Even without the striking suit he would be handsome; it was something in his bearing, and in the character that shone through his well-arranged features. Lucasta ruthlessly tamped down a thrill as his eyes lingered on her.
It would not do to become silly over this man. She wouldnotdo it.
“Lady Pevensey, Miss Pevensey.” He paused, and did she imagine he spoke her name like a caress? “Miss Lithwick. I wish to make my cousin known to you.” He indicated the girl beside him. “She is lately emerged from mourning and hoping to meet new people.”
His cousin was short and rounded, dressed in a dove-gray gown with a large picture hat pinned to her powdered wig. She looked nervous and ill at ease, and Lucasta’s heart went out to her instantly. She rose and took the girl’s hand.
“How kind you are to call upon us, Miss Falstead,” Lucasta said. “I am new to town myself and in need of friends. Please accept our sympathies for your loss.”
“Thank you, Miss Lithwick.” Miss Falstead spoke in a small voice, but her grip was firm. She looked Lucasta over carefully. “How do you do.”
“I don’t doubt Cecilia will be a very suitable acquaintance for you, Miss Falstead.” Lady Pevensey scowled at her niece, and Lucasta knew she would hear a lecture later about pushing in. “She has had the good fortune to be widely received, though this is only her first Season. You have yourself paid her several compliments, Lord Rudyard, if I am not mistaken?”
“All well-deserved,” Rudyard said in the silky voice he had used with Lucasta when he accosted her at the theater. That voice made her nerve endings tingle. His eyes brushed over her as he turned to Cici.
“Perhaps Miss Pevensey will pay us a compliment in return, and reward us with her company in a drive through the park? It would be a shame not to enjoy this first glimpse of the sun in days.”
“The sun is disastrous to the complexion, and Cecilia is already engaged to go driving with Major Mallory in his new high-perch phaeton.” Lady Pevensey pouted. “Perhaps another time, Lord Rudyard?”
He turned to Lucasta. “Certainly. But since it is such a fine day, perhaps Miss Lithwick would care to console us. My pair needs to stretch their legs, and Bertie wishes for a companion more pleasant than I am.”
“Me?” Lucasta blinked. His steady golden-brown gaze made something in her chest lift and execute a slow, unsettled turn.
Fool!How could she be turning into a ninnyhammer over this man, when she knew exactly what he was?
“Oh, but I can’t see that Lucasta…” Aunt Pevensey trailed off as Rudyard rose to his feet.
“You won’t disappoint my cousin, Miss Lithwick? Run gather a wrap. We will have her home before dinner, my lady.”
“The Baron.” Aunt threw a look of warning at Lucasta. Her eyes grew tight at the corners, a look of swift calculation crossing her face.
“Would approve, I hope, of seeing Miss Lithwick do a kindness to my cousin, a marquess’s granddaughter,” Rudyard said firmly.
Miss Falstead made a pretty show of taking her leave, and before she could come up with a reason to deny herself the good fortune of being removed from her aunt’s suffocating parlor, Lucasta found herself being handed up into Rudyard’s calash. Miss Falstead folded down the rear seat and arranged herself in it, while Rudyard put back the hood.
“The breeze won’t bother you, will it, Miss Lithwick? Or do you find the sun disastrous to your complexion as well?”
She caught the twinkle in his eyes. “Do as you please, milord. I daresay we are all eager for sunlight after these dreary days.”
She told her stomach not to leap and swirl as he mounted the carriage and settled his lean, strong body on the front seat beside her. She would keep her head at all costs. The expression on her aunt’s face had been as clear as if she’d written it on paper. Aunt PevenseywantedLucasta to be in trouble with the Baron.
His lordship would punish Lucasta at the least provocation, beginning by taking away her chance to arrange the benefit concert. But a few turns around Hyde Park would not sink her, particularly if they were discussing musical arrangements. There would be nosniffing,as his lordship had implied, nor any other untoward activity.
Rudyard gathered the ribbons, and Lucasta considered his hands, strong, wide, long-fingered. His hold was as light and sure as Mlle. Beaudoin’s skill as she had measured, draped, and pinned Lucasta at her shop.
Wasthe girl his mistress? If so, Rudyard was not an unkind protector. The young woman had been all cheer and grateful smiles at Lucasta’s visit. And she spoke of Rudyard as if he had hung the stars in their constellations.
Lucasta would have no clients for lessons, no students for a musical school if she were known to consort with the mistresses of a known beau. She was about to change her mind and ask to be let down when Rudyard clicked to the horses and they set out at a sedate walk.
“Bertie, find a place for that thing on your head,” he said over his shoulder. “There is not enough room in the vehicle for the three of us and that hat.”
His scent nudged Lucasta’s senses, as unsettling as the warmth that rose from his body. The street was clogged withtraffic and vendors, and it felt very dangerous to be so close to the horses, rather than shut away in a closed carriage where one could not see the various obstacles and accidents that came at one from every part of the street. But Rudyard’s hand was expert and his pair well-trained, and he guided them easily around a pair of sedan chairs whose occupants were engaged in a heated argument over right of way.
“I cannot imagine I am any consolation for Cici,” Lucasta remarked.
“I wanted you,” he said, and her heart gave a nervous shiver when he threw her a smile. “Mallory was bragging that he had engaged Miss Pevensey for a drive, so I saw my chance. Bertie agreed to play chaperone, because she is an obliging sort of person, and also desperate to escape the house.”
“It is nice to have an airing without Mama,” Miss Falstead admitted, looking about them with interest.
