The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,92

didn’t even care that he’d taken up with a mistress. Because she believed–he had made her believe–that there was something wrong with her. Something broken.

After all, other women could please him. A fact he’d never made any effort to hide. On the contrary, he seemed to take dark delight in making sure she knew about every single affair he had.

And there were a lot to keep track of.

But while she should have been hurt and embarrassed (and part of her was), she was also happy to be left alone. When Andrew was with his mistresses, he wasn’t with her, and she came to treasure those days and weeks he would spend in London while she healed from her bruises in the country.

And there were a lot to keep track of.

Now, because of Lucas’s kiss, she finally knew the truth.

It wasn’t her.

It was never her.

Andrew was the broken one. Behind that striking façade of blonde hair and blue eyes, he was cracked into a hundred different pieces, each sharper than the last. He’d used those jagged shards to make her believe she was small, and weak, and unimportant. Both inside the bedroom and out of it.

But she wasn’t any of those things.

She wasn’t.

She wasn’t.

She wasn’t.

With a soft murmur of distress, Percy curled her hand into a fist and pressed it against her stomach as tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t know why she was crying; she wasn’t sad. She also wasn’t frigid, no matter what her husband had told her.

Lucas had proven that.

But she was overwhelmed and exhausted, both physically…and emotionally. Dashing away her tears, she crawled into bed on top of the blankets, hugged a pillow against her chest, and was asleep within moments.

When Lucas returned with the catalogue, he discovered Persephone curled on her side in the middle of the large mattress. Not wanting to disturb her rest, he started to close the door…but something stopped him.

As if drawn by a magnetic force beyond his control, he approached the side of the bed. At the creak of a floorboard her temple furrowed, and he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her facial muscles relaxed, and with a murmur she slipped deeper into slumber while Lucas stood guard.

He couldn’t say for how long he remained by her side. Long enough to memorize every freckle, every eyelash, every beauty mark. Long enough to notice the pale, nearly translucent blue smudges beneath her eyes. Long enough to start falling in love with a dark-haired fairy queen.

A fairy queen who was married to another man.

With a silent curse, Lucas snatched his hand away and stood up as if he’d been burned. And in some ways, he supposed he had.

Falling in love?

The Devil of Duncraven didn’t fall in love.

He fell in like.

He fell in lust.

But he never, under any conditions, fell in love.

Being in love meant marriage. Babies. A house in the country. It meant settling down, and Lucas wasn’t the settling type. Even if he were, that sort of life, the one with a cozy cottage and a dog sleeping in front of the fireplace and three brats sleeping upstairs tucked between their parents, wasn’t for the likes of him. In his line of work, he’d be lucky if he made it to thirty years. And he couldn’t–he wouldn’t–subject a wife to that sort of uncertainty. Especially not one as delicate as Persephone.

He’d make sure she was safe. He’d make sure she was protected. Then he’d do what he always did whenever his heart was in danger of becoming too involved.

He’d walk away.

Chapter Six

“We need to find Percy.” Green eyes filled with determination, Helena sprang out of her chair and began to pace back and forth across the parlor. Dots of sunlight caught on the little swirls of dust spiraling into the air, kicked up by her emerald skirts as they swished between her ankles.

“It’s been nearly twelve hours,” she continued, venting at large to the room, which was comprised of Stephen, Calliope, and Calliope’s husband Leo, the Earl of Winchester. After a night spent tossing and turning, Helena had called everyone together for an emergency congregation at Stephen’s townhouse in Grosvenor Square. “And we’ve done nothing. She’s depending on us! We have to come up with a plan.”

From an adjacent sofa, Calliope nodded in agreement. Ever since she’d learned of what had happened to Percy, she’d been sick with worry. At the sound of her troubled sigh, Leo reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. She smiled gratefully at