The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(61)

“Does it surprise you that I went to university?” The hint of a smile played upon his distracting lips.

“No. No. No. Of course not.” But there was no going back. Her babbling denial was useless.

He arched a brow, telling her without a word that he thought she was protesting a bit too much. “There is much to learn from history books and the armies of the past. I wasn’t only trained as a soldier. I studied all the greats, Charlemagne, Hadrian, Genghis Khan.”

Lucy stared unblinking into the pool. She nodded slowly. It had been unfair of her, truly unfair, to believe he was merely a brute soldier, not a gentleman. She hadn’t known anything about him really. She’d judged him entirely on his status of not having been born into the aristocracy. She swallowed, unable to peel her gaze from the brownish stone of the floor of the bathhouse. The guilt was really beginning to compound today, wasn’t it?

“Cass should be here,” Lucy blurted out, thinking for some reason that inserting Cass back into the conversation was the right thing to do.

A frown marred his forehead for the barest hint of a second. “Do you think Lady Cassandra would like this?” He gestured to the temple walls, the pool.

“The ruins?” Lucy wrinkled her nose. “Not particularly. Cass is more interested in painting and playing the pianoforte than history or reading. Jane and I are the ones who adore things like this.”

“We’ll have to bring Jane with us next time then,” he said with a smile.

Lucy glanced away. Would there be a next time for them, coming here? That was an odd thought, wasn’t it? “I think Jane and Aunt Mary already visited the ruins. Though I’m certain Jane would be eager to return. She always prefers to learn as much as she can about everything.”

Derek strode around the room, his boots crunching along the gravel near the pool’s edge. “Are she and Upton courting?”

Lucy nearly tripped. Her laughter echoed off the great stone walls. “Garrett and Jane? They can barely tolerate each other. Though I do think much of it is for show. They sort of engage in a merry war of words and have for years. It all began when I brought Jane to the theater with me and she met Garrett for the first time. They both vehemently disagreed about the premise of the play we’d gone to see and it seems they have been continuing the argument ever since.”

Derek turned to face her, another smile on his lips. “What was the play?”

“Much Ado About Nothing.”

This time his laughter echoed off the walls. “That’s ironic.”

Lucy smothered her smile. “I suppose it is, isn’t it?”

“If they can barely tolerate each other, why did they come to the ruins together?”

Lucy shrugged. “Jane likes to pretend that Garrett needs to be educated in such things, and Garrett likes to tease Jane about being a pedantic bluestocking. It’s just their way. They actually enjoy each other’s company, I suspect, though neither of them would ever admit it.”

“And Cassandra and Julian? You said they’ve never indicated that they have feelings for each other?”

“Not that I know of. Cass has known Julian since she was a girl. He’s distantly related to her cousin. Penelope’s parents and Julian’s parents have had their betrothal planned for years. Cass had a schoolgirl infatuation with him that she never outgrew. Then Julian went off to the army and she hasn’t seen him in … probably seven years. She’s written to him every day, far more than Penelope ever has.”

“Yes, Swift mentioned her letters. They kept him sane, I believe.”

Lucy searched Derek’s face. “Did Julian ever mention that he had deeper feelings for Cass?”

Derek scuffed at the stone floor with his boot. “I’ve thought about that a lot over the last few days. I don’t remember him indicating anything other than she was the cousin of his soon-to-be betrothed and a good friend to him. If I’d thought he loved her, I never would have promised to marry her.”

Lucy glanced away. “Even though he was dying.”

“It would have been quite awkward,” Derek said.

“But now you feel … obligated?”

He nodded.

Lucy swallowed the lump in her throat and twined her fingers together. “Cass has been so worried about him. So frightened. Her worst fears came true when she learned he’d been gravely injured.”

Derek braced his foot against a large rock on the side of the pool. “I wish I could have stayed with him. Until”—his voice nearly cracked—“the end.”

Lucy nodded solemnly. She walked over to Derek and put her hand on his sleeve. “I’m certain you did everything you could.”

He clenched his fist. “The surgeons told me there was nothing I could do, and my orders were to return to London immediately to debrief the War Office about my involvement in the battle.”

“Julian must have known you couldn’t stay.”

Derek’s face was grim. He cursed under his breath. “War is hell.”

Lucy bit her lip and pulled her hand away from his sleeve. The quiet of the room, the pool, the words they’d just shared. She had to say something probably neither of them wanted to think about. “Derek, when Cass gets better, what shall we do?”

Silently, Derek pulled out the pouch again, extracted a coin, and tossed it into the pool.