Annis leaned over the rail, her draperies fluttering in the slight breeze. “You dare much, petty mortal! Great Hera has no other consort but mighty Zeus. Now begone, or I shall loose one of my arrows on you.”
“Let’s go look in the Rotunda,” Minnie muttered. “You’re right to mistrust this one, Lucasta. He’ll ravish you or worse.”
“What’s worse?” said Selina grimly, putting her elbows to the task of cutting them a path. Minnie leveled her spear, which helped.
“A shame to leave when the musicians are playing Handel’sWater Music.” Lucasta sighed. “The G major is my favorite suite.”
“There will be music in the Rotunda,” Annis promised. “Come, come.”
Trevor glared across the crowd as the girls pressed their way out of the Pavilion, but the crowd of Cici’s admirers barred his way. The girls swept along one of the gravel paths, where liveried footmen were setting up the torches that would be lit as dusk descended. Lucasta lagged as the strains of a Boccherini quintet reached her ear. There were musicians set up all over the gardens, and the cello was particularly lovely.
All of this—the gardens, the music, the stately buildings, the gorgeous extravagance of the crowd—all was a treat she’d been looking forward to for weeks. She’d never experienced anything this lavish in Bath. Yet there was a pall over everything with the knowledge that Rudyard, by his own friend’s admission, was making a game of her.
She wanted to hear him say Ashley was wrong. He’d put her name forward to the governors of the Foundling Hospital, not to make her beholden to him, but because he believed in her passion for music. That his praise about her being fascinating had been a true olive branch for naming them Gorgons, and that dressing her through means of Mlle. Beaudoin was not a way to display his shop wares, or not only a way to display his wares.
She wanted to hear him say he had meant all those trips to Rose Hollow, bringing her among his family as if she belonged there.
She wanted to know what he meant with that kiss.
Inside, the Rotunda was close and hot from the press of bodies, from the lights of the chandeliers dangling on long ropes from the ceiling, and from the many candles lighting the alcoves lining the wall. The niches along the lower level seated dinersat small tables, and the boxes above held attendees who wanted to enjoy the spectacle without being jostled or trod upon by the crowd. The multi-story, tiered box with its carved wooden canopy was packed with musicians, and the familiar strains turned Lucasta’s dark mood melancholy.
“Mozart’s Paris symphony,” she told her friends. “What a pity the acoustics in this building are so poor. Look, they even have the clarinets.”
“Mr. Plimpton. We require you to settle a question for us, in all honesty, if you please.” Annis marched up to a dashing Cavalier wearing a red sash over a leather jerkin, a huge, plumed hat, and a pair of knee-high leather boots with enormous cuffs. Plimpton lowered his wine glass, a look of alarm on his face.
Lucasta stifled a moan. All of sudden, she didn’t want to confront Jem. She didn’t want to know the truth.
She wanted the dream to linger as long as it might.
“Anything for a…” Plimpton’s gaze flickered over Annis’s cascading white robes, from the quiver of arrows over her shoulder to the leather sandals laced about her ankles. “Lady?”
“Is it true that Lord Rudyard set out to make Lucasta a diamond?” Minnie wanted to know. “On some strange fancy fashioned of his own pure brain?”
“Well. Ah.” Plimpton sniffed his wine, as if he meant to hide behind it. “He—er—made a declaration to some of us that he wished to see Miss Lithwick become the reigning queen of the season.” His eyes flicked to Lucasta, then away. “And it worked, I’d say.”
Lucasta curled her hands into fists.
“Because he took some grudge against her,” Annis said. “Or thought to make her the subject of talk.”
“No, no. Out of esteem for her own admirable person, I’m sure,” Plimpton said.
Lucasta narrowed her eyes at him.
“I suppose there were one or two reasons,” said Lord Ashley, joining them. “He took some objection to Miss Lithwick’s manner, and set out to improve it, or he took objection to Miss Lithwick’s dress, and set out to improve that as well.”
Minnie turned a fulminating glare on him. “Thank you for that information, though no one requested it ofyou. And who are you supposed to be?” She glanced over his red breeches, high boots, and the blue breastplate with a large white cross.
Ashley took off his black plumed hat, showing a small white powdered wig, and bowed. His sword knocked against Plimpton’s legs. “A Musketeer of the Guard, in the Royal Household of the King of France.”
“So it’s as Clara Bellwether said.” Selina spoke in a small voice. “He was making fun.”
“Clara Bellwether.” Jem’s crony. She, more than anyone, was like to be in his confidence. There being nowhere to sit in the crush of people, Lucasta leaned on Selina.
She’d called it a shame he was no better than he was, hadn’t she? He’d set out to prove her wrong. And in so doing, proved her right.
“I shouldn’t see why it matters.” Ashley curled his lip at Minnie. “You all seem to have benefited from the attention, and he’s done your friend no harm.”
“You went out of your way to inform us of Rudyard’s stratagem,” Minnie snarled back, “precisely because you wanted to do harm. Here, now,” she barked as a third man joined them. “These two are expressing their secret desire for military accomplishment, and you, a genuine military man, are a monk?”
