He gave a shrug. “The days of the clans are long gone anyway.”
“Because of the Clearances?”
He looked vaguely surprised. “You know of the Clearances?”
“Of course. The Greenfield dining table is a veritable well of political information.”
She couldn’t recall the context of the Clearances being discussed, but she knew the brutal practice of driving the Scots from the Highlands since the last Jacobite rebellion—she supposed the Jacobites would have called it a bid for freedom—which had been ongoing until recently. Officially, it was to make way for sheep pastoralism; unofficially, or so Flossie said, it was about accumulating land in the hands of a few. She would miss the Friday dinners. Seeing their faces, watching them quarrel. Everyone except Flossie was still acting distantly toward her; Zachary still refused to properly look her in the eye. It hurt. But she had done all she could to make it right. As of today, she lived in another house, and all that remained of her past was Bailey, who had heroically agreed to continue her position as a lady’s maid. Without warning, her nose stung with tears. She swallowed hard, to no avail—she was about to sob into her wedding soup.
A light touch on the small of her back made her stiffen, and she glanced up to find Lucian watching her intently. “Are you all right?”
She cast a nervous glance around. He seemed to mean well, but drawing attention to her fraying composure was impolite. Her siblings, her parents, several aunts, and a few cousins her mother had invited were chatting softly among one another, pretending not to notice that she was suffering a bout of nerves.
“I’m well, thank you,” she whispered.
He looked skeptical. “Say the word,” he said, “and we’ll go home.”
Home. He meant his house. Her face flushed. Once they were home, he would take off collar and cravat and they would kiss again. More than kiss. She was expected to allow this perfect stranger outrageous liberties tonight. As if the stroke of a pen on a formal piece of paper spirited away one’s sensibilities and compunctions like a magic wand … Lucian’s gaze sharpened, as if he had sensed the direction of her thoughts. As they stared into each other’s eyes, heat flickered along the peculiar bond between them. She hadn’t felt it since the kiss in the gallery, but there it was, still twitching.
Without breaking the connection, Lucian reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out a small jewelry box. “I had meant to give this to you during our ride here.” His tone was wry, and her blush intensified. Her mother had climbed aboard their carriage with Mina in tow and might as well have announced to the world that she worried Blackstone would pounce on his new wife the moment he found himself alone with her.
He took her hand, turned it over, and placed the box into her palm. Well, it would take time to become used to such intimacies.
“May I open it now?” She did like surprise gifts.
“If you want.”
Holding the box low between them, she opened the lid. A silver pendant, perhaps half the length of her little finger, rested on a red velvet bed. She picked it up carefully.
“It’s a tiny spoon.” The handle was intricately fashioned in Celtic knots and finished in a heart-shaped loop.
“It’s a love spoon,” Lucian said.
She turned it back and forth. “I know of them.” Celtic men fashioned them for their sweethearts. It looked freshly polished, but the inner sides of the braided strands were blackened with time, and there was a weight to the piece as though it had a history.
Lucian’s expression was guarded. “My grandmother,” he said. “She gave it to me, for my future bride. My great-grandfather had once made it for his wife; he was a Welshman.” He glanced at it there in her palm. “I suppose we could set it with a diamond, if you want.”
Her fingers closed protectively over the small heirloom. “I find it most precious as it is.”
He looked at her oddly, then gave a grunt that could have been approval, and returned his attention to his soup.
She emptied her wineglass, the love spoon in her fist. How often had she daydreamed of being abducted by a handsome highwayman or a marauding privateer? She dared fate to be consistent and to prove that being ravished by such a man would be as pleasurable as in her fantasies.
Chapter 11
A waiting ravishment wasn’t quite as pleasurable as she’d anticipated. She had taken a warm bath, put on a thickly ruffled nightgown, and slipped deep under the covers of her new bed. The scent of clean linen surrounding her should have been comforting. She was still shivering from head to toe and could not stop watching the fiery flickers dancing across the door to her husband’s chamber. A tray with two glasses of champagne was on her nightstand, and once and again her gaze strayed to the silently pearling drink, for she was parched and her nerves tense enough to snap.