No wonder he’d come here to work. He was not as careless with women as that kiss had suggested. The kiss had been something else. Something outside of the world, just between them two.
Lucy chose her words carefully. “She’s likely in a bit of pain. But as far as I know, her pregnancy has progressed normally. And my brother is with her. She will be fine.”
“I wish you could tell me if my stepmother will be fine. I know you cannot. I don’t like to think about it. How she might die. Truthfully, I barely know her, but that does not matter. I don’t want her to—” The words seemed to lodge in his throat.
“She might not. Women have babes every day.”
“And they die. Every day. From the same. My sister… she was betrothed. To an old man, and I didn’t much mind. I think… I think I thought it safer. If he died soon, as he was sure to do, she wouldn’t have to bear many children.” He shook his head.“You’re not interested in this.” He forced a bright smile. “Tell me… this new lady. The one who arrived when I did… she’s well? Acclimating… nicely?”
She should not speak of Alex, but he needed distraction, and she wanted to give it to him. “Yes. But she did not have much at home to make her leaving bittersweet.”
“Nothing or… no one she loved, that she’ll miss?”
“No. A hard father, a cruel betrothed, and a thoughtless brother.”
“Perhaps he’s doing what all young gentlemen do—sowing his wild oats,livingbefore he must settle down and produce an heir. Perhaps if she’d gone to him, trusted him, he might have helped her.”
“What would he have done? Reassured her their father knew best? Looked once at the bruises on her arms and told her she imagined them? No. This is better. This is why Hawthorne House exists.”
“You are right. It is a haven, and I am glad to be part of it. In even the smallest way.”
She made the leap, then, reached for him, let her fingers test the stubble on his cheek, found that the roughness on her fingertips stole, somehow, her ability to breathe. But she spoke anyway, fingers sitting on stubble. “I am glad you are here, too.” She pulled her hand back to her lap and curled her fingers into her palm, trapping the sensation of stubble there for as long as she could.
They didn’t touch, despite sitting so close together, and the sliver of space between them sizzled into something living, something impossible to pass through.
He cleared his throat and spoke with a laugh. “I fear my ego is overly inflated, thinking I can be of any help to you at all. You, after all, are quite perfect.”
She inhaled, the air hissing through her teeth. “Hardly.”
He gaped, mouth hanging open. “Miss Lucy Jones, my angel, my countess, say it isn’t so.” Clearly, he was feeling better. Or hiding the raw truth of his heart behind careless teases.
“I did somethingquitestupid once. I interrupted a mission for Hawthorne House. Tried to complete it myself. I had no training, no idea. We were almost caught. Things turned out well enough, I suppose.” She wiped a stray raindrop off her cheekbone. Not a tear. Not at all. “After that night, my mother looked at me differently. She’s always wanted me to be better than her. I proved I was not.”You’re a passionate girl, she’d said, as if that were not a compliment,and you must not give in to your impulses. Lucy had always wondered what she’d left unsaid. Two little words maybe?
Like me. Do not give into your impulses like I did.
Lucy would never do that. She’d abandon passion for duty.
“Was anyone hurt?” Mr. Keats asked.
“Pardon?”
He elbowed her arm. “Was anyone hurt? On your first mission?”
“No.”
“Was anyonehelped?”
“Yes.”
“If you have only done one foolish thing in your life and it turned out well, then I admire you. Greatly. You are a more perfect being than I shall ever be. I’ve done a thousand foolish things. Not a one of them helpful.”
“You helped today. In retrieving my brother.”
His mouth curled into a grimace. “Apologies for hauling you about. I was not thinking. At all. Apologies, as well, for… what happened at the lake. I should not have kissed you.” He clasped his hands between his knees. “It was a rather unique circumstance, and I am not known to behave in the most properof those. I was bucking against the truth, denying it.” He picked at a fraying hole in his trousers.
“And what truth is that?”
“That I can never go back to who I was before.”
