Pride & Passion by Charlotte Featherstone Page B

would not recall how she had stood helpless— breathless —waiting for him to kiss her. Instead she said, “I hope this is not the point in our conversation where you attempt to change my feelings about the duke, Isabella.”
    “Well, it would serve you right, especially since it was not quite a month ago you forced me to think about Black, and his scandalous pursuit of me. If you ask me, I owe it to you, a little taste of your own medicine.”
    “Ha! Lord Black was perfect for you, as you have only discovered.”
    “And his grace is not, is that right?”
    Lucy scoffed at the absurd notion. “Of course he is not. He is a pompous prig, and I want nothing to do with him.”
    “One cannot help but notice how much he looks at you, Lucy.”
    “It is only to pick me apart, to discover the bits he finds lacking.”
    “He kissed you once.”
    “It was like kissing a fish dragged out of the Thames,” she sniffed.
    “What happened between you two?” Isabella asked. “It was not like this before. This…simmering tension between you. Lucy?” Isabella watched her from beneath her bonnet brim. Her head was tilted so she could study her through the gloom of the carriage. “Please tell me what is wrong. I know something is. You are not yourself. I know you’ve been heartbroken by the loss of Thomas, but I cannot help but believe it goes deeper than that. There is a melancholy to you that wasn’t there weeks ago.”
    “Too many séances,” she said, trying to make light, but she could tell that Isabella would not let up her line of questioning. She was in earnest, and concern and love shone in her eyes.
    “Perhaps,” Issy answered quietly. “The occult is an invitation to darkness, as far as I am concerned, and you’ve been dabbling in it for months now.”
    “Lizzy, my mood has nothing to do with the occult, I assure you.”
    She could not confide in Isabella now. Her cousinwas married to Black. Black was a Brethren Guardian, the Brethren were hunting for Thomas, whom they believed killed Wendell Knighton and who might even be this mysterious Orpheus they talked of. It would put Issy in a terrible place, and Lucy couldn’t do it. Besides, all these revelations were too fresh. She needed time and solitude to sort them.
    She knew so little of the facts, only this: she had given her embroidered handkerchief to Thomas, and then he had disappeared, believed to have died in a fire. Then he had been seen on the rooftop of the Masonic Lodge and witnessed to have shot Wendell Knighton. When Sussex had given chase, the lace had been dropped. Sussex’s description had led her to believe it was Thomas.
    Despite dabbling in the occult, Lucy didn’t believe a man who was supposed to be dead could simply appear alive and well. Obviously Thomas had never died, if indeed the man Sussex had chased had been him. And because he had never died, she had to face the fact that for some reason, Thomas had wanted her to believe that he had. And that didn’t sit well with her. She had trusted him. He had promised to make her his wife. She’d believed that, but now…well, there were things that needed to be explained before she could make complete sense of this whole business. And there was still the matter of Sussex and his refusal to see Thomas as anything but his enemy. And she couldn’t even bring herself to think of the other concern with Sussex—that her father wanted her to marry him. That, she could not bring herself to think on.
    “Ah, Lucy, you make me worry, cousin.”
    “Issy,” she said, smiling as she reached for her cousin’s hand. “Truly, I’m fine.”
    With a doubtful glance, Issy sat back against the squabs. “I shall not let this rest, you know. I can be as tenacious as dog with a bone.”
    “I know. Trust me, I know your faults as well as my own.”
    “Will you not at least think on the matter of Sussex? I know…that is…well, I have a feeling that Sussex has developed a rather strong attachment to