“Even Dot?” It had to be asked.
“Even Dot.”
He paused a moment, imagining.
“That’s all well and good, but I need the sort of friend who will intervene if I should ever consider anything so mad as matrimony. Or offer romantic advice. What then?” he countered.
He regretted saying this almost at once. Mainly, oddly, because he thought it might have hurt her.
“As your friend, I shall stand ready to advise you,” she said evenly. Softly.
He narrowed his eyes. “Know a good deal about romance then, do you?”
“Precisely enough, I should think.”
“I imagine you’re as good at being a friend as you are at... everything else... Mrs. Breedlove.”
He wasn’t above stealing a glance at her mouth. Of all the injustices life had visited upon him, the notion that he may never kiss it again ranked very near the top.
“In truth, I am learning how to be a good friend. And ifIcan do that, then you can. You do like me, after all.”
“You’re tolerable.”
Her smile was swift, wholly confident, and genuinely pleased with him.
Hell’s teeth.
Hedidlike her.
Perhaps this should not be quite the epiphany that it was. “Like” had always struck him as a sort of neutered word. He realized now that the word was comprised of particulars: He looked forward to hearing the words that came out of her mouth. He enjoyed being surprised by her reactions to things. Her opinion mattered to him. Being in a room that contained her was better than being in a room that did not contain her.
It was just that until this moment, all of his encounters with women had felt like... transactions. Burdened by strategy or ritual or suffocated under the weight of expectation.
All at once he felt, absurdly, a little shy. And intrigued. As though he was new and she was new and everything was new.
It wasn’t at all what he’d wanted from her. If it was the only thing on offer, it would be churlish to refuse.
“Then we are decided. We are friends,” she prompted brightly.
The word “friends” still had a bit of a funereal knell. But Lucien found he could not equivocate when those soft hazel beams were aimed at him.
He sighed. “Very well. We are friends.”
She at once looked relieved. Which did nothing at all to balm his pride. And there she stood, a flush lingering in her cheeks. He’d put it there with his hands and his mouth and his body. The sun was giving her a halo she probably didn’t quite deserve. His stomach contracted against an onslaught of sensations, unfamiliar, warring. A restless, hungry desire and a curiosity that bordered on want, assailed him.
“Shall we shake hands on it?” he added, idly.
Her eyes fell to his outstretched hand. And for a moment she seemed unable to look up.
He would have given three guineas all over again to know what she was thinking.
Touch me and then tell me I feel like a friend, Angelique.
At last she shifted her shoulders resolutely. Then gave him her hand with every evidence of confidence.
He did not expect to be moved. Her hand felt unconscionably small and cool in his, too easily crushable. Rather like the trust she was giving.
He clasped it gently. And released it.