Chapter 17 #2
“No, no. Out of esteem for her own admirable person, I’m sure,” Plimpton said.
Lucasta narrowed her eyes at him.
“I suppose there were one or two reasons,” said Lord Ashley, joining them. “He took some objection to Miss Lithwick’s manner, and set out to improve it, or he took objection to Miss Lithwick’s dress, and set out to improve that as well.”
Minnie turned a fulminating glare on him. “Thank you for that information, though no one requested it of you. And who are you supposed to be?” She glanced over his red breeches, high boots, and the blue breastplate with a large white cross.
Ashley took off his black plumed hat, showing a small white powdered wig, and bowed. His sword knocked against Plimpton’s legs. “A Musketeer of the Guard, in the Royal Household of the King of France.”
“So it’s as Clara Bellwether said.” Selina spoke in a small voice. “He was making fun.”
“Clara Bellwether.” Jem’s crony. She, more than anyone, was like to be in his confidence. There being nowhere to sit in the crush of people, Lucasta leaned on Selina.
She’d called it a shame he was no better than he was, hadn’t she? He’d set out to prove her wrong. And in so doing, proved her right.
“I shouldn’t see why it matters.” Ashley curled his lip at Minnie. “You all seem to have benefited from the attention, and he’s done your friend no harm.”
“You went out of your way to inform us of Rudyard’s stratagem,” Minnie snarled back, “precisely because you wanted to do harm. Here, now,” she barked as a third man joined them. “These two are expressing their secret desire for military accomplishment, and you, a genuine military man, are a monk?”
“Friar, actually.” Major Mallory smiled. He wore a long brown cassock of rough wool and a large wooden cross hung from his neck. “I heard that Miss Pevensey was—somewhere about, I hope?”
“In the Pavilion,” Annis said. “If you’ll excuse us.”
The three girls formed a guard around Lucasta. “Pay it no mind, Lucasta,” Selina said immediately. “Whatever his intentions to begin with, it’s quite clear to us that Lord Rudyard has come to value you for yourself alone. I am certain his admiration is real.”
“He sent you all those beautiful gowns through Mlle. Beaudoin,” Annis pointed out.
“To improve me,” Lucasta said, striving to control the quaver in her voice. “And as payment for the music lessons I’ve been giving his—cousin.”
She ought not feel riven through the heart by his betrayal. She had brought this on herself, had she not?
“He drives you about. He calls all the time,” Selina insisted.
“He watches you at all the parties,” Minnie added. “He knows every moment where you are and what you are doing. It’s as though he can’t keep his eyes from you.”
“Waiting for me to make a fool of myself.” Lucasta said. No, no tears—she would not cry. Not over this.
“His friends could be mistaken,” Minnie said. “With those two dunces, it’s likely.”
Yet Ashley and Plimpton were Rudyard’s closest companions, the most likely to be in his confidence.
Jem had told Lucasta, on one of their drives back to London from Little Chelsea, how much these men, both sprigs of the nobility, had taught him about ton and the unspoken etiquette of the Polite World.
They’d saved him on more than one occasion from using the wrong utensil at table or walking into dinner before a person of higher rank.
They’d taught him how to drive, how to walk, and how to bow like a gentleman instead of a merchant.
They would be aware if he took on some pet project to elevate a poor, plain vicar’s daughter from wallflower to diamond.
“Miss Lithwick—Lucasta—are you quite all right?”
Lucasta swiped the moisture from her eyes, then looked up. “Bertie. I mean, Miss Falstead. Hello.” She glanced about quickly—no Jem. A relief and a dagger, all at the same time. “How delightful to see you out.”
Bertie offered a nervous smile. “Mama and I had quite a wrangle about it, but I insisted. I-I knew you all would be here. Are these your friends? The Gorgons?”
Lucasta flinched. Jem’s epithet for them. They had adopted the title in fun, but it felt mean-spirited of him now. “Yes, allow me. These are Miss Selina Humby, Anastasia Voronska, and Wilhelmine von Luneburg. My fellow goddesses, the Honourable Miss Lambertina Falstead.”
“You all look very fine. Greek goddesses, so clever.” Bertie regarded their costumes enviously. “Mama insisted I might only wear a domino.” Beneath the short black silk cape, Bertie wore a robe of yellow, which did not flatter her complexion.
“Friend or foe?” Minnie demanded, still bristling. “She’s his cousin, after all.”
“Oh, friend, no question.” Surely, no matter what Rudyard was about, he would allow Bertie and Lucasta to remain friends.
He could bar her from seeing Judith, however.
“We pronounce you an honorary Gorgon,” said Annis, tapping Bertie on each shoulder with her bow. “Which goddess do you wish to be?”
“Er—perhaps you might choose for me?” Bertie’s smile turned uncertain. Lucasta had found that Bertie’s education, overseen by her mother, was nothing like that given the girls of Miss Gregoire’s.
“Hestia?” Selina proposed. “Goddess of the hearth?”
“Oh,” Bertie said. “Domestic things?”
“Demeter, goddess of fertility and the keeper of sacred law.” Lucasta grabbed a cluster of tall bound grasses from a nearby urn holding decorative foliage. “Here.”
“Demeter. Yes. Thank you,” Bertie said gratefully.
Selina drew Bertie to her side and engaged her in friendly, innocuous chat. Every fiber in Lucasta’s body tensed as a tall man stalked toward her, dressed in an ermine cape and a crimson velvet robe of state, the regalia of the Britain monarch.
“King Arthur.” She recognized Jem. “How quaint.”
“I am Alfred the Great.” His brown eyes glinted, austere and aloof. “King of England.”
He had no right to look so majestic. Those eyes skimming her frame made Lucasta feel like her linen tunic was transparent. He might see her heart furiously beating, the blush spreading over her chest as she recalled their kiss.
That warm, enthralling man who had woven her into a spell of silk and seduction was gone.
“Alfred was King of Wessex and held back the invading armies of the Danes,” she said. “The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms weren’t united under one ruler until Alfred’s grandson AEthelstan did so in 927.”
The glint in his eyes turned dangerous. “Thank you for that history lesson. You and your friends represent the Olympic pantheon, I presume?”
That wildness reared within her. She wanted to bite something, to break through that cool facade of his and find what lay beneath. A living man with a heart, or a cold manipulator?
“Yes, we thought it would be too obvious to dress as Gorgons, and besides no one might identify us. The Gorgons are never fully described in the early sources, you know, aside from Medusa, known for her unusual hair.”
His cool detachment was an arrow through her heart. Jem had been the one to pronounce her Medusa—Clara Bellwether made sure that witticism reached her ears. To think he had let her into the bosom of his family while esteeming her so little! She tried to swallow the painful catch in her throat.
“So which goddess are you?”
If only she were a woman of power. She would not feel so naked and vulnerable.
“Hera. Take care you do not cross me, or I might turn you into a cow and send flies to sting you.”
He raised a brow. “I thought it was only the unfortunate mistresses of Zeus who incurred Hera’s wrath.”
“She’s changing her methods. Why punish the poor women who are merely toyed with at the whim of powerful men?”
A muscle clenched in his cheek. “Will you walk with me?”
“Will you invite me onto a boat, tip me into the canal, and drown me?”
“I see the goddess is angry. With all mortals, or one in particular?”
He’d discerned her feelings, which was itself so surprising that Lucasta felt her ire waver for a moment.
He was a perceptive man, one of the qualities she most admired about him.
He must have known what it would mean to her to organize the benefit concert.
He’d seen that his lonely cousin and isolated sister needed companionship, and he’d brought them all together.
He’d done her a service, really. Why was she stung over his motives, whatever they were or had been? She ought to simply take the opportunities—and the beautiful gowns Mlle. Beaudoin had made up for her—and take a dignified leave.
Be done with him entirely, leaving him the board of whatever game he was playing. The thought made a hole in her heart.
“Great Hera, goddess of Heaven, patron and protector of women. I beg leave to discuss with you that most sacred provenance of yours. Marriage.”
“Ugh. It’s the Mongol Khan again.” Annis hissed through her teeth as the furred emperor, shouldering his way through the crowd around them, managed a deep and flourishing bow.
His eyes didn’t have the aspect of a suppliant; they held the gleam of the hunter.
A sheen of sweat across his brow hinted that his layers of costuming, combined with the abundant light and heat within the Rotunda, did not contribute to his comfort.
“Who dares address the Queen of Heaven?” Jem stepped closer to her. The low growl in his voice sent a thrill down Lucasta’s spine. That rich, velvety tone held a hint of menace. Was he jealous?
“I am Kubla Khan, great ruler of the Mongols and Emperor of—”
“Yes, yes, we know.” Minnie angled her spear at the intruder’s chest. “The Queen is otherwise engaged.”
“She looks at liberty to me,” the khan challenged, brackets of tension forming around his mouth. Lucasta had seen that scowl before. “I beg a moment of her time, to stroll among these fair gardens and enjoy the music floating on the breeze. Our Hera delights in music, does she not?”
Lucasta shivered at the alert stare directed at her. He knew her, but she could not fathom where she had made his acquaintance.