One Week As Lovers (Somerhart 3)

He was changed. The boy she’d known had never flashed eyes so cruel.

“Tell me what happened,” he said while she was still reeling over the difference in him. She blinked, and suddenly that stranger was gone. It was just Nick, watching her with clear worry on his face.

“You heard the story from my stepfather, I assume.”

“I heard he was forcing you to marry Richmond. But I also heard that you jumped to your death from one of my cliffs, so pardon if I doubt parts of the tale.”

Exhaustion rolled over her like a fog, and Cynthia let her weak knees lower her to the bed. Lancaster must have been waiting for her to take a seat, because he immediately reached for a chair and pulled it closer before collapsing into it.

“Blood loss,” he muttered, gesturing toward the small cut on his forehead.

“My word, you are dramatic, Viscount.”

“Why do you keep calling me Viscount?”

Cynthia huffed. “I know we’ve never been formally introduced, but it is your title, is it not?”

“Well, my friends call me Lancaster, but you never called me anything but Nick.”

“You are not Nick anymore.”

It was only the simple truth, so why did she feel guilty when his face fell? “I suppose I am not,” he murmured. She had to fight the urge to call him Nick and take his hand. In appeasement, she answered his original question.

“Yes, I was promised to Lord Richmond.”

“But…why?”

“My stepfather owed him money. A lot of it. When he could not pay, Richmond proposed a different form of payment.”

He closed his eyes. “You.”

“Yes, me. I…did my best to dissuade him. Both of them, actually. It was not the first time my stepfather had tried to marry me off, but none of my normal arguments were effective this time. It became necessary to take drastic measures.”

His eyelids rose. So did his brows. “Why do I feel as if this version of the story has been scrubbed clean of all but the barest of facts?”

She shrugged.

“Mrs. Pell said your father refused you food.”

“What child hasn’t been put to bed without dinner?”

“What child,” he ground out, “has been locked in their room and starved?”

“Melodrama again. My stepfather was never a kind man. I didn’t expect softheartedness from him in the face of ruin.”

“What did you expect?”

She shook her head. Her stepfather had behaved in his normal fashion. He wasn’t precisely cruel. He simply did not understand her. What kind of girl would not want to be a countess?

No, she hadn’t expected anything different from her stepfather. What had surprised her was an entirely different kind of suitor. A kind who took delight in an unwilling bride.

“How did you escape?”

Though her mouth burned, she did not let her fingers drift to her lips. No matter how much she rubbed at that spot, the tingle never left it anyway. “My father let me out to visit with my betrothed. Richmond became distracted and I managed to run.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed at her carefully chosen words. He held her gaze for a long moment, but she did not flinch from it. Still, when his eyes dipped lo

wer, she had to fight the urge to turn away. He focused on her mouth, and she didn’t want him looking at the jagged pink scar that marred it even though he couldn’t know the cause.