And his expression, exposed in three-quarter profile, was hunted.
“Lucien.”
Finally he looked up.
She felt the bleakness in his eyes as surely as if ice had rolled down her spine. She realized she’d gotten accustomed to searching for that familiar spark—irony, humor, the something in which she realized she basked whenever he looked at her. Perhaps she’d gotten to need it.
And his eyes did gain light when they met hers. As if he simply couldn’t help himself.
“Well. Angelique,” he murmured. “That is your name and you are my friend and tonight I believe I shall use it.” He said this with faint belligerence.
“Very well. I shall allow it,” she said lightly.
“I was inside by curfew by just this much.” He held up this thumb and forefinger so that no light shown through them. “I see that you are in your night robe. But will you come keep company with me? I shall be a gentleman.”
She found she could not refuse that request. He was hurting, that much was clear, and her stomach contracted with something akin to panic. Something akin to what had shown on his face when he had bent over her the night before.
She ventured deeper in and sat across from him.
After a moment he said, “You smell delicious, Mrs. Breedlove, if I may be so bold.”
“Well, we did make apple tarts this afternoon.”
“Ah, yes. That’s precisely the smell.”
“Yousmell a bit like brandy.”
“More than a bit, I should think,” he said equably.
She gave a soft laugh.
“Why are you sitting here in the dark, Lucien?”
“It seemed the appropriate lighting for my mood. I am feeling bleak. Bleak indeed.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Also, a trifle drunk.”
“You don’t say.”
He gave a short laugh at that. Then sighed. But it was apparent even in the way he sat that something hurt, and she would warrant it wasn’t a physical injury.
“Perhaps you should tell me what is troubling you.”
He was silent for some time, moving the brandy snifter between his fingers idly, like a magician about to perform sleight of hand.
“Angelique, my friend... I do not think people use the word ‘love’ correctly.”
Her breath left her.
She didn’t think anything he said could have shocked her more.
For a moment she couldn’t speak.
“No?” It seemed the safest response.
“They abuse the word, you see. Treat it frivolously. Bandy it about. Even nowIwould not be using the word if I were notun peufoxed. It’s not the done thing, is it? In casual company, that is.”