Lucasta’s teeth chattered lightly, and Jem beckoned her closer, draping the chintz around her shoulders and arms. She smelled like a wind from over the sea, fresh and damp and a bit salty. He studied the creamy fabric against her skin, the shades it brought out in her hair and eyes. Lucasta Lithwick was subtly, stunningly beautiful.
“You must tell her to stop sending me gifts.” She stood quietly under his regard, under his hands on her shoulders, but she trembled, as if she might bolt at any moment. So different from the ranks of blushing debutantes who queued up at the balls and parties of thehaut ton, hoping Smart Jeremey would take notice.
“She’s been entirely too generous, and I’m certain she needs paying customers for her business,” Lucasta added.
“You must allow her to send whatever she wishes. Including, I think, this one, which would make arobe à la françaisevery suitable for day wear, if you paired it with a petticoat of taupe or beige. I have a beautiful linen that will do.”
Her brow furrowed. Jem resisted the urge to finger a red-gold curl that had fallen free of its pin to dangle before one ear. “You’ve been sending the gowns? The way you sent those silks to the Gor—to my friends?”
“That was an apology,” Jem said, unwrapping the fabric from around her shoulders. He let his fingers brush the curve of her neck. Her skin was satin itself. “Your gowns I consider your fee for so kindly tutoring my sister and cousin. I would recompenseyou directly, if it were possible, but I expect Lady Pevensey would object.”
She turned her face away, regarding a display along the wall from a newer shipment, a sensible cotton with a rich carmine color and a checked print. “In that you are correct. Lady Pevensey does not discourage any attentions I receive from Smart Jeremey.”
He hid his flinch at the name and moved to the cotton that had caught her eye, bringing an armful of fabric to her. “This might make a lovelypolonaise. Suitable for performing in small musical entertainments among friends. Or when giving lessons to difficult young ladies.”
Her lips curved in a smile, and something inside him tugged upward in response. “Judith is a very quick pupil, and Bertie—Bertie is determined and tries very hard. I—” She bit her lip. “I wonder why you don’t bring Judith out in company. She’s lovely, and I think she’d like?—”
“Not to be considered,” Jem said, turning away. “It wouldn’t do. People are cruel, and thetonwould make a spectacle of her. She’d be a mockery.”
“But perhaps in small situations, like calls, or a drive in the park when?—”
“No, Lucasta. I won’t have it.”
He noted the silence behind him and was glad that for once she didn’t challenge him. Perhaps she was outraged by his use of her Christian name—she’d invited him to use it, but that was in a teasing moment. He smoothed his expression and moved to a different shelf with the brocaded silks. The one he selected had a rich ochre background and a delicate pattern of twining golden vines.
“This for evening, a ball or perhaps to be seen at the theatre.” He wrapped the rich, heavy fabric around her shoulders, tempering the harsh tone he’d let enter his voice. “You reallyhave the most remarkable coloring. This ochre would wash out a pale complexion, but you…” He trailed off, realizing she might find his remark insulting.
“Am not a fair English rose,” she confirmed. Her smile rose higher on one side of her mouth, amused, but not yet ready to forgive him. She lifted her chin. “I’m a Vlach.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My father was Romanian. From Wallachia.”
“Romani?” he asked cautiously, not understanding. “Like the Gypsies?”
“No, Romanian. They’re a different people.”
“And now you will weave me some romantic story about a smuggled prince, raised in exile to return someday and restore his kingdom?—”
She gurgled a laugh, her slim shoulders lifting beneath his hands. He smoothed the fabric, tracing the fine weave of the golden sheaves, all an excuse to touch her.
“They were serfs,” she said with amusement. “My grandfather had an enormous family, they were destitute and struggling, and there was no way they could have bettered their lot in their home country. Wallachia is ruled by the Ottoman Empire, so they escaped to Transylvania, which is controlled by the Habsburgs, and somehow they ended up in Britain. They changed their name from Ludovic to Lithwick to sound more English, and my father converted so he could attend university and be ordained into the Anglican church. He loved being a vicar, but he was always regarded as faintly heretical because he loved Greek and Roman history more.”
“What did he convert from?” Jem asked, fascinated.
“Greek Catholicism.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your people are serfs. Romanian, Catholic serfs.”
“Yes.” Her smile was dazzling, her eyes dancing with light. “My grandmother, the Dowager Viscountess Frotheringale, went into an absolute pelter when my mother fell in love with my father. A daughter of the English peerage, setting her cap for a refugee Romanian! She nearly struck my mother’s name from the family Bible. I think she would have, except my Aunt Patience?—”
She faltered, that frown clouding her brow again. “My Aunt Patience, and I’ve never figured out why, championed the marriage. She lived with us for most of my childhood. And the Viscountess approved of Aunt Patience, though she rejected my mother.”
Lucasta stared at the bow window facing the street, and he guessed she looked not at the dim shapes outside but some formidable if distant enemy. “My grandmother never had a kind word to say of Father, and never a thing to do with me. She refers to me, I understand, as the half-breed.”
She said this so lightly that Jem’s chest constricted. He understood. It was no less than what most British would call his siblings.
And he’d felt the cold indifference from the marquess all his life, treated like nothing, or less than nothing, because his father had chosen to marry into a middle-class merchant’s family rather than a genteel but less financially provident member of his own class.
