Chapter Seventeen
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Mrs. Mordecai Quipps, née Eglantine Johnson, a woman of Brighton who was been accused of a theft, which, although she may be the perpetrator, does not deserve transportation to Australia. I am begging you to
Lucy blinked. A large splotch suddenly appeared on the page before her.
“Bother,” she muttered, scrunching it up and throwing it into the wastepaper bin that she had brought closer to her father’s desk where she was working.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the pain. Don’t think about the sadness. Just write.
Pulling a fresh piece of paper toward her, Lucy dipped her pen in the ink and started again.
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Mrs. Mordecai Quipps, née Eglantine Johnson, a woman of Brighton who was been accused of a theft, which, although she may be the perpetrator
This time the splotch appeared before she had reached the next line.
Lucy blinked. Another one appeared.
“Stupid,” she muttered, dashing away the next tear that was about to fall and scrunching up this piece of paper as well.
She was being stupid. Crying, after a man who could not even tell her the truth when their very relationship depended on it?
“I am a viscount. I’m a viscount, Lucy. I’m Viscount Moray.”
Lucy scoffed as she pulled another piece of paper toward her. Viscount. Honestly! Did he really think that was going to work? Did the blighter actually think she would be won over by such a statement?
Beyond the fact that it couldn’t possibly be true, as she was sure she would have heard of him long before now if so, her own father was an earl! If the bounder was looking to impress, she would have expected Bernard to make himself a marquess, at the very least.
But she was being foolish. She had promised herself, and her mother, and her father, and bizarrely, Percy, who had taken the whole thing very hard, that she was not going to spend another thought on the rogue, and here she was, crying over him when she had important letters to write.
A distraction, that was all he’d been. A distraction from what she should have been doing.
Right. Poor Mrs. Quipps.
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Mrs. Mordecai Quipps, née Eglantine Johnson, a woman of Brighton who was been accused of a theft, which, although she may be the perpetrator, does not deserve transportation to Australia.
“Well, Dixon, it’ll be transportation for you if I have my way.”
Lucy’s hands stiffened as the memory intruded on her mind.
It had been transportation she had thought she’d been saving Bernard from. A fate almost worse than death, and arguably just as likely to kill one in the long run. It was a barbaric practice, one she would not even wish on her greatest enemy.
Which was ironic, considering she now hated Bernard Dixon, or whatever his name was, with all her heart.
Lucy swallowed, the pain no longer ignorable. This was ridiculous. One could not fall in love with a confidence artist! He was impossible, impossible to know and therefore impossible to love.
One did not fall in love with an actor on a stage, or a known liar. Trust had to be there for love to grow…didn’t it?
Another splotch fell onto the letter that she had once again not managed to finish.
“Oh, damn it all to hell,” Lucy muttered as she scrunched up the letter and threw it into the now-overflowing wastepaper basket.
“Good God,” came a voice from the doorway. “And here I was, living in ignorance, thinking that ladies never swore!”
Lucy could not help but grin as she looked up. “You’re escaping scandal here, then?”
“Afraid so.” Her cousin Benjamin chuckled, leaning against the doorframe with a sardonic grin and a twinkle in his green eyes. “Missed me?”
It’s hard to miss Benjamin, Lucy thought dryly as he walked into her father’s study and helped himself to the chair opposite her, because he seems to be perennially around.
One of the more roguish of her cousins, the man had almost as bad a reputation as Cousin Zander had once had, and that was saying something.
Though she had to admit, being the second son of the Dowager Marquess of Aylesbury had to be wearing, after a while. The man was perhaps bored.
Perhaps she should get him involved in the Prison Reform Society…
“Ah, I know that look.” Her cousin snorted, leaning back and putting his boots up on the desk.
“Benjamin!”
“Well, I do,” he retorted, though he did look a little shamefaced as he returned his boots to the floor. “That is your ‘I have a plan’ face.”
Lucy nodded and leaned toward him. “Maybe.”
“Frank has the exact same expression,” Benjamin said with a laugh. “Funny how these things work out, isn’t it? Things that run in families. I suppose it’s a good thing we all have so many siblings and cousins; we get to see family traits pop up all over the place.”
“Oh?” It was considerably difficult to find such a lighthearted conversation amusing at a time like this, but Lucy was game to be distracted.
After all, if it could keep her mind from thinking too much about Bernard Dixon…
Oh, bother!
“Yes, I often wondered whether certain habits or preferences could be traced through a family line,” Benjamin was saying casually, picking up one of the unused pens from her father’s desk and twirling it about his fingers. “Like… I don’t know. Musical ability. The talent of hat wearing.”
“‘Hat wearing’?” Lucy snorted, despite her misery. “You do talk rot, Benjamin.”
Her cousin sat up straighter. “Some people just look better in hats, and you know that’s true.”
Oh, now she understood. He had been sent on a cheering-up mission, Lucy realized with dawning comprehension.
That was, he had probably planned to escape Town and his latest scandal and spend some time with her brother, and finding Percy out and hearing all that she was in the doldrums—she could only hope her family hadn’t told him why—he had been sent to dispel her gloom.
Well, she couldn’t blame her family for the attempt. Of all her cousins, Benjamin was the one who was always so cheerful, never taking anything seriously.
That was why he had been involved in so many scandals…
“Though I suppose we would have to try to account for upbringing,” he was saying lightly.
Lucy smiled weakly. “You sound like my mother, working out the odds.”
“Well, it could make a big difference, couldn’t it?” Benjamin shrugged. “Your preferences must change after certain events in one’s life. Like… Like a drowning, for example.”
Lucy froze.
No. It was a coincidence, nothing more. The man had picked an idea out of the air, she rationalized wildly, and they were in Brighton—it was natural to think of the sea.
Perhaps he had noticed the mentions of transportation, of drowning in the letters—but no, there were no finished letters on the desk between them.
Her tears had prevented her from completing any of them.
“You’ve always championed a cause, haven’t you, Luce?” Benjamin said quietly.
It was not the use of her old childhood nickname that drew her notice, but the way he was speaking. This wasn’t like Benjamin. He was never that serious, had never taken anything seriously in his whole life, as far as Lucy could remember.
This was Benjamin, second son of the Dowager Marquess of Aylesbury, now brother to the new marquess, the sort of cousin you wanted at a ball but couldn’t rely on to post a letter.
Lucy frowned. “What’s all this about, Benjamin?”
“Oh, I just wondered if you were still advancing the Prison Reform Society cause,” he said lightly, all tension and gravitas dissipating in the warmth of his smile. “I know you like to keep busy. You’re like Frank.”
“If I had your sister’s brains, I would be doing far more than advocating for judicial reform,” Lucy retorted, “but yes. Yes, I have lots to keep me occupied. Lots. And I’m very happy. Very happy to make a difference.”
Never mind that she had cried herself to sleep last night and wished she had not run away from him and could take it back but also make him tell her—
“It’s easy to get entangled, isn’t it?” Benjamin said lightly.
Lucy narrowed her eyes. So there is something going on. “Why are you here, Benjamin?”
“Came to spend time with Percy, obviously,” he said nonchalantly.
And it was true, the three cousins—Percy, Michael, and Benjamin—were close. But there was something else, something he wasn’t telling her.
Irritation flared within Lucy. Why was it that so many men around her thought it was perfectly acceptable not to tell her things? Why? Was she not to be trusted? Did they think she would fall apart at the first sign of difficulty?
It was galling!
“Luce.”
“Benny,” she shot back, trying to smirk. “Look, I can see you’re trying to cheer me up—”
“I heard about Bernard Dixon.”
Lucy froze, staring at the unnervingly compassionate expression—the eyebrows drawn together, the steady eyes—on her cousin’s face. “You… You did?”
Benjamin nodded slowly. “I did.”
Her shoulders slumped, all efforts at pretense fading now that she knew he was aware of the whole damned thing. “Oh.”
There was nothing more to say, now that she realized her parents had told Benjamin the whole story.
Which, Lucy thought with a small groan, means the entire family will know soon.
After all, Cousin Benjamin was hardly known for his discretion.
By the time he had returned to London, or Bath, or wherever else the Aylesbury Chances were, Benjamin would have told Michael, and Michael would tell his four sisters, and at that point, it would be impossible for the Cothrom Chances not to have heard…
Lucy dropped her head into his hands. “I didn’t want people to know.”
“I was told,” Benjamin said quietly.
“Oh, I know you didn’t go ferreting about for the story,” Lucy said darkly. “But I didn’t really wish for the whole world to know I’d fallen in love with a—”
“So you do love him, then?”
The question was asked quietly, calmly, and with no hint of judgment. If Lucy had not been so swept up in her inner turmoil, she might have noticed that.
That was odd.