Pride & Passion. Charlotte Featherstone
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soon he would have the woman in his web, and all too soon, the proud Duke of Sussex would follow the lovely bait, and thereby meet his greatest weakness—and his ultimate demise. And in the end he, Orpheus, would take his rightful place in the world. No longer would he be a footnote in time, but the leader he was born to be. And the world would bow at his feet.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANTICIPATION AND NERVOUSNESS coursed through Lucy as she watched Elizabeth elegantly sip her tea. What would Lizzy ask her in return for the secret she was about to shed? Perhaps she should take a dare instead? After all, there were some secrets she wanted to fiercely guard—like the one about Thomas.
Silly game, she thought. She should not have allowed herself to be drawn in so easily. It was a game for children, not grown women who needed to keep their secrets protected and buried.
Except the lure Elizabeth had dangled so temptingly before them had made her weak. Not that she desired to know anything more about the Marquis of Alynwick, but because she dearly wanted to know Elizabeth better. On the outside, the duke’s sister was a vision of loveliness. Despite her blindness, Elizabeth carried herself with pride and confidence, and a cool, sophisticated elegance that Lucy would never be able to achieve. Lizzy was refined, demure and proper. Lucy couldn’t imagine her stepping one toe out of place. But upon occasion, Lucy saw something more complex in Elizabeth’s gray eyes. A shadow of sadness, a flicker of deep pain. She had seen the same in her brother’s eyes. What did they share? What trauma from the past did they try to hide from the world?
Elizabeth cleared her throat, and Lucy saw how her pale fingers trembled slightly as they raked through Rosie’s silky fur. Whatever she was about to share with them, it was meaningful and, Lucy sensed, painful. In truth, there was nothing like the shedding of secrets to bring females together.
“Twelve years ago—No,” Lizzy said with a small smile that conveyed only sadness, “I must go farther back than that. Almost from the moment I became aware of the male species, I have fancied myself in love with Alynwick.”
Lucy found herself biting her lip as she watched Elizabeth gather her self-control. What she wouldn’t give to take back her words. She had hurt Lizzy with the gossip of Alynwick and Lady Larabie.
“Twelve years ago, I gathered the courage to tell him. He confessed that he reciprocated that love, and we …” She swallowed hard, and her grays eyes began to well with tears, tears she held back with a ruthless determination. “We began an affair. It was the summer my father took my brother to the continent for his grand tour after convalescing, and I was left home alone with only the servants to keep an eye on me. Alynwick’s ancestral estate abutted ours, and we spent the entire summer together. I was already losing my sight by then, but he claimed he didn’t care. He persuaded me that it didn’t matter, and I believed him. I …” She lowered her head, her eyes closed. “I gave him my virginity, and the next day—Sunday—his wedding banns were read at church.”
Lucy and Isabella both gasped, and a small sound like a strangled sob was wrenched from Lizzy. “It appeared that his marriage had been arranged for years—yet I had never heard of it. Of course, I behaved like a simpering chit, I was barely eighteen and he was only nineteen. Oh, when I think of how I clung to him, crying and sobbing. But to no avail. While I pleaded and begged him, and spoke of my love, he was … remote. He claimed he thought me amusing, and in truth, my impending blindness disturbed him. It took some time for me to reconcile it all, but I finally came to the conclusion that I had been a fool. I was nothing to him but a diverting interlude to while away the summer days.”
“Black and I shall cut him dead!” Isabella announced with outrage.
“You cannot, what would you say? What grounds would you give? No one but us knows what happened, and until today, I’ve never told a soul what transpired that summer.”
“Lizzy,” Lucy murmured as she reached out to grasp her friend’s hand. “I had no idea. Had I, I would never have told you about what I saw last night.”
“If it had not been you, Lucy, I would have heard it from another source. The marquis does attract gossip, and there are no ends to the females who are willing to create it with him.”
“How you must have suffered,” Issy murmured as she reached forward and rested her palm on Lizzy’s arm.
“Endless nights of wailing into my pillow,” Lizzy said with a deprecating smile, “only to be followed by hours of humiliation whenever I thought on my actions after. I vowed then never to make a spectacle of myself ever again. And especially over a man.”
“If only we had known each other then, Lucy and I would have boxed his ears!”
Elizabeth’s laugh was soft and genuine. “Time heals all wounds. However, I do upon occasion allow myself to reflect upon that summer, and remember those days when he had been everything to me.”
“He’s not worth it,” Isabella sniffed. “To be so careless with you, Lizzy, he doesn’t deserve you, or your love.”
“Oh, I haven’t loved him in years. But tell me,” she asked quietly, “what does he look like? I haven’t dared ask another soul that, for fear of how it might be taken. But I would be a fool if I did not admit that there are some nights, when I lie awake in bed, and wonder about him. Is his hair still dark?”
Lucy felt her own eyes well with tears, and she glanced to her right, to discover that Isabella was discreetly blotting the corner of her eyes with her napkin.
“Yes,” she answered Lizzy. “His hair is dark, like coal—”
“And when the light hits it, does it have the blue of a raven’s wing?”
“Yes, I think it must, for it is black as jet, and given to curl. He wears it unfashionably long, to his shoulders, and when he talks with Black and your brother, he occasionally brushes it behind his ears.”
Elizabeth’s eyes closed, as if she were savoring the images of the marquis. “And his eyes? Are they still dark blue? I always thought the color reminded me of the sky at twilight.”
“I … I don’t know, Lizzy. I thought his eyes dark. There is a hardness to them, and when he looks directly at you, well … one cannot help but to think that he is looking directly past you. There’s coldness there, nothing soft or comforting.”
“Eyes consumed by sin,” her friend whispered. “How sad, for the man I thought I knew that summer was not hard or cold, just … lost and hurting. But then, I didn’t really know him, did I?”
“Sometimes, our hearts won’t allow our eyes to see what is really there, Lizzy.”
Where those words had sprung from, Lucy had no idea. She only knew how right they felt. For it was true, the eye was blind when love and desire was involved. Or was it only blinded by lust? Did the eye truly see love, or was it just for the heart to feel it? Thomas had claimed to love her, had made the same sort of promises to her that Alynwick had made to Lizzy. Only Lucy was certain that but for the fire, Thomas would not have left her the way the marquis had left her friend.
The bit of lace in her pocket reminded her that Thomas was indeed alive. There could be no other explanation for the reappearance of the handkerchief, and for the identical description of Thomas that the duke had given her of the man who had dropped it.
He was alive, and because of those very promises he had given to her, Lucy knew without a doubt he would find a way to come for her.
Squeezing Lucy’s hand, Lizzy replied, “Yes, one can be blind, can’t they, even when they possess the gift of sight. I was young and naive and I learned a difficult lesson.”
“What happened to the woman he was supposed to marry?” Isabella asked. “I hope she made him utterly miserable. He deserved no less after what he did to you.”
Lizzy shrugged. “I do not know the particulars. Only that the marriage did not come into being, and after their