Chapter FORTY-TWO
This time Lucy didn’t take a footman with her. It was wrong and she could ruin her reputation if she was found out but she didn’t care. She pulled on her bonnet and her gloves, but it was too warm for a pelisse. She nearly raced through the streets to Derek’s house. When she got there she stood waiting, holding her breath, all the interminable minutes it took for the butler to open the door. Haughty she called him secretly in her head. His actual name was Hughes.
Haughty Hughes escorted her into the blue drawing room and informed her that His Grace would join her momentarily. He’d already raised a brow when he’d realized she was alone but Lucy was beyond caring.
She paced the room, replaying over and over again in her mind exactly what she would say when Derek entered the room.
She did not have long to wait.
The door opened and Derek strolled in, looking as handsome as ever. He made her knees weak.
The moment he saw her, he frowned. “Lucy? What’s wrong?” Could he tell? Could he guess by the way she trembled a bit and her shoulders shook? She had to get this over with quickly.
She turned, standing with her back to him, tears filling her eyes. Tears she didn’t want him to see. “I’ve come to…”
She heard him step closer.
She squared her shoulders, forcing the words from her lips. “Cass received a letter from Julian this morning.”
“Julian? He’s still alive.” Derek expelled his breath. His voice was heavy with relief. “Any word on his condition?”
Lucy took another deep breath. The deep breaths were helping—or so she told herself. “I don’t think he’s improved. But that’s not what the letter was about.”
Derek stood to her right. She saw him from the corner of her eye. She smelled his wonderfully familiar scent, a mixture of soap and spice.
“What did it say?” he asked.
She swallowed and braced her hand against the mantelpiece in front of her. “Julian said good-bye to Cass in the letter. He said good-bye and he told Cass to marry you. He said you’d take care of her.”
Derek swore under his breath.
“He asked Cass to promise him that she would marry you,” Lucy finished, nearly gasping for breath now.
Derek swore again. “What did Lady Cassandra say?”
“She’s confused. She doesn’t know what to do.”
“Understandable,” Derek answered. He paced away from Lucy. Running a hand through his hair, he cursed again. “This is all my damn fault.”
“Derek, I…” Her voice trailed off. Oh, how was she ever going to say this to him?
He swung around, took two steps toward her, grabbed her shoulders, and spun her to face him. “What is it, Lucy? What’s wrong?”
She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “I told Cass she must marry you.”
* * *
After Lucy left, Derek nearly plowed his fist through the bloody wall. At the moment he wished he had a Frenchman to beat into a senseless pulp. Run through with a bayonet. Shoot through the eyes from fifty paces away.
This was torture, that’s what it was. He was tortured by his promise to Swift. He’d squeezed his dying friend’s shoulder on the battlefield and promised, sworn, that he would come back and marry Cassandra, if she’d have him. And it seemed she would … now. He’d been contemplating going back on his word if Julian lived. But now. Now it was clear. Swift would not be returning. What sort of a man would Derek be if he broke that promise after all? Especially now that Swift had written to Cassandra and told her that Derek had promised to marry her? Would he truly let his friend go to his grave not knowing that the girl who had secretly loved him for years wasn’t well taken care of? Derek couldn’t live with himself if he did that.
But then there was Lucy. Lucy who drove him mad. Lucy who he couldn’t keep his hands off. Lucy who stoked in him the kind of passion he’d never found in the arms of another woman. Lucy was his equal, his match. That’s why he was so inexorably drawn to her. Lady Cassandra would be a willing and obedient wife. She would give him peace and understanding. But Lucy would keep him on his toes for eternity, make him crazy and make him mad with lust, too. And now that he’d touched her, felt her silken softness, he couldn’t forget. Couldn’t turn back. What would he do? Pretend forever that nothing had ever happened between them? Be in the company of his wife’s closest friend for the rest of his life and act as if he didn’t want her with every bit of himself? Was that even possible? If he married Cassandra he would never be unfaithful to her. He had too much honor for that. And he knew Lucy would never betray her friend, either, but now, now while everything was gray and undecided, it was pure torture.
He’d received another short letter from Collin this week, only informing him that nothing had changed in regards to Swifdon and Rafe. Collin and Adam were on their way back to London. That was all.
And all Derek could do was write a lot of impotent letters from Bath to the War Office, to his mother, and to Lucy pretending to be blasted Berkeley. He bloody well had to stop writing those damn letters for Berkeley. It had been amusing at first. A harmless game. Or so Derek had thought, until he’d realized the harm being done was to himself. Sitting there each day, writing to Lucy, expressing his feelings. At some point, early on, he’d realized that he was writing to her as himself, not Berkeley. He didn’t give a damn about Berkeley. In those letters, he’d told Lucy everything he’d ever wanted to say to her. And he’d meant every last word.
They’d worked too, damn it. Berkeley had come sauntering over yesterday to inform him that the letters had earned him a kiss. Derek had wanted to toss him out of his study, but instead he sat there and listened to the torturous account of how Lucy had told the viscount how much she cherished his letters and then proceeded to kiss him. And wasn’t Berkeley the scoundrel for telling him? Though in his defense no doubt Berkeley no longer knew where to draw the boundaries with a man who was secretly writing love letters to the woman he was pretending to court.
Derek slammed his fist onto the top of the desk with such force the papers and quills and inkpot bounced. God damn it. What in the bloody hell was he going to do? How would he ever get himself out of this unholy mess?
Undecided. Indecisive. His father’s taunting voice echoed in his skull. There was absolutely nothing worse in the world of men than to be indecisive. His father had taught him that from a young age. He’d taught him that well. And Derek had learned the lesson. At a price. He’d grown into a man who was never indecisive. On the battlefield, leading men, in anything in his life. But now, blindly staring at the wall, thinking about Lucy and Cassandra and his promise to his closest friend, he’d never been more indecisive in his life.
And he detested himself for it.