“Who said I do it like a hobby? I thought we discussed this before, and I told you that I don’t do that.”
“I still have to believe that.”
Not for the first time, Lucas cursed Lady Marcia for saying things to make Dorothy doubt him. He took a deep breath.
“What we have is strong, which surprised me. I didn’t expect that to happen. When you and I are together, I can feel something between us.”
“It’s probably indigestion,” Dorothy quipped.
“I’ll pretend I know how that makes sense. But, seriously, you and I didn’t have the most conventional of starts, and I regret behaving how I did. I also regret not asking to court you properly while we were at Lord and Lady Derbyshire’s home.”
Dorothy’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“I would have asked to court you in the proper manner, but there was never a time when I could ask you. And when we were … alone … let’s just say I was thinking with the wrong head.”
Dorothy’s cheeks went bright right. She really did look pretty when she blushed. Lucas wanted to reach for her, but he didn’t want her to pull away. Also, her mother was close by. Not something he wanted to be witnessed.
“Please, Dorothy, just give me a chance. Give me a month.”
“A month?”
“That should be enough to change your mind about me, shouldn’t it? I court you for a month, and I’ll do my best to change your opinion regarding me. If I can’t do it by this time next month, I’ll accept defeat and leave you alone.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” Lucas held up a hand. “I know I promised before that I would keep away from you, and I’ve already broken it. But this time, I mean it. It will kill me, if I’m honest, to leave you be when all I want is to be with you, but I’ll do whatever you want. You will have the choice of whether we carry on once our month is done. It’s up to you.”
Dorothy was staring at him like he had gone mad. Lucas waited, resisting the urge to squirm. God, he didn’t like it when he was teetering on edge, waiting for an answer. Surely, she had to know she was doing this to him. She had to be getting some satisfaction out of it.
“Alright.” Dorothy’s voice was quiet. “You have a month. But I don’t think I will waver on what I think.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Lucas smiled. “You won’t regret it.”
Dorothy’s eyebrow twitched.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Chapter 15
“Are you sure about this, Lucas?” Pierce asked again as Lucas watched the servants laying out the silverware on the table. “You do realise, even with a crowd, this is going to be very risky.”
“Of course I’m sure about this. Why would you think I wasn’t?”
“Well, even though you are publicly courting Lady Dorothy, if you get caught …”
Lucas sighed and patted Pierce’s shoulder.
“Don’t you worry about any of that. Let me worry about things.”
His friend didn’t look convinced. Lucas knew that Pierce believed he was playing with fire, especially with everyone watching him and Dorothy when they were together. If they sneaked off together and were caught …
Lucas didn’t believe they would be caught. He was confident that things would be fine. With everyone being so busy, nobody would notice that the host – him – and the woman he was meeting had snuck off for a bit of time alone.
God only knew he badly needed to do this. Seeing Dorothy and being unable to touch her as he wanted had been harder than Lucas anticipated. He should have been grateful that Dorothy agreed to be courted by him at all. After all, she had been very dubious about it. She had been softening to him over the last few weeks; that much was clear. Lucas could tell that his hard work to win her around was paying off.
However, it had all been in front of a chaperone, and that meant they could only touch at the arm if walking. They weren’t even allowed to hold hands while sitting. The one time Lucas tried to lean in for a kiss – something Dorothy had been coming in for on her side – her chaperone had coughed really loudly and given Lucas a disapproving look.