Love for Lucinda (3 page)

Lucinda chose to ignore the implication inherent in her father’s words. But she did not repeat her declaration that she would not wed Lord Potherby. Instead, she pretended that he was referring to her plans for the Season. “You may also rely upon Miss Blythe,” she said, smiling.

Sir Thomas laughed. “Oh aye, and in that good lady, too.”

He stood up and gathered his daughter in a brief fond embrace. When he put her from him, he said, “I shall tell your mother not to be anxious on your behalf. We must trust you to know your own mind, even though you are still too young to know much about the ways of the world. I do not scruple to tell you that Miss Blythe shall be of immeasurable value to you in that regard. You must allow yourself to be guided by her, for she does not want for sense.”

“I know it,” said Lucinda, tucking her hand into her father’s arm as she walked with him toward the door. Outside the breakfast room, she turned to smile up at her father. “I am seeing my estate agent this morning, but afterward I shall be free. Shall I see you at luncheon?”

Sir Thomas shook his head. “I believe that I shall take my leave of you now.” He gestured to the waiting footman. The servant came forward with his greatcoat, hat, and gloves.

Lucinda’s surprise at his readiness to be off made her utter, “Are you leaving this instant? I did not realize that you had already made your preparations.”

“I had decided to do so when I wakened this morning. I have tarried longer than I informed your mother that I would,” said Sir Thomas. He winked broadly at his daughter. “Besides, I know something of females, having lived in a houseful these many years. You will be wanting to see to the packing of half the house for this jaunt of yours. I would be very much in the way.”

“Indeed you would,” agreed Lucinda. “But surely it is too early to think of leaving. Why, you have scarcely left the breakfast table!”

“I meant to stay only long enough to have a few minutes with you this morning after I realized that your mother would be fretting that she has not heard from me before this,” said Sir Thomas, shrugging into his greatcoat. He took his hat and gloves from the footman and put them on. Then he turned to kiss his daughter upon her upturned cheek. “I have the carriage waiting at the front steps, so I shall be on my way.”

“Very well, Papa.” Lucinda did not urge Sir Thomas to change his mind, and she saw him out. She was glad of her shawl when she emerged from the warmth of the house into the winter cold. She waved from the top of the front steps as her father climbed into the carriage. “Give my love to Mama,” she called.

Sir Thomas waved acknowledgement from the carriage window. “You may depend upon me to relate all the news!” he promised. He put up the glass as the carriage started forward.

Lucinda shook her head, but she also smiled with affection. It was inevitable that Sir Thomas would confide the particulars of Lucinda’s amazing scheme to his wife. Lucinda knew that she would then receive a letter from her mother requesting a more comprehensive explanation and offering a catechism of advice.

The vehicle rolled away down the drive. Lucinda waved again, but she did not tarry to watch her father’s carriage round the bend in the gravel drive. She retreated into the house immediately.

The footman thought it was the cold of the bleak January morning that had driven her ladyship inside so soon. But Lucinda’s thoughts were not dwelling on the frigid air.

Instead, she was already occupied with all of the matters that still had to be settled and accomplished before she could set out for London the following morning. The culmination of a year’s careful planning was almost at hand.

“Pray have Mr. Latham sent to me in the study,” she said to the footman.

“Yes, m’lady.”

Lucinda was still smiling as she entered the study. She sat down at the huge mahogany desk where she had routinely attended to the many demands of the estate. Glancing slowly about the well-appointed room, she sighed softly. It was a pleasure to reflect that this would be the last decision that she would need to make about the workings of Carbarry.

She was positively looking forward to the formal task of handing over the working of the estate into Mr. Latham’s capable hands for an indefinite time. Once that was done, she would be released from the last obligation that tied her to Carbarry.

Chapter Three

The transition to London was accomplished smoothly and without mishap. Those servants who accompanied Lady Mays from Carbarry to the town house settled quickly into their new surroundings. With scarcely an hour lost, the running of the household was established.

Lucinda had written Miss Blythe some months previously when the lady was to meet her in London and had sent the necessary traveling funds. Within a fortnight of Lucinda’s own arrival, she had been joined by her companion, the estimable Miss Blythe.

The household took swift measure of her ladyship’s companion and concluded that Miss Blythe was a female of superior qualities. The lady was soft-spoken enough, but there was about her speech a quiet steel that commanded respect.

Miss Blythe’s appearance added to the impression. She was a lady of spare proportions and was always dressed with propriety. Her dark hair had softened with gray, but it was ruthlessly swept back in a tight coronet. A pair of spectacles perched upon the bridge of her proud, prominent nose, emphasizing her piercing gaze. It was known that Miss Blythe had formerly been a governess, and the general verdict was that no pupil of hers would have dared to take advantage of such a stern individual.

However, beneath the austere exterior that Miss Blythe presented to the world was a woman of imagination and with a penchant for the romantic. It was perhaps to her benefit that she had never had a great deal of beauty, for then she could not have played the role that she had so successfully managed through her career as the governess par excellence. For a young woman of respectable family who had had no means and no offers, becoming a governess had been the only logical choice.

Through the years there had been times when Miss Blythe had wondered what turn her life might have taken if circumstances had been different, but on the whole she had no regrets. That had become doubly true since she had agreed to become her dear Lucinda’s companion.

Miss Tibby Blythe gazed with appreciative eyes around the well-proportioned sitting room. It never failed to please her. With a bony forefinger she touched a delicate figurine that rested on the polished mantel.

Miss Blythe sighed with contentment. Wherever she looked, in whatever room she found herself, there was great beauty. Magnificent pieces of art and sculpture, priceless vases and gilt mirrors, luxurious oriental carpets and beautifully carven furniture made abiding at Mays House an experience in delicious decadence.

Miss Blythe still had difficulty in believing the good fortune that had led her former and best-loved pupil to request her companionship and to install her in such wonderfully sybaritic surroundings. It was close to living in a sumptuous palace, she thought.

“Tibby? Oh, there you are.” Lucinda came into the sitting room, pulling on her pale kid gloves. She glanced around and then looked at her former governess, smiling. “Well, Tibby? Has it come up to your expectations?”

Miss Blythe had turned. At Lucinda’s inquiry, she clasped her hands in front of her spare bosom in an expression of bliss. “Everything more than exceeds any puny expectations of mine, my dear. The comfort of my room. This delightful town house. London itself. Why, it is all more than I can yet comprehend.” She shook her head in self-amusement. “When you wrote to me and begged me to come to you as your companion, I never dreamed that I should step into a fantasy existence.”

“A fantasy indeed,” said Lucinda thoughtfully, smoothing her gloves over her wrists. She looked up and laughed. “I am glad that you are not disappointed. I own, I was not certain what we might expect since the house had been shut up for the past year. But my cousin-in-law, Lord Wilfred Mays, was extremely gracious in allowing me to order the house as I wished and the caretakers kept it up nicely.”

“I do not know how you were ever able to bear leaving it,” said Miss Blythe, once more gazing about her appreciatively.

Lucinda also looked around, but more subjectively. The sitting room was beautifully appointed, as was every other room in the town house. The uninitiated saw only the magnificence, the opulence, the luxury. However, she knew better than most that beauty was not always a reflection of what was good or best. Surrounded by such outward trappings of wealth, she had learned the poverty of bitter disillusionment and inconceivable loneliness.

It had been in this very room that the impassive butler had brought to her the verbal message that her husband had arranged for her to leave London within the hour. She would not be returning. His lordship had not bothered to convey his wishes in private, but had sent them by a servant.

This final humiliation had been a devastating blow, and it had all but broken her pride completely. The weight of her distress had nearly shattered her composure. But she had managed not to make a spectacle of herself. In a voice that she had not recognized as her own, she had requested that her maid be sent down to her. It had only been through Madison’s offices that she had been able to walk upstairs to her dressing room and attire herself for the journey.

Strange, Lucinda reflected, as she looked around the sitting room. There should be ghostly emotions vibrating forever in these surroundings, but she had felt nothing.

She had actually dreaded reentering the portals of this house and steeled herself against it. She had even wondered whether she could live at Mays House for an entire Season. The memories had come, of course, but she remained oddly unmoved. Simply, the town house was not home to her. She moved within its walls and enjoyed its luxuries, but it was as though she was merely a guest to whom polite hospitality had been extended. It had actually come as something of a relief to discover that the place had so little hold upon her.

Lucinda saw that her companion was looking at her rather strangely. She realized that she had been silent too long and at once volunteered an explanation. “Mrs. Beeseley has promised us a fine roast for our dinner, by the by. I was thinking just now that we must take care to return from our outing in good time so that we do not offend the cook’s sensibilities.” She gestured toward the door, lifting a brow inquiringly. “Shall we go
?
Are you ready?”

“Oh, I am quite ready.” Miss Blythe smoothed her own gloves and adjusted the reticule strings over her wrist as she moved after Lucinda to the door. Her thoughts were still revolving pleasurably on the promised treat that Lucinda had revealed was in store for them. She voiced her approval of the housekeeper’s diligence. “An excellent woman altogether. She knows how to keep the household well in hand, and she is never behind in the least courtesy. Did you know that Mrs. Beeseley has given orders that my sheets are to be properly warmed each night? That is the mark of the superior housekeeper.” Miss Blythe laughed a little self-consciously at how contented that she had sounded. “Oh, my dear! I am persuaded that I shall very much enjoy my position as your companion.”

“You are to be my chaperone as well, Tibby,” reminded Lucinda as they left the sitting room and traversed the entry hall. “You will be constrained to accompany me to every function that I take a fancy to attend. I only hope that you do not become jaded by all the amusements that we are certain to be offered.”

“Jaded! Oh, I should think not indeed, my lady,” said Miss Blythe. She was mindful of the footmen in the hall and took care to address her former pupil respectfully. “What an ingrate I would be to prefer my last post with the most obnoxious charge of my career to accompanying my dear Lady Mays to any diversion she chose.”

Lucinda laughed, but she shook her head as well. Pausing on the doorstep, she said, “Pray do not call me that when we are private.”

“But the servants, my dear. I must keep a proper distance between us before them,” said Miss Blythe.

“You are my friend, Tibby. Surely that gives you leave enough to disregard what anyone else may say! It is bad enough that you insist upon such formality between us when we are in company,” said Lucinda.

“I own, it does come awkwardly to my tongue,” said Miss Blythe. “I had grown too used to thinking of you as Lucinda Stassart over the years, and old habits die hard.” While they spoke, the ladies had descended the outside steps to the curb where the carriage was waiting. A footman handed them inside, and they made themselves comfortable. As the carriage started off, Lucinda said, “You never did approve of my marriage to Lord Mays, did you, Tibby?”

Miss Blythe looked at her former charge. Her rather plain face reflected her dismay. “My dear.”

Lucinda gave a slight smile. “You said not a word. But I knew that you did not approve.
It was why I did not discuss the matter with you. Perhaps I should have done so.”

Miss Blythe covered Lucinda’s gloved hand with her own. “My dear Lucinda, it was not for me to voice my opinion. It would have been quite improper of me to have done so. It is quite true that I harbored strong reservations. You were so young and I had heard something of Lord Mays’s unsavory reputation. But I knew also of your family’s difficulties. Such terrible mortgages and debts and that wretched boy scarcely helped matters!”

Lucinda gave a gurgle of laughter. “My cousin Ferdie. What a coil he always made of things. But he is Papa’s heir, and he could not be left dangling, after all.”

“The experience might have done his character a great deal of good,” said Miss Blythe austerely.

“I suspect that Ferdie is quite past redemption,” said Lucinda candidly. “He never seemed able to stop himself from gambling even when his pockets were all to let. It is why my uncle finally refused to cover his debts any longer.”

“It is a pity that Sir Thomas was not of the same strength of mind,” said Miss Blythe. “Then perhaps you would not have been thrust into such an unequal marriage. Forgive me, my dear! I had not meant to speak so bluntly. It was just that the thought of your cousin, and your own questions, have roused me from my silence.”