He handed her down from the cabriolet and guided her up the wide stone staircase that led to the grand front entrance. Without hesitation, he pushed open the ten-foot-high oak door and stepped into the receiving hall with Nell at his side. Her brow lifted toward the thirty-foot ceiling. “The duke won’t mind us entering through the front door?”
He shook his head, determined to speak no more false words to this woman.
“What about the servants?”
“I’m known to all.”
A chambermaid entered the hall, humming a soft tune. Upon noticing him and Nell, she stopped abruptly, dipped in a flustered curtsy, and scurried out of sight. Nell’s eyebrows drew together. “Maids curtsy to valets in this house?” She spoke the wordhousewith no small amount of irony.
“Nell, there is something you need to know about me.”
“Oh, I’d say I know a great deal,” she said, a light blush staining her cheeks and a saucy smile curling about her mouth.
“I’m not exactly who you think I am.”
Her brow crinkled, her smile fading into a memory of itself. “Pardon?”
“I am in the ways that matter, but—”
“Lucas?” came a faraway voice from on high.
It was only then he noticed that all the chandeliers were lit. And they shouldn’t have been, because he’d been away and shouldn’t have returned for a week.
Nell questioned him with her gaze before swinging around to find a woman bedecked to the hilt in no fewer than five varieties of jewels standing at the head of the wide staircase that elegantly curved to the second floor.
Mama.
And behind her arrived yet more of his family. Elizabeth and Catherine, his two older sisters, and their husbands—the Earl of Chandos and Baron Shomberg. Lucas had no notion of the men’s first names as they went exclusively by their titles. Rather high in the instep for his own preference, but his brothers-in-law seemed to make his sisters happy.
Nell’s puzzlement was quickly transforming into horror, the color draining from her face. “Lucas,” she muttered, low, so only he could hear. “What is this?”
Clearly, Mama was wondering the exact same thing. “What areyoudoinghere, Lucas? Baron Hatton sent word that you never arrived. So, we came up from London early. I was considering sending out a search party if we didn’t hear from you on the morrow.” The statement, however, lacked any urgency. All usually worked out for the best in his mother’s world, and it was with that expectation that she approached life. Her gaze shifted and landed on Nell. “And why is my dressmaker here, too?”
Nell was his mother’s dressmaker?
Blast.
Matters had gone from bad to worse.
Nell dipped in a shallow curtsy. “Your Grace.” Her gaze rounded on Lucas, knowledge shining in outraged eyes. “Youare the Duke? You’re not his valet?”
“Valet?” asked Mama on a harrumph. “My son refuses to employ a valet. Says he knows how to dress himself with perfect competency.”
Nell looked poised to bolt down the driveaway with nary a glance back. And who could blame her? Instinctively, subtly, Lucas’s fingers felt for hers at his side. She avoided his touch by clasping her hands before her.
Mama began descending the staircase. “Oh, I see.”
“You do?” Lucas and Nell asked at the same time.
Mama’s attention remained fixed on Nell. “Youthought we were to have our dressmaking sessions at Amherst House. WhileIwas under the impression we would meet on the morrow in Matlock Bath. After all, I am in dire need of a few spa days.”
“Well, I, erm,” stammered Nell.
Mama waved away the supposed mix-up. “No matter, you’re here now. Send for your luggage to be brought in, and we’ll have our session here come morning. Then I’ll be off to Matlock Bath for my spa sessions. The waters are truly healing.”
Nell’s cheeks were flaming. Though it was Lucas’s instinct to jump to her defense, he held back, understanding he shouldn’t. Better that Mama continued with her misinterpretation of the situation until he could get Nell alone.
“I don’t have my luggage with me,” said Nell.
