help, and she'd come to him. He risked a step closer to her, and she did not shy away this time. "You will hear truth. I saw my sister being swept away to devil knew where, and I followed her. I held a pistol to Mr. Sacks's ribs and threatened to put a hole in his heart if he gave me away. I didn't pull the trigger. I gave the man—and you—time to prove you worked for my sister and not against her. I stayed here, leaving behind all the comforts of my London life to sleep on a pile of blankets in a hard corner of a cottage and shovel shit every day to ensure my sister's safety and happiness. I lied to you. What choice did I have? You would have set your violent footmen on me. I would have run back to London and returned with reinforcements, the exact kind of men you do not want gaining knowledge about Hawthorne. I have kept your little enterprise safe. And I was… am … glad to do so. I am not your enemy. I wish only to be your protector."

"You have endangered us all. Not only did you bring that man"—she pointed at Griff without looking—"here, you've brought another two. They are in the village looking for Alex. You must get rid of them. And you as well." She nodded at Griff. "You brought them here. Make them go away. If they find us out, if they spread word…"

Where would those who needed Hawthorne House go? How would they disappear?

Bloody hell.

"It's Palmerson, isn't it?" Alex stood in the doorway, Fred and Pat hovering behind her, shifting side to side, clearly unsure whether to let the lady do as she pleased or haul her away from the imprisoned rogues and out of danger.

They should take her away from him. Keats had no power, no ability to keep her safe. Shame was a heavy cloak, rough and suffocating, and it enveloped him thicker than the morning fog. "I did not mean this to happen, Alex."

Her feet came into view, practical little half boots that had been quite fine once, but that now were dusty and cracked and well-worn. Her skirts rustled. "Do you mean what you said, about dissolving the marriage contract with Palmerson?"

"Yes." If only he'd done something sooner.

"Then go now and do it." Her hand found his, her grip strong and pleading.

And he finally found the courage to look into her eyes, so like his own. But better because the gaze there was stronger, braver, than he could ever be. "Yes."

"My brother," Lucy said, "says Palmerson's queries regarding Alex have already resulted in talk. About Hawthorne."

"But the villagers think it a school, yes?" Keats said. "Training for working women?"

"And that will make him curious, won't it?" Lucy stepped to the side of the door, clearing the entry, making way for him to act. "Why would your sister be training for something? He'll come here. He can't come here."

Griff pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's not as if you've done anything wrong. A few months' sojourn to the country is hardly a scandalous crime."

"That's it." Lucy snapped her fingers. "Alex, you've been visiting a friend—me. To… prepare for married life. Your brother escorted you here and decided to stay." Her brow wrinkled, and she tapped her lip. "But why would you stay?"

"Stick to the truth," Keats said. "I stayed because I worried for Alex. And then because I met you."

Humming silence. Had he stolen their conversation because he'd admitted so plainly the pitiful state of his heart? Or because they realized the solution was a simple one? Tell the truth and send the uninvited guests away.

"Very well then," Alex finally said. "Let's go."

"Not you." Griff blocked the door. "You stay here."

Alex ducked beneath his arm. "I think not."

Griff chased after her, leaving Keats and Lucy alone.

The door was empty, the hallway, too, their guards having chased after Alex and Griff. Keats could easily slip through it without another word to Lucy. She'd prefer it that way, no doubt.

"I should go," he said, curling his toes in his boots. "I'll need to change."

She gave one sharp nod and made for the door.

"You're coming with, I assume."

"Do not try to stop me."

"I would never. I'm a fool, but even a brain so small as mine knows Lucy Jones is an excellent woman to have about in a crisis."

"You're not a fool," she mumbled. "Not entirely."

Sounded like hope, that did. "Are you saying I have a chance? To woo and win you?"

"I'm saying nothing of the sort." They took the stairs side by side. "Tell me something terrible about yourself."

She was curious about him. Hope, indeed. "Why do you want to know?"

"So I may build up my walls against you."

Ah, and there went his hope—drowning like a shoe thrown into a lake, sinking fast. "I don't think so."

"Come now, a small detail only. How many women have you ruined?"

"None! I've never touched a virgin."

She arched a brow.

"Except for you," he hissed. "All the other women were widows. Or paid well for their time. Actresses. You know."

"Yes. I do."

"I did it, didn't I? Gave you brick and mortar for your damn wall?"

She mimicked plopping a brick on a wall and smoothing mortar across it.

"What can I do to demolish it?"

"Why?"

"Don't you feel this?" At the bottom of the steps, the front door within view, an arch of bright, dusty sunlight spilled across the flooring from the upper window. As Lucy stepped into it, he grasped her wrist and pressed her hand against his chest, right above his heart. "Don't you feel what has grown between us? I am happier around you than anywhere else. You comfort me and challenge me. You drive me"—he inched closer, the toes of his boots tapping against hers—"wild. And while I want nothing more than to sink into you, somehow, at the same time, I want more than that to hold you close and safe and fight at your side, to pledge myself to you." Each word bent him lower over her until he swore the last was whispered right into her ear. Her neck warm, her hair silky, her pulse a dancing flutter beneath her jaw, beneath his fingertips at her wrist.

Her voice as erratic as that pulse. "We've known each other so little?—"

"Perhaps that is enough." He could kiss her neck, take the lobe of her ear between his teeth.

"The time we spent together… you were not yourself." He wanted to curl up in her low, husky voice and live there. He wanted to drop to his knees and beg.

He placed his hand beneath her chin and lifted it with the softest feather of a touch. "Allow me to court you. We can come to know one another as Keaton and Lucy, the marquess and the viscount's granddaughter. But you'll find nothing different about me. I have always been myself with you. Perhaps more so than anywhere else."

Her entire body shuddered. She swayed into his embrace. He'd won!

She stepped away, pulling her wrist from his hold and circling it round with her own fingers. "I'll take it into consideration." Nothing at all in her voice now, not even anger. She turned her back to him and left Hawthorne House.

And he found himself making a vow into the empty sunlight of the cold hall. "I won't disappoint you, Lucy." Never again.