Free Pride & Passion by Charlotte Featherstone

that they had drawn their respective lines in the sand. Lucy found herself wondering if the duke ever thought of that afternoon, and what he had discovered of her past. No doubt it riled his sense of propriety and surely he now found her lacking and utterly unsuitable in the role of his duchess.
    There was relief in that thought. Now if only her father would accept the fact that his grace would no longer be calling upon them.
    “For heaven’s sake, Sussex. Take your sweets and go along with you,” Elizabeth muttered, which made Sussex grin. And that grin…what it did to his normally somber face. Lucy found herself blinking in surprise, and…no, not wonder. She would never admire his grace in that fashion. Yes, he was tall, dark and very handsome. But there wasn’t anything about the duke that tempted her. He was rigid and controlled, stuffy and proper. Aloof and cool, which only made her realize how very much like her father he was. And that sortof man was the furthest kind she desired. She craved warmth, and emotional intimacy. Never would she marry the sort of a man her father was. Her mother may have chosen her cold, polite matrimonial bed, but Lucy would not endure the same in her marriage.
    From across the tea table, the duke studied her, and Lucy suffered beneath that heavy, watchful stare. How he looked at her…there was something vaguely familiar about that stare, but of course she was being fanciful. His were not the eyes she had seen in her vision when she visited the Scottish Witch. She was sure of it.
    “Are you quite finished pillaging our tea tray, Adrian?” Lizzy demanded. “We have a pressing matter of business yet to discuss.”
    “Dear me, Lizzy, your mood has turned sour since I left. What has transpired to make you so irritable?”
    “How can you be so obtuse, brother? Your arrival has put a damper on our conversation.”
    His dark brows rose in question, causing a scar that bisected the left one to be more noticeable. “What then were you discussing when I arrived that I might not listen to now?”
    “Nothing that need concern you,” Elizabeth muttered.
    “Ah, gossip, then,” he said then focused his attention on Lucy. “Do you enjoy it?”
    “Enjoy what, your grace?”
    He didn’t blink, but kept his cool, steady gaze upon her. His mouth was set in a grim, disapproving line. “Gossip, Lady Lucy. Do you enjoy indulging in such pastimes as spreading tales about others?”
    The censure with which he had asked his questiondid not dissuade her from answering. “You would be hard-pressed to find a tea table devoid of gossip.”
    “But it is not others I am inquiring about. I am asking about you. Do you , Lady Lucy, enjoy gossip?”
    She met his gaze head-on, refusing to be intimidated by his blatant reproof. Obviously he held himself above the lesser mortals who found tittle-tattle a tempting sin. Such a virtue he was! Lucy could not admit that she was of a like mind. She had found gossip much too helpful to disregard it altogether.
    “Well?” he asked again.
    “I, like so many people, find it vastly amusing, your grace.”
    Cocking his head, he studied her through narrowed eyes as though she were a new species of beetle stuck to a felt board by a stickpin. “I don’t think you do. You merely partake of it because it is an expected requirement at such gatherings, as well of your station. Your heart, I think, is never fully in it.”
    She flushed, but forced herself to stay steady and still. “I wonder why you asked then, in the first place?”
    “I am merely trying to make out your personality, Lady Lucy. There are so many sides to it, one wonders who you truly are. Or indeed, if you know who you are.”
    “Your grace, you are too bold.”
    “Insufferable, isn’t he?” Elizabeth said as she glared to where Sussex sat next to her on the settee. “Very bad manners, Sussex.”
    “Apologies. It is just that I cannot imagine that you take joy in laughing at another’s expense. To