Page 8 of How to Seduce a Viscount (Wed Within a Year #3)

A moment of connection rippled through her at the realisation Luce felt it too, that same fear she harboured down deep when she took time to reflect.

That someday, sooner than later, Sandmore, the one person in the whole world who cared for her, who knew who she was, would die.

Her life would change that day. She could not let herself hide from that truth with little lies and explanations to compensate for the reality that the earl was showing his age. She wouldn’t let Luce hide either.

‘The earl has been sleeping a lot during the day since he came home and he mostly stays in his study so he doesn’t have to leave the fire.’

She could see that the remark bothered him and she felt compelled to mitigate its impact. ‘But he still handles copious amounts of paperwork with his usual dexterity and clarity of thought.’

Wren paused before adding softly, ‘Even great men age. It’s difficult to grapple with. He’s been such an enormous part of my life that I wonder who I will be without him once he’s gone.’

She’d find out soon enough when this final assignment was complete and she slipped into the world as someone else.

It would be hard. Sandmore had treated her like a cherished granddaughter and he’d become her family.

She’d let herself care for the old man and now she’d pay for that caring in the losing of him, proof that she was right to avoid long-term ties.

Nothing lasted for ever. Not the family she’d once had, nor the family she’d made.

Love was a fool’s ideal. It was ephemeral, existing in moments.

The foolishness was in knowing it was doomed from the start and reaching out for the futility of it anyway.

Love was not sustainable, not for her. And yet, part of her would still run towards it, the part that wanted a family of her own.

Retirement would make that possible. It was not something she’d allowed herself to think about for a long while, but now circumstances had changed, allowing the impossible to creep back in despite knowing better.

Luce was frowning. What had she said to upset him? ‘I feel like I should apologise for that. For Grandfather being such a large part of your life. He catapulted you into a world you had no choice about belonging to. It’s a very dark world and a dangerous one. Not a world most would choose to join.’

‘Is that what you think?’ His remark had taken her entirely by surprise. ‘It’s no more dangerous than life on the streets. In truth, I’ve never thought of my situation in terms of choice, but opportunity.’

‘Perhaps you should.’ Spoken like a man who had the luxury of consent, a gentleman for whom the world was indeed a different place. Street rats had no such privilege.

‘Why? I’ve always been very grateful for what I have.’ She had an education. She’d been able to travel, to see Europe. She had control. She made decisions for herself. It was far more than a three-year-old left in the stews could hope for.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t be.’ Luce reached to make another sandwich. He’d devoured his in three bites while she digested the bitterness behind the comment. ‘Are there others?’ he asked. ‘Other orphans in the network?’

She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know. We don’t know each other. Anonymity keeps us all safe in case anyone is ever questioned. I don’t believe there are others. If there were, they weren’t raised at Sandmore.’

‘But you were. It’s a marvel we didn’t see you. Did we meet you at some point? Did you live at Sandmore?’ Luce wondered aloud, taking them off on a slight tangent.

She nodded. ‘In the beginning, when I was young. I needed a lot of schooling simply to be ready for more schooling. The earl felt I would learn better if I could combine education, etiquette and…’ She was looking for a word and Luce knew what it was.

‘Espionage. I think that’s the word you want. Grandfather’s three Es,’ Luce supplied.

She laughed. ‘Yes, espionage. As I grew, the earl often sent me with others for training and later I was able to attend a finishing school. The older I got, the less often I was at Sandmore. And you were not there often in those days. You had your schooling to finish and Napoleon to fight. It is no wonder the path of a grown man didn’t cross with a young girl’s.

’ And yet, there’d been that one time she’d spied him through a keyhole talking with the earl.

She’d not heard what they said, but she’d seen him—the tousled waves, the broad shoulders.

Not so different from his brothers in that regard, but then he’d tossed back his head and laughed—a wondrous, warm sound.

In that moment, the mythical Horseman she’d heard so much about became human, tangible and real.

It was the moment she’d fallen for him. Not the legend but the man , and she’d promised herself that one day she’d meet him, face to face.

That was all she could promise herself. Just a meeting.

A man like him wasn’t meant for a street rat like her.

She’d give too much away on her face if she let her thoughts linger on that memory.

Wren furrowed her brow, letting her mind find its way back to the original conversation.

‘Do you think the network is made up of orphans?’ Why had she never thought of it?

She’d spent her life thinking she was the only one. ‘Does it matter if it is?’

Luce’s dark eyes turned thunderous. ‘It damn well does if my grandfather is deliberately and regularly recruiting young children from the street and thrusting them into a life of espionage under the threat of taking them to the magistrate if they refuse. It’s no choice at all.

No child is going to pick Newgate over hot meals, shelter and clothes. ’

She took a slow bite of her sandwich, seeing the source of his bitterness more clearly now.

‘Is that what happened to you? Were you forced to be a Horseman?’ Why had that not also occurred to her growing up?

In Sandmore’s household, she’d been raised on stories of the gallant four who rode forth dealing death and destruction in order to protect England.

She’d not considered their consent in that role any more than she’d considered hers.

Survival was the lens through which she viewed everything.

‘It was different for me than it was for my brothers,’ Luce said.

‘I was the youngest of four boys. Many decisions were already made by the time I was old enough to participate. Caine and Kieran had been working for Grandfather for a few years already. Everyone, even myself, assumed I’d follow in their footsteps, and Stepan’s.

It seemed unconscionable to not support my brothers and, at the time, it was something I’d spent my life yearning for.

’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I thought being a Horseman would solve all my problems. That I would be one of them, not the little brother always lagging behind, trying to catch up, trying to prove myself.’

‘Did being a Horseman help?’ she prompted, intrigued by this glimpse into a very private side of Luce Parkhurst.

‘In some ways. It gave me an identity and it gave me membership into a group. It met some of my belonging needs. Now the die is cast, has been cast for some years. There is only going forward. Once a Horseman, always a Horseman. My brothers and I are bound to it by birth and bonds. Together for ever, which is a very long time even with brothers one loves.’

‘At the price of your individuality,’ she divined.

How illuminating. He had not said as much, but she heard the message beneath his words.

Loyalty did not come without its own price.

In that regard, he and she were not so different, each of them thirsting to belong and yet searching for their individuality, both of them struggling to understand who they could be outside the bonds of the groups they belonged to.

Despite his struggle, Luce had chosen his family over himself. How very admirable of him. Luce Parkhurst was loyal, brave and protective even at a personal cost to himself.

She was collecting impressive attributes in regard to him. All of them things a Horseman should be and yet she sensed they were both the source of unhappiness and happiness for him. She’d never questioned her identity, not until now when she faced losing it, but it seemed Luce had questioned his.

She tipped her head to one side, taking him in.

The long elegance of his nose, the wire-rimmed spectacles, the loose wavy dark hair and rolled up shirtsleeves.

He looked very much the part of the wild academic.

It was undeniably a sexy look, mostly because it was uncultivated and, she suspected, it came quite naturally to him.

One did not curate such a look in the mirror.

Sitting in the library, she felt as if she were seeing Lucien Parkhurst, individual man, in his native habitat without the trappings of the Horsemen, without his brothers.

It occurred to her that this was where he preferred to be—among his books, his mysteries.

It was no wonder his expertise for the Horsemen was in code breaking—a puzzle to be solved.

Solving required thought and research. In that way, the two halves of his life—his life as a scholar and his life as a Horseman, intertwined.

It made her wonder what he would choose if he could.

She posited the bold question, ‘Would you leave the Horsemen if you could?’

His gaze turned stern and shuttered. ‘It is a futile question and you well know it. There is no leaving the game. Perhaps that’s why I object to you having had the lack of choice in joining.

One cannot simply choose to get out.’ His answer told her all she needed to know.

He would leave if he could, just as she’d stay if she could.

‘Speaking of the game,’ she moved on smoothly, filing that bit of information away, ‘how is the code coming? Have you cracked it yet? You promised to tell me.’