A family, Lucasta guessed, that the rest of London society, who celebrated him as Smart Jeremy, did not know about.
Lucasta set aside her teacup and smiled at the solemn young faces regarding her with curiosity. “I am very pleased to meet you. Miss Tressie, Miss Starria, and Master Hannibal—are you named after the general of Carthage?”
“Yes, the one with the elephants.” Hannibal, a boy of six or seven, threw himself at Rudyard, who caught him in a wrestling hold. Starria, who looked about nine or ten, ran to embrace Bertie, who gave her a buss on the cheek. Tressie, older and more dignified, perhaps around thirteen years, went to the tea tray and accepted a cup from Judith. All three converged before Lucasta to study her intently.
“Jem says you are musical,” Tressie informed her. “That you sing.”
“Your dress is not as fine as Bertie’s. Or Judith’s,” Starria noted.
“Jem says the waters at Bath stink of rotten eggs, and taste the same,” Hannibal reported.
Lucasta held back a laugh and smoothed her gown, consciously not looking to Rudyard for his guidance. Or approval. “All those things are true,” she agreed.
Hannibal made a face. “You won’t make me drink rotten water! Or bathe in it, either.”
“Nevertheless you must try one cup at the Pump Room,” Lucasta answered. “It is considered quite the thing.” She released the laugh as Hannibal made an expression that clearly conveyed his distaste for this enterprise.
“I should like to try taking the waters,” Starria announced. “And I intend to try sea-bathing as well someday. Why do you not wear a wig?”
“I detest them,” Lucasta said honestly. “They itch. And they are home to vermin.”
Starria nodded. “Vermin bite. Did you know that Judith had measles as a baby? That is why she is blind. And she had another brother and sister who died from it as well. I hope never to get measles. Or smallpox.”
Lucasta’s heart contracted. Rudyard had lost other siblings. There was so much she didn’t know about him.
Couldn’t have known, because she had judged him by his appearance, as she had accused him of judging everyone else.
“If you are to explore the world, I hope you will be variolated against smallpox,” Lucasta said. “I was variolated while at school, and it was a great relief to me.”
“What does that mean?” Starria demanded.
“It means a doctor gives you a small amount of smallpox matter, usually introduced into an incision. This gives you a very mild form of the disease, and thereafter you cannot catch it again. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought the practice to England years ago, but it has not become as widespread as it could.”
Starria marched over to Jem, her chin set at a firm angle. “Jem, I insist on being variolated. I cannot carry smallpox to unknown parts of the world on my travels. Only look what happened to the West Indians when the Europeans came.”
Rudyard nodded and caught Lucasta’s eye. She read relief and a warmth that made her toes curl. “I will see to it,” he told the child. “I confess you all should have been variolated years ago. Judith and I were, by our mother, after the measles— May we speak of something that does not involve disease?”
Tressie, with the unselfconsciousness of a girl who knows she is loved, seated herself in a chair near Bertie and regarded Lucasta with cool interest. “Jem says I might take music lessons,” she said. “I must choose my instrument, though, as we cannot clutter up the place with everything that takes my fancy.”
Rudyard winced to hear his words parroted back at him. Lucasta understood his concern, however, with not crowding a space that Judith moved about in.
“With permission, perhaps I can help you decide on an instrument,” she offered. “I am familiar with several.”
Belatedly she realized she was again pushing in. She guessed that Rudyard had brought her here only to prove that he had not passed the judgment she had accused him of making on Selina or the Sancho family. Some men would not acknowledge siblings from a different parent, much less a different race. Jem housed and fed his.
He did not speak of them about town, just as he did not speak of Judith.
Yet he had introduced them to Lucasta. Her eyes pricked with tears.
Judith sighed. “I would so love to learn music, but we have been unable to engage a tutor. They all say they can do nothing, since—” She pointed to her unseeing eyes.
“How absurd,” Lucasta said. “There’s a blind violinist in every square of London, playing for coin. I have heard of an Austrian singer, Maria Theresia von Paradis, who is blind. She is much admired in Vienna, and she composes and performs on the pianoforte. Then there is Mélanie de Salignac, who devised a way to read and write using raised print, and she uses it to record and read music as well.”
“And Mr. Stanley, at the Foundling Hospital, is accomplished on the organ, the harpsichord, and the violin. I told you as much, Jude,” Rudyard added softly.
“And I daresay you would have an advantage in learning music, as your ear seems to be extraordinary,” Lucasta added.
She couldn’t bear to look at Rudyard’s face any longer. His tenderness, concern, hope, and fear for his sister were all writclearly on his countenance, and the depth of his emotion tapped at that aching place inside her chest.
