Chapter Eleven #3
Lucy bit her lip. It was becoming more and more obvious that Bernard’s complete lack of past—as though he had sprung up fully formed in Brighton Prison—suggested something truly dark in his history.
But what could it be? Theft? Burglary?
Murder?
Would the judge really have released a man so violent?
“I think that they are spoiling her, I really do,” came a voice from the other side of the fern. “She’ll be the talk of the town if she’s not careful.”
“She’s already the talk of the town,” returned a gentleman’s voice in a low murmur, eliciting a giggle from his companion. “Oh, I know she means well—”
“She definitely means well,” said the first person, a woman, from what Lucy could make out. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? Gossipers will soon take their own view of her, and I fear it will not be as kind as ours.”
Lucy stifled a snort. Well, if this was the kind type of gossip, she hardly cared to hear the unkind. Honestly, what had this poor woman done to deserve such censure?
“I would have thought her father would—”
“Oh, that man would bend over backward to cater to his daughters’ whims, everyone knows that,” interrupted the gentleman with a hint of disdain. “Besides, they do things differently, that family.”
“Hmm!” The woman clearly did not think much of this couple’s parenting approach. “I don’t know, letting the elder daughter gad about painting people—actual gentlemen! No wonder she had to marry that viscount. It would have been a scandal otherwise.”
Lucy stiffened.
Evelyn. They were talking about her sister, Evelyn, the artist—and yes, she had married her artist’s model, but Viscount Sempill had been a viscount, though she hadn’t known that at first. But it had all worked out.
It wasn’t as if she’d painted just any man in the nude and had been forced to marry a working-class man.
“But it’s the younger one that will lose her reputation entirely if she doesn’t stop turning up at that courtroom,” the woman said in an undertone, as though what she said was not only outrageous, but mildly offensive.
Lucy bit her lip. It had been a while since she had returned to the courtroom. Judge Bonner may have been pleased at that, but how many innocent or only just guilty people had been condemned to transportation because of her absence?
She had become distracted, that was the trouble. Distracted from the plight of criminals everywhere because of one criminal in particular.
“Why, my housemaid knows a bailiff, and though she wouldn’t say exactly what, she might have implied that the bailiff witnessed something quite bizarre happening with Lady Lucy Chance earlier this month in that courtroom.”
Lucy stiffened. There had been witnesses to the judge’s strange decree, after all. She was surprised it had taken this long to make the gossip rounds.
“And who, exactly, is this Bernard Dixon? I never heard of him until he came to stay with the Chances,” the woman said curiously, her voice carrying through the fern that was shielding Lucy from view.
Her companion snorted. “Oh, I don’t know. I do know that unless he clears off or marries soon, there will be questions about the daughter’s innocence—”
“Really, now!”
“I speaks as I find,” the gentleman retorted, his voice lifting somewhat even as Lucy attempted to hide a touch deeper in the fern.
“A woman who allows a guest like that, not a member of the family, to wander about with her… No, Lady Lucy had better be careful. No one else will give her a chance if he ruins her reputation.”
The last few words had decreased in volume; the pair were obviously departing from the fern, leaving Lucy to sit in silence.
She swallowed, her throat dry.
She should have expected this. It had been foolish of her not to.
One could not traipse about Brighton arm in arm with a gentleman to whom one was not married nor related without garnering some notice.
This, despite her being careful not to be seen alone with him.
Well, she hadn’t been careful every day, no thanks to Percy.
She had been noticed. And the notice had not been positive.
But to have Evelyn’s marriage besmirched through such a connection—for people to suppose she had lost her innocence!
Lucy shifted uncomfortably on her chair. Not that she wouldn’t have given Bernard Dixon her innocence if he had asked for it. She would rather be a spinster all her life and be ruined by him than save herself for some bore. But he hadn’t asked. So that was that.
Her gaze caught sight of him, weaving his way through the crowd of guests the Keystones had invited, and her spirits soared.
Still, her family would suffer if there was gossip.
But it was Bernard. Now, she was surely strong enough to resist a gentleman’s advances.
Not that he had made any advances. But if he made advances, and part of her hoped that he would—just so that she could resist them, obviously—she would surely be strong enough to turn him down.
That all sorted—mostly—in her mind, Lucy had enough presence of mind to rise as Bernard reached her.
“Punch?” asked the man who was apparently going to take her virtue.
Lucy could not help but smile. “Don’t mind if I do.”