.
Justin was not surprised to find who the first person to join him for breakfast that morning was. When there was an entire world to bend into submission, one had to rise early.
“Good morning.” Lucy Ann strolled into the room and took her seat, saying nothing more after her greeting, but her eyes were watching Justin intently, just as they’d done the night before.
“Good morning,” he murmured against his coffee cup as he watched her reach for the tea that a footman poured.
To say that Lucy had been civil at dinner would be an understatement. Lucy Ann and Selina had both been kind, though he wasn’t sure whether that was because of something he’d done, Alexandra had done, or because Reuben had been a large dark presence that seemed to infuse the air with a warning of calm.
Justin also thought it could be because of the guards who had been stationed throughout the house. It occurred to him during the meal that he’d not asked his sisters how they felt about Alexandra being under the same roof, especially considering the danger she imposed.
He didn’t need their permission; he knew that just as they did. As the earl and their guardian, he could do as he pleased. He could fill the house with any number of individuals and not have to bat an eye at their discomfort, but he’d never been that way with him.
He’d never been that way with anyone, which he was sure Avon would say made him a weak man.
It almost thrilled him to disappoint the duke even when the man would never know.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
She sipped and closed her eyes and breathed in the brew. “Oh, I daresay that with all the guards not even nightmares could reach me.” She smiled as she took another sip.
Justin waited for a serious play but didn’t stop his lips from curving up. His sister would probably never change, but perhaps there was a chance she’d become friendlier.
Did he dare hope?
“How are things progressing with Ms. Smith?” she asked as she moved to the sideboard to retrieve food.
He stilled and wondered how a tiny girl could set his heart racing. It irritated him. Justin knew it had less to do with the fact that she was his sister and had the ability to drive him to insanity, and more to do with the fact that she reminded him of their mother.
She looked so much like Christine. The hair, the slim body, the perfect skin, and blue eyes that seemed to see more in a person than what one showed. The only difference was what he saw in those eyes. Lucy Ann didn’t have Christine’s vacant eyes, void of love or feeling. Even when his mother had been upset, her eyes had always seemed bare of true humanity.
He remembered the day she’d tripped him down those stairs. He’d landed on his back and after the way he’d hit his head, his vision had blurred, but up on the second floor, she'd loomed over him. When his eyes had finally focused, his heart had nearly choked him with fear.
She stood in the light from the large window, her golden hair bright and her skin glowing, but he was sure that deserts were less barren than his mother’s eyes.
I told you not to touch them, you dirty boy.
He’d listened after that and was nearly sure that escorting of his sisters to the park a few days ago was the first time he’d touched them in nearly a decade.
“Justin?”
He looked up and realized she was watching him intently. “Lady Emma will be over to see to her lessons,” he told her. He put down his cup and reached for his paper. “I’m sure she’ll be ready by the ball.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She grabbed her food and sat with the assistance of a footman. She reached for the butter once settled. “Are you going to marry her?”
Justin heard the crinkling of the paper and relaxed his hand around it. “Lucy Ann—”
His sister murmured something that made Justin go still.
“What?” he asked.
She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “You heard me.” She looked away. “I should have known better…” Her hands came to rest on the table as she continued to look straight ahead. “I was... “
Justin didn’t speak because he didn’t want to stop whatever was happening with his sister.
She’d apologized. That was what he’d heard whispered.
I’m sorry.
He’d never heard her say those words before. He didn’t know that Lucy Ann ever truly believed she did anything wrong or worth giving an apology for.
“When I saw you touching her, I…” She glared at him. “Why her? Why not me?”
He narrowed his eyes and moved uncomfortably in his chair. “What are you asking me?” He had to maneuver as bread flew past his head.
“I don’t mean I want you to touch me like that, you fool,” she hissed, her eyes wild. “If you ever did, I would gut you like a trout and that goes for any man whose touch I don’t welcome.”
It was clear that Lucy Ann would likely never need guards.
Thoughts of his mother returned, and he wondered what twisted things the woman had told them about him. Had she warned them about getting too close to their filthy brother, dirty not because of anything he’d done but simply because he was a boy. “Lucy Ann, I would never touch you and Selina that way.”
A look of disgust covered her face. “Of course, you wouldn’t, you idiot!” She looked at him with such contempt. “I already know that. Selina knows it as well. We never listened to a word that sick woman said.”
Justin’s eyes widened as he got his answer. His mother had warned them away from him. He’d always thought it, and in the past it had made it easy for him to avoid them, easy for him to send them away after his father’s death so that they wouldn’t get any ideas and seek his shoulders out to be cried on. He’d had no shoulders to give them at the time.
“Don’t you think I wanted to make you better?” Lucy Ann asked before looking away. “You never even held my hand.” She lifted her hand with that strangled word, each one coming out at a much deeper octave than the previous.
Justin braced himself for yet another thing he’d never seen Lucy Ann do.
Cry.
He swallowed as he stared at her, unsure of what was happening or of what to say. This conversation seemed to have been long overdue for them.
Lucy Ann pulled in a long and deep breath before settling within herself. He watched, fascinated, as she once again took control of herself. No tears fell, and when she looked at him, it was as though the storm that had been brewing a moment ago never happened. “You were never dirty in the way she implied. Of course, you’d come inside sometimes covered in earth, but Selina and I knew better than to listen to her.”
Justin knew he should say something, but for the life of him, he was beyond words. “I…”
She began to viciously spread butter on her toast, beating the poor slice into submission. “I didn’t want to like her, but it seems she’s fixed you, so I can’t very well hate her, can I?”
Justin thought her words very accurate. He’d been broken, and though he was not looking forward to all the hands he’d have to kiss and the dancing he’d have to participate in at the ball, he no longer felt the urge to run for his life.
“I hope you both have a pleasant evening,” Lucy Ann finished.
“I’m sure you and Selina will enjoy it as well, since I plan to escort you as well.”
Lucy Ann stared at him with wide eyes and then slowly smiled. “Really? You plan to take me and Selina to a ball?”
“And share a dance,” he told her, enjoying the way her face bloomed with vivid warmth.
Her smiled brightened and then she turned back to her food.
Justin added, “Of course, I’ll expect you and Selina not to hold Alex’s station against her and influence the ton not to accept her.”
Lucy Ann cut her eyes to him and her expression became hard. “Oh, they’ll accept her or I’ll break them.” Then she took a bite of her toast and that was that.
Justin used the paper to wipe the moisture from his hands, only slightly ashamed at how much Lucy Ann scared him.
He stood, walked over to her chair, and pulled it out.
“What are you—” Her words were cut off when Justin wrapped her in a tight embrace. His hands rested on her back and his head on hers.
He felt as though he’d grabbed hold of a pleasantly scented brick before her body relaxed and her arms went around him, holding him just as tightly as he held her.
He reached up and rubbed her hair. “Don’t gut me like a trout.”
He heard a sniff, but when he went to move, she wouldn’t let him.
Moments passed before Lucy Ann straightened and grinned, her eyes twinkling like blue crystals. “I’ll make sure those wealthy treasured souls of our distinguished class welcome Alexandra with open arms.”
“Excellent—”
“Or I’ll bury them.” She then smiled again before taking her seat once more.
Justin retreated to his seat but was laughing as he went.