The boy just looked at her with huge, hungry eyes.
“Right. Well then,” Lucy got up and shook her skirts, “let’s see what we can find you to eat.”
She procured a plate filled with a fruit scone, a triangular cucumber sandwich and a slice of seed cake directly from the cook. As a former housemaid-turned-lady, Lucy was now a celebrity below stairs, and she could getanything she wanted from them.
Lucy took the plate back to the stables and watched Jem eat. He was so tiny.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised him.
The boy looked at her with forlorn expression when she left. She made a mental note to instruct the cook to feed the boy properly.
She thought of going into the forest to look for Henry. But her morning dress was not appropriate for a forest walk. Arabella would wonder where she was. But there was still enough time for her to look for some kind of toy. For Jem.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
After nuncheon, Lucy went searching for toys. Arabella had suggested the old nursery, but Lucy only found a handful of marbles in the drawer of a Chinese cabinet.
She walked into the blue salon, counting the marbles in her hand. She didn’t look upuntil she was already in the room.
“Arabella, I’ve found only five marbles, and two of them are chipped and useless. No idea where the others are. Do you think they might be in the attic somewhere?”
She looked up and saw that Arabella was not alone but having tea with the guests. With a little smile, Arabella indicated her to turn around.
“What?” Lucy tilted her head. She’d not seen the tall, stern man standing by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Here she is, Ash. I’m so pleased to present my friend Lucy Bell. Lucy, this is my brother, the Duke of Ashmore. Finally, you two get to meet!”
A wave of shock slapped her.
She heard her own quick, sharp intake of breath as she stared into Henry’s steel blue eyes.
Chapter 8
“Miss Bell.” The duke gave her a dismissive nod.
She reeled. A buzzing started in her ears. With pounding heart, Lucy dropped into an automatic, lop-sided curtsy. Her fingers clenched around her marbles, crunching them together.
I better not drop them now,was the only thought in her mind.
Someone said something, but the roaring din in her ears wouldn’t stop. She felt like she was underwater, and voices no longer sounded like normal voices but like they came from a bubble. And she was outside of that bubble, looking in. People moved their mouths,but she didn’t comprehend what they said. The duke must have addressed her, because everyone looked at her in expectation.
The words were wedged in her throat. “Uh - I’m sorry.” Her legs gave way, and she plopped down on the chaise longue next to the Dowager Duchess. Never mind that she was breakingsocial etiquette since no one had invited her to sit in the presence of the duke. For sit she would. In the worst case, she’d sit on the floor. Disoriented, she looked at Arabella for help. Arabella’s face was full of concern.
The duke looked on with an air of utter boredom, as if the answer to his question didn’t matter.
“Losing the ability to hear is my prerogative,” the Dowager Duchess informed Lucy with a sniff. Then, directed at her grandson, “I am sure everything is in good order, and her rooms are to her liking.”
“Oh, y–yes.” Lucy stuttered. If she gripped the marbles any harder, she’d crush them to glass dust. Hushed tittering came from a group of women who stood by the window.
“Where were we?” The Dowager Duchess thumped her stick on the floor. “Ah yes. That infernal ball. Ashmore, I insist that you organise a proper orchestra. One that can read notes properly. The one you had the last time was an insult to all musical ears. I cannot bear to suffer through it another time, nor can anyone with a little sense of musicality in their body.”
“Whatever you wish, Grandmamma. I will instruct Brown to hire musicians from the Philharmonic Society.” His familiar, deep voice gave her goosebumps, but the unutterably bored drawl with which he uttered this reply alienated her.
It was all a colossal mistake, Lucy thought. This was not Henry. This man was the Duke of Ashmore, the embodiment of the arrogant aristocrat. He was a haughty marble statue. The highest form of emotion he knew was one of boredom.
He was polished from top to toe, impeccably dressed in topcoat, skin-tight breeches and Hessians. There was not a single crease on him. His dark hair, slicked back, revealed a proud forehead and high cheekbones. Thus, his nose was in sharp profile. It was the same eagle-like nose as the Dowager Duchess. The colour of his eyes was the same as Arabella’s. She didn’t know why she didn’t see that before. His lips were thin, proud, and entirely humourless. Those lips had never smiled, nor joked in their entire life.
“Well done, Ashmore, they say the Philharmonics arefirst-rate, the world’s best musicians,” said a whiskered gentleman in a colonel’s uniform, whose name Lucy had forgotten.
