CHAPTER ONE
LONDON, 1785
There must besomeadvantages to being a poor relation.
At the moment, Lucasta Lithwick couldn’t think of a single one.
Poor relations could be summoned to London on the whim of a lady aunt who had never liked them, yanked from their cherished position teaching music at Miss Gregoire’s Academy for Girls in Bath to chaperone a cousin they barely knew through her first Season. Cici had turned out to be delightful; the London Season, less so.
Of course, music abounded at the routs and ridottos, masques and balls, exhibitions and promenades. Even for one standing idle night after night on the fringes of fashionable drawing rooms, London flowed with music like wine at Carlton House. Lucasta drank it in like a satyr.
But poor relations were presumptuous if they expressed an interest in taking music lessons, or calling on musical personages, or attending one of the many private concerts that seemed always on offer and in which the lady aunt had no interest. They were not in London for their own amusement, mind, but expected to focus their entire attention on the duties for which they had been summoned and to which the claims offamily obliged them, all while showing some gratitude for the condescension of said family to notice the offspring of a mother who had sunk herself beyond reproach.
Also, it was expected that poor relations would meekly appreciate the ill-fitting gowns that the lady aunt so kindly provided from her wardrobe, since, as her ladyship saw fit to observe, Lucasta had only the poorest, meanest possessions of her own.
Lucasta yanked at one side of her ruffled petticoat, which didn’t want to hang properly over the outmoded pannier.
“Denied,” she informed her friends, crowded with her near one end of Lady Clara Bellwether’s drawing room. The conversational evening was giving way to dancing, and the young women without partners were obliged to make way for those with. “Expressly forbidden.”
“She couldn’t.” Minnie jostled Lucasta’s elbow as she flipped open her fan. “Signor Marchesi is the darling of Italian opera. He’ll only be in England a few months.”
“One of the finest voices on the European stage, and I cannot take lessons from him. He is too much admired, in my aunt’s opinion, and I should look silly dangling after him.”
Minnie smirked. “They saycastratiare skilled in the amorous arts as well as the musical. She ought to be glad you have chosen such a safe target for your infatuation.”
As the daughter of the Duke of Luneburg-Zuwecken, a high-ranking and wealthy official in the Hanoverian court, Minnie would never be a poor relation. She was also, given the great liberty of not living much in her home country, prone to speaking her mind.
Lucasta snorted. “Oh, certainly, I shall present that argument to my aunt. She will take it so well.”
A quartet appeared and began tuning their instruments. Lucasta itched to lay her hands on one of the violins.
“Cici is such a taking little thing, she will have an offer soon.” Selina watched with longing as the dancers formed squares for a cotillion. “Then perhaps Lady Pevensey will allow you more freedom.”
Upon his retirement to Britain with his Bengali wife, John Humby of the 1st Bengal Light Calvary had been granted a knighthood and a pension that made Selina highly attractive to admiring suitors. That was, before an unfortunate event earlier in the Season had quite sunk her in the eyes of thebeau monde.
Annis watched the dancers with cool disdain. “Has your aunt said why she wanted you in particular to chaperone Cici, when she hasn’t given you a thought for years?”
Anastasia Voronska, Annis to her dearest friends, was the daughter of Count Voronsky, the Russian ambassador to Britain, and her aunt, a Russian princess, was one of Catherine the Great’s closest confidantes. Annis would never be a poor relation, either.
“She called for me out of pity, poor orphan that I am, and she hopes some time in London might give me polish, and perhaps a chance at a husband,” Lucasta said. “You should have seen her face when I informed her that, upon my return to Bath, I am hunting up premises for my musical conservatory.”
Minnie laughed and linked an arm with Lucasta’s. “I hope she will keep you through the Season, at least, for what a treat to have us all together again! Miss Gregoire’s girls, unleashed on London. Did you hear they are calling us the Gorgons?”
“What?” Selina exclaimed. “Who would say such a thing?”
The second violin in the quartet came in half a beat behind the rest, and Lucasta set her teeth. “Smart Jeremy,milordRudyard, of course. Who else?”
“The insult isn’t even fitting,” Minnie remarked. “The Gorgons were three sisters. We are four.”
“Arethere any mythical groups of four women?” Annis wondered. “There always seem to be three. Fates. Furies. Harpies. Graces. Norns, in Norse mythology.”
Lucasta considered. “The Hesperides?”
“Hesiod only mentions three,” Minnie said. “So does Apollonius of Rhodes.”
“I’m quite sure some of the later vase paintings show four,” Lucasta said. “The collection at the British Museum?—”
“Gorgons?” Giving a low cry, Selina drew back her skirts as a dancer twirled by. “I suppose this is because Minnie insulted Lord Ashley at the Queen’s drawing room. Or because Annis did not invite his cousin and aunt to the Count’s dinner?”
