‘I’m sure your sister would be pleased, too. Eventually, it would go to her children, you know.’
Grace and Cedric’s children.
‘Do you truly want this for me?’ she asked, stunned that he could say such a thing to her.
He looked into her eyes, and his expression fell. His eyes widened, and all his false cheer disappeared. Instead, she saw desperation and pain. Such awful pain that it verged on madness.
‘I have no other solution,’ he rasped.
‘I offer you everything,’ she said, her voice breaking on the words. ‘I love you.’
He jolted upright, awkwardly scrambling out of his chair. ‘Never say that again. Not to me. Not to yourself. Don’t even think it.’
Tears clouded her vision, but she refused to let them fall. ‘But you—’
‘No!’ He backed away, reaching behind him for the door.
Tears slipped down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them now, but such was the price of understanding. He was not the man for her. No matter what she wanted, no matter how her body still ached for him. He was not for her.
She turned away. ‘I hope you and my sister will be very happy,’ she said.
‘Miss Richards,’ he said. Then he touched her arm. ‘Lucy, please. You knew from the beginning—’
‘I did,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘And now I understand.’ She turned to face him directly. ‘There is no true feeling inside you. Only greed for coin.’
He reared back as if struck. ‘That’s not true!’
It wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t, but she was in pain, too. She’d offered him everything she had, everything she was, and it wasn’t enough.Shewasn’t enough.
So she twisted him in her mind. She changed what she believed about him so the future would not destroy her soul. He was a monster, she told herself. One lost to greed.
She straightened out of her chair, facing him as directly as she could. She did not offer him her hand. It was trembling too much.
‘Good day, Lord Domac. I hope I never see you again.’
He stiffened as if she’d slapped him. And maybe she had. She saw the hurt in his eyes, but also saw a dawning understanding.
‘I have hurt you,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘You have shown me your true colours. Money will always rule you.’ Then she turned her back on him.
‘Lucy,’ he whispered, her name filled with anguish. She kept her back straight, refusing to look at him. If she did, she might break. She might run to him and beg him to reconsider.
She stood still, unwilling to move.
A moment later, she heard him sigh. There was a rustle of fabric as he probably bowed to her. A ridiculous nod to propriety, given the very improper things they had done together. She didn’t turn to see. And a moment later, she heard him leave the room.
She waited longer, still fighting the tears. No matter what he felt, she knew that this was a true ending between them. And she was satisfied with that result.
For an hour. Maybe as much as two.
And then she changed her mind.
An hour later, she changed it again.
Indeed, she descended into a madness born of anger, loneliness and despair.
Cedric pursued her sister with intent. Lucy found ways to sabotage it.
She tortured him on a walk in Hyde Park. She disparaged him in whispered secrets at night with Grace. And she watched with excitement as Grace began to fall in love with someone else.
Grace wanted Declan, the man who was the Duke of Byrning. It was added spice that he was Cedric’s cousin.