Lucy didn’t wish to discuss it with these elegant older women so she tried to get the topic back to its origin. “What does whether or not I went to school have to do with Miss Bastion?”
“Oh, right, I clearly got distracted. Thank you, my dear.”
Lucy stifled her grin over Lady Crossley’s words. What a lovely lady.
“Miss Bastion has accepted Lord Philips’ proposal!” Lady Crossley said it as though she were sharing a great secret or revelation. “I wouldn’t say this publicly, but I think them both quite strange, so I think they might be quite happy together.”
The rest of the visit continued to spin by and they were all startled when they heard a clock striking five.
“Oh dear, I hadn’t meant to stay quite this long, Georgia, but as always, you are the best company,” Caroline said as she got to her feet.
“I would beg you to stay longer but since my sister hasn’t returned yet, I suppose I’m going to have to send the footmen to fetch her.”
Lucy’s face must have given away her surprise over the viscountess’ words for that lady laughed and explained. “The girl misses the countryside for all her attempts to put on city airs. When I let her go to the Park without me, she’ll spend hours wandering the riverbanks looking for creatures she could adopt. If I don’t want a menagerie to develop in our house, I need to have her searched upon her return.”
“Perhaps Lord Busby might be a good match for her, then,” Lucy blurted. “He seems nearly as enamoured of animals.”
Georgia laughed. “Horses at the very least,” she agreed. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m going to take her to the country for a good long stay before we return for another Season.”
After taking their leave, Lucy found herself once more in private company with Caroline.
“Do you think Roderick will be terribly disappointed about Miss Bastion?” Lucy shouldn’t ask such a personal question but she couldn’t help herself.
“I don’t think he’ll even notice,” Caroline replied immediately.
“He notices everything,” Lucy countered, loyal to her friend, making the other woman laugh.
“Of course, he does, I didn’t mean it so literally,” Caroline said. “I merely meant that since his heart wasn’t involved it won’t matter to him at all. In fact, if he thinks about it at all, he’ll merely be happy for them both. I think it likely he’ll be relieved, to be honest. I don’t think he enjoyed the prospect of marrying for money. He ought to have allowed his family to invest in his venture, and then it wouldn’t have been such a burden for him.”
“But isn’t the point that he wants something independently his? If he allowed his brothers or his father to invest, he would just feel like it’s an extension of the allowance he doesn’t want to accept any longer.”
Lucy bit her lip as Caroline stopped on the sidewalk and stared at her as a smile grew upon her face.
“I do believe you have the right of it, my friend,” Caroline said in a jovial tone that made Lucy unaccountably uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t presume to explain your family to you,” Lucy stammered.
“Not at all. I think it’s delicious that you know him so well. It seems to me that you might know him even better than the rest of us, since you see him from a far different perspective.” She paused for a moment and Lucy thought they had ended the topic but before she could think of something else to say, Caroline squeezed her arm. “Do say you’ll marry him.”
Now it was Lucy’s turn to stop dead in her tracks, forcing the other woman to do so as well, as she still had her hand tucked into Lucy’s elbow. Lucy stared at the other woman who clamped a hand comically over her mouth.
“I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” she asked, trying to appear innocent. “You won’t tell him, will you?”
Caroline had an expression on her face that struck Lucy as conniving, but she couldn’t fathom why. She was relieved to see her townhouse come into view and it took effort not to quicken her pace.
“Thank you for the lovely afternoon,” Caroline said when they reached Lucy’s front door. “You were a pleasure to spend time with. I hope I didn’t make you too uncomfortable. Sometimes my mouth runs away with me when an idea presents itself before other parts of my mind engage in thinking of the consequences.”
Lucy smiled and nodded, having no answer for such a statement. It was obvious the other woman was intelligent. Lucy hadn’t spent a great deal of time with just her in the past despite their families’ close interactions, but she had never witnessed the woman letting her tongue run away on her. Lucy suspected the woman always spoke with intention. It struck her that Caroline Northcott might be even smarter than Lucy had suspected.
And she was universally liked and accepted in Society.
Which meant that there was no true encumbrance to a fashionable lady being intelligent and socially acceptable at the same time. She even helped her husband with his investigations, or at least knew all about them. It felt like a revelation to Lucy. She would have to think on it some more. She didn’t think her father would have agreed with her assessment, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t give it consideration.
“Thank you for the afternoon,” Lucy finally answered, biting her tongue not to ask if the other woman had heard from Roderick.
But the thought must have written itself on her face because before taking her leave, Caroline offered the information.
“I don’t have many details, but Roderick sent a note to say he was well and would be returning to Town shortly. Have you heard from him?”
