In the breakfast parlor the servants seemed peculiarly alert. He didn’t know them; they were all Adina’s people and he’d had only a fortnight in the house. But every time he looked up from the paper or his beefsteak he caught them peering at him with bright eyes.

Their attention soured his appetite. He pushed away his plate and went up to Adina’s suite.

Her sitting chamber was rich with gold and yellow to compliment her guinea curls, brimming with satin pillows and lacy fripperies and dainty porcelain gewgaws, and awash in flowery perfume. In the middle of this gluttonous mass of feminine excess—like a lissome ebony candle lit with the purest flame—was his wife.

Chapter 15

Secrets

Arabella arose, smoothed out her black skirts, and fought with the competing desires to throw herself into Luc’s arms like a strumpet or remain coolly aloof like a comtesse. He looked tired, the scar pulling at his right cheek tighter than usual and his tan skin pale. Dissipated, if what she had been hearing from Adina’s companion was true.

When she was not with the duchess, Mrs. Baxter spent her time flitting about from drawing room to drawing room gathering the juiciest on dits. According to that gossip, the new duke had spent a fortnight in town carousing and gaming and getting up to larks, and generally dishonoring the Lycombe name. It was so thoroughly unlike the man Arabella knew, she hadn’t believed it.

He did not, however, appear happy to see her.

He bowed and said graciously, “What a bevy of angelic beauty I have stumbled upon. But perhaps this is not Earth. Perhaps last night I perished in my sleep and I am now in heaven.” His gaze shifted to her and his brow creased.

“Lucien, how lovely of you to come see me,” Adina bubbled, and laid out her hand to be kissed. Luc bowed over it then nodded to Mrs. Baxter. Her lashes fluttered at least twenty times as she drew out the word commmte as though she could not bear to give it too little emphasis.

Arabella was obliged to offer her hand as well. His was warm and strong, and she had missed him so powerfully that now she could feel the life waking up in her again. He brushed his lips to her knuckles and her toes curled.

“Comtesse,” he said.

She curtsied. “My lord.” Her voice did not quaver. A tiny triumph. She could manage this. There were more important things at stake than her foolish, girlish heart that wanted to beg him to love her, or her body that remembered quite tangibly what he had done to it when they had last touched.

He released her and she regained a trace of the composure she had practiced so diligently until meeting Luc Westfall caused her to throw it all to the wind. She knew she should still be angry and hurt and stalwart in defending the walls around her heart. But those walls had long since crumbled. She could only stand atop their ruins and hope the invader was merciful.

“How perfectly delightful,” Adina cooed. “To witness the reunion of a love match.” She sighed, then her sparkling eyes went wide. “Dear me, Arabella, I have not yet asked you how you and Lucien came to fall in love. Your beauty speaks for itself, of course, and we know how gentlemen value that above all other feminine traits, do we not?” She nodded in wisdom. Mrs. Baxter mimicked her.

“You are quite right,” Luc said. “Men are profoundly stupid when it comes to beautiful women.”

Arabella’s heart thumped. He could not mean to be cruel. But his jaw was tight.

“Adina,” he said. “I should like to speak with you at your leisure. After, that is, I enjoy a private moment of reunion with my wife.”

Adina’s smile glowed. “Of course, Lucien,” she said, and waved him toward the door. “Do take this lovely girl away and kiss her soundly. It shan’t be said by anyone that I would stand in the way of lovemaking.” She laughed softly and gaily. Mrs. Baxter giggled.

Arabella felt embarrassed for them both, nearly forty yet behaving as foolishly as fifteen-year-olds. But she was likewise guilty, wishing for kisses from the man who had tied her in knots of infatuation for months, this despite her plan to wed a prince and his careless and dishonest treatment of her.

Luc gestured her before him. In the corridor, Joseph’s straight back jerked even straighter as they passed.

“Cap’n!”

“At ease, Mr. Porter.”

Luc opened another door and again ushered her in. It was a parlor, furnished with an eye for high style and little comfort. She went into the middle of the chamber and did not sit.

He closed the door and came to her until he stood quite close. “I told you I would return to Combe and bring you to London myself.”

She clasped her hands together. “Ah. It seems you have learned the art of my disagreeable greetings.”

He did not smile. “Why did you come?”

“To make plans for the wedding, for which you gave me carte blanche if you recall. And to share with you information that I have learned which could not safely be conveyed in writing.”

His brow dipped. “Information?”

“Adina’s child is not your uncle’s.”

His eye widened. “She told you that?”

“No. I learned it from Mrs. Pickett and had it confirmed by nearly everybody else on the estate.”

“You asked them?”

“Of course I did. I first went to the house servants and inquired as to the true identity of the child in the duchess’s womb. Then I made the rounds of the gardeners and stable hands. And finally I put the question to the tenant—”

His hand jerked forward as though he would take her arm, then it dropped to his side. “How did you learn it?”

“By some very complicated addition and subtraction. I was a governess once, you see, and my arithmetic is especially good. I realize it may seem remarkable to you, a man with some university education, but I can count above the number nine. It is so convenient to possess these little skills sometimes.”

He lifted his hand again, this time to rub at the scar beneath the lock of dark hair that fell over his brow. But Arabella espied a crease in his cheek.

“After you left Combe abruptly without notice or explanation—”

“I wrote you a message.”

“—I busied myself by going about to visit the tenant families—”

“Like the duchess you are well suited to be.”

Butterflies alighted in her stomach. “Everybody was eager to make it clear to me that Adina had not visited the estate since before the famine, and that the old duke was too ill to leave Combe during that time. Luc, they wanted me to know the baby is not Theodore’s.”

“It isn’t proof.”

“What do you mean, it isn’t proof? Hundreds of people are certain of it, the housekeeper inclu—”

“It is Adina’s word against all those people, and Adina’s word will carry the day.” He shook his head. “I am afraid that is simply the way of it in the world of the licentious peerage, little governess.”

She bit the inside of her lip. His gaze dipped to it.

She gathered her courage. “Speaking of licentious, Mrs. Baxter has heard the most astounding gossip concerning you, Lord Bedwyr and Captain Masinter lately.”

“Has she? I wonder what sort.”

“Gaming. Drinking. Carousing.” She paused, her breaths short. “Loose women. You know, the usual.”

“The usual, hm?”

“For some men.” She was suddenly fidgety beneath his intense regard. “I feel like we are standing on the deck of your ship again,” she whispered.

“Because you are experiencing the urgent need to clutch a railing?”