Page 7 of A Lyon for Luck
Reginald Acres wasawakened by a shrill and piercing shriek. It echoed throughout the upper floors of the house and had his heart pounding a rapid tattoo in his chest. But he didn’t need to get out of bed to investigate. Only seconds later, the bedchamber door was thrust open and his wife stood there, her face awash in anger and fear.
“She’s gone.”
Still addled from sleep, he repeated. “Gone?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “She’s fled sometime during the night to heaven knows where! What will we do, Reginald? Pozenby will not be forgiving if we cannot produce the one thing he has asked for.”
Dread prickled his skin. He knew what Pozenby would say. And he knew what awaited them. Debtors’ prison. They hadn’t the protection of a title. He was in deep to Pozenby, and if he did not produce either the funds to pay his debt or his daughter whom Pozenby had agreed to accept in exchange for his markers, then there would be the very devil to pay. “She can’t have gone very far,” he mused. “I’ll start searching for her immediately. Get these worthless servants out into the street to see if she can be located… discreetly, if it can be managed.”
“We can’t survive another such scandal,” she said. “Even if Pozenby doesn’t see us ruined, this will.”
“For God’s sake, woman! Do you think I’m too dimwitted toknow what’s at stake? See to the tasks you’ve been given and cease your prattling!”
She left then, the door slamming behind her. For a moment, he simply sat there, waiting for the dust of their most recent skirmish to settle. It was all true. He’d played deep and lost heavily and now Pozenby would own them all body and soul unless Daphne was sacrificed to the man’s whim.
For a moment, he considered just giving it up. There were painless ways to end his life, ways that would mimic a seizure of the heart or brain. Something that would spare him humiliation and allow him to avoid the consequences of his actions forever. But in the end, he dismissed it. He was a fool perhaps, but never a coward. He’d manage Pozenby somehow and he’d make Daphne regret ever having the temerity to defy him. He got out of bed, rang for his valet, and began his morning ablutions. Because he’d find the wretched baggage and bring her home. He’d see her to the altar to meet her fate as Pozenby’s bride even if he had to drag her down the aisle kicking and screaming. Then his hands would be washed of her forever. And perhaps, if he were lucky enough, her mother might choose to abide with her daughter and leave him be. One could only hope.
Chapter Five
They were backin the carriage soon enough, once more traveling north. The air was growing colder by the mile, and she was not dressed for it. Daphne realized that quickly enough as a cool draft seeped in around the windows. Not even the most well-made carriage, and surely it was, could be completely impervious to the wind.
In fact, the air was so cold that frost was beginning to form inside the windows. Daphne couldn’t stop the shiver that wracked her. Instantly, she felt a gaze on her.
“You’re cold,” he said, searching her face.
“A bit,” she admitted. “When I left London, I was not prepared for the weather to turn. I hadn’t anticipated it would grow so cold so quickly. I suppose that is the price for having fled in such haste.”
He nodded. “I understand, of course. It’s not easy for you to get away from your parents’ home with a fully packed valise. In fact, it wasn’t easy for you to escape over a garden wall of a prison that should have been a home. It was remarkably resourceful and brave.”
He leaned forward, just enough that he could shrug out of the heavy coat that he wore, and then he crossed the carriage expanse, settling himself on the seat beside her. But he didn’t just drape the coataround her shoulders. Instead, he settled next to her and draped it over both of them.
“I’m a gentleman,” he said, “but I’m not an idiot. Neither one of us will be any good to the other if we both freeze to death.”
She certainly couldn’t fault his logic. He was factually correct. And yet the intimacy of being so close to him, of having both of them covered by the heavy warmth of his coat as they were pressed side by side on the narrow carriage seat, was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
In all of her courtship with Lord Lynley, he had never once kissed her. He’d never tried to steal a kiss, sneak an embrace, or taken a single liberty. In short, he had never done anything to indicate that he was interested in anything more than having her walk down the aisle to become his wife, not because of any great desire for her but because he needed her fortune. And to his credit, he had never pretended otherwise. There had been no subterfuge or deception on his part, no promises of grand passion. And she had never desired such things from him. But now a strange curiosity was building within her. Perhaps it was having seen the way Lord Lynley had looked at his wife, the knowing glances that passed between them and the way Ellis had blushed under his regard. That wasn’t the cold and aloof man she’d known. Would her soon-to-be husband ever look at her thusly? Would she ever feel the weight of his gaze on her and blush in response simply because she could glean the nature of his thoughts?
Seated as she was next to Fletcher, she wondered what it might be like if she were wrapped in more than the embrace of his borrowed coat? What would it feel like if it was his arms wrapped about her instead? What would it feel like to have her body pressed against the firmness of his? What would it feel like for him to kiss her?
A blush stole over her cheeks, and she was grateful for the dim interior of the carriage which hid it. For him to know the current course of her thoughts would have been utterly humiliating. For thelife of her, she could not understand what about him affected her so.
Daphne had the very uncomfortable feeling that she was very much in over her head. She had asked Mrs. Dove-Lyon to find her a husband, to give her an alternative to marrying Cecil Pozenby, but what she hadn’t asked for was this overwhelming uncertainty about herself, or about the man who was beside her.
Because it no longer felt like simply a convenience. It was beginning to feel less like a business arrangement, less like a mutually beneficial association based on circumstance, and more like the mysterious hand of fate—some sort of weird and wonderful destiny.
Those sorts of thoughts were not for her. She was not a romantic. She was not sentimental. She was always pragmatic and logical, and nearly as cold as her parents, and that was perhaps why people had assumed she and Lord Lynley were a perfect fit.
Because they were both cold.
Clearly, the man’s marriage to Ellis had shown the world he was anything but. And now, with this creeping awareness of her own desire to be close to Fletcher Quill, she was being forced to admit that perhaps she was not as cold as she had once thought either.
“For someone who says so little,” Fletcher stated, “your thoughts are very loud.”
Daphne lifted her head to give him a brief grin. “I can’t help it. I have a great deal on my mind.”
He nodded. “Will worrying about it change anything at all?”
She shook her head slightly. “No… not really.”
