Page 84 of My Deceitful Duchess
Jenny jerked around, a fresh chemise clutched in one hand. “Lottie!” she exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“Making certain you know what you’re about. What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t?” Lottie held one hand pressed over the mound of her belly, accentuating the outline beneath her gown. The lamplight sparkled in her red curls, giving her an arresting vibrancy. “I don’t want you to be hurt again.”
“I don’t, either.” And yet, she had plucked fresh clothing from her drawers and assembled a neat pile of them, which she intended to take with her across the mews to Sebastian’s house.
Lottie heaved a sigh, easing herself into a chair. “Simon said I ought to mind my own business,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Of course, his phrasing was somewhat more delicate than that, but the meaning was there. I want you to know that I trust your judgment. And if this is what you want…” The words trailed off into a sigh and a shrug.
“It is what I want,” she said, and it was only a tiny surprise that the words weretrue. Not an agreement resentfully given; nor even a requirement to maintain her current position within society, to keep her career, and to bear her child without fear of censure. That fissure that Sebastian had cleaved through her heart had begun to mend, and while it was still raw and aching, she thought—she thought it would not be so forever. Hearts could be repaired. Minds could be changed. Forgiveness could be extended, and perhaps it would heal her just as much as him. “Lottie, I agreed to marry him because of the baby,” she said. “But I think I would have married him anyway, eventually.”
“Do you love him, then?”
“I wouldn’t admit to it if he asked.”
“Whatever does that mean?” Lottie blinked, her hand rubbing the swell of her belly.
“It means he’s got to earn it first.” It had to be built up all over again, that fragile love that he had shattered. And yet the pieces were all there still. Waiting to be assembled once more. “But, yes. I do.” Her breath shuddered out slowly, a sense of relief in the words—as if admitting them aloud, just to Lottie, had unwound a bit of the tension that had gathered in her chest.
“How do you know you can trust him?” Lottie asked softly.
“How did you know you could trust Clybourne?”
And Lottie gave a gentle laugh. “Touché,” she said. “All right, then. I will defer to your better judgment. And, if called upon to do so, I shall be…nice.” She said it with a delicate shudder, as if the thought were anathema to her.
Jenny gathered up the bundle of clothing. “He’s agoodman,” she said. “It’s a bit difficult to explain. He sees the world differently. Some things are so very clear to him—facts and figures, right and wrong. Butpeopleare less clear. He’s just—different. Cleverer in so many ways, and a bit clumsy in others.”
“I see,” Lottie said, though Jenny could see that she didn’t.
Jenny took a breath. “He’s never lied to me,” she said. “Not once. It’s not that hecouldn’t. It’s that hewon’t. He’s misunderstood often enough; I think he doesn’t like to complicate things further with lies. So when he said he loved me—I believed him. Because he’s never lied to me.” And he never would. She hugged the bundle of clothing to her chest. “He would have compromised his principles to see me released from jail. I believe that, too. Yes, I was—am—angry to have been placed in such a position,” she admitted. “But I can also be grateful that I’m free from it all now. I don’t have to run, to hide. I needn't spend my life wondering when the worst will happen. It hasalreadyhappened—and now it isoverat last.”
Over only because Sebastian had loved her enough to fight for her freedom. Because he had compromised his principles for her. Even if it had been her testimony that had eventually led to her vindication, it had only been because Sebastian had tirelessly worked to place the pieces together. Dedicated, even through the storm of her anger, the wall of her hurt. And she had beenrightto be those things—but holding on to them would be ruinous to that happiness that shimmered just along the edges of her fingertips, hers for the taking.
If only she would. For so long she had raged against the cruelty, the inevitability, of fate. Her life had been only the last fading strains of light from sunset, burning out into darkness over the horizon.Shehad nearly burned out. And now, instead of that cold, dark emptiness into which she had expected to descend, there was—ease. Hope.Light.
Notherlight.His.
“I understand,” Lottie said softly, and Jenny could see, finally, that this time shedid.
Chapter Thirty Eight
“Charlie.” Jenny’s voice was a velvet whisper in the darkness. “You’re going to have to move, my sweet boy. You’re in my space.”
Charlie gave a mournful whine and a soft, offended huff, but a moment later there was the clack of his nails scuffling across the floor. He had a bed of his own, of course; a soft stack of blankets piled into the corner—but more frequently he slept in the bed, and Sebastian had little doubt but that morning would find him back into it once more, most likely wedged in between them.
“You’re late.” It was a sleep-slurred mumble, but then hehadfallen asleep waiting for her. Both of them were short of sleep just lately. Sebastian was certain that it hadn’t gone any later than perhaps ten o’clock, but it had been quite a long day indeed. For her, as well.
There was a rustle of bedclothes being rearranged. “My buttons,” she said, and in the darkness he found the slim lines of her shoulders and worked his hands down her back, slipping the buttons from their loops. “I met Lottie in Ambrosia,” she said, by way of explanation for her tardiness. “She was waiting for me, I suppose.”
“Oh?” The last button, just at the small of her back, came free, and as her gown gaped open, she slid the material off her shoulders to allow him better access to the laces of her stays. It was difficult to manipulate them in the dark; his fingers tangled in the strings.
He heard the gentle sigh of her breath as the laces loosed at last, and then there was the distinctive rustle of clothing as she shed her gown and underthings. “She said she’d be nice to you.”
“Generous of her.”
“Lottieisgenerous.” The smooth slide of bare flesh creeping beneath the bedclothes, the soft depression of the bed beside him. “And so is Harriet. And Simon—and Albert. They are my friends, you know. And they have been good ones.”
“I know. And Lady Clybourne can throw quite a punch. I’d never have expected it of her.” His face had ached for days. Only twice in his life that he’d earned himself a black eye, and both of them within weeks of each other.
There was the giddy ripple of a laugh, and the cool air that had preceded her beneath the covers faded in the heat of her body as she turned toward him. “You can’t hold it against her.”
