Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 10

Eve sat on the same hard, wobbly chair in the same employment office she had on too many occasions. Six, if one wished to be precise. Which she didn’t. Not in this moment.

After journeying through the early morn into the afternoon hours, her back ached. Once more, she proved the already well-known truth: that a lady on her own, of a scandalous family, had few options. There were no opportunities to sit in misery and think of what might have been and what would never be.

She bit down hard on her lower lip as Lucas slipped into her thoughts, like he had since the moment she’d stepped inside his chambers those few weeks ago. And in that short time of being with him, the nightmares that haunted her had faded and the nervous song that kept her sane, had slipped off, forgotten, unneeded—because of him.

You foolish, foolish woman. There could be no good in thinking of him. Nor any point to it. Their meeting was as doomed as those star-crossed lovers penned by the great Bard. Nor had Lucas ever spoken of any feelings where she was concerned—and certainly not love. Just because they’d shared pieces of their pasts and known each other’s embrace, that did not make for anything more.

Oh, God. Where is Mr. Townsend? She’d been shown into his small, cluttered office nearly twenty minutes earlier and had sat with the misery of her own thoughts. When her worries should really be on her precarious state. Turned out for a sixth time with no references forthcoming, Mr. Townsend had proven munificent to a war widow too many times before. He’d be less forgiving now.

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall and her mind raced. Eve hurried to her feet and she damned Lucas Rayne for having so gripped her every thought that she’d not considered the whole of the carriage ride and her journey to Mr. Townsend’s employment office just what she’d say to account for her appearance this day. She squared her shoulders as he pushed the door open. She’d not begged before and she’d not beg now. She would however—

Her frantic musings came to a screeching halt as a tall figure filled the doorway. Lean. Clean-shaven and his midnight black hair drawn back in a neat queue, Lucas stood there, staring back at her. He was here. Now? Surely she’d merely conjured him of her own yearnings.

Eve shook her head as he stepped slowly forward. She sought to make sense of his being here. “Lucas,” she managed on a hoarse whisper. He’d left his chambers in the light of day. Questions at his presence here receded under the weight of love and pride for him.

“Miss Ormond,” he greeted, pushing the door closed.

She wet her lips. “You should not do that.” As it was, the old, respectable owner would question Lucas’ presence and this meeting. “Mr. Townsend—”

“Can go to the devil,” he neatly put in and he came forward with a slow, languid elegance.

Eve gripped the sides of her dress. Then, his words registered; that same name tossed at her by his brother. Miss Ormond. “You know,” she said faintly.

“Know what?” he asked, winging up a dark, sinful eyebrow. “That you are an Ormond?”

She hugged her arms close, braced for that vitriol his brother had shown.

“Do you truly believe I care who your father or grandfather or uncle or great uncle or any old ancestor are?” he demanded as he came to a stop before her.

“It matters to your family,” she managed, her voice breaking.

“You matter to me,” he countered. A love so strong for this man before her filled her throat with emotion. Lucas captured her hands in his and, one at a time, raised them to his mouth. He placed a lingering kiss upon her gloveless fingers that sent heat racing from the point of contact. “And if I matter at all to my family, then they will accept you because they know that I love you.”

A strangled sob escaped her. With that admission, he offered her everything she’d never believed to know—the love of an honorable man. A man who saw her strength and worth and who saw her value, apart from her late kin. Yet, his brother’s palpable hatred for her on her name alone, as well as his parents, would forever be a barrier between them. “I love you,” she whispered and joy gleamed to life in his once hardened eyes. “But if you do this,” she went on, not knowing where she found those words to continue, “your family would never forgive you—”

“Then they can go hang,” he interrupted with the same curt anger he’d shown at their first meeting. Her heart wrenched.

Eve pressed her shaking fingertips against his lips. “But someday, you would come to regret joining yourself to a woman so hated by them.”

He roved a gaze over her face and that slight movement was like a caress upon her skin. “Do you know what I will regret more, Eve? I will regret each and every day of my miserable existence that you are not in it. I will spend the whole of my life thinking how close I’d been to having the only person I ever truly needed, a woman who has more strength than I ever could and more honor than the whole of the King’s Army and—”

Another little sob filtered past her lips and she buried it in her fingers. “Please, Lucas,” she entreated.

His face spasmed and he took a step back, retreating. “I see.”

She creased her brow. What did he see?

“This is about me,” he said flatly, his gaze moving to a point beyond her shoulder. “I’ve been a recluse since my return, living as an angry, snarling shadow inside my parents’ cold manor. What use could you have for a man such as that?”

How could he see himself in that light? Eve moved in a whir of skirts and captured his face between her hands. “You are so much more than that, Lucas. You are a man of strength who survived when most others would have been destroyed. You see a woman and not a servant. And I love you.” And he is all I want. She needed him. Wanted him in her life forever.

Tears filled her eyes and a single drop streaked a path down her cheek. Lucas captured it with the pad of his thumb. “Then marry me,” he pressed, relentless.

Eve closed her eyes. He offered her everything and in taking that gift he held out, she’d be the selfish creature his brother accused her of being. A woman who lived for her heart and her desires. She’d lived these past years believing she was unworthy of love and happiness. Instead, she’d taken on the guilt of her father’s crimes and the sins of her ancestors before. Only to be set free, by Lucas. He’d shown her that she was more than her name and she wanted a life with him—as his wife. It didn’t matter what anyone thought of her. It was what she believed of herself that mattered. Lucas had shown her that. She opened her eyes and found his gaze trained on her face. “Yes,” she said with a tremulous smile.

He blinked slowly. “Yes,” he repeated.

Her lips twitched in the first real joy she’d known in too many years to remember. “Unless you’ve changed your mind—”

Lucas grinned and covered her mouth with his, silencing her words. And he kissed her in a meeting that proved there was nothing more powerful to shatter an age-old curse than love.

The End