Page 87 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“Awrinkle!”
“Shh. You’ll wake Jo.” He sighed, his gaze falling upon Joanna once more. “Poor little mite. She’s had a rough time of it. You all have.” His hand squeezed hers. “I left instructions with the headmaster that Georgie should be sent home immediately if he asks. At any time.”
Though they’d offered, Georgie had decided against coming home—he’d made friends at Eton, and he was thriving. Lizzie had worried that Papa’s death might have upset that once again, but Georgie had taken the news better than had been expected. It had been Jo’s presence, however, that had been a godsend—the two had quietly conversed amongst themselves, shed a few tears, and ultimately decided that the certainty of Papa’s death was an easier cross to bear than theuncertainty he had wrought upon his children in life.
“You were right to bring her along,” Lizzie acknowledged softly, because it seemed the sort of thing that oneoughtto acknowledge. “How did you know?”
“It was simple enough,” Luke said. “When myfather died, all I wanted was my sister.”
“I’mhis sister.”
“You’re not, though. Not really. In every way that matters, you’re his mother. And of course, he would have wanted you, too. But Jo is still a child, just as Georgie is. She understands him in a way that we can’t any longer. He needed that.” The carriage hit a rut in the road, and his thigh pressed against hers. “I haven’t much experience with children,” he said. “Iamtrying.”
Well, he’d been doing an excellent job of it thus far. “Better than I, it seems.”
“No,” he said. “You’re just accustomed to mothering, and I can only lay claim to brothering, which is a different beast entirely.”
Lizzie mulled that over in her mind a moment. Thought about the warm, gentle pressure of his hand over hers. About the talk he’d had with Jo days ago. “They’re going to want more from you,” she said. “More attention. More guidance.” Her lips trembled over the words. “They’ve already had an absent father. They don’t need an absent brother to go along with it.”
I don’t want an absent husband. I don’t want a husband whose thoughts are so firmly entrenched in the past that he neglects the present.
“Then I won’t be absent.”
“They must be more important than your club, or your estates, or your amusements—”
A slight angle of his head, the vague incline of acknowledgment. “They will be.”
“If you can’tlovethem—”
“Lizzie.” The stern, severe quality of his voice sliced straight through her disjointed speech. “I am going to make mistakes,” he said. “It’s inevitable. But not loving them will not be one of them.”
Her nose itched. Her eyes stung. “They’re going to be foul-tempered and obnoxious on occasion.”
“They were that for nearly the duration of my time in Hatfield,” he said equably. “I think that is just the nature of children.”
“They’ll be cross and disobedient. You’ll want to shout at them.” She forced the words past the lump that had risen in her throat. “But you have to love them even when they’re at their worst. Even when you’re at yours.” Was she informing him of the children or herself? She no longer knew. “You have to comfort them when they’re ill. Be patient even when they’re unholy terrors.”
A small chuckle. “All within reason.”
“Georgie is going to look to you,” she said, “to determine what sort of man he ought to be. Joanna will look to you to determine what sort of man she ought to marry.” He had to be the best of both. Theverybest. “You can’t discardthem when they cease to amuse, when they become more work than fun. You can’tabandonthem.” They had all had their fill of inconstancy. One man who had swept in and out of their lives leaving devastation in his wake had been quite enough. And if Luke found himself tempted to do the same, then it would be better that he had never entered their lives at all. “You can’t simply—”
“Lizzie. It’s not going to happen. I’m not your father. I’m not going tobecomeyour father.” He bent his head, and a lock of hair drifted down over his eyes. “I don’t want that any more than you do.”
There was the fluttery sensation of panic in her chest, as if she were watching a disaster unfold, helpless to stop it. Like a lone sailor attempting to save a sinking ship, working against the wind and the current to avert the crisis—searching for some surety, some security that would never come. “You have to promise,” she said, and that terrible tremor migrated even to her fingers as she searched her pockets in desperation. A strange, strangled sound lodged itself in her throat. The coin—she’d left it sitting upon the nightstand.
“What’s wrong?”
“The coin.” It came out high and inconsolable, and still her fingers searched her pockets, as if they might somehow still produce it by magic. “I left it behind.” Her breath hitched. Tears burned behind her eyes. It was the same sort of anxiety she had experienced so many times before—each time Papa had reappeared, only to make off with more of their valuables, whatever meager funds they had managed to stash away. Every time the twins had grown out of their clothes and she’d had to scramble to repurpose old things for them to wear, sewing late into the night. Every quarter day which had passed with fewer rents collected than the quarter day previous.
Luke fished her hands out of her pockets, stilling her frantic motions. “You don’t need it,” he said. “Not for this.”
But shedid. It was hercontrol. Hard-won, at great expense, and slipping away from her even now. She could feel it, like a thread unraveling, tiny fibers prying apart and fraying beneath the pressure.Shefrayed, tension wound past its breaking point. A hiccough. A brittle sound shook free by the force of the tremors that had overtaken the whole of her. Violent and devastating, they crashed over her like a wave, scattering her wits.
Luke trapped her hands beneath one of his, and the pressure of his fingers atop her own constrained the worst of their quaking. His free hand slid along her jaw, cupped her chin, and turned her head to face him. “You don’t need it for this,” he repeated. “I will make you that promise without it.”
She should have been satisfied with that, but it was an impossible thing to have requested of him. Hecouldn’tpromise something of that nature. Or at least, she would be a fool to believe it.
But shewantedto. She wanted to believe that the man who had existed in Hatfield shared the carriage with her now. That it washishands on her, holding her together when everything in her wanted only to fall apart. He had so effortlessly solved so many of the problems that she had found insurmountable. She had grown todependupon that man—right up until he had revealed himself a fraud.
