Chapter Seven
It is very difficult, indeed, Lucy thought darkly as she approached Lady Romeril’s townhouse with her family, not to lose my temper. But that was the problem with her family. They were infuriating!
“So when are you going to get rid of him?” hissed her mother as they walked arm in arm, Lucy’s father, brother, and…well, adopted criminal, walking ahead of them. “I mean, he can’t stay with us forever!”
The trouble was, Lucy had not given much thought to the future.
That the future definitely contained Mr. Bernard Dixon, she was most sure. Precisely how or why, that was the part that was giving her trouble.
Which was infuriating. The man was a criminal! Someone who had grown up in a clearly cold family, though she did not know why, and had fallen down on his luck, though she did not know how, and then had committed a crime, though she did not know what.
It was simple.
Lucy sighed. “I don’t know, Mama. I… I don’t have a plan.”
When she glanced at her mother, it was to see the Countess of Lindow’s eyes glitter. “Oh, yes?”
“Mama!”
“Well, with Evelyn happily married to that nice viscount—”
“Mama!” hissed Lucy, hoping to goodness Dixon ahead of them could not hear their conversation. “You do not need to worry about marrying me off!”
“No, I suppose your brother can always take care of one spinsterly old maid.” Her mother smirked, her teasing air always most vibrant when she had a topic to truly enjoy.
“It’s a good thing your sister was married off with so little trouble.
I really thought I’d be stuck with all three of you unwed. ”
“My point is, you don’t have to marry me off at all, and even if you were going to marry me off, it wouldn’t be to Dix—I mean, Mr. Dixon is not…” Lucy swallowed. “What a thing to think.”
Yes, especially after you have thought of the man far too often these last few days, a treacherous part of Lucy’s mind thought. Especially when all you seem to be able to do is think about him.
It was most unfair. When one had a criminal lying about the place, one presumed that he would not be that distracting. But he was worse than distracting.
He was all-consuming.
Lucy tried not to look at the sway of his hips, the obvious strength in his thighs, the way the trousers Dixon had borrowed from her brother fitted rather more snugly around the buttocks…
“You can’t keep him forever, you know.” Her mother’s voice broke into her thoughts as they turned a corner onto Lady Romeril’s street.
The weather had been so fine of late that the earl had bristled at the idea of making a horse ride in such heat, so they had walked.
“I mean, the man must have family, mustn’t he? ”
Lucy swallowed.
Yes, he must, and it was a topic she greatly wished to inquire more about, but she had no idea how.
Was he married? Dixon wore no ring, but that was no signifier, as neither did her father. Neither did two of her uncles, now that she came to think of it. It was only her Uncle Frederick, the Viscount Pernrith, who wore such a thing.
He had never mentioned a wife. Dixon, that was. Uncle Frederick could not stop talking about Aunt Edie.
Surely, if he—Dixon—if he were married, he would have mentioned a wife? Would have wished to return to her, would have written to her. And how that would complicate things, if he were well and truly her ward!
Perhaps he had not written her because she—this enigmatic Mrs. Dixon—could not read and write.
Embarrassment and shame burned through Lucy as they approached Lady Romeril’s townhouse, already agog with guests slowly making their way up the steps. It was mortifying to recall the assumption she had made, even if it had been in good faith.
She would never look at the man again in the same way.
“And he will cost something to feed, after all,” said her mother, still blathering on.
“Mr. Dixon is not an animal,” Lucy said tartly. “He is a person.”
A person who looked at her sometimes with that knowing smile as though she had shared a secret with him, Lucy realized desperately, and although she had not done so purposefully, it was totally possible that she had.
She never had been good at hiding her emotions.
She had never wanted to before.
When Lucy glanced at her mother, it was to see her jaw had dropped.
“You—You cannot be serious about keeping him!”
Perhaps she was, and perhaps she wasn’t.
Lucy hardly knew what she was doing these days, highly conscious of the man’s presence in her home even if they were not in the same room together.
There was a strange sort of humming, a resonance in the Lindow household now that Bernard—now that Dixon was a part of it, and Lucy could not help but relish it.
It was not that there was something missing in the house, since Evelyn had gone off to get married. It was more that there had always been something missing within her.
“I don’t know,” Lucy repeated, as though the sentence would somehow mitigate the fact that she had allowed a stranger, a criminal, and potentially a dangerous man to move into their home without even asking her parents. “I just…”
Her gaze drifted to Dixon once again. He was chuckling with her father; one of them had clearly said something amusing as they ascended the steps, and her father clapped their guest on the back as he roared with laughter.
Something heavy twisted in her stomach. “I just don’t like the idea of the future without him.”
When Lucy turned to her mother, it was to find that she was clutching a hand to her heart.
“Oh, my darling girl, I always knew that one day—”
“Mama!” hissed Lucy as the pair of them followed the menfolk and ascended the stairs, allowing Lady Romeril’s footmen to remove their pelisses. “Please!”
There was no point in asking her mother to behave herself, not when the Countess of Lindow was always so delighted whenever there was another wedding in the family.
Though there had never been a wedding such as this.
Between a Chance and a person of Dixon’s class.
Certainly not between a Chance and a criminal.
Yes, her mother hadn’t been a member of Society before her marriage, but she hadn’t fallen so low.
And after all her mother’s lectures about Lucy’s duties as an earl’s daughter, how she had to always be chaperoned!
The countess’s devotion to true love would encourage such a match?
No, it is not going to be me getting married next, Lucy thought firmly as she stepped across Lady Romeril’s hallway and heard the chatter emanating from her drawing room. Absolutely not. She had far more important things to worry about than handsome men whose charming buttocks—
Damn it!
“Ah, Lady Lucy.” Lady Romeril smiled like a cat who had not only got the cream, but negotiated with the cow for a better rate. “I saw your cousin only a few weeks ago.”
This, unfortunately, did not narrow it down. The Chances did not so much breed like rabbits as…as express their affection in a manner through which children could be born, Lucy thought with a laugh she immediately attempted to suppress.
That was how her sister, Evelyn, had once explained it, anyway.
“I am so glad you enjoyed their company,” said Lucy aloud, hoping Lady Romeril would not notice how she was hedging on precisely which cousin they were speaking of.
Lady Romeril’s smile widened. “I did not say that I did, did I?”
And that is the trouble with ladies like Lady Romeril, Lucy thought bitterly. They have all this power, all this opportunity to do good in the world and change it, transform it into something better and brighter…
And all they seem to do is bicker and snipe and get under everyone’s nerves.
“You must be Lady Romeril,” came a startlingly cheerful voice to her left.
Lucy’s stomach plummeted.
Oh, no. She hadn’t had sufficient time to warn Dixon, to prepare him for the onslaught of being in Lady Romeril’s presence. She had not even told him that the woman’s ability to destroy and make reputations was second only to the queen’s herself!
And it was a very close second.
But there he stood, beaming at the woman as though she couldn’t bite his head off in one snap, and Lucy was powerless to do anything about it. All she could do was watch.
Lady Romeril drew herself up, and there was a lot of her to draw. Lucy watched in fascinated horror as the imposing older woman eventually came to a halt and said imperiously, “And just how would you know who I am, pray? I do not know you.”
Oh, it was going from bad to worse. That particular intonation was designed, Lucy well knew, to bring men to their knees and women to the ground.
It was perfected with a trill at the end that made it absolutely clear that you were a peasant and fortunate enough to be in the presence of…
well, not quite royalty, but something very similar.
Something with a lot of power.
And there was Dixon, grinning as he said, “Why, I heard tell that the Lady Romeril was the most beautiful woman in every room she was in. And so here you are.”
One could have heard a pin drop.
That was, if someone had been foolish enough to drop a pin in Lady Romeril’s presence.
Lucy’s attention darted between their hostess and the man who appeared to have a death wish, no matter how she had already attempted to avert it.
Well, there was no helping him now. Judge Bonner was nothing compared to the ire of—
“You are a delightfully charming man and I demand to know you better,” simpered Lady Romeril, stepping forward and monopolizing Dixon immediately by grabbing his arm. “Promenade the room with me and let us get to know…”
Lucy did not hear the rest of the sentence as the pair meandered away from her to take a turn about the room, wending their way through card tables set out throughout the cavernous drawing rom.
What… What on earth?
How had that happened? The man had charmed the—well, Lucy had been about to think a particularly rude thought which she had once heard her brother say, but even in the privacy of her own mind, she was not certain she should say such a thing.