One Week as Lovers Read Online Free PDF Page B

never been there before.
    She’d been so absorbed in his face that she hadn’t noticed the conversation he was having with Mrs. Pell. The housekeeper was pale and nodding as Nicholas whispered, “I had no idea.”
    Cynthia hadn’t worried overmuch about her family’s response to her supposed death, but seeing the sorrow and concern on Nicholas’s face made her realize how self-centered she’d been. She wasn’t particularly close to her mother or sister—and certainly not to her stepfather—but she realized now that her mother must be heartbroken and her sister frightened and sad. But the outcome would’ve been no different if Cynthia had been given over to Lord Richmond: her family would never have seen her again and she’d likely have turned up dead soon enough. She certainly would’ve wished for it.
    Selfish she might be, but she was alive and relatively unscathed.
    As Nicholas stared at the floor and listened to something Mrs. Pell was saying, Cynthia began to realize that perhaps the frown lines weren’t the only change in him. He was certainly larger than he had been ten years before. Taller and wider and altogether more male. And his voice was far deeper and touched with a certain roughness it hadn’t had before.
    His hair was far shorter than he’d ever kept it, cut close along his nape where once there had been careless curls.
    And he looked…weary. But perhaps that was only the travel.
    Cynthia eased the panel fully closed and made her way blindly toward the narrow staircase along the back wall. She touched her tongue against the ridge of the scar that marred her bottom lip, remembering the feel of a wet mouth sucking at her, of sharp teeth breaking through the skin when she tried to pull free. That monster had liked that, really liked it, giving Cynthia her final glimpse of the madness lurking beneath her fiancé’s distinguished façade.
    The tiny bit of guilt that had started blooming inside of her withered. She couldn’t feel bad over a viscount’s sleepless nights. She couldn’t feel bad over her mother’s grief. Her very life was on the line, and no one had seen fit to worry over that. She was on her own.
    Setting aside her guilt, Cynthia put one hand against the wall and raced up the steps as quietly as she could to plan tonight’s excursions.
     
    Lancaster’s neck wouldn’t stop its aching, despite the three glasses of brandy he’d downed in quick succession. He shifted against the kitchen wall, crossed his left boot over his right and stared down at the empty tumbler.
    He understood what had happened to Cynthia now, or at least the bare bones of it, but there was so much he didn’t know. He needed to know, needed to know everything.
    His life was spent gathering information and formulating the correct response. Plucking every bit of knowledge he could glean in order to survive. He’d perfected this technique upon his family’s move to London. Not only had he never received an education like most boys of his standing—boarding school and all the fraternal bonding that went along with it—his life had been in complete disarray in those first months. So he’d watched and learned and carved out a place for himself among the ton by analyzing every situation he was thrust into.
    But this wasn’t a matter of social survival. This was life and death and all the suffering in between.
    Running a hand through his hair, Lancaster glanced up to find one of the new maids standing there. She nodded timidly toward the glass.
    Lancaster smiled at her pale face, trying to relax her into a state calmer than terror. “Lizzy, is it?”
    “Mary, sir.”
    “Ah, Mary. I apologize. Lizzy is your sister then?” Two of them had arrived shortly after Lancaster had pasted himself to the kitchen wall.
    “Yes, sir.” Her voice was only slightly above a whisper, but her knuckles weren’t quite so white against her skirt.
    “Well, Mary, thank you for coming to Mrs. Pell’s aid. Seems it takes a