Fourteen
Luke studied the chessboard, intent upon annihilating his brother. Drew was clever and had a head for games, but chess was like war and Luke had always had a taste for battle. Unfortunately, his birthright meant he could only engage in battles of wit rather than on the field.
His brother had been accommodating, agreeing to keep him company when the ladies retired a few hours earlier, but the game was doing nothing for Luke’s restlessness. His leg bounced up and down as if it had a mind of its own, and he fought against another wave of jitteriness that made him want to run. He hated being at Twinspur Cottage again.
He plopped his knight into position and tried to focus on his victory. In two more plays, Drew’s king would be trapped.
His brother leaned back in his chair, sipped his scotch, and made no attempt at a move.
“It’s your turn,” Luke snapped.
With a smirk, Drew pushed his king into the line of fire.
“You can’t move there. The game will be over.”
Drew shrugged and hauled himself from the chair. “I’m running low on scotch.”
As his brother sauntered to the sideboard, Luke snatched up the king. “I hate it when you stop trying.”
“But you like winning, and I’ve grown bored. Now we are both satisfied.” He turned his back as he pulled the stopper from the bottle of liquor. “I’m more interested in uncovering what happened between you and Lady Vivian today.”
Luke’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know your meaning.”
His brother shot a chiding look over his shoulder before returning to his task. The silence in the library crackled. The glug, glug of scotch as Drew poured was as loud as gunshots.
Luke bolted from his seat and took his glass with him to the opened window. A weak breeze barely stirred the sticky air. Fall would be upon them shortly; it shouldn’t be this blasted hot after sundown. Captain Pendry was waiting to hear if Luke still wanted to be part of the expedition, but Luke didn’t know what to tell him. Vivian had him tangled in knots.
He drained his drink, trying to grasp hold of his thoughts as they whipped around in his head. A lone frog croaked somewhere close, his voice deep and mournful.
“Have you ever thought you knew where you were going only to feel completely lost moments later?” Luke asked without shifting his gaze from the darkness beyond the window.
Drew snorted. “Is that a rhetorical question? I’m married. I have children.”
“Point taken.” A few years earlier, if anyone had predicted his rakehell brother would be married and blessed with children, Luke would have called the person a fool.
Drew joined him in gazing into the nothingness outside. “Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Lana and the girls are my life, but I never thought this would be my future.” His brother nodded toward the window. “Do you see something out there?”
Luke shook his head. Maybe there was nothing for him out there beyond England as he had believed, but how could his destiny be here? He was damaged and a lousy stand-in for his father.
“I should have died that day,” he muttered.
“You didn’t.”
“But I should have. Did they ever tell you I wasn’t breathing?”
He glanced at his brother. Drew was leaning against the window frame and frowning. “Our parents said it was a miracle.”
Or a mistake.
It seemed Luke had been outmaneuvering fate for the last decade. He had the scars to prove it. What if fate had been waiting for him to care about something again so it could be snatched away?
Someone to care about.
Luke turned from the window with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t like him to engage in fatalistic thinking. He lived each moment and tried not to contemplate the future anymore. It was too uncertain and subject to change without warning. Yet Vivian had triggered something inside him that hadn’t been alive since his accident. Hope. A part of him couldn’t stop wondering what life might be like with someone sharing it with him.
No, not someone. Her.
“You always were abysmal at chess,” Luke accused his brother, ready to shift his focus.
“But I excel at the things that matter.” Drew tapped his finger against his glass. “My bride is tucked in bed by now and I would like to join her, but if you need me to stay…”
“No, you go. I am not long for bed myself.” But the thought of climbing the stairs where his former prison lay made his stomach roil.
Drew hesitated a moment before he nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line. He placed his glass on a side table then quit the study.
Luke should get some sleep, too. Tomorrow he would call on his steward, and he wanted to be well rested. His headaches were always worse when he was tired. Still, he lingered in the library.
Reaching the opened double glass doors, he walked out into the night. Moonlight shimmered off the lake, visible through the trees in the distance. He breathed in the fresh air, so unlike the heaviness that hung inside the house.
The lake called to him. Perhaps if he sat on the bank for a while, his mind and heart would settle. Even if he could come to a decision about the expedition, he might be able to rest tonight.
***
Vivi had given up sleep an hour earlier and moved to the window seat in her chambers. She had lain in bed as long as she could, trying to push thoughts of Luke from her head without success. She had relived their kiss many times over after she had climbed under the sheets. Yet it was his troubled gaze as he had looked down at Twinspur Cottage that kept her awake.
A somber mood had descended over him when they stopped on the hill. He had tried to hide behind his smiles, but they had been hollow. Vivi had known him long enough now to tell the difference.
Since she had no right to intrude on his privacy, she hadn’t questioned him further about what had happened to him here, but she was concerned. Luke seemed to be wrestling with past demons, and she wanted to be his champion. Perhaps she would muddle being his champion as badly as she was at courting him, but her desire was sincere.
Vivi tucked her knees up under her nightrail and leaned her forehead against the smooth window glass and wished it were cooler. The air was exceptionally hot this evening. If she were home, she might steal away for a swim.
A patch of white entered her line of sight, standing out against the black backdrop. It appeared to be a gentleman, and he moved with purpose toward the lake. She sat up straight and watched, curious. He disappeared among a clump of trees and did not reemerge.
It had to be Luke. He had been edgy at dinner—distracted and irritable—as if he couldn’t tolerate being enclosed by the walls of the cottage. Vivi twined a strand of hair around her finger and debated the wisdom of going to him. She knew she should stay in her chambers and respect his need for solitude. Besides, it would be unseemly for a young lady to seek out a gentleman without a chaperone, or even with a chaperone at this hour.
But what if he was alone because there was no one he could confide in? Her heart ached at the thought.
Swinging her legs over the side of the window seat, she grabbed the folded blanket at the other end of the padded bench and headed for the corridor. She listened at the door before easing it open. Finding no one stirring, she hurried toward the stairs and descended as quietly as possible before winding through the house. She found a set of doors facing the lakeside and slipped outside.
A breeze lifted loose strands of hair around her face and cooled her damp skin. She gingerly picked her way across a wide veranda, mentally scolding herself for forgetting her slippers.
The night sounds surrounded her as she stepped onto the grass. She paused, her stomach unsettled as if a tumultuous storm brewed inside her.
This is a bad idea. Turn around. Her body refused to obey, and she continued toward her ruin.
He was standing by the water’s edge and gave no indication he heard her approach. She halted several feet away.
“Luke,” she called tentatively.
He spun on his heel. “What are you doing outside?”
A wave of heat that had nothing to do with the summer air engulfed her. “I saw you from the window. I brought you a blanket so you don’t have to sit on the grass.” Instead of offering it to him, she held it close, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. “Do you want to be alone?”
“Does it matter?” There was a touch of humor to his voice.
“I’ll go.” She edged back toward the house but pointed at the blanket. “Would you like it, Your Grace?”
He closed the distance between them and took it from her arms. “Thank you. That was thoughtful. You don’t have to go.”
But she should. Instead, she helped him spread the blanket over the ground then sat with him, but she stayed as close to the edge as possible for propriety’s sake. Vivi rolled her eyes. She had crossed that boundary long before now.
Luke lowered down beside her and sprawled on the blanket. He appeared unaffected by their proximity while she struggled to quiet each breath, fearing she sounded like a windstorm.
“Is the heat making it difficult to sleep?” he asked.
“Hmm.” She didn’t trust herself to speak.
He looked over at her. “Everything would have been easier for you if your brother had allowed you a Season.”
She started at his unexpected comment. “Easier how?”
“There would be no need to engage in this pretense. It would have been easier to choose a suitable husband in London. Ashden left you no choice but to accept the gentleman he had selected when he should have allowed you a Season.”
Vivi lowered her gaze. That wasn’t completely true. She was to have her coming out before Mrs. Honeywell had called too early in the day and discovered her with the groom. She had tried to explain the situation to her brother when he arrived, but Ash had blistered her ears for being too tempting to Owen. Her brother had gotten it all wrong. The groom had been fond of her, but Vivi had been the one to dangle after the handsome, older servant. He had always treated her like a younger sister.
When Mrs. Honeywell had discovered them together in the stables, her hair mussed from spending the night in a stall, Vivi had already given up her ridiculous dreams of one day marrying the groom. Ladies didn’t marry lowborn servants, Owen had told her. And he’d had a sweetheart in the village.
Nothing she’d said made a difference to her brother. Owen had lost his position, and she had become Ash’s greatest disappointment.
He had never treated her unkindly before that day. He had been rather permissible when he’d taken on the onerous task of being her guardian. Their relationship had altered, however, after he wed Muriel.
“I don’t mind that Ash chose on my behalf,” she said. The alternative of life in a convent was no life at all.
“You don’t mind having no choice in whom you marry?”
She shrugged. Did anyone really have a say? Her brother had married to save them from financial ruin. He had had no choice for himself, but he had chosen well for her. Perhaps it was her brother’s way of apologizing for sending her away to live with Patrice. The only trouble she faced was in convincing Luke that they were well suited.
She hugged her knees and lightly rocked. “At some point, you have to trust what is meant to be will be.”
He made a bitter sound at the back of his throat.
Biting down on her lip, she forced herself to stop talking. She was being selfish, thinking only of herself and how she would benefit from their union. Luke had said he didn’t wish for a match between them, and she hadn’t cared. Now she had goaded him into kissing her. What if he felt duty-bound to marry her?
He dropped back on the blanket with a heavy sigh. “How can you be certain everything works out for the best, Viv?”
“I didn’t say things always work out for the best. Just that life happens no matter what we think or want.”
She stretched out on her back, too, and stared into the dark sky. The same stars that had been there last night and the night before and the night before that winked down at her. Nothing much ever seemed to change in the heavens.
“I don’t worry what the future holds because whatever comes will come,” she said. “I will find a way to cope.”
They lay there in silence for a long time. The only sounds came from the night surrounding them.
“I heard you lost both parents in a carriage accident,” Luke said at last.
She nodded even though she knew he wouldn’t see her. “I was seven.”
Luke rolled toward her and propped up on his elbow. “I’m sorry. That is a lot for any child to bear.”
Her throat grew tight. She barely remembered her parents, but she remembered the devastation and fear of what would happen to her and her brother. Luke must have experienced similar emotions with the loss of his father. Perhaps he felt these things more deeply since his family relied on him to care for them.
“I’m sorry about your father.” She rolled to face him and held her hand out in invitation. He met her in the middle, their fingers curling together to form a link.
His eyes shimmered in the darkness.
“Luke, do you want to talk about what happened to you here?”
He rolled onto his back again and broke their contact, but then he surprised her by taking her hand again. “I had a fall. It didn’t happen here, but at University. I went through a window of an upper floor.” He grimaced. “Obviously, I survived, but I had injuries.”
Is that how he had broken his nose? She wanted to trail her finger over the small bump, to soothe his past hurt, but she didn’t dare.
“My parents brought me to Twinspur as soon as it was possible to move me. Mother thought it would be good for me to convalesce here since I had always loved the cottage.”
And now he abhorred a place he had loved. Vivi blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. “How badly were you hurt?”
“I broke a leg, cracked most of my ribs, and fractured my pelvis. My head was bandaged, and I am told I was unconscious for two days. I was awake for the carriage ride here, though, and I had wished I wasn’t. When we arrived, I had to lie in bed for weeks while my bones mended, flat on my back.”
“That sounds horrible.” Vivi squeezed his hand. How awful that would be for anyone, but especially for an active man like Luke.
“Just as I thought I was becoming well enough to attempt walking again, a fever came. I had developed a lung illness, but I survived that as well, as you can see.”
She had never heard him be caustic. It didn’t fit his nature.
“I’m glad you survived,” she murmured.
He paused and turned his head to study her. They said nothing, as he seemed to be puzzling her out. He did that often, though she had no idea what he found complicated about her. She was just a lady who wanted what any other lady wanted: to be a wife and mother, and to make a home for those she loved.
He looked back toward the sky. “I’m uncertain what happened for the next few days, but I must have been out of my mind. Every time I woke, I couldn’t move my arms or legs. It was like someone had tied me down. It was the worst—” A shiver raced through her, and his gaze snapped to her again. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset, at least not in the way you think. I can’t believe all you went through. It’s no wonder you are troubled by being here again.”
He blew out a breath, stirring the dark curl on his forehead. “I don’t want to be bothered by memories. It’s ludicrous and weak. They can’t hurt me.”
“No, but they can bring back all those feelings you had at the time. It must have been scary to be that ill.”
“I guess it was.”
They lay there in silence a long time, holding hands and gazing up at the sky. She didn’t know what to say to ease his burden, so she said nothing.
“I almost died,” he said, his voice merely a ragged whisper.
Vivi reached out to caress his whiskered jaw. She didn’t care about propriety or foolishness any longer. She only wanted to give him comfort. “I am thankful you didn’t.”
He captured her hand and brought it to his lips, feathering a kiss over her sensitive skin. “So am I. Could I hold you, Viv? Just for a moment?”
Her heart gave a small leap of joy. She vowed to make this last more than a moment. She was well on her way to having him hold her for a lifetime.
When he opened his arms, she snuggled against him, his chest hard beneath her cheek. Her fingers picked at his linen shirt since she was unsure where to leave them. “I take it you haven’t been back to Twinspur since you recovered. Perhaps it would help to make new memories.”
He smoothed her hair from her face and kissed the top of her head. “This is a good beginning. Thank you for being here with me.”