In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,97
is perfect. Regardless of station, I don’t believe any of us are free from strife. But at the end of the day, Lila? . . . You close the doors to your palace, and even as you might have your own demons, you still don’t have to worry about where you’ll rest your head for the night or whether you’ve the funds to maintain apartments that can’t even keep the damned rain out.”
Her heart tugged, and her mind recalled that she wasn’t the only one who’d suffered. That in all he’d lost, he’d known far greater struggles, and that infused a strength into her. One that she’d been so very much without, and for so very long.
“I’ve always hated London. The streets are crowded. The air is thicker. The clouds even heavier. But in the countryside?” She pressed her eyes briefly closed and let the remembrances back in . . . not of Manchester, but of Kent in all its glorious purity. A wistful smile caught on her lips. “There are days when there is nothing but blue sky. Blues of every shade, a pale blue in the morn, dusted with orange as the sun starts its climb . . . and at noontime, it’s just this glorious azure. So very bright that it’s impossible to feel anything but joy and a need to lie back and simply stare up at a canvas stretched as far as the eye might see in every direction of that endless blanket of blue.” Her words came faster as she spoke. “And in the dead of night, the sky is never truly black but more a shade of indigo, flecked with so many stars, visible, that it all but turns the sky silver.” Invariably another shade traipsed across her reminiscences, the memory that ushered in a different sky . . . and another familiar landscape. This one a pale blue, dappled with the errant clouds of amorphous shape, clouds that had done nothing to soften the glare of the sun’s rays.
And despite the memory of warmth, then, and in her sister’s parlor, a chill went through her, bringing up the gooseflesh on her arms.
She opened her eyes.
At some point, Hugh had abandoned his spot behind her. He’d moved to the other side of the floral arrangement, keeping just those vibrant blooms between them. His magnificent black lashes hooded but didn’t conceal those entrancing, nearly obsidian eyes that he now had fixed upon her. She felt his gaze as sure as if he touched her.
And she clung to that illusory connection.
“And the summer,” she whispered. “Oh, how very glorious it is then.” She hugged her arms around her middle in a bid for warmth. In a need for closeness, even if it was the forlornness of her own hold. “The days are so very warm in the summer, Hugh. That heat awakens you, but where you cannot bring yourself to care because it’s just more time you get to spend with the summer’s day.” And it was wholly selfish, extolling that beauty when he should have known only the darkness of London. But then, the dark was everywhere. Lila squeezed herself more tightly, her fingers curled into the soft flesh of her upper arms. “I hate the country now.” The vitriol and hate that pulled that admission out of her had once scared her. She’d come, in time, to accept that new raw, cynical part of who she was now.
Restive, she yanked the red rose angrily from the vase, costing the bloom several petals; they rained down about her like satin teardrops.
A hand covered hers—Hugh’s. Large and reassuring and warm, and so very much alive. Lila stared at the little scars and marks upon him, feeling an even greater connection for the imperfections they both carried. He didn’t offer any words, just his touch, and that was enough. “Nearly nine years ago, I was visiting my friend, and there promised to be a grand gathering of people, and I confess . . .” She bit her lower lip. “I didn’t truly know anything about what the gathering represented. What it meant, or what the significance was. It was just a gathering to me.” A sob caught in her throat. “God, what a self-indulgent, uninformed, supercilious person I was.” That day had meant so much to the people who’d assembled there. People not unlike Hugh, who’d known strife and oppression from the government who didn’t care for them.