Chapter Five #2
“‘Once again I see,’” came his gentle words, a northern burr thrumming through the words, “‘These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit… The Hermit sits alone.’”
His voice faded, the absent look in his eyes remaining. And all Lucy could do was look at him.
This man… He was far more complex than she had ever imagined.
When Judge Bonner had instructed her to take the man home, she had presumed there would be a little cursing, a little light fingers around the silver, but that the man would ultimately behave himself.
Instead, she had been faced with a tall handsome man who spoke cryptically of his past, who appeared to see right through her, and who declaimed Wordsworth with the heart and spirit of a man who had been to Oxbridge and fallen in love with the classics.
Who precisely was Mr. Bernard Dixon?
Dixon cleared his throat. The warmth, the passion, faded in his eyes, and a nonchalance that surely had to be rehearsed rushed back into his expression.
“Or something like that,” he said with a shrug, leaning back with his hands behind his head. “I forget exactly—”
“But that’s Wordsworth! That is one of the greatest poets who ever lived!” Lucy blurted out.
Dixon shrugged. “You think so?”
“I do not think so, I know so, and I have had many debates with Cousin Gwen on this matter,” Lucy said amiably, then she dropped her eyes to the letters on the desk before her.
Ah. Yes, she needed to finish writing these so they could go out in the morning post. With some luck, and some empathy from Judge Bonner—such things had happened, once in a while—the six people she had advocated for today would be released and with their families by dinnertime.
That was, if Judge Bonner was adequately moved by her letters, of course.
Maybe she should just send him a book of Wordsworth’s poetry…
“What have you got there?”
Before Lucy could do or say anything, most certainly before she could prevent him from leaning forward, Dixon had reached out and picked up the letter she had been halfway through writing.
“No, that’s private—”
“Ah, and it’s addressed to my favorite judge,” said Dixon ruefully.
Lucy could not help but smile. “He could have sent you down for transportation, you know. He wanted to.”
“Yes, and the fact he has put me instead into your excellent care does warm the cockles of my heart,” Dixon said with a wink, his eyes dropping to the letter. “Writing about me, are you?”
“Certainly not!” Why she should have felt so outraged at such a suggestion, she did not know.
The fact that she had written to Judge Bonner about Mr. Bernard Dixon asking for more particulars on both the crime he had supposedly committed and his familial background…
Well, that was neither here nor there. “No, I am trying—”
“To get a whole host of criminals out of Brighton’s prison,” Dixon interjected, his attention flickering from the letter in his hand to the pile of envelopes waiting to be franked on the desk. “Is this something you make a habit of, Lady Lucy?”
There was absolutely no reason why the sound of her name on his lips should make her feel like that.
Like the chair she was seated on were on fire. Like her pulse were throbbing through her body, in some parts of her body more than others. Like his eyes could see into her soul, seeing all the weakness and all the joy, and finding himself intrigued by it.
Lucy swallowed, her mouth dry.
This was nonsense. Nonsense!
“I… I do what I can to support those who have no other support available to them,” she managed to say.
In a way, she was delighted and a little proud she had managed to be so articulate. On the other hand, Dixon smiled at her and it made her immediately wonder what on earth she could have said to elicit such a response.
“You should have been a vicar’s wife in the last century,” he said lightly. “Writing letters on behalf of others, taking in strays—I suppose you visit with baskets, do you?”
Lucy bristled. “You say that like it is a bad thing!”
Besides, she was not the only one in the family who did it.
Cousin Lilianna had always done so, though she had taken little praise for it, and she’d heard Cousins Jessy and Reeny mentioning a similar practice before they had married their respective husbands.
She had to presume the two sisters continued such things now they were the Baroness Llyne and the Duchess of Aynor.
“It’s not a bad thing. That’s not what I—I am sorry,” said Dixon quietly. “You do not have to do these things, you know.”
He gestured to the letters, though what he could have meant by such a thing, Lucy did not know.
Not help people? Not advocate for the poor? Not attempt to help those who found themselves—through no fault on their own—on the wrong side of a law that was not interested in the truth, but in prosecution numbers?
“It matters to me. The idea that I can do good, that I can help people…” Lucy swallowed. “What else am I good for?”
She had not intended so much bitterness to creep into the words, but there it was.
She was an earl’s second daughter; not brilliantly beautiful, not clever nor artistic, she might have found some purpose if she did marry a vicar, she supposed, but she had never found one pleasant enough to hope for.
Besides, there were few vicars in Christendom who would consider marriage to an earl’s daughter when that earl was Lindow.
Lucy knew her father’s reputation of a short temper. It was not one she often saw, but then, she was his daughter. She supposed she saw a softer side of him.