Love, Come to Me(74)

“I’ve heard that he is very, very strict—”

“He is. I remember that whenever we entered the ballroom, we would have to give him a waist-deep bow, while he stood over us with a fiddle bow raised in the air, like this . . . and if he wasn’t satisfied, he’d rap us across the shoulders.”

Lucy couldn’t help laughing at his rueful expression. “Poor Mr. Redmond. Did you get rapped often?”

“Every time.”

“You should have gone to your father and told him—”

“My father was a disciplinarian,” Damon said lightly, and grinned. “He would have rapped me for complaining.”

Suddenly filled with sympathy, Lucy did not answer his smile, and some unfathomable emotion flickered in Damon’s dark eyes. The tempo of the waltz increased, and the gloved tips of his fingers exerted more pressure on her back to accommodate the faster turns.

“Who is that woman you were talking with at the table?” Lucy asked.

“Alicia Redmond.”

“Redmond?”

“A distant cousin. Since I’m the only unmarried son left, the family has indicated to me that a match between us wouldn’t be a bad proposition. What do you think of the idea?”

“Terrible,” she said instantly, her decisiveness causing him to smile.

“Why?”

“I don’t think I should tell you. I’m not certain you take well to personal comments.”

“On the contrary, I do. It’s just that they’re so seldom made to me, I never have the opportunity to prove how well I receive them.”

“Well, then . . .” Lucy lowered her voice a few degrees. “I think you need a different type of woman than that. She doesn’t seem to be a very engaging person. Wouldn’t you prefer someone who’s more cheerful? She doesn’t seem to make you smile.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Damon replied thoughtfully. “But I’ve never been brought up to think that cheerfulness is a necessary quality in a wife. And it’s not really important for me to smile in order to fulfill my duties as—”

“Oh, but that’s not true!” Lucy said earnestly. “I insist that you marry someone who . . . who is natural and cheerful, and makes you laugh, and isn’t af . . .”

Damon grinned. “What were you going to say? Someone who isn’t afraid of me?”

She blushed. “I didn’t mean—”

“But whoever would be afraid of me?” he asked, gently mocking.

“You do have a way of . . . looking at people.”

“A way that makes them afraid?”

“Not exactly afraid . . . ,” Lucy said, and stopped as she saw that the laughter had left his eyes.

“Tell me,” he said. Suddenly it seemed as if he were asking her for help, for a secret that only she could tell him. Spellbound by the dark entreaty in his voice, she stared at him silently. “Please,” he added, very slowly, as if he were unaccustomed to using the word.

“The way you look at people—,” she murmured, “it makes them aware of their faults. It makes them think that . . . in order to impress you, they should be something other than themselves. But I don’t think you intend for them to feel that way.”

“No.” The light played over his raven hair as he shook his head.

“That is why you should wait for someone who isn’t afraid of you. It might be the only kind of woman that . . . that you’ll ever come to know completely. As a husband should know his wife.”

How strangely intimate and personal the conversation had become. Lucy felt her cheeks turning red, and she wondered if she had let her mouth run away from her.

“Thank you,” Damon said quietly. “I appreciate your honesty.”

The rest of the dance passed in silence, and it was only near the end that Lucy looked up and met his eyes again. “Mr. Redmond . . . I have one more personal remark to make.”

“Fire away.”

“I would prefer it if you called me Lucy when we are among friends. I know Heath wouldn’t mind.”

For just a second she saw a look in his eyes, a stricken look, yearning—no, was it . . . loneliness? Quickly it was concealed. “You are very kind to extend your friendship to me,” he said softly. “And I will accept it, if I may—with the hope that you will accept mine in return. But I would prefer not to use your given name.”

“As you wish,” Lucy said with a smile, unaware of how difficult it was to attain Damon Redmond’s friendship, and of how many had failed in their attempts to win it—unaware that once he had given such a pledge, he would honor it for a lifetime. For men like him, friendship was a more lasting bond than love. Lucy had no idea of how much she would need Damon’s friendship in the future.

Damon stayed conspicuously far away from her for the rest of the evening, but Lucy hardly noticed, for as soon as Heath regained possession of her, he demanded all of her attention. He swept her around the ballroom with such velvet smoothness that she was barely conscious of her toes touching the floor. When she danced with Heath, the music and the movement somehow turned into magic, and everything seemed to glitter. Their hands were separated by gloves, and yet she knew the warm clasp of his skin by heart. His eyes, the warm blue-green of a tropical sea, caressed her slowly, while his white teeth flashed often in a dazzling smile. Lost in giddy enchantment, Lucy did her best to tease him unmercifully, glancing at him through coyly lowered eyelashes and letting the full softness of her br**sts brush against his chest on the pretext of leaning closer to whisper to him.