Pet. That’s how he’d always thought of her. Despite missing his wry company, she was glad to be out from under Lucien’s thumb.
Lucien grunted in apparent amusement over her pointed silence, but made no further comment on the sticky subject of Jack Talent. “Physically you are well, but are you happy, love?” He had been gracious about letting her go, but his tone implied that he second-guessed the move.
To her horror, tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away, but the damage was done. He’d seen. “Mary?”
“I have not been happy for some time, Lucien.” She forced a smile, though it hurt to do it. “Do you want to hear the strangest bit?”
“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes searching her face as though he was seeing her anew.
“Until last night, I was closer to happy than I’d been in years.” A little laugh broke from her.
Her old friend grimaced, his hand going to his chest to rub it absently. He was silent for a long moment before he sighed, a real one, not the dramatic bit of nonsense he used to convey his displeasure or boredom. Tired eyes stared back at Mary. “I know what he did, pet.”
Slowly, Mary turned to fully face him. “How?”
“There isn’t much I do not know about my own people, chère.”
“Do not hedge with me, Lucien. Why are you telling me this now?”
To his credit he did not shy away from her. “That day on the barge when you first met Talent, I followed him and threatened to expose his prior involvement with the Nex to Ian if he didn’t make certain to stay away from you.”
Wind knocked from her soul, Mary slumped against the high back of a chair. “He never said.”
“No. But it is the truth.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“I was jealous.”
“Pardon?” She hadn’t heard him correctly. Surely.
Lucien visibly winced. “I saw the way you looked at each other. He wanted you.” His green gaze turned soft, sad. “And you wanted him.”
A hard lump filled Mary’s throat, and she looked away. That day. She remembered it with knife-sharp clarity. And it hurt. “I thought…” She grimaced, not wanting to say the words. “He seemed different, sweet.” A half-laugh broke from her. The very idea of Talent being sweet. “But I was wrong. Talent spent the good part of four years looking down his nose at me as if I were river scum.”
“Because I walked in that room and deliberately made him think you were my plaything,” Lucien said in a low, rasping voice. He wouldn’t look at her now.
“Lucien…” She cleared her throat, but that only made it ache more. “I never resented acting the part of your lover.” He’d given her a new life and protected her in so many ways that she had wanted to do the same for him. Lucien’s machinations had never truly hurt her because they’d both known precisely what they were doing.
Frowning, Lucien shook his head. “It was one thing to play that part when we were working, but that was not why I did so then. And deep down you know it. Admit it, you resent me now because of it.”
She did. Mary closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Oh, God, she did. She’d wanted to kill Lucien that day. And she’d wanted to kill Jack Talent for believing the worst of her every day since.
Lucien studied her face and sighed again. “Ah, mon amour, I did you such a wrong.” His booted feet hit the floor with a thunk as he rested his arms upon the table. “I do not think I realized how great until just now.”
He looked up at her, his jade eyes imploring. “I knew he would take you from me. And I would be alone. I ought to have let him, chère. You deserved happiness, something real. I’m so very sorry for that, Mary. I miscalculated. Badly.”
Emotion welled up within Mary, and she quelled it with a vicious clench of her jaw. “You berate yourself too harshly. Did you give him instruction as to how he ought to treat me?”
“Well, no—”
“I did not think you did.” Mary picked up a silver spoon, not knowing what she was doing, only that her hands shook. “And now he says that he needs me, doesn’t want to let me go.” She laughed. “Can you imagine?”
“Yes.”
The spoon landed with a loud clang. “I confess, I am a novice to love, but I cannot believe one should feel this…” She punched her chest, where the deep ache would not go away. “This agony. Should one?”
“Ah, mon amie, you are asking the wrong man. The brief glimpse I’ve had of love was a vision of pure hell.”
Mary winced, sorry that she’d broken open that tender subject. But she could not refrain from adding, “The only thing I know for certain is that, until I allowed him certain liberties, he was content to treat me with scorn.” Until she said the words, she hadn’t fully realized how much it burned her pride. And how angry she was at Jack.