A Belated Bride by Karen Hawkins Page A

whose every action could be traced to stubbornness and pride. Lucien thought of the thin, quiet boy who had so single-mindedly played chess with him the night before. “Perhaps he just needs time.”
    She nodded absently and sipped her tea. He watched her over the rim of his cup. She was fuller than he remem- bered, lush-bodied like a Boucher painting. Her hair curled in thick, luxurious waves over her brow, across her ears, and clung to the white column of her neck. The rib- bon she wore to confine her hair had failed miserably and now hung in dejected splendor over one of her shoulders, threaded through the abundant curls.
    Yet, for all her loveliness, there were faint purple shad- ows under her eyes and an aura of bone-deep weariness. It was as if she carried the burdens of the earth on her rounded shoulders.
    Impulsively, he picked up the plate of cakes. “Here, take one.”
    Color touched her cheeks. “No, thank you.” “Nonsense. They are exceptionally good.” He lifted
    one from the plate and held it out.
    Her gaze seemed drawn to his hand, but she shook her head. “No.”
    “You must. Aunt Emma threatened to have my head if I didn’t eat them all.”
    A reluctant smile curved her lips. “Oh, very well, though I shouldn’t.” She looked down at herself and sighed. “I fear I like them far too much as it is.”
    He scowled and placed not two, but three cakes on her
    plate. “What a lot of nonsense. You look perfectly fine the way you are.” Better than fine, in fact. Arabella was every bit as succulent as the rich cakes.
    She was not the usual thin, wasted beauty that abounded in London society. Womanly and soft, she was breathtakingly beautiful. If circumstances were differ- ent—hell, if he were different—he’d have had no com- punction in luring her to his bed and keeping her there for days as he discovered every inch of her sumptuous body.
    He shifted in his chair. “You never married.” Bloody hell, what made me ask that?
    Her earlier humor evaporated. “No. Unlike you.”
    And he’d lived to regret it with every breath in his body. But he’d had no choice. Meanwhile, Arabella . . . He flicked a glance over her face, noting the thick curl of lashes and the lush line of her cheek. The men in York- shire were either scarce or blind. Perhaps there was some- one who was waiting to sweep her away. Someone with whom she’d shared her incredible passion.
    Someone other than him. He scowled.
    There was the pig who had stopped their carriage with the constable. What was his name? Hartlebrook? Hart- boot? Whoever he was, it was obvious that Arabella had not favored his suit. Lucien wondered if there were any other suitors about.
    What of the staid-looking gentleman he’d seen ride out with Aunt Jane? Surely there was no romantic interest there—the man had to be forty years old, if a day. Lucien glanced at Arabella. Sitting in the chair opposite his, eat- ing a cake, a dab of crème on her chin, she looked barely nineteen.
    “I saw your aunts leaving for town. Who was the man who escorted them?”
    Arabella frowned, a half-eaten cake held in midair. “Ned? He’s the stable hand.”
    “No,” he said, his tone perilously tense. “The older one—the dandy.”
    She put the cake back on the plate with obvious regret. “Oh, that was Mr. Francot, our solicitor.”
    It seemed to Lucien that her voice lowered intimately as she said the name. “Does he visit often?”
    Eyes as rich as the peat floor of the forest on an autumn day challenged his. “I don’t think that is any concern of yours.”
    “I just wondered,” he answered, suddenly irritated that he was making such a fool of himself. But the man couldn’t be totally unaware of Arabella’s charms, regard- less of the legitimacy of his claims on her time. “He looked familiar.”
    Her brow creased and she absently licked crème from one of her fingers. “Perhaps you met him in London. He was located there for some years prior to his