Page 53 of What a Courtesan Wants
“The drawing room … the one with the portrait of the earl in it.”
“I know the one.”
Benedict helped him from the bed, where he discovered that he wore a man’s dressing gown. He wondered if it belonged to Lucinda’s late husband and vacillated between being grateful he’d been dressed in anything at all, and feeling a bit edgy about wearing a dead man’s clothes.
Thankfully, his own shirt and trousers had been laundered and pressed and had been draped over Lucinda’s privacy screen. He quickly donned them, then unwound the bandage from around his head. He couldn’t see his wound, but gentle prodding with his fingers revealed the gash to be only about an inch across, the doctor’s stitches holding up well. Walking slowly to keep from aggravating his tender ribs, he made his way downstairs to Lucinda’s private drawing room. Benedict exchanged words with the butler before the sound of the door opening and closing rang out through the house.
Aubrey turned away from the questioning gaze of the footman manning the entrance hall and went deeper into the house, where the sound of Lucinda’s voice drew him like a moth to a flickering flame.
He found the door slightly ajar but stopped short of pushing it open when he heard the sound of another man’s voice, and then his name.
“This Drake fellow is a stain upon your reputation and our family name,” the man was saying, indignation in his tone. “For all the love you claim to have had for my father, you’ve behaved rather shockingly since coming out of mourning.”
Aubrey scowled, realizing that this must be Lucinda’s stepson, who was now the Earl of Lanhope.
“I did love your father,” Lucinda replied, her voice holding the weight of conviction. “But I had no care for the title or any of the scrutiny that came along with it, and he knew that about me. I would think that after you and your sisters have gone out of your way to distance yourself from me, you’d hardly care who I spend my time with.”
“I wouldn’t care but for the fact that you still carry my name and the title of dowager countess! You could keep company with cut-purses and whores for all I care if not for the fact that everything you do reflects upon me, and I have to hear about it from my friends or read about it in the gossip rags!”
“People say terrible things about one another all the time, Felix. Would you like me to tell you some of the horrible things I’ve heard aboutyou?”
“How dare you! It is Lanhope, ormy lord! I am not your son that you may address me thus.”
“No, you are not,Felix, but you are my stepson and beholden to show the same respect you demand of me. I do not care how many titles you have now, you will not come into my home and question me about my friends or how I choose to live my life now that I am a free widow. But, that isn’t why I asked you here this afternoon. I simply wanted you to come take your father’s things, save for the items I inherited and those I’ve chosen to keep for myself, and go. Hang his portrait in the ancestral gallery among the others … I have the miniature for my own use.”
A pregnant silence passed between them, as Aubrey peered into the crack of the door and found them sitting across from one another. The young earl was like a shadow of the man who’d sired him—tall, but skinny and lacking the athleticism of the previous Lanhope. He had none of the commanding air radiating from the portrait, which had been taken from its place above the mantle. It now rested on the floor, its back leaned against the paneled wall. Shock rippled through him as he realized that Lucinda intended to relinquish her beloved painting.
Looking back to Lucinda, his gaze fell to the hands folded in her lap. His heart stuttered as the notable absence of her wedding ring made itself apparent from across the room. Such a small, seemingly innocuous piece of jewelry, but to Aubrey she seemed like an entirely new person without it.
“Why now?” Lanhope demanded. “Why return it after fighting us for it in the first place?”
“I am not returning it, for it was never yours to begin with. I commissioned the portrait, and it has always belonged to me. However, now that I am out of mourning and considering my future, I have come to see that I’ve clung to these things of your father’s to make myself feel as if he is still with me. But, he isn’t with me, and hasn’t been for some time.”
“No,” the earl replied, his voice thickening as if he fought back his own grief. “No, he is not.”
“You and your sisters should have these things. Everything important that Magnus ever gave me, I carry within myself. I need no physical reminders of what he meant to me, though I will keep the most valued of my mementos. But the rest is yours, Felix. Take it all with my blessing and … and while I know you and your sisters never cared for me, I did love your father with all my heart.”
“The way you now claim to love this draper?”
Aubrey went still, his ears prickling as he waited for Lucinda’s reply. Had she told her stepson that she was in love with him?
“No,” Lucinda replied. “Not the way I love Aubrey. I do not think it is possible for me to have loved Magnus the way I do Aubrey … not because of any shortcoming of your father’s, but because I am a different woman now than I was then. In truth, I was little more than a girl when I wed your father, and everything I learned about love from Magnus, I now understand in a way I didn’t back then. So, it is not the same, what I feel for Aubrey. But it is real, and I am not ashamed to tell you that he makes me happier than I’ve been since your father died. I know that must mean little to you, but I simply told you so you’d understand that I am releasing all these things to you expecting nothing in return. You see, I am ready to move on with my life, and I hope you will be able to do the same.”
Another long silence stretched between Lucinda and the earl, during which the young man seemed unable to meet her gaze. A pleasant warmth spread from Aubrey’s middle, making the pain in his head fade away to a minor aggravation. Lucy had gone from denying her feelings for him to proclaiming how she felt not only to him, but to others as well. A soft smile played over his lips as he watched the young earl rise to his feet.
“Well,” he said, adjusting his waistcoat and clearing his throat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your reputation suffers. But I suppose Father was right about you all along. If you have no instinct toward avoiding an unsavory attachment to a black linen-draper, you really couldn’t have cared about his title.”
“Not a whit,” Lucinda said with a little laugh. “Love is all that ever mattered to me, Felix. I wish you well.”
Despite the earlier animosity between them, Felix dipped in a slight bow toward his stepmother.
“I will send a servant and a carriage for Father’s things, and I thank you for your generosity. Good day.”
Aubrey stepped away as the door swung open, and the young man blew past him without even noticing his presence, turning and striding toward the front of the house. Without hesitation, Aubrey slipped through the opening, pulling the door closed behind him.
Lucinda came to her feet, clearly startled as she watched him stride into the room.
“Aubrey! What are you doing out of bed?”
