Page 142 of Pride: The Rogue
“Given the warmth you’d shown me and the work you’ve done to help those outside your station,” Livian quietly remarked, “I’d not taken you as jaded.”
The duchess’ eyebrows arched with something a cross between surprise and admiration.
With a cool smirk, the duchess wandered casually about the guest rooms and touched her gaze upon the various knickknacks and furnishings scattered about as if she herself weren’t the owner who had lent the rooms to Livian.
The other woman stopped at the vanity and picked up one of the few items which, in this palatial holding, didn’t belong to her.
The Duchess of Argyll casually fanned those yellowed, tired pages.
Dumbly, Livian stared at the ancient, beloved copy of poems she’d hand-written, now held in this diffident woman’s hands.
Suddenly, the duchess stopped her finger at the top corner; the loud rising sequence split the uncomfortable silence as she riffled the pages.
Not even Verity dared touch Livian’s private collection. Only Livian knew its contents. Livian, andLachlan.
And now, this woman.
They three, Livian, Lachlan, and the duchess, completed a trio of the most twisted triumvirate—Livian who loved Lachlan with all she was, and Lachlan, who cared for her but loved his business, which would lead him to marry this grand beauty, a woman who now so heedlessly handled Livian’s cherished belonging.
Livian wanted to throw her head back and howl her fury and grief and—
“Hmm,” the duchess’ musings slashed across rapidly spiraling sorrow.
“Your Grace?” she asked, dumbly.
“It appears I needn’t have asked; that the answer to my question was here all along, Miss Lovelace,” the duchess teasingly chided.
Confused, Livian shook her head.
With a knowing glint in her too-beautiful-for-words eyes, the duchess carelessly wagged Livian’s book.
At the latest offense on her journal, Livian winced.
Either not noticing or caring about Livian’s concern over that hand-made volume of poems, the Duchess of Argyll held it aloft before her, the way she might a church hymnal at Sunday sermons.
“As You Like It,”the duchess recited.
“No sooner met but they looked;
No sooner looked but they loved…”
The duchess paused a moment and lingered there.
Oh, God.Livian curled her toes tight into the floor.
Her Grace resumed reading.
No sooner loved but they sighed;
No sooner signed but they asked one another the reason;
The duchess’ fervent oration climbed to the rafters.
I’m going to die. For this poem is me, and the duchess needn’t look far to know…
“No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy…”The beautiful widow briefly moved her gaze from the page to Livian.
The Duchess of Argyll snapped the volume closed and without taking her eyes from Livian, she finished the recitation.“And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage…”
