Page 33 of How to Seduce a Viscount (Wed Within a Year #3)

She reached a hand out to touch his arm. ‘Luce, it doesn’t have to be this way.’

He allowed himself the luxury of covering her warm hand with his. ‘It’s best this way, I think. It was a mistake to mix business with pleasure.’

‘I’m sorry you think that, Luce. I must respectfully disagree with your assessment.’

She might have said more but dinner chose that moment to arrive.

There was the bustle of removing the tub, laying the table and removing the covers on the dishes before they were alone again.

After the servants had gone, Luce busied himself ladling the hardy meat stew into bowls, slicing the bread and pouring wine.

He wanted to be busy. He did not want to return to the conversation that had been interrupted.

He was not to get his wish. He’d no sooner taken his chair than Wren picked up the conversation where it had been left.

‘Do you loathe me, Luce?’ she asked quietly. She sat close enough at the little table that he could breathe in the scent of her soap, all strawberries and memories. It was heady and arousing—two reactions he did not want to have.

‘I do not think it is possible to loathe you, Wren. I also think a man must be on his guard around you. You steal hearts, even those hearts that believe they are immune. It is rather surprising to wake up and discover that one is not as immune as one thought. Wine?’

He was doing it again. Burying the need to feel with little tasks—slicing bread, pouring wine.

And yet he did feel . It was in his acts of kindness.

He’d insisted on carrying her upstairs, on overseeing the bath, the fire, the privacy screen.

It was in the gifts he gave. The comfrey salve, the ice-pink ball gown, the pearls she’d left behind at Tillingbourne.

Doing for others was how he let his feelings be shown.

Because, ironically, words failed him when it came to expressing those feelings out loud.

But he would not thank her for sharing those thoughts.

‘ I don’t loathe you , Luce. You said some awful things to me.

You were angry and hurt. No one is at their best under those circumstances.

’ She took a sip of her wine, a delicious full-bodied red perfect for a winter’s night, and watched his face for any sign of relenting.

Today had been miserable. Up until the last, he’d treated her as if she’d been invisible.

‘Last night was difficult. But it is only insurmountable if we want it to be.’ Perhaps she had to be the one to make the first overture of peace, to help them move beyond the silent truce that had marked today.

‘The difficulty was our own doing. We’d taken things too far. It would not have been a problem if we had let business be business.’ Luce was putting up his walls, reasoning away the hurt. She wanted to stop that before the bricks got too high.

‘And pleasure go hang? Are you truly telling me that you’d have preferred not to have tested the spark between us? To not know how it felt to be together?’ She would not trade those nights for the world. They would be her remembrance of another time once she stepped into retirement.

‘We tested the spark and we found our limits,’ Luce replied with preternatural calm.

‘And what were those limits?’ She would make him say them out loud.

‘Trust and truthfulness. Now, before you get your hackles up, let me say this. You are an agent for my grandfather. I am an agent for my grandfather. Our lives are about dealing in secrets. The rational part of my mind understands the choice you made. It understands the need to play a part, to dissemble, to decide what people get to know and to see. The Horseman in me understands and forgives Falcon. Although the Horseman in me also knows there’s nothing to forgive.

It is simply the nature of the game. Complete trust and truthfulness are not part of it.

If you want absolution, there it is.’ His dark eyes were intent on her.

‘I hear a “but” dangling there somewhere, Luce.’

He nodded solemnly. ‘But the man in me, Wren, must have those things—truth and trust—from the woman he…cares…for. Our circumstances do not permit those things to be given. Those are the limits we discovered when our fantasy got out of hand.’

‘You cannot forgive me or you cannot forgive yourself for that?’ She already knew the answer.

He could not forgive himself for letting his role slip.

For letting the Horseman and the man combine.

It had made him vulnerable and that was intolerable for Luce Parkhurst. Without vulnerability he would find it very hard to make his vaunted love match. ‘Do you like being immune, Luce?’

Luce levelled her with a stare that said he didn’t care for the conversation. ‘I like being in control of myself. I like the clarity that comes with a sharp mind. I do not like deceits or surprises. They undermine control and clarity.’

She answered his stare over the rim of her wine glass, a suspicion rising.

‘So you’ve never been in love despite saying that you want a love match?

What of the wife you will take this summer?

Do you plan to love her?’ Wren did not like thinking of the other woman, whomever she might be.

But she pitied that woman, too. That woman would never know Luce the way she did.

Never see him come undone at climax. Never see him look up at her from between her legs, his eyes full of dark fire, his heart vulnerable.

‘I believe we’ve already discussed the compromise.

For Tillingbourne and my obligations to be met, love must be sacrificed, at least in the immediate future.

I will have my mother draw up a list of suitable candidates and I will choose one of them with the hope that love may grow after marriage.

I think in this case that is the most realistic expectation. ’

Another compromise for him, so that he would be in control of his future and of his feelings. Wren saw that very clearly.

‘A certain kind of love can grow over time if two people respect one another,’ Wren said thoughtfully.

‘But one does not cultivate passion like it is a plant in your herbal garden. Your brothers have that love. The Parkhursts are known for falling hard and fast. Your grandfather married your grandmother after a short courtship. Caine knew Lady Mary for barely two months. Kieran married Celeste after an adventure on the road. Do you think you can really have the same finding a bride that way?’

‘You’re quite the student on our family.’ Luce growled. If she did not know him better, she’d understand his remark as an insult, a scold. But she did know better. He was protecting himself, like a wounded animal backed into a corner.

She did not relent. ‘I think the Parkhursts are marvellous. I will miss them. I will miss you . You are no less extraordinary to me because we’ve had a falling out.

Although, I must say I much prefer falling in.

’ When he said nothing but stared at her in silence, she reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through it.

‘Luce, I want you to know I never meant to hurt you but I also had—and still have—a job to do. I will do it by whatever means necessary. If you can’t give me absolution, one network agent to another, then at least give me understanding. ’

‘Why does it matter?’ Luce sounded tired, defeated, as if he’d waged a battle with himself while she’d talked.

She smiled. ‘Because I can’t go another day with you not talking to me.’ He did chuckle at that and she’d consider it a breakthrough. She stifled a yawn. There were things she’d like to discuss. But Luce rose.

‘You need sleep.’

‘So do you. We’ll share the bed.’ She would sleep better knowing he was beside her. She took his hand again. ‘Lay beside me tonight. We need to stop punishing ourselves because something didn’t work out.’

He gave a curt nod in concession to the practicality of the suggestion.

They needed a good night’s sleep if they were to function well in the face of what lay ahead.

She did not pretend that nod meant all was resolved between them, but perhaps it was a start.

They needed to be unified by the time they reached Stepan.

She didn’t know what they might find there or who they might meet.

And more selfishly, she didn’t wish to leave with the memory of him hating her, when she disappeared into retirement in a few days.