by Rowan Nina
“You’d at least have a good life, Lydia! Yes, he has difficulties, but even two months ago did you imagine you would ever be in this position? He’s a viscount! He has a fortune. Imagine what you could do if he allowed it.”
The horrible thing was, Lydia could imagine. She’d thought about little else ever since Alexander first proposed.
She imagined working with Talia on the ragged schools’ educational program, helping establish mathematical curricula for girls’ schools. She could imagine teaching governesses how best to approach mathematical instruction, funding symposiums, lectures. She could even see herself at Alexander’s side with the Society of Arts—exhibitions of inventions, award programs, judging panels.
And, of course, she could envision him—talking with him, touching him, kissing him, feeling his hands on her body, his gaze warm on her face.
Whenever she wanted. All the time. Without reservation. With him.
Imagining all that, picturing it in her future, caused a longing so deep, so sharp, that Lydia almost couldn’t breathe.
“Is this what you wanted?” Her grandmother’s voice was closer.
Lydia turned to look at her, into the blue eyes so like her own, so like her mother’s. Mrs. Boyd’s expression softened with regret. She put her hand on Lydia’s cheek.
“Did you really expect your life would turn out like this?” her grandmother asked.
Lydia swallowed past the lump in her throat, her heart squeezing painfully. “What will you do if I accept him? What about Jane?”
“Oh, Lydia.” Her grandmother’s eyes glistened with a sheen of tears. “We’ll be here. We’ll always be here. You’ll see Jane as much as you do now, if not more. And do you think Jane’s feelings for you will change one whit simply because you’re married to Lord Northwood?”
Lydia’s tears spilled over, rolling so fast that she tasted salt on her lips. She grasped her grandmother’s hand where it rested against her cheek. “How can I not tell him?”
“Because you can’t.” Such a simple response, and yet so tangled, so twisted. “It isn’t as if anyone will ever know.”
“Everything will change,” Lydia whispered.
“Only for the better.”
“I’ve already refused.” She struggled to hold on to her resolve, but she could feel it weakening, breaking, the light of a possible new future showing through the cracks. The shadows would always be there, but maybe now, finally, the brightness would overpower them.
If she allowed it to.
“Lord Northwood told me the offer stands for one more week,” Mrs. Boyd said. “He wants to marry you, Lydia. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise. You mustn’t allow this opportunity to pass. For Jane’s sake, if for no other reason. Do for her what your parents were unable to do for you.”
A thread of candlelight wove through the darkness. Lydia approached the bed where Jane lay beneath the covers, staring at the pattern of shadows across the ceiling.
Lydia paused and looked at the girl. She saw no resemblance to Theodora Kellaway in Jane’s rounded features, her soft, full mouth, her dark eyebrows. And as much as she wanted things to have been different with her mother, Lydia was glad—fiercely glad—that Jane bore no similarities to a woman whose mind had filled with darkness.
She sat on the edge of the bed and rested her hand over Jane’s. Jane tried to pull away, her body stiffening.
“Jane?”
Jane turned her head, studying Lydia with a peculiar intentness, as if she’d never seen her in this light before.
“What did Grandmama say?” Jane asked. “Did she tell you Lord Northwood came to her about the proposal?”
“You knew about that?”
“I heard them talking.”
“What do you think of the idea?” Lydia waited, hoping for a faint flicker of interest, of something, to cross Jane’s expression, but the girl’s face remained as unreadable as a china plate. “Does it upset you?”
Jane shrugged. “Do what you like. I won’t be here much longer anyway, at least once Grandmama makes the arrangements for Paris.”
A faint accusing tone underscored her voice. Lydia tightened her clasp on Jane’s hand.
“I should like to go to Paris,” Jane continued. “And I like Lady Montague.”
Unease constricted Lydia’s heart. “She seems kind, doesn’t she? Certainly very… very refined.”
“Grandmama’s right, you know. My education has been a bit lacking. I ought to learn French and that sort of thing.”
Lydia forced a smile. “Well, Paris is the place to do that.”
Jane sat up so quickly that Lydia released her hand. The candle flame flared across Jane’s pale features.
“That’s it?” she snapped. “You don’t even care that I’m going away?”
“Of course I care, Jane. I’ll miss you terribly.”
“No, you won’t! You’ll be glad to get rid of me, won’t you, now that you’ve got Lord Northwood.”
Shocked, Lydia watched a flood of tears fill Jane’s eyes. “Jane—”
“No.” Jane pushed at Lydia’s hands when she tried to reach for her. “Leave me alone. Is that why you gave him the locket, Lyddie, so he’d ask you to marry him?”
The locket?
“Jane, how… how did you know he has the locket?”
“I saw him with it when I went for a piano lesson. Then he… yesterday when he was… Oh, never mind.” Jane glared at her, her chin set with mutinous stubbornness. “Is this why he had it? Because you wanted to marry him?”
“No.” Lydia pressed her hand to her throat, unable to absorb exactly what Jane was telling her. “No. The locket… Oh, it’s such a long story, but it’s true. Lord Northwood never intended to keep it. It was always meant to be yours one day.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want it.”
“Why would you say such a thing? And why would you think I’d trade the locket for marriage?”
“So you could get away from the boredom of this.” Jane flung her arm out as if to encompass their lives together. “So you could live the life of a viscountess. So you wouldn’t need to do whatever Grandmama says and you’d no longer have to bother with me.”
“What gave you the notion I’ve ever considered you a bother?” Lydia tried to reach for her again, but Jane rolled away and curled herself into a tight ball. “I love you, Jane. I love our life. If I did marry Lord Northwood, it wouldn’t be because I was trying to escape.”
Lydia rubbed her burning eyes, exhaustion falling over her. She bent to wrap one arm around Jane, ignoring the girl’s stiffening rejection as she pressed her lips to Jane’s hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “None of this was intended to hurt you. Just the opposite. I only ever wanted to protect you.”
“From what?” The pillow didn’t muffle the crack in Jane’s voice.
“From… from living a life you didn’t want. From being unhappy.”
“Like you are?”
A lump clogged Lydia’s throat. “You think I’m unhappy?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not when I’m with you. Never.”
“But other times? You seemed so. At least until you met Lord Northwood.” Jane shifted, turning to peer at Lydia over her shoulder. “Why is that?”
Lydia’s heart wrenched. She thought of Alexander, that beautiful man with his sunlit black hair, angular features, and formidable build that contained the strength of a thousand ancestors.
She tightened her arm around Jane.
“Because, my dearest girl,” she whispered, the confession falling like drops of water from a leaf, “I love him.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dear C,
How, exactly, do you know Lydia Kellaway?
Sincerely,
Jane
Alexander didn’t move. He watched Lydia as she stood inside the doorway of his drawing room, her hands twisted in front of her, her skin as pale as milk. A dark storm brewed in her eyes.
He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said I accept your proposal, my lord,” Lydia repeated. “I will marry you, should… should you still desire the union.”
I will marry you. The words he’d longed to hear since the night he’d proposed. A cautious hope began to form.
He approached Lydia, his boots soundless on the carpet. She drew back closer to the door.
“What has brought on this change of heart?” he asked.
“You told my grandmother.” An accusatory tone sharpened her voice.
“Because I knew she would see reason.”
“Well, then? You’ve got what you want. I said I’ll marry you.”
Alexander scraped a hand through his hair. Although she spoke the words he desperately wanted to hear, unease twisted through him. He’d wanted Mrs. Boyd to convince Lydia to marry him, but something was still wrong—and he’d no idea what.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t wish our relationship to cause suspicion of impropriety. I take full responsibility, of course, as I’m the one who initiated… things. And because of that, I must do what I can to rectify the situation.”
“So you’ll marry me to stifle a scandal of which there is yet no evidence.”
Her eyes flew to his. “I don’t mean to imply that’s my only motive, but I know you understand the necessity of avoiding gossip.”
Alexander was silent. He studied her for a moment, attempting to read beneath the surface of her contained demeanor.
“Two weeks ago you were adamant in your claim you would never marry,” he said. “You were equally adamant that you would never marry me. Now because I’ve spoken to your grandmother, you stand here not only willing to marry me, but also claiming your acceptance is a protective measure.”
“I… I refused before I knew that rumors were—”
“You refused because you did not want to marry,” Alexander interrupted. “Why did you allow your grandmother to change your mind?”
“I realized there is a possibility of damaging rumors.”
“That wasn’t enough to deter you from asking me to be your lover.”
A crimson flush bloomed across her cheeks. “I… I fear I behaved quite irrationally. I apologize. I should have maintained my sense of decency.”
Alexander stepped closer to her so she was backed against the door; then he cupped his hand beneath her chin and brought her face up. She still didn’t meet his gaze.
“You think”—his tone dropped dangerously low—“you think what we have done is indecent?”
Her jaw tightened against his palm. “A respectable woman does not engage in affairs.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He moved his hand to the side of her neck, resting his thumb against the pulse that beat just underneath the surface of her skin. The movement of that little pulse revealed her emotions far more acutely than her words did. In a purposeful reminder of their very first encounter, right here in this room, he began to stroke her throat with slow movements of his thumb.
Lydia swallowed. A tremble coursed through her. Alexander stepped even closer, so close that not an inch separated them, so close that their bodies touched. So close that her clean scent filled the air he breathed.
He pressed his lips against the gentle hollow of her temple. Her pulse increased against his palm. He put his other hand against the door behind her. He moved his mouth lower, over her cheek to her ear.
“You think it’s been indecent, Lydia?” he whispered. “That you haven’t behaved respectably? Writhing naked in my bed? Letting me kiss your bare skin, touch your—”
“Alexander…” Her voice was strangled.
He inhaled the scent of her, brushing his lips across the soft skin of her neck. “Why didn’t you accept my first offer?”
“I… I should have.”
He pulled back to look at her, his breathing rapid. “Why didn’t you?”
Something appeared to harden within her—a resolve, a determination—and she lifted her eyes to his.
Alexander stared down at her, watching with a trace of fascination as Lydia’s mind worked behind her lovely blue eyes. It was like gazing at a clock, knowing all the gears, weights, and springs were operating in complex unison behind the perfect, pristine face, yet still having no idea how everything fitted together.
“Our finances are in a state of decline,” she said, her voice unwavering and her gaze steady. As if she had rehearsed this speech. “They have been for some time. My grandmother insisted on very costly treatments for my mother, private practitioners, trips to spas and institutions throughout Europe. The charges drained my father’s funds.”
She took a breath and continued. “My mathematics career has not been lucrative in terms of income. And my grandmother’s husband left her with little. So in recent years we have existed in a state of flux with regard to our finances. Lately, the situation has been deteriorating.”
Alexander frowned. “And that is why you refused my proposal?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“My lord, you have proven yourself to be a man of… of generous spirit, and I knew that if we married, I would have to reveal our financial difficulties. Just as I knew you would offer whatever assistance you could. And I… I did not wish for you to think I was marrying you for your money. That is why I declined your initial proposal.”
She paused, lifting her chin, a faint relief appearing in her eyes as if convinced her explanation was more than adequate.
For Alexander, however, it was not even passable. His brain worked to recall their conversation on the terrace at Floreston Manor.
“Then why did you tell me you would never marry anyone?” he asked.
“Because my grandmother would not allow a union in which my family did not gain financially,” Lydia said. “And I did not wish to impose upon any man in such a manner.”
“So what has changed now?”
“As I said, I accept your proposal so that we both might avoid scandal. And I must rely on your… belief in me when I tell you that my acceptance is quite honestly not an effort to better my family’s financial situation or social ranking.”
“Though both of those will be an inevitable consequence of our union.”
“And welcomed by my grandmother, I must confess.”
“But not by you.”
She didn’t respond. Apprehension plagued Alexander. Lydia’s reasoning made intellectual sense—he knew well that her pride would never allow her to reveal her family’s weakness—but there was more to it. Something that festered behind her discourse and explanations. Something she wasn’t telling him.
He pushed against the door away from her, putting half the room’s length between them—though for her sake or his own, he didn’t know. After dragging a hand through his hair, he turned back to face her.
She hadn’t moved, a rigid, quiet bird with eyes that flashed all the colors of the sea, a mind as complex as celestial navigation, and an unbridled sensuality that would make him ache with desire for the rest of his life.
“Very well,” he said. “We will be married before the month is over.”
“You’ve made a good match.”
Alexander turned to find Talia beside him, looking like a combination of sea and sky in a dark blue dress with pearls woven through her hair. He searched her face for some hint of irony, of smugness, but there was only approval. Acceptance.
He followed her gaze to where Lydia sat with Jane at a table beside the window. Jane was poring over the eight-volume collection of John Curtis’s British Entomology he’d given her as a gift after the announcement of the engagement.
“Not a match I expected when I first met her,” he admitted.
“But one you wanted.” It was a statement, not a question. “Sebastian likes her a great deal. So does Papa. I know Darius and Nicholas will too.”
“And you?” Alexander asked.
> Talia was quiet for a moment, and in that space of time, a burn of fear lit in Alexander. Her response meant more than he’d anticipated.
“I would wish no other woman for you.” Talia rested her hand on his arm. “You could not do better than Lydia. I know our mother would agree.”
An image of Lady Rushton appeared in Alexander’s mind, followed by a wave of sorrow beneath his heart that almost undid him. He’d spent so long being angry with his mother that he hadn’t realized her desertion and his parents’ divorce had caused him deep sadness. This grief, the sense of loss, must be what made Talia hurt so deeply. What made her so brittle.
He turned to his sister, but she moved away, ducking her head as she hurried back to Rushton’s side. Alexander turned his gaze to Lydia.
Although unease still simmered in him over Lydia’s reason for changing her mind, and although her acceptance hadn’t been as he would have wished, he was thankful for it. He wanted to marry her. He knew to his soul they were well matched, knew he would always treasure her intelligent, considerate presence, knew she would enhance the respectability of his family. He knew he would always love her.
He set his glass down and went toward Lydia and Jane, expecting conversation to hum between the two sisters.
Instead, he was met with silence. Jane stared intently at the engraving of a beetle, while Lydia stared at Jane as if she were trying to figure out an equation. Alexander paused, unaccustomed to tension between the two sisters.
Jane looked up from her book and gave Alexander a smile. “I can’t thank you enough, sir. I never thought I’d own such a collection.”
“It was Lydia’s idea,” Alexander said. “I wanted to get you something you could use, and she suggested the books. You are one of the few people I know who will use them for their intended purpose rather than to fill a bookshelf.”
Jane glanced at her sister. Lydia reached out to squeeze Jane’s shoulder before standing. Without making an excuse, she headed to where Talia and Rushton stood.
Alexander nodded toward the open book. “The only condition attached to the gift is that you study the books well.”
