She put down her glass on the sideboard—gently—and came to him. Lucian watched with a furrowed brow as she took his hand and turned it over.
“I bet you’ve not lifted crates or broken heads with these in a while,” she murmured as she studied his palm. “And yet, they are still so strong.” She glanced up. “At the back of her mind, a woman knows she’s at the mercy of how well the menfolk in her life can control their hands, Luke. And you have the hands of a brawler.”
He pulled the offending extremity from her grasp. “I don’t beat women.”
“And how would she know, hmm? And perhaps you’ve been rough and not noticed? Men too often grab a woman the way they themselves want to be touched—stupid. Her skin is so much softer.” She raised a hand to his face and he allowed it, only for her to slowly drag a gloved fingertip along his jaw to the rasping sound of stubble against kid leather.
“So whenever you think your touch is light,” Aoife murmured, “make it lighter still …” Her voice trailed off. Her gaze focused past him, in the direction of the door behind him, and she withdrew her hand from his face.
He turned. His wife had entered the room, her face more sour than spoiled milk.
Chapter 14
Two days. It had taken Lucian two days to break his word and turn to another woman. And he had invited her into their home. In bright daylight. It made no sense, but there were few other logical explanations for the caress she had just witnessed, and so she stood as if glued to the spot and stared. The woman wasn’t good society, and her hair was short and mousy, and the coiled tension in her slender body evoked a spring ready to launch. She still exuded a particular sensuality; it was in the worldly way she angled her chin, in the leisurely, confident manner in which she had dragged her fingertip along Lucian’s jaw. She was immediately enviable—Hattie could see her gracing one of her canvases as a heroine. Under other circumstances. She heard her teeth press together. Her stomach was burning with a violent emotion.
“Mrs. Blackstone,” Lucian said, and she knew the look on his face: impersonal, aloof—her father used it on her mother when they had company.
“I heard something crash.” Her voice had come out feebly. She didn’t acknowledge his guest, as the correct course of action was to pretend mistresses did not exist, but she felt the woman’s assessment prickle over her skin, and the heat in her veins surged like the tide of a fiery sea. Even a merely vaguely caring husband would exercise discretion. To think she had begun embroidering his braces with Scottish thistles last night … Her throat tightened.
“It was an accident,” Lucian said. “Don’t trouble yourself.” He beckoned with his hand. “Allow me to introduce Miss Byrne.”
“No.” It shot out of her mouth quickly, like a bullet. His face froze. As they measured each other across the room, the air between them quivered like some creature in its death rattle.
The woman made as though to place a hand on Lucian’s arm but seemed to think better of it and stepped back. “I take my leave,” she announced.
Hattie avoided looking at her when she approached. Still, she saw it, that the woman moved with a slight swagger rather than a sway, and that the corner of her mouth turned up in the tiniest of smirks when she walked past. Then she was gone, leaving a cloud of ambergris and tobacco hanging in her wake.
Lucian’s footfall was heavy on the tiles, and her pulse stuttered. She tried ignoring him, too, but he planted himself right in front of her and stood as immovable as a brick wall until she reluctantly met his gaze.
“What was the meaning of this?” he demanded, thunder in his eyes.
He was angry. Immediately, she felt nauseous. “I’m not obliged to acknowledge such a thing,” she whispered.
“A thing,” Lucian said quietly. “What thing?”
“Your … your liaisons.”
His face was blank with disbelief. “Since you’re not stupid, you can’t possibly think that I would introduce you to a side piece,” he said, “so forgive me if I assumed you were rude to my friend on purpose.”
Stupid. She sucked in a breath. Very well, perhaps she had jumped to conclusions, but his brazen friend’s feelings were presently his concern? She clasped a hand over her belly. “Unless she is your mother, sister, or cousin, in which case I’m terribly sorry for refusing an introduction, I’m quite certain I’m not obliged to acknowledge an unacquainted woman who is fondling you in my drawing room,” she said primly.