The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,100
self-consciously at her skirt.
“I…I didn’t know what to wear,” she said, gathering a handful of muslin fabric. The blue gown with its ivory brocade overlay was far more suited for a night at the theater than a simple dinner for two, but in her haste to pack, she hadn’t brought anything more suitable.
“It’s perfect.” Lucas swallowed audibly, then walked down the length of the long table draped in white cloth and pulled out a chair. “I hope you’re hungry. Bessie has outdone herself.”
Feeling rather like a hen sitting down to dine with a fox, Percy sank gracefully into the chair and braced her hands on the armrests as Lucas slid her towards the table. He lingered behind her a full minute more than he should have, and she could have sworn she heard the gallop of his heartbeat through his impeccably tailored waistcoat before he moved away.
“This is lovely,” she said when the food arrived.
Lucas grunted in agreement, and they began their meal in the prickly, awkward silence of strangers left alone together. Which was what they were, of course. Strangers. Except when she’d kissed him, he hadn’t felt like a stranger. In those moments of heat and passion, her soul had recognized his.
And in that recognition she’d found the acceptance she had been starving for all her life.
Now they sat at opposite ends of a table that might as well have been an ocean, and Percy honestly didn’t know if she wanted to sail as far away from him as she could possibly get, or dive overboard and swim straight into his arms.
Within the first choice lay the opportunity to escape. With the second came almost certain death. Certainly there’d at least be sharks. Yesterday, the decision would have been obvious. But suddenly the answer wasn’t so clear.
“The chicken is excellent,” she said tentatively, her fork poised in mid-air. “Very moist.”
“Bessie is a good cook,” Lucas replied. In the flickering candlelight, he appeared every inch the formidable rogue that he was. But for some reason, Percy wasn’t intimidated.
Quite the opposite.
Against her will, she found herself drawn to Lucas’s inherent wickedness. His dark charm had mesmerized her. His mysterious allure had captivated her. She should have been terrified of him. Especially after everything she’d endured at the hands of her husband. But despite what Lucas was, and despite what he’d done, there was one thing that set him apart from Andrew.
He made her feel safe.
There was no rhyme to it. No reason. Lucas had kidnapped her. Taken her to the other side of London. Locked her in a room. But he’d also brought her sweet muffins. Held her while she cried. Kissed her until she saw stars. Given her a lady’s maid. Promised to protect her from the duke.
Her fingers tightened around the fork.
“How much did he pay you?” she asked quietly.
Lucas sipped his wine, a red Madeira that Percy had yet to taste. “Who?”
“My husband. How much did he pay you to kidnap me?”
“Enough.”
“And yet you said you’re not going to do it. You’re not going to give me to him.”
His gaze shuttered. “No. I’m not.”
“Why?” she asked, genuinely confused. Lucas was a criminal. He’d made no effort to hide it. So what was preventing him from following through on the bargain he’d struck with her husband? A bargain that (if she knew Andrew, which she did) was almost guaranteed to be incredibly lucrative. “If you were paid for a job–”
“The job I was paid for wasn’t the job I was given,” Lucas said curtly. “Your husband”–he spat out the word in disgust–“neglected to mention all of the details when he employed my services.”
“What details are those?”
Lucas’s eyes were shimmering pools of barely restrained fury. “The fact that he beat you. Not once, or twice, but dozens of times, if I had to guess. The fact that he’ll do it again, and keep doing it until you’re either dead or withdrawn so far into yourself that you might as well be.”
Percy flinched at Lucas’s brutal honesty.
She couldn’t help it.
But when she spoke, she was proud that her voice was steady and even. “Yes, he did. And he will. Andrew is horrible. I regret I ever met him. I never should have married him. But why would that matter to you?”
Lucas stood up so fast his chair fell over. “Why would it matter to me?” he said incredulously, slapping his hands on the table with enough force to rattle the dishes. “Why would it matter to me?”