One Week As Lovers (Somerhart 3)

“Nick!” she huffed, hands still outstretched, palms open to the sky.

He did not look at her delicate wrists. “Yes?”

“What is wrong with you?”

His face heated to an unbearable burn. How was he to answer that question? There were so many things wrong with him.

“Nick, do you not care for her at all?”

He let her question sink in for a moment. “No,” he whispered then. “Not at all,” and the words loosened the tightness in his chest. Finally, some truth.

“But…that’s awful.”

“Yes.”

“You would marry this woman for money and nothing else?”

He considered it for a moment, hoping it wasn’t true, but what other reason could he give himself now? “Yes,” he answered again.

“Good God, Nick, you are as mercenary as my stepfather.” The sharp edge of disgust hardened her words.

Lancaster nodded, but it wasn’t really the truth. Not quite. A mercenary was paid to use his body to fight. That wasn’t what Lancaster would be paid for. He was an entirely different thing altogether.

He must have grown used to the idea. It hardly seemed to hurt anymore. Or perhaps it was distance that made the prospect less real.

When he looked up, Cynthia was yards away, growing smaller as she walked. Nick tugged his coat collar up against the wind, shoved his hands in his pockets, and followed.

Chapter 7

What a horrid day.

Cynthia dropped the stick of charcoal and watched it roll across the desktop as she planted her chin in her hand.

Hours of uncomfortable silence as she and Nick worked together, climbing cliffs and poking their heads into every narrow crevice.

He’d said nothing more about her recklessness or safety. He’d said hardly anything else at all, and she hadn’t been in a talkative mood either. But despite their concentration on the task at hand, they’d found nothing. Nothing except the genuine distance that had grown between them over the years.

For a short time that morning he’d seemed so familiar. Funny and handsome and carefree. But then he’d become that other creature. That London gentleman whose natural charm had been hammered into a brutal tool. He still had charisma, there was no denying that, but now it was polished to a shine. Like jewelry. Or a weapon. Or armor.

But if he was protecting something, it certainly wasn’t the soft heart he’d worn on his sleeve as a boy. That boy hadn’t been able to walk past an injured frog without helping. But this man cared nothing for a woman he’d pledged himself to. He’d said it so callously. With no emotion at all.

Did his fiancée love him?

Cynthia snorted at her own question. Of course the woman loved him. Everyone loved Nick. His mother had always said he’d been born with a gift, a way of putting people at ease and infusing every room with joy.

Was it possible he’d used it all up in London? Had it run out?

She sighed so deeply that the sketching paper ruffled and danced. A faint dusting of charcoal floated away, as if sand were blowing off the very cliffs she’d tried to capture.

She picked up the charcoal and darkened a shadow on the rocks.

Her work was not precisely art. Oh, it wasn’t anything like art, in truth. Cynthia understood that. The crashing waves looked a bit like tangled hair wound around the rocks. The cliffs resembled sides of beef. But she was improving. And it soothed her, the soft scratch of charcoal against parchment, the sense that she’d accomplished a small task.

But she couldn’t think beyond Nick tonight, so she packed the charcoal into the tiny writing desk and pulled out the old journal. The pages were burned into her memory already. She’d read it a dozen times over and found nothing new in the last ten passes. But maybe it would act as a talisman, willing to reveal secrets if only she showed her faith.

When a tap sounded at the door, Cyn rubbed her eyes. Lord, but she was tired. Perhaps she would skip dinner entirely tonight.

“Come in,” she called to Mrs. Pell, but the hall door didn’t open. The connecting door did.