Page 11 of A Duke for Opal (The Carmichael Saga #2)

O pal glared darkly at the branches of evergreen, ivy, holly, and scattered fruit before her.

The kissing bough.

Of course, she’d been the lady Glain assigned the blasted kissing bough for a floral arrangement.

While the other cheer-filled guests put the finishing touches upon their respective pieces, Opal grabbed a strip of evergreen and twined it about her mostly bare willow wood.

Now she knew, Locke desired her. For most other women, that would be enough and all they yearned for from the Duke of Strathearn.

As for Opal? Opal wanted so much more from him. She ached for the heart he swore he didn’t possess.

Emotion formed in her throat.

She’d known coming into her visit with Glain and Grimoire, she’d have but a limited time with which to try and capture Locke’s heart.

Do not cry. Do not cry…

Setting her jaw, she snatched another spruce branch, wrapped it, and tied it around the thick wood.

Opal’s had always been an unlikely—and nearly insurmountable—goal.

Without taking her gaze from the haphazard arrangement she currently crafted, she grabbed the closest twig at hand.

The prickly edges of ivy leaves bit viciously into her bare palm.

She’d just not expected that only two days in, she’d not even fully have a chance to do so, or that he’d do to her what he’d done to scores of other women—he’d break her heart.

Gasping, she automatically flexed her palm. Branch and barren arrangement slipped from her fingers.

Thwack.

Opal dimly registered the feel of curious stares and whispers.

Blast.

Opal picked her head up and flashed a sheepish smile to her small, and much unwanted, audience.

“Apologies!” she said, with such false cheer, she almost managed to convince herself of her own happiness. “Holly is a bit tricky sometimes, is it not?”

Assenting murmurs went up amongst the Duke of Strathearn’s Flower Room.

To maintain the facade of nonchalance, Opal, humming to herself, resumed decorating her bough.

“The Sussex Waltz , Opal?”

For a second time, Opal lost her hold.

Silently cursing, Opal looked up at her incredulous sister.

“Since when have you begun humming The Sussex Waltz?” Glain asked amusement tinged her voice. “Instead of, say, some scandalous ditty or folksong?”

Since doing so had gotten her knuckles wrapped enough with a switch, the only thoughts that now came from thinking of a ditty brought fresh remembrances of the pain to be had from defying either their father or Madame Touraine.

Glain let an effortless laugh fly with such ease, Opal shamefully—and not for the first time in more years than she could remember—resenting her sister.

“What have you done with my sister?”

“Oh, growing up will do that to a woman,” Opal said dryly.

More specifically growing up with their ruthless duke of a father. Somehow, she managed to keep the bitterness out of her riposte enough that she didn’t earn another queer look from her sister.

“May I join you?”

Considering Glain was already seating herself, her big sister needn’t have asked.

Opal motioned to the stool next to her, anyway. “Of course.”

While Opal worked, Glain didn’t speak for a moment; she steepled her fingers and peered intently over the top of her fingertips at the smooth mahogany table.

Please, don’t ask me…

Opal’s eyes burned.

Please, don’t ask me why I can’t bring myself to truly smile and why, after my interlude in the woods with Locke, I never will again…

“I see for the changes time has brought, your love of arranging floral pieces has not ,” Glain mused.

“Yes, well, you, know me.” She gave a wag of her eyebrows.

The irony wasn’t lost upon Opal. With her life now miserable, gardening and making floral arrangements was the one pleasure she’d managed to find at Madame Touraine’s.

Opal tried not to imagine—and failed—Locke’s someday-wife seated in this exquisite space, designing pieces for the couple’s household.

Her throat wobbled.

While the rest of the guests finished and slowly trickled out, Glain kept Opal company. With each lady who made her goodbyes and took her leave, it became increasingly likely Opal would find herself alone with her sister.

Even after the flower room emptied out, Opal kept all her focus on her incomplete kissing bough.

“It is refreshing to find you have not changed into someone else,” Glain said, just as Opal collected a sprig of holly. “Not in the way I did while suffering Father’s oppressive rule.”

This time, when Opal’s fingers curled reflexively, she did not feel the leaves’ ragged edges that dug into the soft skin of her palm.

“I’d begun to fear you were still disappointed by the house party.” As Glain spoke, she did so with an earnestness that attested to her worry over Opal. “And I’ve been ever so w-worried,” Glain’s always steady voice cracked.

Hating herself for having caused her such anxiety, particularly as Glain, after so many years, finally found herself expecting her and Abaddon’s first child.

“Here, now.” Opal set her things down and grabbed Glain’s hands in hers. “You needn’t worry about me. When I lived with Father, it was…” She grimaced. “Not a pleasant experience,” she safely settled for.

Glain snorted.

They shared a small, private grin only the two of them could truly understand.

In Opal’s case, hers was as feigned as every last part of the happiness she’d manufactured for her sister’s benefit. During those interminable years, the best days of her life were when Locke called. Granted, he’d only come on Abaddon and Glain’s behalf to verify Opal was well . Still, those would remain the best days of her life.

“You are not miserable at finishing school?” Glain asked, moving a gaze searchingly over Opal’s face.

Opal scoffed. “How could I,”— Not — “be?” At least when she’d been in London, there’d been those occasional visits from Locke. She’d happily suffered living under her father’s oppressive rule for the chance to see him.

“Why, there are other young ladies,”—having their souls crushed— “for me to keep company with, and it is a good deal better than being with Father.” Highly debatable, most days. “I’ve had the opportunity to read.”

Glain brightened. “Indeed?”

“Oh, yes.” The Lady’s Companion: An Infallible Guide to the Fair Sex by A Lady . Richard Brathwaite’s The English Gentlewoman. George Savile; the Marquis of Halifax’s The Lady’s New Year’s Gift: Advice to a Daughter. “So many books,” she added, somehow managing to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Before her sister could ask for details about Opal’s latest literary passions, she hurried to change the subject and offered up the only truth. “I will never be truly happy as long as I’m separated from you, Flint, and Abaddon.” And even then, she’d not be truly happy because she couldn’t have as a husband the only man she’d ever love or trust.

“Oh, poppet, I know.” Glain folded an arm around Opal’s shoulders and gave her a sideways hug. “It shan’t be for much longer. Soon you’ll be finished with Madame Touraine’s school.” Her sister’s brighter features proved Opal had been successful with the reassurances she’d given. “There’ll be a London Season.”

No, there’d be a marriage.

“And a legion of dashing suitors whom you are certain to have your pick from.”

This time, Opal, at best, managed a wan smile. “I don’t need a legion,” she said softly.

She’d wanted but one and as he’d never be hers, there was another gentleman; one who’d already been hand-selected by their father.

Glain must have seen something in Opal’s eyes.

Her sister froze.

“Opal?” she whispered. Eagerly, she scrambled to the edge of her seat. “Never tell me, there is some gentleman who already captured your notice?”

My heart.

She fumbled for a lie.

Her sister beat her to answering. “Why, there is !”

Glain clapped her hands together and laughed. “Abaddon insisted someone had caught your eye, but I told him it wasn’t possible with you being away at finishing school, and all…”

“Glain,” Opal said.

“It must be one of our guests.” Glain glanced about as if she expected some mystery sweetheart to suddenly appear. “You must—”

“Glain,” Opal repeated, with greater insistence.

“Yes?”

She opened her mouth to disabuse her sister of the erroneous conclusion she and Abaddon reached when the radiant smile wreathing Glain’s fuller, joy-filled cheeks held her back.

Glain’s smile wavered. “Opal?” The worry of before stirred anew in her voice.

Resting her hands on her lap, Opal curled her fingers into fists and did what any good sister would.

“Please, do not ask me his name,” she whispered.

Even as Glain’s blonde eyebrows shot to her hairline, she let out a half-sob, half-laugh, and this time launched both arms about Opal.

Grunting from the force with which her sister squeezed, Opal, returned the embrace. To keep from crying, Opal buried her chin in her sister’s shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut and just clung to a joyous Glain. If only it were possible for her to absorb another person’s happiness as her own.

When Glain finally separated from her, Opal had managed to compose herself.

Her teary-eyed sister placed her hands upon Opal’s shoulders, and kept an arm’s length between them, so she could look Opal over. “You’re certain you won’t t—”

“I will share,” she lied. “Soon. I trust you won’t say anything, but my maid is always lurking, and the duke has eyes everywhere,” Opal found herself rambling, “and I know if he learns there is a gentleman whose—”

Her sister touched a finger to her lips. “When you do, you can rely upon our support…and Strathearn’s, of course.”

Opal strangled on her swallow.

“Never say you doubt he’ll not stand by you,” Glain chided, busily patting Opal between the shoulder blades. She didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath. “When you were living alone with the duke, Strathearn expressly paid visits at mine and Abaddon’s request.”

She’d suspected as much, and yet, hearing it confirmed sent a fresh wave of pain through her.

“No,” Opal murmured. “There is no doubting Strathearn is a good, loyal friend who’d do anything for you and Abaddon.”

“For you and Flint, as we - aww ,” Glain’s adamant clarification ended on a yawn.

Guilt filled Opal. Given how difficult pregnancy had come to her sister, her sister had done—and was continuing to do—too much on Opal’s behalf.

“Go rest,” she urged.

Glain rapped her fingers lightly. “Stop with that.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’re feeling guilty and I will not have it. I’m hale and hearty as alwa— aww .”

Opal managed to keep a straight face through her sister’s latest yawn.

“Perhaps I’ll rest some before dinner. There is the recital later.” Bussing Opal on the cheek, Glain glided off with the effortless grace she’d always possessed and that Opal required a steady switch on her back to help achieve.

Opal waited until her sister had gone, and then sat.

“Ah, I see, I am not the only one from whom you’ll withhold the fellow’s identity.”

She gasped and wrenched her neck up so quickly the muscles tightened up painfully. Her heart beat even faster and for altogether different reasons.

With a shoulder propped lazily—and so infuriatingly, sexily—against the doorjamb, the Duke of Strathearn stood framed in the same doorway Opal’s sister moments ago exited through.

A soft grin curved Locke’s lips. “Hullo, Opal.”

Even as Opal’s chest tightened, her belly fluttered as a warring mix of tension and longing raged within her.

What did it say about Opal that even after he’d bluntly likened her to any and every woman he’d ever bedded, the memory of his kiss and those wicked words he’d whispered in her ear, stirred her, still?

For the first time in all the years she’d known Locke, Opal didn’t return his smile. Instead, she came slowly to her feet.

Eyeing him guardedly, Opal sank into a flawless curtsy.

“Your Grace,” she demurred and then reclaimed her seat.

Locke’s raffish grin dipped, and then, faded.

Putting on the greatest performance of her life—which, given how she’d survived life with the Duke of Devonshire and French Finishing School, was saying a great deal, indeed—Opal retrieved another stem of rosemary, reattended her centerpiece, and pretended Locke was not there.

Or, she tried to.

She felt his approach and hated the way her fingers trembled with the telltale sign of her awareness.

Locke stopped beside her.

From the corner of her eye, she took in his tense position—legs spread, hands clasped behind him, like he was some master and commander of a ship, but then, Locke, with his power, ease, and charm, could command even the tides and seas, if he so wished.

Having secured the branch to the willow log, she reached for the nearest one—ivy—thought better of it, and opted for the bay branch.

Her palms had taken enough of a beating this day.

As had her heart.

“Since when have you ‘Your Graced’ me and dropped me a court-worthy curtsy?” His voice, low and displeased, rumbled around the conservatory.

“Since you became a stranger, Your Grace,” she murmured.

Opal finished affixing another shoot.

An evergreen branch of oblong, silvery, green leaves appeared under her nose. Unblinking, she stared at the tiny, feathery white flowers which had already begun to fade upon the stem.

She glanced up.

“It’s an olive branch,” he explained, twirling the stem. “It seemed appropriate.”

Opal collected the offering from his long, gloveless fingers.

When she still didn’t speak, Locke cleared his throat. “I went and collected an offshoot from the conservatory.”

“You have olive trees,” she said, as an olive branch of her own.

“Yes. Amongst…many others.”

Opal felt stirrings of envy of a different kind. His gardens and greenery and grounds were so vast they could have rivaled most king’s holdings.

He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

She hated seeing him this way—guilty and uncertain for reasons he had no reason to be. Even though she still hurt from the words he’d uttered, he’d only given her the truth and she admired Locke for never gilding the pill in her company.

Carefully, she tightened up the trimmings around her increasingly improving bough.

“I love it here,” Opal softly confided.

Locke stilled and then, taking hers as the invitation it was, he sat on the chair beside Opal. “Oh?”

“Your flower room,” she elucidated. “I used to hate gardening and creating floral arrangements. My sister believes I still do, but I’ve actually come to…enjoy it.”

More than a little afraid to look up and see his horrified reaction to this latest change in her, she stole a peek.

He wore a bemused expression. “And that is problematic?”

“ Ladies like flowers and gardening.”

“You are a lady.” There was a smile in his voice.

“Exactly.” She released a frustrated sigh. “I’m not the free spirit I once was.”

“Mine was not a criticism, Opal,” he said quietly. “With time, we grow and change.”

Opal set her kissing bough down hard and turned sideways on her chair to face him. “I’m becoming everything I ever hated, Locke,” she said desperately. “As a girl, I leveled the harshest charges against Glain. I railed at her for not challenging our father. I criticized her for not reading the books she loved. I swore I’d never become a shell of a person like she was, and then, in the end, that’s precisely what I am…” Her voice caught. “A shell, and soon I’ll cease to be anything other than the sorrowful woman, I don’t even remember, who birthed me.”

“Hey now.” Locke edged his seat around so he matched her positioning. His gaze met hers full-on. “That isn’t true.”

“You haven’t seen me in more than a year, Locke. I am changing. I’m angrier and quieter and,” she strangled on a sob, “I don’t recognize myself any longer,” Opal finished in a whisper.

Smooth, strong, fingers cradled her chin.

Locke edged her blurry gaze up to meet his eyes. “The parts that make you, you , Opal,” he said insistently. “Your strength, determination, intelligence, clever wit, spirit; those are as much a part of the fabric of you as your own skin.” He ran his steady, impenetrable stare over her. “You can even make the most cynical bastard like me laugh and smile.”

He spoke those solemn words with such confidence, a tear slipped free from Opal’s eye.

With the pad of his thumb, Locke caught the drop and swiftly wiped away the ones to follow.

“I have been so unhappy,” she confessed, her voice catching.

Groaning, Locke tugged Opal into his arms. Her body absorbed his deep, resonant, rumbling of anguish.

“See? So much for making you laugh,” she said on a half-laugh, half-sob—one he joined with his own.

“What I do see is even now, Opal,” he said, smoothing his palms over her cheeks. “You cannot help from making a jest to ease my worry.”

I want to spend my life making you smile, Locke. I want to be for you, what you are, have been, and always will be to me…

“Every day, I lose more of myself,” she confided, and in sharing that, there came a lightness—a sense of freedom from the burden it’d been keeping the truth of her misery secret from those she loved. “And soon,” Barring the miracle of his love, “I’ll be lost entirely.”

“You’re not. You can’t.” He shrugged. “You won’t . You’re Opal.”

She let out a dry, hollow laugh. “The very nature of my name is associated with witches and sorcerers and evil powers.”

Locke scoffed. “From where did you get that rubbish idea?”

“When my father discovered my love for what he deemed scandalous literature, he saw all the books I loved were collected and burned. My sister prepared me.” She took a deep breath in. The pain was as fresh as it’d been then, and yet, she found an unlikely peace in sharing this part of her suffering, too. “He gave me but one book to read. It contained a story of the life and works about the 11 th century Bishop Marbode of Rennes.”

Opal paused to see if Locke recognized the name.

At her inquiring look, he shook his head. “Given Devonshire, I trust he selected something for you, unceasingly dull, and meant to quash your spirit.”

“On the contrary,” she said. “His work proved shockingly…interesting.”

“You are in jest surely.”

Locke sounded so sure she was being sarcastic, Opal laughed.

This here. This right here was why her heart and soul cried out for him. Even when plagued by the saddest of memories, Locke could chase it all away and leave her light and smiling.