Page 92 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
And so she plucked it from her pocket, and dropped it onto the table between them, the clatter of it stealing his attention from the cards he’d been stacking back into order.
“What do you want, Lizzie?” he asked, just as he always did.
“You keep touching your pocket,” she said. “I want to know what you’ve got in there.”
Luke’s jaw tightened just for a moment, a long swallow sliding down his throat. “I was working up to telling you,” he said. “I just hadn’t worked outhowyet. I wasn’t certain if—” He cleared his throat, his palm settling over his pocket as his gaze dropped to her left hand, which rested beside the coin on the table. “After you returned your ring to me,” he said, “I combed through the estate jewelry to see if I could find something more suitable. Something you might like.”
Interested, she inclined her head. “And?”
“There’s nothing,” he said. “Well, that’s not strictly true. There’s a great deal—it’s just that I don’t think you’d like any of it better. It’s all gaudy. Expensive, but tasteless. So I thought I’d find you something else instead. Something thatwouldsuit. And Ididintend to—I will do, if you wish it—except that the coroner, Mr. Beckett, came calling earlier this morning, while you were at your bath.”
There was still that terrible pulse of pain that hit her heart at the mention of anything to do with Papa, and she swallowed it back. “I see,” she said.
“He brought some of your father’s personal effects,” he said gently. “Things that were recently recovered from the rented room in which he had been staying. There’s not so very much of them, but among them wasthis.” His fingers slipped into his pocket, and he pulled free a small ring—a thin band of gold, with a flower formed of tiny pearls decorating the surface.
Lizzie’s breath caught in her throat on a strangled sob.
“I couldn’t be certain of its provenance,” Luke said. “But it was kept on a gold chain to be worn around the neck, and so I thought—perhaps it had been—”
“It’s Mama’s,” Lizzie said, already reaching for it. “I never thought I would see it again.”
Luke handed the ring over to her, and clasped his hand around hers. “I thought, if itwasyour mother’s, you might prefer it to anything else. But if I was wrong—or if it holds more bad memories than good—”
“No; I want this one.” The words clawed at her throat. “It was always supposed to be mine.” Yet another in the long line of promises that Papa had given and then broken. “I thought Papa had buried her with it, when he knew—when hesaid—”
“Lizzie. Come here.” Gently he tugged at her wrist, pulling her out of her seat, and she drifted around the small table set between them on unsteady feet, the ring still clenched within the grip of her fingers. He settled her across his lap, much like he had once done with Jo, tucking her head against his shoulder as her breath pitched and burst from between her lips. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said against her temple.
“I’m not upset,” she said, breathing in the smell of soap that clung to his collar. It was just that he had returned to her something beyond price, beyond expectation. It was just that the knot of conflicted emotions caught within her chest had begun to untangle itself at last. “This is exactly the ring I want,” she said. He couldn’t have purchased better. There was no bit of jewelry that existed upon the face of the earth that rivaled this.
She slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand, and it fit—perfectly. Just as her head fit there into the notch of his shoulder. Just as his arm fit, draped around her, holding her close.
And true to his word, he provided her his shoulder as she cried at last.
Chapter Thirty Four
“What do you want, Lizzie?” Luke murmured in her ear, provoking a shiver. The prickle of chill bumps spread over her skin, accompanied by the contrasting heat of a blush.
“What—what do you mean?” she asked, curling her fingers at her sides, hoping they were not being too closely observed. An absurd wish; they werealwaysobserved these days. Luke had been dancing attendance upon her for weeks, and it had been well-noted.
A light laugh skittered over her skin. “I mean I saw your coin in your reticule when I retrieved the pencil to write myself in on your dance card. I can’t imagine it was by mistake that you brought it with you. So youmustwant something.”
It was true. Though the coin had seen copious use in the past weeks, she’d never once brought it to a ball. But she had tonight. She simply hadn’t yet decided whether or not she had the courage touseit.
His hand found the small of her back, the heat of it searing her skin through the thin silk of her gown, and she thought she heard faint, scandalized gasps from somewhere behind them. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask all evening. I can only assume if you’ve brought it, you must have meant to use it here. I should hate for you to be disappointed.”
“People are watching,” she muttered, aware of the growing cascade of eyes upon them. If he had behaved even half-appropriately just lately, they might have had a prayer of escaping such notice. Instead, he had largely eschewed any of the more masculine pursuits that might have been expected of a gentleman who had accompanied his wife at her social obligations. He never slipped off to the card room, when one was made available. If he danced, it was only with her—an egregious sin, she supposed, given that Susan had taken him to task for it, which he had laughed off. Although a not-insignificant number of ladies had ventured over, angling for a request of a dance, he’d let those none-too-subtle hints pass without acknowledgement. Even the odious Lady Glendale had found herself politely rebuffed—a happenstance that had culminated in a flurry of titters from those around them, and had earned Lizzie a poisonous glare.
“You’d better tell me quickly,” Luke advised, inching far closer than he was meant to be standing by every measure of propriety. “I’m not above a bit of scandal.”
That was a vast understatement if ever she’d heard one—but she suspected it was more to do with his unexpected shift from consummate rake to doting husband. And though she was certain he experienced no particular enjoyment from any social event to which she had committed them, he had attended all of them faithfully, unflinchingly, and in good humor.
As ifhederived his enjoyment only from her company. And she was beginning to believe hedid. As much as he seemed to enjoy sharing his bed with her. Occasionally they retired together, and occasionally he arrived later, whenever he had put off some bit of business during the daytime hours in favor of spending time with Lizzie and Jo instead—but always, when she woke in the morning, he was there, just as he’d promised.
Sometimes he was still asleep. Sometimes he’d woken earlier than she had, and remained abed anyway, waiting for her to awaken. Sometimes, during a particularly chilly cold snap, she awoke plastered to his chest, as if she might absorb the heat of his body. Sometimes he’d curled around her, her hips wedged into the cradle of his, the evidence of his arousal thick and hard against her bottom. Sometimes she considered turning into that embrace and surrendering to what felt inevitable. Not, not only inevitable—essential. He hadn’t insisted on what some would have termed hishusbandly rights, but she thought—she wantedmorethan a perfunctory peck upon the cheek. She wanted more than to be held and petted.
She wanted the passion that had raged between them, and which simmered even now just beneath the surface, waiting to boil over. That tensionthat had forced her to retreat from him had morphed into a different sort of it entirely, one that pulled her ever closer, the lure of that promise nigh irresistible.
“The ball will be coming to a close soon enough,” Luke wheedled. “You’d best make it quick, or you’ll lose your opportunity.”
