Inside, alongside his own curl of hair, and the curly dark one from his mother...
... was a lock of shining hair, the color of a doubloon.
It trembled in his fingers when he lifted it.
He closed his eyes, and held it beneath his nose, and breathed it in.
Andthatwas the moment Lucien Durand, Lord Bolt, was truly resurrected.
He opened his eyes. And beneath the locks of hair was a little scrap of foolscap. In a beautifully precise script, it said:
Lucien,
I wanted to show you that I will do anything for you, too.
I need you, now and always.
Please come home.
Angelique
He couldhearher voice. The dry wit. The soft yearning. The forgiveness.
The love.
Home.
“Are you going to cry, sir?”
Lucien had completely forgotten that he wasn’t alone.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Exeter.” His voice was hoarse.
“I charge more for watching you cry.”
“Did you just make another joke, Exeter? Do you charge more for jokes?”
“Of course, sir. I charge for everything.”
Funnily enough, Exeter sounded hoarse, too.
And a few days after that...
In the days after she met with the duchess in the churchyard, the very world seemed to hold its breath.
The duchess had sent a one-word message—“Done”—to Angelique, indicating she’d made good on her promise, one day after they’d met. And Angelique had gently and carefully packed the music box and written a note on a scrap of foolscap (she had that in common with Exeter—they never wasted a thing) and sent it to Lucien, care of Exeter’s office address.
But she still hadn’t heard from Lucien.
The tension of anticipation in The Grand Palace on the Thames was such that a dome of crystal seemed to enclose it. Angelique would not be surprised if she could reach up and tap apingout of the very air.
Hope seesawed with despair.
Finally she could bear it no longer. She knew of only one thing to do while she waited. It was the one thing that might offer her a clue of what Lucien was thinking.
“Delilah, will you take a walk with me?”
Delilah knew precisely where Angelique wanted to go.