Arabella kept talking, her cheeks flushed, her face animated. It occurred to her she didn’t look heartbroken at all that Finbar married Louisa.
“And you? How do you feel?” Lucy interrupted her stream. “About Finbar and Louisa, I mean.”
Arabella shrugged. “She can have him with my blessing.”
Lucy bent towards her. “And Mr Gabriel?”
“He married the older Stilton sister, Emma, at the end of the summer.” Arabella looked away.
“Oh, Arabella. I’m so sorry.” Lucy took both her hands in hers. “I’ve been a terrible friend.”
Arabella looked at her seriously. “You could have trusted me.”
“I know.” Lucy whispered. “I feel I don’t deserve your friendship. All the lies I told. I’ve been way too self-absorbed and never noticed really what you went through. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Lucy. You are such a goose. I’d very much like to go and visit you at Sullivan Hall, but I daresay you have other plans, now.”
Lucy wanted to ask what she meant, when she was interrupted by a yippingblack arrow shooting through the room straight towards her.
It was Bartimaeus.
“Bart, Bart!” Lucy picked up the licking, squiggling bundle. She was bursting with health. “How you have grown!”
“This pup gives us all sleepless nights.” The dowager sniffed, but there was a fond undertone in her voice. “She insists on sleeping in all our rooms, preferably Ashmore’s, and if she doesn’t get her way she yowls and wakes up the entire house. I daresay it is our own fault, and the servants’ as well—particularly Meg’s and Felix’s—since we’re to use names, aren’t we—for having spoiled her rotten. There isn’t a more spoiled dog in the entire kingdom. Even though Henry attempts to train her. Without success, I may add.”
Bart clawed her way onto Lucy’s lap and licked her hands. Lucy kissed her nose,picked her up and went to the veranda.
“So, you have been misbehaving, Bart? How terrible of you. I’ll take you outside so you can run around on the grass.”
She walked down the stairs and set her on the grass, where Bart sniffed out the insects.
“Well, Lucy.” Lucy jumped and whirled around to face Henry, who was watching her. “Or rather, Miss Edgewood. Catherine. I heard that is your new name, now.”
“My parents call me Cathy. But Lucy will do.”
“Yes. To me, you will always be Lucy.”
Feeling out of her depth, she didn’t know what to say.
“Shall we take a walk? The rose garden is particularlylovely this season.” He offered her his arm, and she took it. They were as formal as a pair of strangers.
The roses smelled fragrantly in the summer night.
“I shall have to plant new roses over here. Either the hybrid tea rose, or the floribunda rose. What do you think? It would form a nice nook. With a little bench in the middle.”
He wastalking of roses. Really?
“I heard you didn’t marry Lady Louisaafter all. I—I saw the engagement announcement.”
“Hm. Yes.” He bent to fiddle around with a rose stem. “After the fiasco last summer, and your sudden disappearance, her father was overeager to seal the union, so he sent the announcement to the paper, thinking that would settle things. Alas, he hadn’t counted on his daughter.”
Lucy looked at him, confused. “Why?”
“She discovered something—shall we say—unsavoury about me.”
“Unsavoury?” What on earth was he talking about?
“Well, yes. She discovered my secret vice. My penchant for dressing up in poor gardener’s clothes and spending the greater part of my day mucking around in the dirt. I insisted on wearing my gardener’s garb for an entire afternoon. She walked in on me here, in the rose garden. Smoking my pipe.”
