The Tempting of Thomas Carrick by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page A

will.”
    Thomas knew she would, but… Jaw setting, he forced himself to nod. Clan trumped personal considerations. “Very well. If I could speak with her?”
    “Ah.” The butler grimaced. “She’s at the grove at the moment, but she should return very soon.”
    Having swallowed the necessity of having to appeal to Lucilla herself—of having to meet with her, look into her eyes, and hear her voice again—Thomas wasn’t inclined to further delay. “The grove?”
    “The sacred grove.” The butler waved to the north. “Where she prays to the Lady. Mr. Marcus is with her.”
    Looking in the direction the butler had indicated—on the way back to Carrick lands as the crows flew—Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Where exactly is this grove?”

CHAPTER 3

    Lucilla had finished her devotions.
    The ancient trees of the grove—a dense mix of beech, spruce, fir, and birch—ringed the small clearing, enclosing her in a living shell of shifting green. Branches extended overhead, tips entwining to create an arched ceiling, cocooning all within from the wind—in effect, from the world.
    Opening her eyes, she softly exhaled. Part prayer, part meditation, part simply communing with the land around her—and with the deity that claimed it as Her own—the quiet moments, as always, left her feeling anchored, more assured. More connected with the flow of life and with her own destiny, her own thread among the myriad strands.
    Moving slowly, ceremonially, she rocked back from the rectangular stone of the rustic altar before which she’d been kneeling; originally rough-hewn, but now worn smooth by the centuries, the unadorned rock was more symbol and practical support than anything else.
    She rose, feeling the skirts of her riding habit shift about her legs, and paused. Fingertips lightly brushing the smooth stone, for just one moment more she resisted the tug of the world beyond the grove; she knew what frustration awaited her there, yet it wasn’t something she could avoid.
    Avoiding life wasn’t in her lexicon, much less in her stars.
    Surrendering to the inevitable, she relaxed the meditative leash she’d imposed on her mind and allowed it to return—not to her duties in the Vale, to the role she filled, the tasks she confidently and capably performed, but to its abiding obsession. To brooding over her preordained fate, and when said fate would come to claim her.
    She’d been waiting for the past ten years.
    Along with her cousin Prudence and their best friend, Antonia Rawlings, she’d been presented to the ton nine years ago. As she’d fully expected, not one gentleman, eligible or otherwise, had caught her eye. But then she’d already known that her future did not lie south of the border but here, on the Lady’s lands.
    The man she was fated to marry was here, too—occasionally. She’d assumed that, over time, he would find his way to her side. Over the past decade, they’d met several times, and every time the connection—real, intense, and undeniable—had flared, growing stronger, more compelling, with each repeated exposure. And he knew it; he was as susceptible to that irresistible force, as governed by it, as she.
    She’d schooled herself to patience, even though patience was not one of her primary virtues.
    And waited.
    Impatience was dangerous; it fed a reckless, willful part of her she had long ago learned to keep restrained.
    She’d continued to wait.
    Recently, she’d started wondering if waiting was her correct path—or whether, perhaps, she was supposed to act, to do something to initiate their inevitable union. While acting would certainly suit her temperament significantly more than passively waiting, every time she asked the question of the universe—of the Lady—the answer came back a resounding “no.”
    Wait. She was supposed to wait for him to come to her.
    If he didn’t hurry up, she would be in no good mood when he eventually got around to approaching her.
    They’d last met at the