How to Dance With a Duke (21 page)

“It’s a good question,” Lucas said, closing the door of the fourth room behind them. “We haven’t checked all of them, but the ones so far have been underwhelming to say the least. No treasure, no manuscripts, no books of any kind.”

He gripped her hand in his and led her to the other side of the hallway so that they could search the remaining rooms. As they had stepped from room to room, Lucas became more and more aware of the fact that they were utterly and completely alone. How easy it would be to simply pull her against him and kiss her as he had wanted to do since their encounter in the park.

He wondered if she had thought at all about that kiss or if he was alone in thinking that there was something between them.

As he opened the second but last door, the scent of decay filled his nostrils, and as he lifted the candle higher he saw why.

“Mummies,” Cecily said matter-of-factly as they stepped into the room and surveyed the shriveled, wrapped figure laid out on the table that dominated the room. “I wondered if they housed any. Especially given the sarcophagus upstairs.”

She moved forward until she reached the other side of the table and saw an empty sarcophagus on the floor. She clasped her hands against her, rubbing her arms as if to ward off the chill of seeing the dead bodies.

“They are dead, Cecily,” Lucas said, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder. “They can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” she assured him. “I’ve been around artifacts and even a few mummies before. I was just imagining how awful it would be to get locked in a sarcophagus. I am not altogether comfortable with small spaces,” she admitted. “Though the dark isn’t among my favorite experiences, either.”

“I should have known,” he said with mock despair. “I am in a room full of mummies with the only lady in the world without any fear of them. I suppose I shall have to find some other small room to lure you into so that I may take advantage of your fear for my own licentious machinations.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than they heard a decisive
snick
as the door to the crowded room swung shut and the resulting breeze snuffed out the candle.

“Very funny,” Cecily said with a wry tone. “I suppose you tied the door to a string or some other nonsense to shut the door from over here? There is no hope for you, my lord. I have a veritable army of male cousins who enjoyed nothing better than trying to frighten me out of my wits when I was a child. Though I will admit that this trick is particularly impressive. Tell me how you managed it.”

“Cecily,” Lucas said as he fumbled in his pocket for the flint, his voice impressively steady as he realized what must have just happened. “I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”

As he stepped away from her and reached for the doorknob, the tiny flicker of light he’d conjured with the flint grew stronger as it burned down the wick.

“Do not try to gammon me, Lucas,” she said with an air of confidence in him that he wished were not so very misplaced. “I know you did it, now tell me how.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” he said emphatically as he turned the doorknob and met with only resistance. “And I am very much afraid that not only did I not shut the door, but it is now locked from the outside.”

At her gasp, he stepped back to let her try the door herself. When she also was unable to open it, he bit back an oath.

“Now, you may scream all you like.”

Eleven

But Cecily did not scream. That would have taken too much air, and from the moment she’d realized the door was shut she’d begun to feel a distinct loss of breath.

“I am not fond of enclosed spaces,” she said carefully, trying in vain to resist the urge to raise her hand to her throat in a gesture of panic. Why was the simply tied cravat she’d donned as part of her boy’s disguise suddenly so unbearably tight?

“Do not worry,” Lucas said from his kneeling position before the door, “I only heard the click of the lock sliding into place, without the sound of the key being removed. If we are lucky, he left it in the lock.”

“I’m not worried,” Cecily said, hearing her voice as if it came from some other person in the room with them. The floor shifted beneath her feet and she grabbed onto the table, not wanting to jostle the mummy, but not really capable of controlling her movements, either.

Lucas must have heard her for he was suddenly at her back, easing her gently down into a sitting position on the floor.

“Easy,” she heard him say. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

And he didn’t.

His strong arms supporting her, taking over for her, were at once comforting and stifling. Unable to stand under her own strength, however, she let herself go, and gave in to the shamefully comforting feeling of knowing that, for just this moment, someone else would be in charge. For just this whisper of a second, she would not have to carry the burden of self-sufficiency alone.

“There now,” he said, easing to the carpeted floor next to her. “Just breathe. Maybe you’d better put your head down between your knees.” His tones were soothing, as if he spoke to a skittish colt or a frightened child. But instead of being insulted by his condescension, she simply fought to do as he asked. She ignored the indignity of the position he suggested and followed his suggestion, drawing her knees up before her and leaning forward to place her head between them, feeling his surprisingly gentle hand move in even strokes over her back.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked, finally allowing her to raise her head and lean back against the pedestal of the long table. “I assume there is a reason why you turn pale at the thought of being locked in a small room with such a handsome fellow?”

Still ill at ease, though thankfully not as panicked as she had been, Cecily scoffed. “You hold as high an opinion of yourself as ever, I see?”

“I was speaking of him,” Lucas returned, gesturing up at the mummy. Cecily could barely see his expression, but she knew his raised brow meant he was joking.

“Of course you were,” she returned, rolling her eyes, though the jest had produced the desired effect, breaking the air of seriousness that had invaded the room at her collapse.

She was quiet, thinking back over the shadowy memories of her childhood.

“Surely it can’t be so dreadful,” he said, reaching out toward her hand, but evidently changing his mind at the last minute, as he simply tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

“No,” Cecily returned. “Or, rather, I’m not entirely sure. I have been fearful of close quarters since I was a child and I’ve never really been able to understand what happened to cause it. I know my mother was there—though I do not know in what capacity—and I remember crying for my favorite doll and having her bring it to me. I do remember a box of some sort and Mama telling me it was a game. But when I wanted to get out she wouldn’t let me. She told me that I must be very quiet. But I wanted out.”

She could feel the beads of sweat gathering on her brow as she remembered the incident. But it was impossible to know what parts she truly remembered and what parts she had fabricated in her imagination in the years that followed as a way to explain what had truly happened.

“Were you in danger?” Lucas asked, his voice neutral. “Did you get that sense from her?”

“I do not know,” she answered truthfully. “The memories are so faded now. It’s almost as if the only thing left is this illogical fear. Obviously I did not suffer for it. I am here to tell the tale, after all,” she said.

“You do suffer,” he said harshly. “Every time that terror grips you, you suffer. Even if, as you say, it does not happen very often.”

She supposed he was right, though having him here with her alleviated her nervousness in a way that she could not explain. It was as if suddenly being greeted by a loved one after a long journey. The sense of relief and belonging was inexplicable, really. Certainly there was no logical reason her fear should lessen because he was with her. Having others around had never mattered before, and certainly she’d never been talked down in such a calm, efficient manner. In the past everyone had either become upset for her, or become upset themselves because her plight made them notice something that had not bothered them before.

But she would tell him none of this. Bad enough that she should have lost her composure in his presence, no matter how out of control her response had been. Informing him that his very presence in the tiny room with her had calmed her in some way would perhaps give him a hint of the power he had over her. And she was not ready to admit that any man, let alone this one, could possibly affect her in such a way.

Aloud she said, “Yes, I suppose I do suffer, a bit. But I am righted again soon enough. And I certainly do not endure any lasting effects. Certainly nothing like the limp you carried with you from the war.”

“Nicely done,” he said in a wry tone, referring to the way she had turned the subject from herself to him. “Only I am well aware that not all wounds have lasting
physical
effects.”

“What do you mean?” she asked warily, worried that in some way she was about to be hoist by her own petard.

“Just that my leg injury was the least of my wounds when I returned to England from Waterloo,” he said. “There are any number of ways that war changes a man, and not all of them can be seen on his person. In the same way that you dislike enclosed spaces, I dislike crowds. Neither of these symptoms are evident in our persons. I cannot look at you and know you become faint in small rooms. And you cannot look at me and know I would rather walk over hot coals than attend a crush in an overheated assembly room. But the wounds are there all the same.”

Cecily was silent for a moment. Then said, “Can you really not stand a crush, Your Grace?”

“I cannot,” he responded, reaching for her hand, which she gave to him willingly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know,” he said gently. “We all have flaws and weaknesses.”

“Yes,” she said, “but not all weaknesses keep one from doing their life’s work. Even if Papa would have allowed it, I couldn’t bear to go on an expedition because I’d never be able to enter the tombs. Or forget the tombs, I’d not be able to endure the closeness of the journey by sea.”

It was the first time she’d ever openly admitted the fact. Over the years it had become easier to lay the blame for her inability to travel on her father. But something about the privacy afforded them by the small room gave her the space she needed to admit the truth she’d been hiding from herself for so long.

“What a pair we are,” Lucas said with a rueful shake of his head. “You cannot go to Egypt, the one place in the world you wish to go. And I cannot go back to war, the one thing in the world I am trained for.”

“Misery loves company, I suppose,” Cecily said, with a lightness she did not feel.

“Speak for yourself, my dear,” he said dryly. “I am far from miserable just now.”

Cecily felt her breath quicken at his words. Truth be told, she was far from miserable at the moment too. There was something about the duke’s company that made her feel … safe. And safety was something she’d not felt for a long, long time.

Feeling an urgent need to change the subject, Cecily asked, “How did it happen? Your leg injury, I mean?”

He was quiet for so long that she was forming an apology when he finally spoke.

“I know you’ve probably read newspaper accounts of Waterloo,” he said quietly. “Or heard stories from people who were there. But nothing—no amount of description—can convey just how chaotic and dreadful it was. The closest thing to hell on earth I’ve ever seen. I won’t go into detail because even I cannot bear to go back there, even if only in memory. But I received my injury when my horse—Malvolio, a solid cavalry horse who’d been with me through several battles—was shot out from under me. I was fighting off a Frenchman at the time, and had already been winged. My strength was waning, otherwise I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. But I was, and by the time Mal was on his way down it was too late. I didn’t make it out of the stirrups in time and my leg was crushed and I was trapped.”

Cecily bit back a cry, too shocked to stop herself from asking, “Surely you weren’t trapped beneath him for long…?” But she knew as soon as the words left her mouth what the answer would be.

“I’m not actually sure how long I lay there before Monteith found me,” he said quietly, running a weary hand over his eyes. “The French took me for dead, thank God, else I’d have been run through where I lay. In any event, Mal saved my life. And Monteith was able to round up a couple of men with less serious wounds to get him off me.

“My leg may pain me some days,” Lucas continued, “but there is never a day that goes by that I don’t appreciate the sacrifice Malvolio made for me.”

She couldn’t help it. Cecily reached out and clasped Lucas’s hand. “I am so glad you survived,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. The idea of this vital man, so full of life, lying dead on a Belgian field was unthinkable.

“Me too,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Now, I’ve answered your question, so it’s time you answered one of mine.”

Cecily frowned, but nodded in assent. Fair was fair, after all.

“Tell me about David Lawrence,” Lucas said firmly.

She felt her frown deepen. “What about Mr. Lawrence?” she asked frostily.

“It’s hardly a secret, is it?” he asked, seemingly oblivious to her annoyed tone. “You told me about him yourself. The announcement was posted in the
Times
.”

Some of the rigidity left her spine. He was right, of course. Any number of people must remember her engagement. She had told him about it herself. Still, there was no reason for him to know the extent to which David had hurt her.

“What do you wish to know?” she asked, trying to sound less wary, and failing miserably.

Lucas’s tone was easy. “Let’s start with why you aren’t married to the man.”

“It’s … complicated,” Cecily said stiffly.

“I believe we have time,” Lucas said with a wryness that would have brought a smile to her lips if she weren’t so uncomfortable.