Of course to the Baron, and so many others, all Lucasta had to offer could be summed up in pounds and pence. Lucasta wished shewereMedusa and her answering glare might turn his lordship to stone.
“The heir to Arendale has no need for my aunt’s fortune,” Aunt Pevensey said quickly. “A knight’s relict? How rich could she possibly be?”
“Well, he’s cannot be interested in her person.” The Baron flicked the card that had been enclosed in the box, not caring where it fell. “Cici can’t be seen in a shop of Rudyard’s ladybird, but you were, right, Pet, that Lucasta could use some smartening. She’s not dashing enough for Trevor in your old frocks, and everyone will say I foisted your niece on my son.”
“Ladybird?” Cici asked.
Aunt Patience spoke as if she were choking. “My love, as I told you, I cannot agree?—”
“Let Rudyard freshen her up as his own expense. Make her a plum ripe for the plucking.” His lordship rang for a servant. “Just don’t let him do more than sniff around your skirts, mind.”
Heat rushed from her cheeks to her ears, toes, everywhere, as if she’d been doused in boiling water. The Baron regarded her with amusement, as if he could read her look of mutiny. “I’m setting you up for life, gel. Don’t bite the hand lifting you from the gutter, eh?”
As if Miss Gregoire’s was a gutter. As if a career teaching and composing and singing wasn’t what she dreamed about, prayed for, worked to achieve. As if a miserable marriage to Trevor Pevensey were an outcome to desire.
Lucasta lifted her chin. Her heart rapped inside her chest like a trapped bird. “I can think of a way I might come across very smart, sir.”
He scowled, accepting his hat, coat, and walking stick as the butler brought them. “It’s not enough I provide your gowns and fripperies, and let you roam where you wish, like a kitchen maid?” His tone was low but razor-sharp, meant to cut.
“If I am consumed with an activity—something like organizing a benefit concert, for instance—I will have no time to entertain suitors.”
Aunt Pevensey hissed, watching Lucasta step around her prohibition and go directly to a higher authority. Cici held her breath.
“And there’s the foreign blood coming out, isn’t it?” The Baron curled his lip. “You manipulative little baggage.”
“Peter. You see? You cannot ally Trevor with someone of shameful birth,” Aunt wailed.
Lucasta breathed from her navel, as her music masters had taught. Control. Tone. Volume. Her aunt would never accept that her father had been a worthy man, the best of men. All they saw was that he was born abroad, and from a family of no standing.
“If I host a successful concert, all our friends might be persuaded that Mr. Pevensey looks favorably upon my talents and accomplishments, and scarcely regards my fortune.”
The Baron made a sour face. Everyone of his class cared for nothing more than fortune and the status it bought. But to be transparent about this was vulgarity of the worst sort.
“Very well.” The Baron met her eyes with a snarl. “But if you shame your family, like your mother did?—”
My mother was happy!Lucasta wanted to shriek, but it would not do to behave like a kettle at full boil. The Baron would dismiss her as a hysterical woman, and that would be the end of all.
So she let the Baron have the last word. He set his brimmed hat at a rakish angle and whacked his walking stick against thepaneled door as he left, off to his club. Aunt Pevensey looked as if she’d swallowed a bird, but she had no choice but to submit.
That was what marriage required of women—to submit.
“I suppose the Baron believes you might keep yourself out of mischief if you are consumed with your little charity project,” Aunt said faintly. “You might go to this Miss Beaudoin tomorrow, early enough so that no one will take any note of you.” She gathered up the morning correspondence with trembling hands. “You heard his lordship, I hope. There is to be no more encouraging Lord Rudyard.”
“No, mum,” Lucasta said.
She would trade him for a chance to organize her own concert. She would sacrifice him a thousand times. A man who bought her friends silks after he heaped them with scorn, a man who thought most of the world beneath him. It was no loss.
It was no loss, she told herself as she took the box of exquisite chintz fabric to her bedchamber, to give up foolish dreams that had no hope of coming to pass.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thursday was Lady Pevensey’s at-home day, and at the earliest time that could be deemed acceptable, the butler introduced an unexpected pair of callers into the green parlor where Cici sat with her embroidery. Lucasta had her nose in Jean-Philippe Rameau’sTreatise on Harmony,and Lady Pevensey made no pretense of doing anything but wonder which important people might attend them that day.
“Lord Rudyard, mum, and Miss Lambertina Falstead, daughter of the late Lord Payne.” The butler stood aside to let them enter.
Lady Pevensey dropped her copy of theLadies Cabinet, trying to school her expression, which ranged from dismay to astonishment to a sly, wild hope. “Lord Rudyard! What an—unexpected pleasure.”
Lucasta struggled to keep her own face from betraying the way her heart leapt straight into her throat, like a ballet dancer. He wore a beautiful suit of red-brown linen, with rows of enameled buttons lining the double-breasted waistcoat and matching frock coat, and cream-colored suede breeches buckled above the knee. He swept his cocked hat under one arm and bowed to her ladyship. His unpowdered hair was brown aschocolate, pulled back in a queue, and his simple linen neckcloth gleamed white.
