Despite the unshakable attraction between them, Maeve and Lucian are uninterested in love and marriage; especially since they hate one another and couldn't think of a worse match.
• • •
London, 1815
Maeve Langston's aversion to the opposite sex has...
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Lucian paced the length of the small treehouse yet again. When he reached the lamp oil, he used its warm glow to check on his pocket watch, as he'd done nearly every minute since he'd arrived. It was twenty minutes past midnight. She isn't coming, he told himself.
Frustrated, he passed a hand over his face. Had he not been so impatient to see her, so eager to tell her the truth, he probably would have collapsed from fatigue. Especially since a corner of the perched cabin was full of covers, cushions, and pillows, like a tempting nest that beckoned him to lie down. Ever since his meeting with the Irishman, he'd been on his way to Langston manor. Had Minerva been able to withstand a faster pace, he might have made it in two days, rather than three and a half. But even at a more reasonable pace, the two hundred miles had exhausted him.
After some rest at the inn in the village nearby, he'd decided to come to the manor, hoping he could negotiate an audience with Maeve or one of her parents, aware it might not be granted. He'd been lost in his thoughts, trying to think of a way to secure the discussion he needed to have with her, when she'd suddenly materialized next to him, like a miracle.
Seeing her had unleashed a plethora of elated feelings in him, making him feel alive for the first time in weeks. But the horror on her face and the way she'd so swiftly tried to escape him had brought him back to reality. She still despised him, unaware that he hadn't betrayed her in the end.
He wasn't sure why he'd thought demanding the hour she owed him would work. At that moment, he'd been high on the race, on the vision she'd offered, and it was all he'd been able to come up with. But why would she respect the forfeit? The events that had occurred since their moment in Hyde Park trumped the bet ten times over.
With a long sigh, he paced the room once more. A crack came from the outside, but he ignored it. Ever since he'd arrived over an hour ago, the night had produced dozens of sounds out there, but none of them had been her. Leaning on the windows, he'd sought her silhouette in the night, to no avail. The moon was nearly full tonight, and while the treehouse wasn't very high, it still offered good visibility around. Had she been on her way to him, he'd have seen her.
Well, if she wasn't coming, he'd have to visit the manor and display the little diplomacy he had in him to get an audience like he'd originally wanted. And if none of them accepted to see him, he'd shout the truth from outside, over and over again, until she heard. Until she knew he hadn't compromised her secrets, he hadn't ruined everything after all.
When another cracking sound echoed, different from the ones he'd heard tonight, he turned to its origin inside the cabin. The oil lamp he'd brought with him lightened the place well, so he instantly saw when a head full of long dark hair appeared through the trapdoor. His heart pounded with intensity as he watched the back of Maeve's elegant silhouette carefully climbing the wooden ladder that led to the rudimentary hut.
Her silky hair was arranged into a thick braid that rested on her shoulder, as it always was when she slept. Her slender figure was covered by a light blue dressing gown, and when her feet reached his sight, he noticed the slippers she was wearing. Coming all the way here in those must have been quite uncomfortable.
