Loving Lucy Read online

  She was startled enough to stare directly at him, the polite smile fallen away. “You had no right.”

  He met her stare, his blue eyes grave. “I have some right. I’m the head of the family, and I have always been your friend. Mr. Chumleigh had them completed. He’s your legal guardian, is he not?”

  “No.” she denied vehemently. “He’s my trustee. I’m four and twenty, I have no guardian.”

  He smiled thinly. “I beg your pardon. Trustee, of course. Then he has completed the enquiries to safeguard your fortune.”

  “And has he found anything?”

  “I’d rather not say here and now. It’s not the place, and I haven’t the papers with me. If you could favour me with another call to my house?”

  “I’ll talk to my mother,” she informed him. Even if he was a relation, she shouldn’t have consented to come here with him, she realised.

  “No. Just you. If you are old enough to make your own decisions, come on your own.”

  “I couldn’t possibly come on my own.” Lucy felt outraged. “The proprieties.”

  “Bring your aunt. I’d like to talk to you without your mother’s constant presence.”

  “Why? She has every consideration for me.”

  “That’s the trouble.” His voice was wry. “Her opinions seem to be of paramount concern to you. I want to see if you can still think for yourself.”

  “Of course I can.” she protested indignantly.

  “I hope so. You always used to. Lucy, I don’t want to be at outs with you. Before your father died we were good enough friends, were we not?”

  She thought back to that time, and remembered a charming and fun loving playmate, one she had seen every summer. “Yes, we were. What happened, Philip?”

  He turned away to rest his arm on the mantelpiece, and stroked his chin with one finger. “Bernard thought your father’s suggestion that he marry you was a good one, but when you refused, he became bitter.” He turned back to her, bleakness filling his expressive eyes. “I never meant for it to happen, but I was the younger brother, and it was none of my business. Bernard took it personally, and signed up.”

  “Did he love me? He never said so.”

  Philip laughed, but it sounded more like a choke. “No, he didn’t. He liked you, and the match appealed to his sense of neatness. He would have the fortune, and the earldom. But you would have had to share him, Lucy, and I don’t think you would have liked that.”

  She stared at him, eyes wide and reached one white gloved hand out to him. He caught it in his, and kept it. She made no effort to take it back. “No, I wouldn’t have liked that.”

  “We were very different, Bernard and I, but he was my brother, and he died a hero.”

  “You used to rescue me when we were little. He thought it amusing to torment me.”

  He smiled. “Yes. He didn’t realise he was tormenting you, playing the tricks he did. He didn’t do it to torment you.” He caressed her palm with his thumb, enjoying the closeness. He hadn’t been this close to her in years. “Bernard was bored. He thought being an earl would be more fun than it turned out to be, once your father began to instruct him in his duties. He wasn’t deeply intelligent, and the practicalities of the position drove him demented.”

  “I don’t think he would have made a very good earl,” she ventured, her voice soft.

  He laughed. “I’m damned sure he wouldn’t. I think he would have tried to appoint me his agent, so that he could spend the money and I do all the work.” He paused, biting his lip. “I shouldn’t speak ill of him. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t cut out for it. He made a good soldier.” When he dropped his gaze Lucy moved closer to him, feeling instinctively that she wanted to hold him, comfort him. He must have been very alone when Bernard died. His parents had been dead for years before that. “I wanted to come and see you when he died, but Mama wouldn’t permit it. Bernard’s proposal had given her a disgust of your family.”

  He looked up at her, fixing her with his gaze. She couldn’t have moved if she’d tried to. “Thank you. I wanted to see you, too, but I knew it was impossible.”

  “I would come now. If it happened now I would come. I was younger then, and not as confident.”

  Neither of them quite knew how it happened but Lucy found herself in his arms, and still under a spell she couldn’t deny. It felt right, and when he pressed his lips to hers she welcomed it.

  They had never kissed before. It felt to Lucy as though she had never kissed anyone before. Everything disappeared in a wonderful melting, a union she had never felt the like of. His hands moved gently over her back, urging her closer, to feel the full length of his masculine hardness.

  Lucy found herself moving closer, feeling safer than she had ever felt, but at the same time thrilling to his touch, wanting more. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, coaxing a response from her. She caressed it with her own, pushed her hands under his evening coat.

  He drew away, but only to murmur her name and kiss her jaw.

  “No.” With a jolt as startling as a lightening bolt, Lucy came to herself. How could she do this? How could she let herself be inveigled this way? “You’re two of a kind, you and Bernard. You want my fortune too, don’t you? Not me, never me.” In tears she whirled away, heading for the door, but he came up behind her and seized her arm. In his eyes she thought she saw an echo of her own bewilderment and confusion. He also bore a spark she recognised immediately as anger, and didn’t know why. Surely is was she who should have been angry?

  “No. I’ll go. You can’t let anyone see you like this.” He moved in front of her and turned to face her, his face contrite, but still with that spark lurking in the depths of his eyes. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I never meant that to happen.”

  Before she could say anything he left her. Lucy gave herself a few moments to still her pounding heart and stop her hands from shaking before she returned.

  Lady Royston looked at her daughter suspiciously when she entered the ballroom, to all intents and purposes, perfectly in control of herself. “Where have you been?”

  “Talking with Royston.”

  Her fiance, standing by her ladyship’s side. “Did he insult you?”

  “No, of course not. He said he wanted to see me privately to discuss family affairs.”

  “I don’t think we have anything more to discuss,” her mother said, frostily.

  “He wanted me to go alone. Without you, Mama,” Lucy told the older lady. She took some pleasure in antagonising her mother even further. She didn’t want to confront Philip again, not as closely. What she had just experienced wasn’t something she felt sure about at all. She knew that she had been out of control for a few minutes, and suspected that Philip might have felt the same. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Lady Royston was beside herself with fury, but to look at her, one would think she was having a wonderful time. Only Lucy saw the tightening of her smile, the narrowing of her eyes. “To compromise you, to persuade you against marrying Sir Geoffrey?” she asked. “You won’t go.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No,” Lucy assured her.

  “You’re a good girl.” her mother said a little more warmly, and Lucy sighed in relief. Only Aunt Honoria looked after Lord Royston, speculation in her soft grey eyes.

  ***

  The next day Geoffrey came to take Lucy for a drive in the park. He arrived in a smart curricle driven by two match bays. High steppers designed for show, an extravagant demonstration of wealth and fashion, since they were no use for actual travel. He admired her smart green pelisse and high crowned hat with striped ribbons and dyed green feathers. “A lovely picture,” he told her.

  In high spirits, she let him hand her up to the curricle, glancing back at the tiger in the seat behind, sitting grimly with arms folded high on his chest. Geoffrey smiled, went round to take his seat next to her, and looped the reins.

  The drive to the park was accomplished quickly and once at the gates, Sir Geoffrey dismissed
his tiger. “Give us half an hour. We’ll pick you up here on our way out.” The man was left to kick his heels by the gate.

  “Why Geoffrey, that isn’t very handsome of you.” She smiled archly at him.

  He glanced at her before turning his attention back to his frisky steeds. “Why not? It gives him half an hour to himself and allows us to talk properly. I couldn’t have him sitting there listening to us for half an hour. To be truthful, I intend to dispense with him as soon as I can discover someone else to replace him. He’s been gossiping, letting out far more than he has any right to.”

  “Oh?” She looked up at him, puzzled.

  He glanced at her face and laughed. “Oh nothing incriminating, I assure you. Only more than I would like, that’s all.”

  She nodded in understanding and gazed around her.

  This was the fashionable hour to be seen in the Park, either to stroll in one’s best walking dress or to ride, on horseback or in a light carriage. Sir Geoffrey’s curricle was a smart vehicle, and Lucy was delighted to be seen in it, but he didn’t aspire to the high-perch phaetons sported by the most dashing and daring drivers. Lucy watched one pass them, the driver too busy to acknowledge them by more than a touch to his high crowned hat. He gripped the reins with more than necessary fervour, as though they might save him if he was pitched head-first between his horses below. She giggled. “Sir Geoffrey looked at her in surprise. “ Really, he looks most ridiculous,” she said. “It’s all very well for the whips and the bucks to affect such a rig, but poor Sir Anthony hasn’t the least idea how to go on.”

  Sir Geoffrey frowned. “But he is trying very hard to master it, and I think it a little unkind of you to laugh.”

  She looked at him; surprised he didn’t see the comical nature of the young man’s predicament. In fact, she had decided to share the joke with Sir Anthony when she saw him next, perhaps tease him a little. She knew he would see the funny side; he never stood on ceremony with her.

  She said none of this, however, but “Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” he said reluctantly, and then, “Yes.”

  “Do tell me.”

  He glanced at her face, now etched with anxiety, the lips in a firm, straight line, and a small frown between the delicate, black brows. “Royston took you aside the other night.”

  “Oh Lord.” Her comment was comical, but he took it seriously.

  “Yes; ‘oh Lord’ indeed.” He glanced at her again, his face stern. “It was not well done of you, Lucy. I’m only relieved no one else saw you.”

  “Philip is my cousin.”

  “Distantly. I expect my wife to have a little more propriety than you have shown.”

  Lucy was appalled. He might be within his rights to demand her obedience to his wishes, but she wished he would trust her more. After all, she had known Philip all her life and whatever else he might be, he was not a philanderer. Not, she remembered with a guilty flush, that he didn’t have reason not to trust her. It was this guilty remembrance that led her to accept his subsequent scold meekly. She flushed, and stared down at her hands clasped in her lap.

  “You will never see Royston or any other man alone again,” he told her, his concentration seemingly on the track before them. “I want my wife to be above reproach. You will need my permission before you leave the house, and I expect to know where you are at all times.” He turned at her wordless expostulation, eyebrows arched in surprise.

  “It is a little severe, isn’t it?” she asked mildly, lifting her eyes to his face.

  He frowned and turned his attention back to his horses. “Not at all, my dear. I want to protect you, ensure you’re above suspicion. So many women these days look on marriage as an excuse for license. I am persuaded you would not want that?”

  “N-no, of course not.”

  He flashed a smile at her, devastingly charming. “I was convinced of it. And I wish to protect you.” His voice softened. “I never want that incident outside my lodgings to happen again. I could not endure it.”

  “It could happen to anyone,” she murmured, eyes once again on her gloved hands.

  “No, my dear. That attack was aimed at you, I’m sure of it.”

  “What?”

  “Take care,” he reminded her. She immediately controlled her expression, aware that in this most public place undue emotion was an immediate cause for remark. “I think you may have been attacked on purpose.”

  Lucy’s head spun. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Royston,” he said calmly.

  “No. Philip would never do that.”

  The remark had been unwise. His lip curled. “Philip is it? You will kindly remember that he is no friend to us and refer to him by his title. I have every conviction that he would do it. You are an innocent, my dearest Lucy, and it seems I will have to save you from yourself. You know your Mama entertains the deepest suspicions of the man. That should be enough to persuade you to obey my wishes.”

  Lucy began to feel cowed, an emotion she was not used to and disliked intensely. Perhaps she had made a mistake. The thought shot through her mind, but she instantly dismissed it.

  “We must be careful. Promise me you won’t go out on your own again.”

  “I promise.” She hardly knew what she was saying.

  He smiled and glanced at her face. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” He paused while he negotiated a corner. “It isn’t something I’d like my wife to do; walk around the town on her own. And you must not visit him. With or without your mother, you must keep away.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have a man - a very useful man in a tight corner. I’ll send him to you. Whenever you go out, use him as your footman. He’ll be of more use than that youth I saw with you the other day. His name’s Greene - he’ll keep close and make sure you come to no harm.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. She stared ahead of her dumbly.

  “We need only be careful for the next six weeks. Then you may have Greene to look after you for good - and me.”

  Chapter Seven

  When she got home, she told her mother and her aunt what Sir Geoffrey had told her. “He’s sending a man to me - someone called Greene, who will be my personal footman.” She noticed a thoughtful look in her aunt’s eye and frowned at her quizzically. “Aunt?”

  “I was only thinking,” said her aunt. “That we only have his say-so. Were there any other witnesses?”

  “None have come forward,” Lady Royston replied, “But that’s beside the point, Honoria. We know Lord Royston must be getting anxious, seeing Lucy’s fortune go away from him forever. An easy address doesn’t account for anything.” Irritably, she flicked her heavy shawl about her shoulders, and her companion hastened to help, disposing the folds snugly, but becomingly.

  Aunt Honoria disposed of, Lady Royston turned back to her daughter. “It is a blessing that he knows of such a person. And he is quite right - you must not be as free as you usually are. You cannot leave this house without several attendants, and I would prefer it if you took a carriage instead of walking. We must think first of your safety, my dear, and only then of your freedom.” She paused and then another thought occurred to her. “But we must not let him know we suspect him. It may be hard, but we must continue as we always have. Dance with him if you have to, talk to him, don’t let him see our concern. He might increase his efforts to harm you if he thought that we knew.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said her daughter dutifully. She clasped her hands in her lap and thought miserably of the next few weeks. It would mope her dreadfully to be so carefully watched, but she supposed it had to be done. Geoffrey’s promises to keep her safe were daunting and assuring at the same time. Surely it proved that he loved her? However she couldn’t help thinking that his accusations against Philip were little short of ridiculous. She still believed footpads attacked her that day. “Don’t worry,” said Lady Royston in a kinder tone, though this was only relative. “You will have plenty to keep you busy. A t
rousseau to order, think of that.” she waited for Lucy’s smile and she wasn’t disappointed. It was a watery effort, but it was there. “We’ll start tomorrow. In fact, the sooner the better.”

  Chapter Eight

  It proved very difficult to find a uniform to fit the great, hulking giant Sir Geoffrey sent, but at last, at the back of some cupboard, a livery of nearly the right size was found. Lucy consoled herself that this person wouldn’t be following her around for too long; when she was married she could dispense with his services.

  Sir Geoffrey early dispelled this view. “I’ll have to get him a proper livery. I would like him to continue with you when we’re married.”

  “But he’s so large, so –so conspicuous.” she protested.

  “All the better to protect you, my dear.” They were in the Park again, but this time in St. James’ Park, on foot. Lucy felt she would enjoy her stroll so much more without the man-mountain behind them, but she understood the necessity of his presence. In any case, she could do very little about it.

  “I won’t need protecting when we’re married,” she reminded him. “Lord Royston will have no reason to persecute me then.”

  “There will be others. There always will be, for one as lovely as you. I cannot have you bothered by too many admirers once you’re mine, can I?”

  She smiled, warmed by his consideration, but something niggled at the back of her mind, something easily squashed at this point in their relationship.

  When people saw them together they smiled warmly, perhaps reminded of such a time in their own lives. Lucy revelled in such admiration, but sometimes Sir Geoffrey would frown at a young man who showed too much particularity. “I do believe you’re jealous.” She smiled teasingly.

  But there was no answering smile. “And why shouldn’t I be? I can hardly believe my luck in securing you, and when someone else looks at you in that special way, I think - well, not all my thoughts are repeatable.”

  She looked at him doubtfully, and he smiled at her. “I want you for myself, Lucy.”