Chapter Two #2
“Over here, m’lady,” called the bailiff on Bernard’s right-hand side.
He was tugged to his feet and half-pulled, half-dragged away from the dock—which, Bernard had to admit, was a relief.
It was never pleasant being in the judicial system, especially when one had done nothing but ensure he was caught on some minor infraction to gain access to the prison inmates and win their trust.
No, it was high time he got himself a bath and a hot meal, and then he could then return to the life he’d abandoned all those years ago.
A sudden twist of regret seared his gut. If he wanted to return to that sort of life.
Lady Lucy had finished making her great show of how awful it was that she had been given the possession of a convict—well, a supposed convict—and had now stomped hastily across the courtroom with her rosebud mouth open in a perfect ‘O,’ her eyebrows furrowed, the juxtaposition of it all making it clear she was experiencing terror, fury, and frustration all at once.
Good God, she was expressive.
“The man is yours, Lady Lucy,” the bailiff said, unlocking the handcuffs and freeing Bernard’s wrists.
It was all he could do not to wave his hands in the air in relief. By Jove, but it was unpleasant to have one’s hands restricted. It made everything that much more difficult, more demeaning. It reminded one that you were entirely at another’s mercy.
Not the sort of thing Bernard had ever relished.
“B-But,” stammered the supposed Lady Lucy, “I can’t! How long is this ridiculous guardianship supposed to be for? Surely, not his entire life! In the eyes of the law, is he my brother? My ward? He looks older than I am!”
Bernard had to stop himself from laughing at the particular nature of her questions. The square-jawed bailiff wouldn’t have the answers, nor did he seem the least bit amused.
“Out the door, please. Use the one on the left; it’s the only exit,” intoned the bailiff, reeling off the instructions Bernard was certain he gave to every prisoner who was permitted to walk free.
Which, now that he came to think about it, probably wasn’t very often at all.
Lady Lucy swallowed as she looked up at him, her lips trembling. Her acting conveyed sheer terror for a moment.
Enough of this. He wanted a hot meal. “Come on, then, Lady Lucy,” Bernard said brightly, offering the woman his arm. “I suppose we shall just have to make shift for ourselves!”
The woman glared, and even the refined air and the supposed nobility of the woman did not preclude her from looking at him as though he were a bit of mud on her shoe.
Brava, Bernard thought as the woman stalked out of the courthouse without a look back at him, his arm stuck awkwardly akimbo for nothing. She truly was impressive.
Through the door, down a corridor, around a corner and down a flight of stairs, Bernard hurried after the woman who could have another career as a racehorse if she ever wished to give up the acting.
Not once did she look back at him. Not once did she consider him at all.
In a way, it were as though he were not there.
It was only when the ‘Lady Lucy’ wrenched open a door and the two of them stepped out into the brilliant daylight of a spring day in Brighton that she halted. And then it was only to twist and glare.
“Well,” she said sharply, “I suppose I am stuck with you now.”
Bernard opened his mouth to retort that she only had to put up with him until Hovell arrived and put it all right, but he hesitated.
She was beautiful. Those dark lashes. That pale complexion, perfectly complemented by lips that were not so much red, as a dark pink sharpening to red when her temper—her supposed temper—got up.
She was taller than he had thought, the angles of a courtroom making it a tad difficult to precisely tell, and she held herself with a poise that Bernard would have said would have had to have been bred in, rather than taught.
She had been the perfect choice.
“You don’t have to worry; this will soon be over,” Bernard said quietly, almost regretful that it would be.
Lucy, for that was perhaps her true name, snorted. “Easy for you to say!”
He supposed it was. He had given years to his country and had been poorly recompensed for it—not that he had decided to serve for the money. No one served one’s country for wealth.
Quite the opposite, he had ended up paying for the privilege: in time, in isolation, in pain and discomfort. It was time now for him to return home. To see what sort of a home had been left him.
“Look, I am very grateful,” Bernard said, stepping aside as a passerby stared at them curiously. Oh, blast, he was wearing his old prison clothes. It did not make him the most elegantly attired of men. “But you don’t have to worry about me.”
“‘Worry about’ you? Did you not hear Judge Bonner?” Lucy pointed at the courthouse with a look of irritated resignation. “You are my responsibility now!”
Bernard blinked. This was taking it a bit far, wasn’t it? After all, she didn’t have to do anything else, not after getting him out of those ridiculous handcuffs and away from that ridiculous court.
Surely, Hovell would be along at any moment and would give him leave to go, and then this Lucy or whatever her name was would disappear off onto whatever assignment Hovell had allocated for her next.
Lucy sighed. “Oh, it’s just my luck. I should have known this would happen. Well, no. This is ridiculous. This doesn’t happen. But I should have known I’d pay dearly for my hubris somehow. I’m only a lady, after all.”
Bernard stared. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Sorry, m’lady, I didn’t realize you’d finished already,” came a man’s voice just behind him. “Ready to return home? I don’t s’pose your maid will be back home by now to see if you went there after we left her in the park.”
Bernard turned to see a man in a smartish livery with a riding crop in his hand. A carriage had appeared and apparently the man had just jumped down from it, looking politely at the young woman who was pretending to be Lady Lucy.
The woman pretending to be Lady Lucy sighed. “Yes, I suppose we had better. Come on, Mr. Dixon, or whatever your name is. Inside.”
Well, this was more like it.
Meekly accepting whatever nonsense that Hovell wanted to orchestrate, Bernard clambered into the carriage and sat comfortably in the—
Very comfortably. Dear God, where had Hovell managed to get the money for this? This wasn’t just a hackney carriage or a hansom cab; this was a chaise and four, and in remarkably plush order. The seats were comfortable, there were no cracks in the—
“If you don’t mind closing the door,” came Lucy’s voice breaking sharply into his thoughts, “we can go. I travel lightly when going to court and I don’t have a footman with me.”
Still in character, I see.
Bernard pulled the door to and Lucy tapped on the roof of the carriage. It lurched forward, taking him away from all his problems.
Well. Most of them.
“I suppose, Dixon—you do not mind if I call you ‘Dixon’?”
Bernard grinned. “You can call me whatever you like, Lucy.”
It was the wrong thing to say; at least, it was the right thing to say if he had wanted the woman to flush, burn with confusion, and stared in abject horror.
“You—You must call me ‘Lady Lucy.’”
“If that’s your preference,” Bernard said cheerfully, his spirits lifting with every yard they departed from the courthouse. “But I prefer Lucy.”
“It is not about what you prefer, it—that is my title.” Lucy peered at him through her dark lashes. “I suppose you might prefer ‘Mr. Dixon.’ I do normally refer to gentlemen by their proper titles, but…” She gave him a onceover, as if daring him to prove himself a gentleman. He shrugged.
“You can call me ‘Belinda,’ if that’s your fancy,” Bernard said, the tension in his shoulder blades melting away as he sat in the comfortable coach.
“Well, Dixon, I have decided until we get this sorted out, I will think of you as my ward.” Some of her bravado slipped as she swallowed. “B-But using your given name might be a step too far.”
Bernard had never heard of a young woman adopting a grown man as her ward, but he wasn’t about to argue the minutiae of this playacting.
“Where are we going, Lady Lucy? Or should I call you ‘Mother’?”
She scowled, those luscious lips so tempting. “Home.”
It was one word, one syllable, and yet it said so much. A place of safety, a place of comfort, a place that clearly this ‘Lady Lucy’ wished to get to immediately.
Interesting.
“And then?”
“Well, I suppose you are my problem for now,” she said, and there was a flicker of awkwardness in her posture that did not ring true.
Or at least, ring right. He was not her problem; she had helped him escape the courtroom, clearly as Hovell had instructed her…so why on earth would he be under her control now?
Unless…
“No,” Bernard said firmly. “No. I won’t do it.”
“Do what?” With her head tilted, the woman looked astonished, which did not make sense.
Had Hovell told her that he was happy to do one more mission? Was that why she was taking him to the safe house, so that they could plan it?
No. Bernard had been clear enough with Hovell from the start. A few years of service and then he would be getting out. He would leave the spying business to others. He had a life to lead, or at least he hoped he did, and no amount of beautiful women—
“Here we are,” said Lucy quietly, tension only growing in her brow as the carriage came to a stop. “You must tell them—tell them you are a friend of mine, from the Prison Reform Society. Yes, I shall have to call you ‘Mr. Dixon’ around them.”
“‘Prison Reform Society’?” Bernard repeated, utterly at sea.
What on earth was the woman going on about?
“Please—Please, they mustn’t know,” Lucy said hastily, her voice lowering to a whisper as her words quickened in speed. “None of them must know! I wasn’t supposed to be there.” She swallowed. “I only hope no reporter catches wind of it…”
“Home, sweet home, Lady Lucy,” came the voice of the driver as he opened the carriage door. “Let me help you down.”