Page 46 of Enslaved to the Seduction of a Lady
“Yes,” she said, “how did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” he said, shrugging. He rubbed a comforting thumb over the soft skin on the back of her hand. “I saw you dance with him at the garden party. Rightly or wrongly, it sent me into a jealous fit.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at him sadly. “It didn’t mean anything. I don’t know what my parents are thinking, matching me with him. He smells like day-old cabbage but has managed to convince himself he smells of France’s bestparfum.”
Luke laughed, but his laughter was tinged with a deep sadness. The hope he’d had earlier vanished, replaced with the awful truth that soon, Lady Alison would be married to a nobleman, and Luke would be left with the horses to grieve.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
“My perfect Alison,” he said. “Perhaps you would be better off marrying him.”
“You can’t possibly mean that?” she said, turning on him.
“I don’t want you to, goodness I don’t. But I also don’t want you to suffer because of me. I am angry at your parents for putting you in this position, but they are doing it because they believe it is for the best.”
“I don’t care what theythink,” Alison said. “Nothing and no one is going to stop me from marrying you, Luke.”
“But how?”
“We’ll run away,” she said simply.
“What?”
“We’ll elope to Gretna Green. I’ve thought it all through already. We’ll get as far away from here as possible, and we will marry.”
“And how will we live?” he asked.
“There is always need for a decent groomsman—in every town in England. And I am sure I can find something to help us along the way.”
“But, Alison—”
“The truth is, I don’t care,” she said, interrupting him. She was animated all of a sudden, eager and excited. “I don’t care how we live or what we do, or even where we end up. As long as we’re together, Luke! Say you’ll do it. Say you’ll run away with me.”
“Alison—”
His jaw worked up and down as his mind ran through the options. She had no idea what a life on the road would be like, a life without all the comforts to which she had become accustomed. She didn’t realize how hard it would be. And to think of a future without Jenny, without Jack… he groaned and rubbed his face in his hands.
“You dowantto run away with me, don’t you, Luke?” Her voice had a hard edge to it—fear, anger, confusion.
“Yes,” he gushed. “Goodness, Alison that you even have to ask. I mean… yes, I want tobewith you. But Jack is sick, and Jenny needs someone to look after her, and—”
“Jenny will be perfectly safe here,” Alison snapped, her jaw clenched.
“Really? For goodness sake, Alison. Don’t be so naïve. I credited you with more intelligence than that.”
“All right, maybe she won’t. But we’ll find a solution, Luke. Can’t you see that our love is worth it? Or do you not agree?”
He growled in frustration, his eyes sparkling with fury—at her lack of thought, at their impossible situation, at her parents.
“Of course I think our love is worth it,” he said slowly, steadily, but through clenched teeth. “But we cannot live on love alone, and I really think you are underestimating quite how difficult life will be. You will no longer have the comforts of—”
“Comforts?” Her voice was high in rage, her jaw tense, and at the moment he wanted to shake some sense into her. “It’s notcomfortsI want, Luke. It’s you!”
“And I want you!” He almost screamed those words—words of love that were meant to be softly spoken but instead were yelled in anger and frustration. She looked at him, blinking in surprise.
“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
He growled again and raised his hands in the air, giving up and spinning away from her.
