Chapter Nine #2
Bernard’s eyes were unfocused and Lucy felt her throat tighten with panic—but then the strapping man’s eyes sharpened. And they were glittering. “I have an idea.”
Lucy blinked. “‘An idea’?”
Did ideas ever really stop someone in their tracks—was that even possible?
Clearly, it was, for Bernard was grinning now and had turned around, retracing their steps at a much faster pace. “Come on!”
“But—But where?”
It appeared he was not going to bother telling her where, so Lucy did all she could do to keep up with the man’s long strides and wondered what on earth he was thinking.
Perhaps he was hungry and wanted to return to Francois’s Restaurant—yes, that had to have been it. Now that she came to think about it, she was mightily hungry too. It had been hours since she’d last eaten.
“Here we are,” Bernard said triumphantly, drawing to a halt.
This time, Lucy’s stomach did not lurch because she was not arm in arm with him, but she had to roll her eyes at where the man had brought her.
Perhaps the ding on the head had affected him more than they had realized.
“We’ve just been here,” she said, mostly patiently, but also with a trace of tiredness in her tones. “This is the Regency Hotel. We’ve already tried here, remember?”
“I’m not in my dotage yet, Lucy,” Bernard said brightly as he strode forward up the steps and through the door. “Come on!”
There appeared to be no stopping him, though Lucy could only hope this second interview would be brief. After all, it would end in exactly the same way. No one in this town—in any town, probably—wanted to rent an event room to a lady. It was apparently not done! And that was an end to it.
Bernard smiled charmingly as he approached the desk. “I would like to speak to the hotel manager, please.”
Lucy could not help but watch curiously as she reached his side.
The man had…changed, somehow. Not changed, merely unfurled.
He was standing straighter, his hands clasped behind him just as her father would do if he were waiting for someone.
There was a tilt of his head and a roll back of his shoulders that spoke not only of privilege, but the utter certainty that one was about to be treated, in turn, like a gentleman.
It was…mesmerizing.
“How do you do that?” Lucy whispered as the scrawny hotel clerk bowed and disappeared into a room behind the desk.
Bernard raised an imperious eyebrow. Yes, that is what I want to do when I practice in the looking glass! “I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”
She was prevented from clarifying her inquiry by the appearance of Mr. Forthright, who introduced himself inclined his head politely to Bernard, but froze when he took in her face.
“My name is Dixon, Bernard Dixon, and this is my good friend, Lady Lucy Chance,” Bernard said swiftly, before any awkwardness could occur.
At least, diminishing it slightly. Lucy wondered where he was going with this, to not pretend to be her brother chaperone this time.
“I wish to inquire about hiring the—oh, what’s it called?
You heard me say it outside, Lady Lucy, the room I want to hire. ”
Lucy blinked. “I—what?”
What on earth was happening? Mr. Forthright was staring as though he had been thrown onto a stage and asked to dance the can-can, the hotel clerk was looking between the three of them as though expecting a performance of the can-can but not getting one, and Bernard—
Bernard was beaming as though this were a typical Friday like any other.
“The room, here at the hotel, that I wished to hire for my event,” Bernard said in a quiet voice, widening his eyes pointedly as he looked at her. “I cannot remember the name. Can you?”
A small inkling of what the bounder was attempting started to creep into the corners of Lucy’s mind. She forced a smile and said, perhaps too brightly, “Oh, yes! The room you wanted was the Gold Room.”
“The Gold Room, yes, thank you, I had entirely forgotten,” said Bernard cheerfully, turning back to Mr. Forthright. “I would like to book it.”
“You…would like to book it,” Mr. Forthright said slowly, his attention flickering between the beaming Bernard and the rapidly-blinking Lucy.
“Yes, that’s right,” replied Bernard, as though this were something he did all the time and not something he had decided to do but moments ago. “Now, then, if only I could remember when I wanted to book it for… Lady Lucy, do you happen to recall?”
Lucy stifled a giggle.
Oh, he was clever. And kind! By pretending to be the one wishing to hire the room, a gentleman, no less, it was quite clear that Mr. Forthright would be unable to decline—but of course, Mr. Forthright wished to help her but couldn’t.
It was the perfect solution, and it had been Bernard who had seen it.
“Lucy? Lady Lucy, I mean,” added Bernard hastily, his bravado fading. “The day and time?”
“The day and—oh, yes. How often it is you forget,” Lucy said quickly, inventing wildly and thanking the Lord she would never have to grace a stage. “So I wrote it down for you. Here.”
Thrusting her hand hastily into her reticule, she pulled out the piece of card where she had written the details.
Bernard took it with a smile and a small bow, then immediately handed it over to Mr. Forthright. “I think that is everything.”
“There is just the small matter of, ahem.” Mr. Forthright looked pained. “Payment.”
Lucy froze. Bernard would have no money to pay for the room—why would he? He was a criminal who had been released from prison with naught but the clothes on his own back, and even those clothes had not been particularly present.
She would have to hope he had another idea. Because she didn’t. She wished Mr. Forthright would just let the charade go on. Didn’t he see Bernard was offering the solution?
“Ah. Yes, payment,” Bernard said hopelessly, turning to her. “Lady Lucy, did you happen to remember—”
“That you would wish to make a fifty percent deposit now, and pay the remainder on the day? Yes, I did remember,” Lucy said decisively, thrusting her hand into her reticule again and hoping to goodness she had enough on her.
She’d been expecting a bill sent to the Prison Reform Society itself.
“Somewhere, I’ve got—look, there’s a shilling…
Blast, I really thought I had a pound note. ”
“I think the hotel will send the bill to your residence, Mr. Dixon, and accounts can be settled that way,” said Mr. Forthright, rescuing her from her floundering with a kind smile that was nonetheless tight. “All I will need is your address, and your signature here…and here…”
It was all done and over within a matter of minutes.
Bernard even wrote down her father’s address in town.
But Mr. Forthright likely wouldn’t know that.
Utterly dazzled, Lucy drifted out of the hotel with plenty of thanks from Mr. Forthright to Bernard for thinking of the Regency Hotel for his event, and then Lucy and Bernard, lady reformer and her criminal confidence man, were standing out in the sunshine, the location secured.