Pride & Passion Read Free

become the husband of Isabella, Lucy’s cousin, had been shot a fortnight ago during what was termed Guardian business . Well on the mend, Black pretended that naught had happened, and Isabella, a true and honorable wife, would not speak of it. Lucy had tried, but Isabella had remained stubbornly tight-lipped. And the pendant…it had belonged to Black and his family, and purportedly contained seeds with magical powers. Lucy had taken it, ingested a seed inside the pendant and wished with everything inside her in the hopes she might once more see her lover and say her tearful goodbyes.
    Of course, the rash action had caused her days of vomiting, and a strange feeling of possession, not to mention the fact that her actions had both alarmed and angered not only Black but Sussex. But in the end, her goal had been achieved. Thomas was alive…
    And the Brethren Guardians were not only looking for him, but watching her as well to see if Thomas would come to her. When Sussex had delivered the lace to her he had also informed her that the man who had dropped it was a man he and the Brethren were hunting. He was their enemy, Sussex had claimed, and that man, Lucy knew, was Thomas. Her lover from the past. And Lucy knew with every cell of her being that she must protect him from the duke and his two fellow Guardians, for they were powerful and influential men, while her lover was an artist, without influence of a title or the power that both peerage and money could wield.
    Yes, those iron gates that surrounded his lordship’shome, standing sentry like a castle drawbridge against marauding knights, was a security measure—one Black would never abolish.
    Her father cleared his throat several times, while glancing sidelong at her, all indications that something was weighing on him, something he felt compelled to speak of. “I’m afraid I cannot allow our previous conservation to lay fallow. I must speak plainly, Lucy. I’ve noticed, my dear, that Sussex hasn’t been by for some time. Two weeks, at least, I believe.”
    Lucy refused to take her gaze from the rain-streaked carriage window. She would not talk of his grace, and she would not have this conversation with her father.
    “I hope you have not had a falling-out.”
    “I wasn’t aware that we had a falling-in.”
    That quip made her father glare at her. “You don’t make it easy on the poor fellow. You hold him at arm’s length. He’s trying to court you, but you’re too obstinate to see it.”
    “I am well aware of the fact, Father. You have made it too blatant for me to misunderstand. You wish me to marry the duke.”
    “You say it with such disdain, as though he were a common laborer, when he is the furthest thing from it.”
    She thought back to her young friend Gabriel, the butcher’s boy, and realized that they had shared something remarkable—the same sadness, the same loneliness, despite their stations being so opposite. “I am not at all opposed to a common man, if he were to feel a genuine sense of affection for me.”
    “Affection!” Her father’s thick mutton chops twitched in irritation. “Good God, child, are we back to that?Those fairy-tale thoughts were amusing when you were twelve, now they are downright mortifying. Marriage is an institution—”
    “Rather like one of those asylums for lunatics,” she mumbled, unable to help herself. She didn’t want an institution. She wanted a marriage. A friendship. A loving partner.
    Her father sighed deeply, but did not bother to address her thoughts and instead began to talk to her as he had so many years ago, as she lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow after he had turned away the only friend she had ever had—Gabriel. Depriving her of that friendship had destroyed her, frozen part of her heart and soul. How wretched her father had been—how horrid it was to see her friend leave, and never, ever return. Internally she had railed against the injustice of it all, but she had been powerless then