“No, thank you though. You all enjoy your game.”
Mother gave him an inquisitive look, but he pulled the paper back into place so he would not have to respond to it. The group resumed its playing, and Lucas tried to ignore them. It was fairlyeasy until Mother declared a desire to read, and Father claimed the spot next to Lucas.
“Is that today’s paper?” his father asked.
Lucas nodded.
“Do they mention the Stamp Duties act?”
Lucas froze. He’d not read a bit. “I have not come to it yet.”
“May I see?”
Lucas handed over his shield, which left him with an unimpeded view of Charlie and Miss Faraday. Charlie had a bandage around his head and was reclined in a chair, regaling Miss Faraday with some sort of tale. A ghost of a smile hovered about her lips as she listened to him.
“And then—I swear to you this is truth, on my honor—then he slipped, losing his pastry and colliding with not two, not three, butfourelderly women. We had to call a physician out to the ice to care for him. He is a good chap, but I tell you, he has two left feet.”
Miss Faraday chuckled. “It sounds marvelous. I wish I had been in London in time to see it.”
Charlie’s eyes were wide. “I wish you had too. An entire city on the ice—the stuff of fairy tales!”
Miss Faraday glanced up, catching Lucas’s eye in that moment. Something flashed in the depths of hers. It drew him in and scared him all at once. “Did you attend the frost fair, Lord Berkeley?”
Lucas did not have the time to answer before Charlie did so for him. “No. Lucas remained home. He is not one for festivities.”
Miss Faraday cocked her head at him, and Lucas wished he could have gone back and attended the event so that he might regale her with his own tales. Except he would not have because he was keeping to himself for the evening. And the rest of the Season, if he could manage it.
“As Charlie says, I did not attend.”
She nodded, and he nearly teased her over the action but wisely kept his mouth closed. Charlie pulled her back into conversation, but she glanced at Lucas a time or two more before becoming fully engrossed in whatever they were speaking of. He caught snatches of the topic. Something about America, boats, and horses. It was not until they began talking about Society that Lucas attended fully to their words. His mother had rejoined the conversation.
“When I marry,” Charlie was saying, “and, Mother, please note I saidwhen. It will happen eventually, so you can stop worrying.”
Mother shook her head. “Become a parent and tell me it is possible to stop worrying. Why, you boys are both past twenty years, yet I still worry that you are not eating enough and getting enough rest.”
“I will always take more food and more sleep, Mother, but when I marry, I intend to secure my own lodgings.”
“We have room enough here,” Mother said.
“Yes, yes, but I think I should like a little more freedom...”
“I do see the appeal of freedom, I suppose,” Mother said. “But perhaps you could live nearby?” She spoke with equal parts humor and request.
Charlie just laughed.
“Freedom will always be appealing, will it not?” Miss Faraday added. To some, it might seem that she was just joining the conversation, but Lucas knew the struggle she had with her guardian. To her, freedom would be monumental.
“What would you do if given an excess of freedom?” Charlie asked, lounging back in his seat.
Miss Faraday’s face pinched in thought. “Whatever I wanted, I suppose. Set up a home in a quiet little town. Work, maybe—”
Charlie barked a laugh. “No wife of mine will ever work, that is for sure.”
Lucas sat forward at that, seeing the way Miss Faraday’s wistful expression had dimmed. “You do not own your wife, Charlie,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” Father said from beside Lucas.
Lucas’s mother smiled at her husband then turned to Charlie. “Your brother is right.”
