A Touch of Scarlet

by Renee Ryan

  His lips came down on hers.

  The kiss was unhurried at first, slow and tender. Then it changed, becoming a bit more desperate. Elizabeth’s knees threatened to give way. She nestled deeper into Luke’s embrace, as if she’d been waiting for this moment all her life, as if she’d been waiting for him all her life.

  Not too far from the truth.

  A sigh worked its way up from the bottom of her toes and stalled in her throat. It was a golden, perfect moment she never wanted to end.

  But then his head raised, just enough that their lips were no longer touching and their eyes could meet. What she saw in his glittering gaze stole her breath.

  She started to speak. His mouth closed back over hers.

  Her breathing accelerated, feeling after feeling crashed over her; this was where she belonged, in Luke’s arms.

  A clap of thunder had him pulling abruptly away.

  She opened her eyes and then wished she hadn’t. Luke looked at her, horrified, a man who’d come to his senses.

  Self-preservation forced her to turn her eyes from the sight of his obvious self-reproach. She stood blinking and trembling as reality erupted in her heart.

  “Little Bit—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  His jaw steeled. “I meant it affectionately. You’ll always be my Little Bit.”

  “I know.” Which only made the situation a thousand times worse.

  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” He swept the back of his hand across his forehead. “I should never have kissed you.”

  He sounded so remorseful, so sincere in his contrition, and that was the most humiliating part of all.

  “Please, Luke, don’t apologize.” Anything but that. “It will only make this moment more uncomfortable for us both.”

  Glancing away, he took an unsteady breath, shook water out of his eyes. “I care about you, Elizabeth.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re special to me. Never would I set out to hurt you.”

  And yet, he already had. “I know.”

  Oh, wonderful. She was beginning to sound like a talking bird.

  A jumble of emotions battered her composure. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced her unsteady legs to hold her upright.

  “I wish to go home now.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “My head is beginning to pound.”

  Long seconds passed before he nodded. Taking her hand, he escorted her across the open field in complete silence. What a disaster.

  Inside the motorcar, Luke handed her the blanket. “To keep you from getting cold.”

  “Thank you.”

  The ride back to the city was accomplished in silence. There was no more talk of driving a motorcar. The rain had stopped, leaving a cold, wet mist in its wake.

  Huddled in the warmth of the blanket, Elizabeth glanced at her reflection in the glass windshield. The woman staring back at her looked small and tormented. The day had turned out so very differently than she’d planned. A bad time for doubt, but she couldn’t help herself.

  She sat in the murky light of the aftermath of her failure, wondering how something so wonderful had taken such a terrible turn. Her face burned. She wanted to disappear, to evaporate like the water on the windshield.

  But the lure of freedom beckoned, and she thought, No, a minor setback will not keep me from pursuing my quest for adventure.

  One sticking point with that: this particular setback didn’t feel minor. It felt very, very major. And utterly confusing. Luke had been fully engaged in their kiss. The overall experience had been really quite wonderful, life altering.

  Up until the moment he’d shoved away from her.

  Head cocked, Elizabeth glanced over at the man.

  Oh, Luke.

  Guilt rolled off him in waves, and that gave her pause. Luke was overprotective by nature. How many times had she watched him rescue Penelope from all sorts of disasters, real and perceived? Elizabeth had no doubt he would die before he hurt a woman.

  Oh, Luke.

  What a man he was. Tall, honorable, with shoulders broad enough for a woman to set her cares upon, if only temporarily, and know he would move the earth, moon, and stars to rectify the problem, even if he was the cause.

  Oh, Luke.

  In that moment, Elizabeth fell a little in love with him.

  She whispered his name, tentative at first, then bolder when he didn’t respond. “I have a question for you.”

  Fisting his hands tightly on the steering wheel, he gave her one curt nod.

  “Was that a proper kiss?”

  He sucked in a hard breath. And then something miraculous happened. His lips curved in a tilted smile that would have dropped her to her knees had she not been sitting. “Yes, Elizabeth, that was a proper kiss.”

  “I knew it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sneaking into St. James House in the middle of broad daylight turned out to be far easier than Elizabeth had imagined. Even wet and bedraggled from her walk in the rain, she managed to slip through the halls and corridors without crossing paths with a single person.

  Of course, at this time of day, the servants were hard at work.

  Elizabeth made a promise to herself. She would thank each of them for playing a crucial role in the household. Not now but later, when she was in dry clothing and her hair was no longer a tangle of unruly wet curls.

  Entering her room, she made another promise to herself as she padded across the ornamental rugs to her dressing chamber. Before the month was through, no matter what the future held, Elizabeth would complete her list. And she would do so without anybody’s help.

  She would fail or succeed on her own.

  Every mistake and misstep would be hers, alone.

  If she did something to throw her reputation into question, she would drag no one else into the ensuing scandal with her. Not her family, not her friends, and definitely not Luke. She loved him too much to—

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Love?

  She loved Luke?

  Of course she loved him.

  It had always been Luke, even when it hadn’t, even when her mother had promised Elizabeth to another man.

  Initially her feelings had been based on childish adoration, a young girl longing for an older boy to notice her. Her feelings had matured over time, and Elizabeth had grown to care for Luke with the desperate passion of a teen emerging out of childhood, caught in her first throes of infatuation.

  Now, she loved him as a woman loved a man, with her whole heart and soul.

  “I love him.” Speaking the words out loud made them so much more real. Elizabeth would forever remember this moment. The moment when she decided to stay in America and win Luke’s heart.

  She felt weak and strong at once, fearful and daring.

  The door swung open, and Sally entered the dressing chamber. There was a beat of silence as the maid took in Elizabeth’s disheveled appearance.

  “I got caught in the rain,” she defended.

  Sally’s eyes skimmed past her face, brushed over her wet clothing, then slid up to her hair. The young woman repeated the process, this time pausing at Elizabeth’s bare feet. “Where are your shoes?”

  “I left them in—” Luke’s motorcar. She stopped just short of incriminating herself. “I left them . . . behind.”

  She did not explain further.

  The maid’s expression turned troubled, betraying an emotion Elizabeth couldn’t decipher. Something about that look sliced through the fabric of her composure. “You have something to say.”

  “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes, before you catch your death.”

  Elizabeth felt the echo of a smile play across her lips. That hadn’t been what Sally meant to say. She let it go because the soggy, wet brocade weighed three times more now than it ever did dry.

  By the time she was sitting at her dressing table in a fresh dress, with Sally attacking the tangles in her hair with a brush, the clouds had scattered complete
ly. Ribbons of sunlight coaxed their way through the beveled windowpanes, creating a medley of flickering shadows in the room.

  “How did Aunt Tilly receive the news I was skipping out on our shopping excursion?”

  “She seemed a bit miffed, but not overly so.” Gently working on a particularly stubborn knot, Sally hitched her chin toward Elizabeth’s writing desk. “I set her response with the other letters that came for you while you were out this morning.”

  Letters. How Elizabeth had grown to hate them. Dread settled heavy and cold in her belly. Had her mother written her?

  Desperate for a distraction, she captured Sally’s gaze in the mirror. The young woman looked quickly away.

  “I can’t help thinking you have something you wish to say to me, something about my outing.”

  Sally’s eyes went wide and uncertain before a blank expression covered her features. “Nothing comes to mind.”

  “I believe that’s the first time you’ve ever openly lied to me.”

  The maid’s hand froze, the brush still tangled in Elizabeth’s hair as her mouth dropped open.

  Taking advantage of Sally’s momentary shock, Elizabeth continued. “I don’t understand your reticence. You’ve been free with your opinions in the past, and have offered very good advice on several occasions.”

  Color drained from the young woman’s face. “I would never presume to tell you what to do.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Elizabeth offered a smile she hoped would alleviate the maid’s anxiety. “Please, Sally, I would very much like to hear what’s on your mind.”

  A wisp of a sigh slipped out of the other woman.

  “Please.”

  “I was in the music room when you arrived home.” Sally showed grave interest in the hairbrush. “I saw you climb out of Mr. Griffin’s motorcar.”

  A burning throb knotted in Elizabeth’s throat. “Did anyone else see?”

  “I don’t believe so, no.”

  Something in her voice put Elizabeth on guard, that and the way the maid refused to meet her eyes. “You don’t approve.”

  Sally’s nervous gaze continued chasing around the room, landing everywhere but on Elizabeth. “It is not my place to approve or disapprove.”

  No, it wasn’t. But Elizabeth considered the woman a friend, perhaps her closest in recent months now that Penelope was spending more time with her fiancé. Sally’s reticence to give her opinion didn’t make any sense. “Luke is a good man.”

  “They all are, at first.” The air around the maid crackled with unveiled resentment.

  “Did a man hurt you, Sally?”

  The maid cast Elizabeth a grim, pained look. “When a woman falls in love, she goes quiet and small. She sacrifices everything, only to lose herself in the process.”

  No, that couldn’t be true. Elizabeth refused to believe that. She could think of one example that proved Sally wrong. “Caroline hasn’t lost herself, quite the opposite. Loving Jackson has enriched her life.”

  Sally acknowledged this with a half smile. “Caroline is the exception. For the rest of us, love is nothing but an invitation to pain.”

  “Oh, Sally.” Elizabeth quickly gained her feet and took the maid’s hands in hers. “Whoever he was, he didn’t deserve you.”

  Tears pooled in the other woman’s eyes. “Tread carefully, Elizabeth. When it comes to a man, decisions made quickly are regretted for a lifetime.”

  Here was more advice on regret. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on what she should and should not do. Was this to be the theme of her life? Was she to receive warnings at every turn?

  “We can’t always trust the heart to lead us in the most suitable directions.” Sally’s face took on a grim expression as she tugged her hands free. “The heart lies.”

  The maid bent to pick up the pile of wet clothes. Hester’s shawl was as wet as all the other garments. Perhaps it was even ruined. Elizabeth would find a way to restore the silk to its former glory. Even if she couldn’t, she would not regret taking the shawl with her today. It had been a really good day.

  She made a soft, satisfied sound deep in her throat.

  “I’ll leave you to read your letters in peace,” Sally said as she made her way to the door.

  Elizabeth waited until the maid left the room to retrieve the list she’d tucked inside the pages of her Bible. Sally had warned her that the heart couldn’t be trusted. She claimed the heart lied. Elizabeth didn’t believe that.

  Her feelings for Luke were real and true and based on something bigger than herself, something beyond what she’d ever experienced before.

  She glanced down at the Bible, opened to Paul’s letter to the Romans.

  Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

  As she let the words sink in, Elizabeth had an epiphany.

  God was love. The Lord was her example. Everything she did must be based in love. At her writing desk, she shoved aside the stack of letters and dipped her pen in the inkpot.

  Bottom lip caught between her teeth, she crossed out several items that simply weren’t important anymore and added two new tasks that would change how she approached life forever.

  Love without reservation.

  Live every day to the fullest.

  Luke drove away from St. James House almost immediately after seeing Elizabeth tucked safely inside the house. He was three blocks gone when he noticed she’d left her shoes sitting on the floorboard of his motorcar.

  At the sight of the tiny, female footwear, he realized five fundamental truths at once. First . . .

  He’d kissed Elizabeth—properly—in the cold, drizzling rain. Instead of returning her to her home—which, now that he had time to think about it, would have been the honorable thing to do—he’d taken the very pure, entirely too innocent girl out of the city to an open field in the country, never once caring about the consequences.

  And that brought him to the second fundamental truth.

  If he found himself in a similar situation sometime in the near or distant future, he would repeat the experience moment for moment. He would kiss Elizabeth again, without hesitation.

  And that brought him to a third fundamental truth.

  He had no regrets. None. Not one. Absolutely zero.

  And that brought him to number four in the chain of fundamental truths.

  Luke was, indeed, as Elizabeth maintained, a very bad, mean, mean man.

  And that brought him to the fifth, most fundamental of the fundamental truths.

  He would end up hurting her, eventually.

  Elizabeth was everything he had never been—good and kind and full of hope. She made him want to be the man he saw in her eyes. But the six months he’d spent in Bertie’s company was as much a part of Luke as his education and family name. His past could never be erased. The pain he’d inflicted could never be taken back.

  The best way to protect Elizabeth was to let her go. Even if that meant spending the rest of his life plagued with what might have been.

  Arriving at his destination, Luke steered the motorcar to the curb. He kept his hands on the steering wheel and took in Griffin Manor from his vantage point. Even if rehearsal had gone long, his father would have left hours ago. Penny would be enjoying luncheon with her fiancé.

  That left Luke’s mother, the woman he’d come to see.

  After yanking off his driving gloves, he rubbed both hands over his face. The calm he sought drifted just out of reach.

  Another fundamental truth materialized.

  Luke was better for knowing Elizabeth. At another time, as another man, he would have already begun courting her in earnest.

  The image of her dreamy blue eyes flashed in his mind. No woman had ever looked at him that way, as if she believed he was goodness itself, as if he were a man worth believing in. For an instant, with her wrapped in his arms, Luke had allowed himself to imagine he could be that man.

  A flood of remorse coursed through
him, for what he’d done and his inability to change the past. Knowing it was for the best, Luke would openly encourage Elizabeth to travel to England with her aunt Tilly. He trusted the older woman without reservation and knew Elizabeth would be in good hands.

  The thought brought no comfort, only sadness, a dismal mood in which to go in search of his mother. He found her in the greenhouse, her hands deep in dirt, surrounded by muggy hot air and colorful flowers of numerous varieties. As an expert painter might wield his brush, Violet Griffin brandished a gardening trowel, her creations true works of art.

  Even in her gardening clothes, she held herself with dignity, the wife of a powerful business titan. Violet was tall and lithe, and her face showed the signs of continued exposure to the sun. Her once caramel-colored hair now held thin streaks of gray.

  The love he felt for this woman was real and complicated, sullied by the secrets no child should know about his parents.

  “Good afternoon, Mother.”

  She turned at the greeting, a smile on her lips. “Lucian.” Her eyes swept over him. “You got caught in the rain.”

  He laughed, the sound ragged in the silence of the greenhouse. “I took my motorcar for a drive.”

  “You and your motorcar.” Her brow furrowed just barely as she set down the trowel. Picking up a rag, she wiped the dirt off her palms. “Your father told me you have plans to start an automobile company.”

  “You spoke about me with Father?”

  She tossed the rag atop the trowel without taking her eyes off Luke’s face. “We discuss both you and your sister nearly every night at dinner.”

  “I didn’t realize you still”—he paused, thought best how to continue—“dined together.”

  His words were greeted with blank bewilderment, followed by a look of dawning comprehension. “Of course we dine together, nearly every evening. We are married. It is what a husband and wife do.”

  It was Luke’s turn to stare in bafflement. He had no reply to this, none whatsoever. He’d always assumed his parents were estranged—how could they not be?—and lived separate yet parallel lives.

  His mother patted his arm. “I see I have shocked you.”