by Erica Ridley
A voyage which had involved stowing away on a passenger ship and being consigned to the scullery the moment she was found out. Above deck was a ballroom, or at least that was how the stomping feet and muffled music sounded when it trickled through below.
By then, Meg had been long out of the old attic, but the life that awaited her wasn’t much better. She was too terrified of being taken advantage of to sell her plot of land outright, yet its humble earnings were not enough to live a comfortable, respectable life. Meg had given up on respectability years before, but she hadn’t given up on putting down roots and being close to her family. She never would.
She gave Jemima’s hand a squeeze. “It will work out, cousin. You cannot get rid of me that easily.”
“Oh, I could get rid of you if I wanted to.” Jemima’s eyes twinkled. “All I’d have to say is, ‘Look, there’s Lucien le Duc’ and you’d forget I even existed.”
Meg dropped her jaw in faux outrage. “Unfair! I am not nearly so shallow as—”
“No, look.” Jemima tapped Meg’s leg. “He’s ten yards behind you. And he’s not brooding.”
Meg shook her head. “He’s always brooding.”
“Not this time,” Jemima insisted. “He looks… mystified?”
Meg turned to see for herself.
Jemima was right.
Lucien was leaning against a birch tree, arms folded over his broad chest, staring at Meg with an expression that could be best described as consternation.
Meg wiggled her fingers in a wave.
Lucien did not wave back.
“It’s killing him not to glare,” she whispered to Jemima. “I know why he’s not brooding.”
“Why?” Jemima whispered back.
“Because I told him his seductive sulks arouse me in my nether regions.”
A snort escaped Jemima’s nose and she fell onto the picnic blanket sideways in a fit of giggles. “The poor man! I thought that sort of thing was private information.”
“Oh yes, I absolutely want him to become familiar with my privates,” Meg answered with a straight face. “According to a very instructive book I’m reading, my ‘womanly in-draught’ can offer ‘sweetly soothing balmy titillation’ to ‘the maypole of a young giant.’”
Tears of laughter escaped Jemima’s eyes. “Exactly how my mother explained it to me on my wedding night. She must have read the same book. I had no idea what she was going on about.”
“It’s a cipher,” Meg agreed. Rather like Lucien le Duc. Just when she thought she was starting to understand him, he managed to surprise her.
When his nephew’s trundling hoop escaped its stick and came barreling straight at Lucien, he did not freeze the lad in one of his infamous smiting glares. Faster than she’d ever seen anyone move, Lucien bent to snatch his own stick from the ground, pierced it through the hoop, and raced off with the trundling hoop with his niece and nephew shrieking in joy behind him.
The broodingest, scowliest, most infamous curmudgeon in Cressmouth was a good sport and great with children.
Meg reacted all the way to her nether regions.
“I can’t believe he’s leaving,” she said with a groan. “Six years for him to speak to me… What are the chances of him plundering my mouth with punishing kisses between now and Epiphany?”
“Maybe you were too subtle,” Jemima suggested. “Did you specifically demand to be plundered with punishing kisses? Men can’t read women’s minds, you know.”
“I’ll be clearer next time,” Meg promised. “If he doesn’t plunder me first, I’ll turn into a plunderess myself.”
“That’s the spirit.” Jemima patted Meg’s knee. “Don’t forget to rip his shirt open. Maybe fling his cravat aside dramatically for good measure.”
“With my teeth,” Meg agreed, pantomiming the action. “Rawr. Scowl at me again, sir! There go your buttons, too. Now prepare for sweetly soothing balmy titillation!”
Jemima wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t sound very plunder-y. The first part was good, and then it lost steam.”
“I’ll improvise,” Meg assured her. “I also have about six more chapters to read. Anything could happen. I’m taking copious notes.”
“Good afternoon, ladies,” came a low male voice.
Jemima and Meg started in unison and spun to face the speaker.
Bastien and Eve stood arm in arm, a pair of ice-skates dangling from their free hands.
“What were you two talking about?” he asked curiously.
“Er…” Meg said brightly. “Buttons?”
Eve rescued them by motioning toward the frozen water. “Want to take a turn about the pond with us? There are carts and skates to rent.”
“No, thank you.” Both Meg and Jemima shook their heads. Jemima, due to her happy condition. Meg, because she needed to mind her pennies now more than ever. Even the bread in her picnic basket had come from the castle buffet.
“Does Lucien skate?” she blurted out.
“I’ve never seen him do so,” Bastien said slowly. “Then again, he was the one who told me pies would be free today, to welcome skaters to the lake.”
Meg had seen the same article.
“He reads the Cressmouth Gazette?” she said incredulously.
Her best friend arched both brows.
“It’s a lovely paper,” Meg explained hurriedly. “An exceptional convergence of fine journalism and good taste. I just wouldn’t think that Lucien…”
Good God, she had offended him. If he could read the Gazette, he’d have no need for children’s books. There were a hundred other explanations. The man had a niece and nephew, didn’t he? He was playing with the twins right now.
Her ears flushed with heat.
Eve frowned in concern. “What happened?”
“Among other conversational missteps,” Meg mumbled, “I offered unsolicited English tutoring to your brother-in-law.”
“He could use it,” Bastien said without hesitation. “But he’d sooner throw himself off this mountain than admit it. He won’t trust anyone but family with perceived weaknesses. And even then, Désirée was the only one he ever let try to help.”
Meg heart thumped. She could understand being private. If she wouldn’t discuss France with her own cousin, she could scarcely fault Lucien for refusing English lessons from a total stranger. It also put his deadly glares into perspective. By choosing not to communicate, he could wield his otherness like a weapon, rather than let others wound him by casting him aside.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Eve said. “He won’t need English when he goes back to France.”
Meg straightened. “He won’t come back, even for visits?”
“We’re more likely to go and visit him there,” Bastien explained. He exchanged a smile with his wife. “Our home is here in Cressmouth, but my history is still from France. Once Lucien is settled, perhaps we can spend winters with him.”
“Summers,” Eve corrected with an expression of shock. “You can’t think to deprive our future children of Christmas in Cressmouth!”
“It’s always Christmas in Cressmouth,” Bastien pointed out. “How will they even know?”
Their teasing faded as Bastien and Eve made their way down to the frozen pond.
Meg wished she were half as confident about her future as everyone else seemed to be about their own. Jemima and Allan would be here, Lucien would be there, Bastien and Eve would divide their time between the two, and Meg…
Meg didn’t even know where she’d be living a year from now.
“Don’t make that face,” Jemima said. “That face worries me.”
“I’m just thinking maybe I oughtn’t to plunder Lucien, after all.” The occasional embrace of a passing tourist was one thing, but a torrid affair with her best friend’s brother-in-law? Meg would be constantly tempted to ask about him, and tortured every time they mentioned his name and how much happier he was now that he was far away.
“If it’s because he’s a slow reader, I fi
nd that a very shallow reason,” Jemima whispered. “And a missed opportunity for seeing the look on his face when you tear off his cravat with your teeth.”
“It’s not because he’s a slow reader.” Meg’s chest constricted. “If you recall, I tried to help him with his English before I realized there was no chance in the world that he would want my help.”
“Anyone’s help,” Jemima corrected. “It didn’t sound personal.”
Meg caught sight of Mr. Thompson, the castle solicitor, out of the corner of her eye.
She jumped to her feet.
Jemima’s eyes widened in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“What if Lucien doesn’t know I’m helping?” Meg shook out her skirts. “I’ll be back soon.”
Quickly, before the solicitor could disappear into the castle, Meg raced to his side. “Mr. Thompson?”
“Yes, Miss Church?”
“Has the castle library already spent its annual budget on new books?”
“By November,” Mr. Thompson answered, “normally that answer would be ‘yes.’ This year, however, we received a sizable literary donation from the Duke of Azureford. I’d have to review the ledgers to be certain, but I doubt we’ve touched much of the budget. Why? Is there a specific book you’d like me to order for you?”
A hundred desultory titles popped into Meg’s mind at once. She pushed them away. The castle library had plenty of novels that she could read, torrid or otherwise. Not everyone could say the same.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that in the interest of serving Cressmouth’s entire community, the lending library should also be a resource for those whose grasp of English is not yet fluent. If we could offer instructional tomes, such as easy-to-read literature and the like, our shelves might become more accessible to everyone.”
The solicitor tilted his head.
Meg hadn’t mentioned Lucien’s name, but in a village of this size, there could be little doubt she referred to one or more members of the le Duc family.
After a moment, Mr. Thompson gave a brisk nod. “I see your point, Miss Church. Our founder decreed Marlowe Castle for all of our neighbors, which means the lack you mention is indeed a grave oversight. I will see it is rectified immediately.”
As the solicitor walked away, Meg’s chest lightened. Even with the castle’s resources, she wasn’t certain how immediate the act of ordering books might truly be. A few days? Weeks? Hope fluttered within her. If the new books arrived before Lucien left… Perhaps better tools would help.
She turned back toward her picnic blanket just in time to see one of the children’s runaway trundling hoops hurtle down the hill toward Jemima.
Meg raced forward to intercept the hoop and return it to the children. When she saw it was not the twins but rather Lucien le Duc hurrying to retrieve the errant hoop, she paused to wait for him in relative privacy next to the pine trees.
His steps slowed as well, as if he had doubts about the honor of her intentions.
She smiled wickedly. Smart man.
When he was an arm’s width away, Lucien reached for the hoop.
She didn’t let go.
He glared at her.
“Ooh, that’s it, glower at me,” she teased, batting her eyelashes. “Sulk for me. Mm, just like that. I love it. Do it again.”
The corner of his lip quirked.
She still didn’t let go of the hoop.
“Thank you,” he said gruffly.
Grinning, she let him have the hoop. “Why don’t you thank me with a kiss?”
His expression changed to comical horror.
“There are… people around us,” he hissed.
“Well, if that’s your only objection, then you know what I’m expecting next time.” She gave him an exaggerated wink and fanned her chest, not entirely playacting.
Meg had expected him to scoff at her obvious teasing, not criticize her timing. This new development was very interesting indeed.
“You ruin… my best glares,” he grumbled, and stalked off.
She watched him go before returning to the blanket and her cousin.
“You’re dreadful to that poor man,” Jemima scolded her. “He wouldn’t have missed his trundle if he hadn’t been watching you chase after Mr. Thompson.”
“Lucien missed the trundle?” Meg perked up. “Perhaps he wants to be plundered.”
“More likely, he hates the thought of anyone else plundering you.” Jemima leaned back against the blanket. “I’m going to miss these picnics.”
Meg lay down beside her. “Me, too.”
Once the baby was old enough, there would be picnics again. But Meg knew what Jemima meant. They wouldn’t be picnics like these, with talk of tumescent shafts and illicit liaisons. They would be too busy picking dandelions and chasing butterflies and counting swans in the lake. Wistfulness twisted within her. They would be absolutely marvelous picnics, but they wouldn’t be the same.
Nothing would.
Just like the picnics, she would find a way to make her new circumstances different but marvelous, Meg told herself. She would secure a home of her own—somehow—and finally be able to stop running, changing, adapting, giving up. The next place would be permanent. She would finally put down real roots. Here in Cressmouth, with her community and her cousin and her new niece or nephew.
She turned her head toward Jemima. “Cruel of you to make me wait nine months to meet the baby.”
“I shall do no such thing.” Jemima’s face glowed with contentment. “I’m three months along. The baby will be here before we know it.”
Three months along. Meg’s spine prickled. She did not have nine months left, but six. Perhaps less.
That was enough time to put down roots, wasn’t it?
Chapter 6
Lucien paused just outside the threshold to the family smithy.
No, not the family smithy. It belonged to the Harpers now. Despite the same smells of leather and metal and grease, the same juxtaposition of intense heat from the forge and the bracing cold of the winter wind outside, the new owners’ influence was everywhere. Not only was the smithy bedecked with boughs of holly, new faces laughed and shouted and frowned with concentration in every corner.
The smithy hadn’t ground to a halt without Lucien. It was positively bustling.
For the first time since moving to Cressmouth, rather than pop inside to help out wherever he was needed, Lucien kept walking. Past the open doors, past the queue of waiting carriages, until he reached the street.
His heart beat uncomfortably fast. Not because he missed the smithy. He hated the smithy. But he’d loved being an intrinsic part, having responsibility, knowing he was productive, being important.
“Pfft,” he scoffed beneath his breath.
Being a blacksmith hadn’t made him important. It had made him unimportant. Fallen. Disgraced, if his parents had been alive to see it. He wouldn’t be important until he got back to France, where the status quo had returned just as it had been before the revolution. His stomach tightened. If his parents were alive today, they wouldn’t be dragged down the street and executed. They’d be fêted and fawned over, members once more of the glittering social sphere they’d wanted to share with their children.
If he wanted to be important, he just had to wait six more weeks.
He’d waited this long, hadn’t he? Forty-seven-and-a-half more days was nothing. Which was why Lucien intended to spend as much of it as possible with the people he loved most: his family.
The door to his sister’s house flung open from within before Lucien even walked up the path. It was not the Skeffington butler standing at the threshold, but a pair of rambunctious ten-year-old twins.
“Uncle Lucien!” Annie and Frederick shouted as they tumbled out of the house to hug him.
Although they’d seen him mere days ago when they’d trundled hoops in the park, Frederick and Annie always greeted him with the same delighted exuberance. Lucien’s chest tightened as he returned their
embrace. Back in France, dignified majordomes might announce Lucien’s name to throngs of aristocrats in elegant ballrooms, but part of him would always miss simple pleasures like these.
He ruffled the twins’ hair. “Are your parents at home?”
The words came slowly, even though he’d rehearsed them in his head the entire walk over. If he managed to get the grammar right, his pronunciation never failed to cloud his meaning. But unlike many a tourist who had passed through the smithy, the twins had never made much of Lucien’s limited command of English.
“They’re in the cellar with Aunt Eve,” Frederick said.
Annie tugged his elbow. “Do you want to make flower crowns? I picked harebells in the castle greenhouse.”
“Or trundle hoops?” Frederick added hopefully. “Can you teach me a new trick?”
“After I speak… to your parents,” Lucien promised them.
He did not need to ask directions to the cellar. Part of it had been converted into a small sitting room, and the rest provided storage to his brother-in-law Jack’s vast collection of wine.
He reached the bottom of the stairs with the twins jostling behind him. At the clatter, Jack, Désirée, and Eve glanced up, startled, then broke into wide smiles.
“Perfect timing.” Lucien’s sister Désirée shot a teasing look toward her husband. “And to think we were debating whether to open another bottle of wine.”
“I can think of no better cause for celebration than Lucien’s presence,” her husband Jack agreed. “Does anyone object to champagne?”
Lucien rolled his eyes in amusement.
Like his twins, Jack found himself in Lucien’s presence on an almost daily basis. Although they were friends, what Jack really wanted was an excuse to enjoy Veuve Clicquot champagne.
It was a privilege to be the catalyst.
Lucien accepted a glass of bubbling champagne and took the chair across from his sister.
Annie and Frederick sat on the plush carpet at his feet.
Once the champagne was served, Jack made a face at Lucien. “We’re trying to decide what to do with Eve’s father.”
