“Mama sent around to ask about Mademoiselle Beaudoin.” Selina smoothed the yellow fabric with her palm. “She grew up in a place called the Sisters of Benevolence Hospital for Orphans and Women in Distressed Circumstances. It is one of Miss Gregoire’s favorite charities. You know how the Foundling Hospital will only take children of married parents? The Sisters of Benevolence take anyone. The matron told Mama that a local linen draper had furnished funds to set Miss Beaudoin up in a shop of her own. She took several other girls from the institution with her as seamstresses.”
Lucasta sensed her friends waited for her approval. “So while we could not accept expensive gifts from Lord Rudyard, he has designed it so we would be supporting a girl with her own shop.Youwould be supporting,” she corrected herself. There had been no fabric for her. Though he had drivenherabout town, listened tohersing.
With that thunderstruck expression. His insistence she should be on the stage. That glow of passionate interest in his honey brown eyes, the flicker of a smile on those sculpted lips—all this layered atop the memory of his touch in the allemande,that moment he had draw her toward him, as if he meant to clasp her in his arms.
She gulped down the strange knot of longing. Perhaps she had taken a chill on the walk. “You accept his apology, then?”
Selina bit her lip with tiny white teeth and glanced at her mother. “We do.”
“But is this enough to make up for the rest?” Lucasta also looked to Mrs. Humby, who poured tea into five bone china cups and picked up the sugar tongs. Selina’s invitations had fallen off considerably after Rudyard’s thoughtless comment.
“As Lord Rudyard’s father is governor of Barbados, I don’t doubt he is exposed to certain, shall we say, attitudes. But I hope he might be brought to think more broadly about matters. Given the right influence.” Mrs. Humby deposited a lump of sugar in each elegant cup and smiled at her daughter. “And only look at how well the golden damask becomes her! I cannot find it in me to refuse.”
“I am content to let Jeremiah Falstead be draper to the Gorgons,” Minnie said, wrapping the luscious fabric about her shoulders. “You did not receive a box, Lucasta?”
“No, and just as well, for Aunt Pevensey would never allow me to receive it, much less have a dress made up.”
Lucasta, with her funds for her music conservatory locked in a bank in Bath, relied on her aunt for the season’s pin money, and her aunt was not notable for her generosity. “Besides, I’m not certain I can forgive him. If we overlook his cruelty, he will go on being cruel.”
Minnie and Annis could rise above being called Gorgons; they would turn it to their advantage. And Selina would make a good match to a man who loved her for herself.
Still, Rudyard’s gifts suggested he had listenedto Lucasta. Beyond her supposedly clever epigram.
“We are only saying we approve of his taste, not of his beliefs,” Minnie reasoned. “And we can show him by example how to amend his ways.”
Lucasta watched her friends enjoy their gifts, wrapping themselves in the lengths of gorgeous silk. Rudyard had chosen a fabric that complemented each girl’s coloring. And by all reports, he had helped a young, friendless girl without resources set up her own shop so that she might achieve self-sufficiency, perhaps in time respectability.
That kindness sat at odds with the man who had curled up his lip upon entering Mrs. Sancho’s establishment. The man who, at finding Eliza blind, had struggled to mask his shock.
“So we’re to set aside our quarrel with Rudyard and his friends,” she murmured. And permit him to go on as he was, splendid of form and lacking in conscience.
“I shall wear this fabric whether I like him or not,” Annis exclaimed. “And furthermore, I shall pair it with the mink pelisse he hates, if only to show him that we may relent, but we are not in thrall.”
“Put your new fabrics aside, girls, and take your tea while it is hot,” Mrs. Humby prompted. “I have not seen you together for days! You must catch me up on everything, for Mr. Humby and I live very quietly, you know.”
They settled into Mrs. Humby’s new Hepplewhite chairs, and the ease of familiarity lightened the taut curl of emotion in Lucasta’s chest. She had missed this, a domestic space that felt welcoming, being at liberty with her friends.
“My aunt has been approached about founding a new academy.” Annis blew on her tea. “In addition to the Imperial Academy, which she already directs. I believe the goal is to support the study of the Russian language. She’s asked me to assist.”
“Tell her we shall all assist,” Minnie exclaimed. “I should like to learn Russian. Perhaps it will help me with the translation of my poem. The Middle High German is quite different from Gothic.”
“But is the work any good?” Annis wanted to know.
“Not at the moment. My knight is spending a great deal of time being beaten about by monsters and feeling sorry for himself. It’s high time for some virtuous action.” Minnie rolled her eyes.
“The cat I rescued from the trap survived,” Selina reported, adding a second lump of sugar to her cup. “Her leg is quite mended, though part of it is now missing. I named her Nila. She earns her keep chasing rats from the mews, but I believe she may be in the family way. I shall have to try my experimental surgery on Tom, if I can catch him.”
All eyes turned expectantly to Lucasta. She replaced her cup in its dish with trembling fingers, watching the milky liquid wash back and forth.
“I have been invited to get up a charity concert to benefit the Foundling Hospital.”
Her friends stared. “What?” Annis blinked.
“A concert?” Selina breathed.
“We shall play for you,” Minnie said immediately. “Who else shall you ask? This is your chance to become known to Signor Marchesi!”
Lucasta swallowed hard. “My aunt says I cannot accept. She says it is too large a task. I can only fail, and when I do, the shame will reflect on her and Cici.”
