“Well, I, Lucien, happen to like that you have your nose in all of that, for your lesson today was …” He smirked at her. “Magical.”
Elinor laughed a little at that. “You do not mean it. I know your games?—”
“No games,” he cut her off abruptly, if not a little sharply. “Heavens, my governess used to send me to sleep, for I could not endure my tutoring. I only pulled myself through them painstakingly for the sake of my parents, and knowing they wanted me to have a good education. Yet, tonight, even with the lesson aimed at children, I found myself enraptured.”
“That is a bold word.”
“For a bold feeling,” he countered. “I even took notes.”
“I noticed,” she murmured. “May I see?”
The duke—Lucien,she corrected herself now—retreated back to where he had lain his slate on the floor. He scooped it up and brought it back to her.
In a beautiful cursive, the words were ones that Elinor found herself eating up, quite desperately so.
Certain stars are thought to be giants among their kind. What stars might I see from Fairmont Hall in the countryside?
Stars are beautiful … starlight … starlight in dark blonde hair … how might that look?
“What does this last line mean?” Elinor asked, as she lingered on the description of her own hair.
“Nothing,” Lucien said quickly, tugging his slate back. “That was a foolish note.”
“Starlight in blonde hair.” Elinor echoed the words. “Whose hair?”
“Nobody’s,” he was quick to answer, tucking the slate behind his back. “Regardless, I have learned a lot tonight. Thank you. They do not teach about constellations at Cambridge University.”
“No?”
“At least not in my classes.” He grinned lazily at her, and Elinor tried to ignore the twist of her heart. “But, then again, I was not the most attentive student.”
“Tonight says otherwise,” she teased, and she did not know who this person was that he brought out in her thatcouldtease, could be coy and joke, but she rather liked it.
It felt like finally being the debutante she had never really got to be.
“Is that so?” he asked her, his brows lifting in a way that was so unfairly charming that Elinor could only blush again.
But right as she went to answer, thunder cracked outside, and she startled, her hands immediately gripping the desk in front of her.
Lightning followed moments later, and Elinor’s head whipped towards the window, the sky outside too dark to see the full storm, but she heard it plenty enough.
Lucien drew closer. “It is all right,” he told her. “It is only a storm.”
“Only a storm,” she echoed, but her hands still trembled even as she held onto the wood.
“You are afraid,” he observed, his hands fixed on her trembling.
“No,” she immediately answered, but even to her own ears she sounded uncertain. “Maybe a little, but I must be getting home regardless. I—I have my hackney driver outside, ready to take me home.”
“Alone?” Lucien asked. “In this weather?”
“Why not?” she countered. “If you were not here, I would do it anyway.”
“Yes, but …” Lucien frowned at her, and she didn’t understand why he was so concerned.
Before he could continue, her driver rushed inside, his eyes wide.
“My Lady,” the man gasped out, “we must wait out this storm. I cannot drive in these conditions.”