herself was the problem. She stubbornly ignored his signals, sticking by Sally Thorpe in the servants’ parlor as if they’d been friends all their lives. He finally had to resort to outright asking if she’d like to see the rose garden. “Grandad would be that glad to know you’d seen it.”
“You know Ethan’s grandad?” Alice Ramsay was quick to ask.
“And my grandmother, too,” Ethan put in. “They’re great friends.”
“Really? How’d that come about?” Alice looked from Ethan to Lucy speculatively.
“All right.” At last Lucy stood, though she didn’t look happy. “I’ll… I’d be glad to see Mr. Trask’s gardens.”
Ethan pulled her out and away before Alice could stick her nose in any further. He walked her fast down one path, and through a gate, and brought them out among swaths of heavy, sweet-smelling blooms.
“Oh,” Lucy said.
“Right pretty, eh?” He looked out over the clusters of rose bushes spreading around them. A flood of reds and pinks and whites, climbing over an arbor and spilling along a stone wall, so many it was dizzying. The perfume was better than a hundred fancy shops. “You like roses, I remember.” Lucy turned to him. “It was one of the first things you told me. White roses in the moonlight.”
“Don’t try to get around me when I’m mad at you, Ethan Trask!”
“Mad? Why?”
“You know very well why.”
If that wasn’t just like a female, claiming you knew what was in their heads when you had no blessed idea. And no warning. “I do not. We rescued Miss Charlotte, like we came to do, and…”
“And you just dropped me in it here, with everybody staring and making up Lord knows what stories. What your family must think of me! Not that I’ve met any of them, properly.” She took a step away from him and stared down at a deep red rose.
He couldn’t pretend not to understand what she meant, not with that dratted Alice snooping and sniping for all she was worth. “I’ve wanted to introduce you, official like. As soon as my mother gets back from visiting tomorrow, I’ll tell her we’re getting married. Best to tell her first. Well, I have to, Lucy. But she’s a wonder, she is. She’ll make it all right…”
“You’ll what! I never said I’d marry you, Ethan Trask.”
“You…” Hadn’t she? Ethan distinctly remembered… what? Hadn’t she said…? It was all settled. They were here, and he’d got the position, with the cottage and all. And it was okay with his dad, against all the odds. As soon as the family was back from town, they’d marry and move in. He’d seen it all in his mind, clear as clear.
“There’s the matter of your lying to me. You’re forgetting that, seemingly.”
“Lucy! I didn’t lie. I might not have told you…”
“That’s the same as a lie!” She glared at him with those devastating blue eyes. “You think you can ‘forget’ to tell me things you don’t want me to know whenever it suits you?”
“I won’t do it again.”
“How would I know whether you did?”
He was getting annoyed now. Why did she have to make things difficult? “Because I told you I won’t, Lucy. I promise. You can trust my word.”
“Oh, what does it matter?” Tears trembled in Lucy’s eyes. “I can’t leave Miss Charlotte, after all that’s happened to her. She needs me more than ever.”
“I thought you weren’t going to let that stop…”
“And everybody here thinking I’m no better than I should be. How could I come to live among them? They’d always be whispering. I couldn’t bear that.”
“Nobody thinks…”
“It’s no good, Ethan! It’s not going to work. Just take your new job and your cottage and everything you always wanted and… be happy!” Lucy turned and fled from him. He chased her into the house, but under all the curious eyes waiting there he couldn’t follow her up to Miss Charlotte’s bedchamber and pound on the door like he wanted to. Thwarted, furious, Ethan strode back outside to sulk.
***
At last, at long, long last, Alec had Charlotte to himself. When the library door closed behind them, it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms and crush her to him. All the details of their last time together flooded him—the feel of her skin, her lips, the soft sounds she’d made when he touched her just… His body responded so strongly to the memory that when her lips parted to speak he nearly groaned.
“I have to tell you about Lady Isabella,” she said.