Ethan held up a hand. “In a moment.” He crossed the room and sat beside her. “Lucia, I’ve always thought of you as a little sister. I’ve watched you grow up. Tried to protect you.”
She nodded. Ethan had been almost a second brother to her.
“I know something happened between you and Alex.”
She tensed.
“I don’t want to discuss that right now, but what I do need to know is how we’re to handle this. Are you going to marry Alex?”
Lucia looked away. “I thought you knew your brother better than that, Ethan.”
“I thought so, too,” he said under his breath, then rose and went to his desk. While he penned a letter to Francesca, Ethan explained that Lord and Lady Brigham, as well as the rest of London Society, were under the impression that Lucia and Francesca had gone to Yorkshire and Winterbourne Hall for a few weeks’ respite from the Season.
“You’re going to have to deal with your mother and father when you see them,” Ethan said, finishing his letter and sanding it. “Your mother, especially, was not pleased.”
Lucia could only imagine. The Season was in full swing and her unmarried daughter had fled to the country.
“Tell me what story you and John have concocted to account for his disappearance.”
Lucia told Ethan that on the trip back to London, she and John had decided to tell everyone that he’d departed for Greece in March but had unfortunately been standing in the wrong place when a fellow passenger ’s pistol accidentally discharged. He was treated by the ship’s doctor and then cared for in a hospital in Greece. As soon as he was released, he had traveled home. Lucia surmised he would be knocking on their parents’ door by midmorning, whereas she would have to wait before she could go home, hiding in the Winterbourne town house on Grosvenor Square until Francesca returned with the children from the country.
Ethan was not much company, and Lucia was often alone for the first time in her life. It was a blessing and a curse. She thought constantly of Alex and had no energy to even get out of bed some days. It did not help that she was continually reminded of him by his brother’s presence or that she was confined to the house day after day. She sewed and read and walked in the garden, but it was hardly enough to take her mind off Alex.
But Lucia also had time to think of what she wanted to do with her life. She was equally relieved and dejected upon discovering that she was not going to have Alex’s child, but then she was forced to consider whether she wanted to have Dandridge’s.
The subject was very much on her mind when, a week later, Francesca finally arrived home, her servants and children in tow.
At the sound of the commotion, Lucia rushed from the garden into the house. In the drawing room, Ethan swung his wife into his arms, kissing her long and hard in front of the children and even the servants. Lucia’s heart wrenched. Oh, how she wished Alex would feel just one-tenth for her what Ethan felt for Francesca.
When he released her, Francesca rushed to Lucia and hugged her warmly. But Francesca took one look at her sister and cried, “Oh, Lucia!” She immediately sent the servants away with the children and pulled Lucia down beside her on a small settee. Ethan braced a shoulder against the wall near the door.
“Tell me everything,” Francesca said.
Lucia did, relieved to be free of her burden.
Of course, she omitted a few of the more compromising details, but she could not get around the fact that she had been with Alex in the early morning hours, alone, at his town house, when they were abducted by De´charne´. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, and Lucia did not try to deny it. When she was done, and crying all over again at Alex’s cold departure from her, Ethan cursed loudly. “I can’t believe he did this. Lucia’s ruined.”
“She is not ruined,” Francesca replied calmly, and Lucia could have kissed her. Francesca had always been able to remain unruffled, even in the most chaotic situations. “No one knows any of this,” Francesca said, “and we’ll keep it that way.”
“You think Dandridge isn’t going to know?” Ethan growled.
Lucia’s gaze shot to his angry face.
“Ethan!” Francesca hissed.
He shook his head. “I hardly think we need to mince words in front of her now,” Ethan replied. Lucia’s mind was racing. Could everyone who saw her tell she was a fallen woman? She had not thought she looked any different.
Across the room, Ethan cursed again and ran his hand through his hair, an action that reminded Lucia too much of his brother.
“It’s not the way you look, Lucia,” Francesca began. “It’s—”
“A man can tell if it’s a woman’s first time when he beds her,” Ethan interjected. “Didn’t you notice the blood with Alex? That’s one way.”
Lucia’s face felt like an oven, and Francesca squeezed her hand comfortingly.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Francesca said, but Ethan raised an eyebrow. Francesca glared at him. “I think we need to be sure that this affair with Alex is really over. Is it, Lucia?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice catching. “I don’t want to see him again.”
