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 looking outside of the carriage window, her eyes unfocused. Her thoughts were so absorbing, she barely registered the dark streets passing.
Next to her, her sister was looking out her own window. In front of them, their father was slowly falling asleep, his arm wrapped around his drowsy wife, whose head rested on his shoulder.
Maeve was still fuming at Lord Worthington for treating her the way he had. How could he be so charming, joking with her about a hired assassin, and then treating her like garbage, making her angrier than she had ever been? Oh, the man was a scoundrel! She wouldn't fall for his kind act again. Never.
"Who was that man?" Ailia asked, cutting short Maeve's thoughts. At the mention of a man, their parents both opened their eyes. Maeve looked at her twin and realized she was talking to her.
"What man?"
"The one you were with."
"You know him. It is John Delawney." As always when she was speaking to Ailia lately, Maeve's tone was cold, almost harsh. Her sister's betrayal still wasn't behind them. Her twin seemed rather used to it, though, as she wasn't intimidated by Maeve's frigid attitude.
"I know Delawney, I meant the tall one, dressed in dark tones."
Now, both their parents were sitting straight, very interested in the conversation. Maeve gave her sister an annoyed look. Really? She really wanted to do that here, in front of her parents?
"We were introduced to him three years ago, don't you remember? He is Delawney's friend. Lucian Thorne, Lord Worthington."
"Baron Worthington, of Bristol?" their father wondered. Maeve nodded. "I knew his late father."
"And you almost married his sister," their mother recalled, barely hiding her rancor.
"Love, it was nearly twenty years ago. Will you ever let it go?"
As her father tried to win over her jealous mother, Maeve turned to Ailia. "Did you really have to mention him in front of them?" she whispered harshly.
"It's not like I'm going to get another opportunity! You barely talk to me and you cannot bear to be in the same room as me! When will you let it go, Binak?"
"You have lost the right to call me like that!" 'Binak' meant 'twin' in their mother's tongue, Romani, and it was the nickname they had called each other their whole life. "You chose him over me. You betrayed me."
"It has been four months now! You are being childish. This is ridiculous." Furious, Ailia turned back to her window and Maeve did the same.
Their parents were reconciled, and her mother, not very subtly, asked, "So... What about this Lord Worthington?"
"There is nothing to talk about. He is a pompous idiot, like the rest of them."
"But, is he a good-looking pompous idiot?" her mother insisted, not discouraged.
