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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Maeve was slowly walking to her room in their London terrasse, and as she passed the library, she saw a ray of light under the door. She opened it, curious to see who was still up at this late hour. She smiled when she saw her father, the prestigious Duke of Leeds, half lying on the couch, reading the papers, a glass of whisky on the table next to him.
When he saw her, he quickly removed his reading glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his waistcoat. She smiled and his reluctance to be seen as an old man. He had recently turned fifty, and he was still not accepting the fact he was already half a century old.
She looked at him and had to agree the man didn't look his age. Apart from the white strands at his temples, barely distinguishable in his blond hair, and the lines that had deepened in the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, professing a life filled with laughter, her father was the same as the day she'd met him.
He still had a good figure and had barely thickened up. The duke remained the dashing he'd been in his youth, and very much to her mother's taste, it seemed. With a wave of tenderness spreading through her heart, she looked at his cold blue eyes, so much like hers.
If anyone had been the slightest bit observant, they would have noticed how the two adoptive daughters of the Duke of Leeds, his wards, looked strangely like him — the color of their eyes, their strong jaws, and their tall frames. The simple explanation was they were, in fact, his natural daughters.
Her parents had been through a disastrous beginning, but from the moment they had gotten married, after being separated for nearly six years, everything had been perfect. However, with two daughters born out of the sacred bonds of marriage, they had preferred to hide it. For almost twenty years now, they had pretended that Amalia, their mother, had been a Spanish widow, with two orphaned daughters in her charge.
The whole thing seemed a bit excessive now, but it had been the best way to shelter everyone at the time. It was an actual miracle the secret had never been revealed.
Moving further into the room, Maeve went to her father.
"Evening, Papa," she said, sitting next to him. He put his paper down and opened his arms instead. She gladly accepted the invitation and laid down, her head on his chest as he closed his arms around her to hug her.
"How was it, darling?" he asked.
"Boring. I cannot wait for this nonsense to be over with, I can't bear all those balls and receptions."
When she and her sister had told their parents that they never wanted to marry and spend the rest of their lives together, the duke and the duchess had agreed. Although, to save the appearances, they had set a condition. Maeve and her sister would have to endure six Seasons, with one social outing per week. This had been her weekly chore, and she now had seven days of freedom before her.
"You still want to go live in Dorset?" She could feel that he tensed imperceptibly under her, so his detached tone didn't fool her. Despite Ailia's change of heart, Maeve was stubborn, and she wanted to believe she could still carry on with her dreams of freedom. Even alone, she knew she would be quite happy in that house by the sea.
