“Friar, actually.” Major Mallory smiled. He wore a long brown cassock of rough wool and a large wooden cross hung from his neck. “I heard that Miss Pevensey was—somewhere about, I hope?”
“In the Pavilion,” Annis said. “If you’ll excuse us.”
The three girls formed a guard around Lucasta. “Pay it no mind, Lucasta,” Selina said immediately. “Whatever his intentions to begin with, it’s quite clear to us that Lord Rudyard has come to value you for yourself alone. I am certain his admiration is real.”
“He sent you all those beautiful gowns through Mlle. Beaudoin,” Annis pointed out.
“To improve me,” Lucasta said, striving to control the quaver in her voice. “And as payment for the music lessons I’ve been giving his—cousin.”
She ought not feel riven through the heart by his betrayal. She had brought this on herself, had she not?
“He drives you about. He calls all the time,” Selina insisted.
“He watches you at all the parties,” Minnie added. “He knows every moment where you are and what you are doing. It’s as though he can’t keep his eyes from you.”
“Waiting for me to make a fool of myself.” Lucasta said. No, no tears—she would not cry. Not over this.
“His friends could be mistaken,” Minnie said. “With those two dunces, it’s likely.”
Yet Ashley and Plimpton were Rudyard’s closest companions, the most likely to be in his confidence. Jem had told Lucasta, on one of their drives back to London from Little Chelsea, how much these men, both sprigs of the nobility, had taught him abouttonand the unspoken etiquette of the Polite World. They’d saved him on more than one occasion from using the wrong utensil at table or walking into dinner before a person of higher rank. They’d taught him how to drive, how to walk, and how to bow like a gentleman instead of a merchant. They would be aware if he took on some pet project to elevate a poor, plain vicar’s daughter from wallflower to diamond.
“Miss Lithwick—Lucasta—are you quite all right?”
Lucasta swiped the moisture from her eyes, then looked up. “Bertie. I mean, Miss Falstead. Hello.” She glanced about quickly—no Jem. A relief and a dagger, all at the same time. “How delightful to see you out.”
Bertie offered a nervous smile. “Mama and I had quite a wrangle about it, but I insisted. I-I knew you all would be here. Are these your friends? The Gorgons?”
Lucasta flinched. Jem’s epithet for them. They had adopted the title in fun, but it felt mean-spirited of him now. “Yes, allow me. These are Miss Selina Humby, Anastasia Voronska, and Wilhelmine von Luneburg. My fellow goddesses, the Honourable Miss Lambertina Falstead.”
“You all look very fine. Greek goddesses, so clever.” Bertie regarded their costumes enviously. “Mama insisted I might only wear a domino.” Beneath the short black silk cape, Bertie wore a robe of yellow, which did not flatter her complexion.
“Friend or foe?” Minnie demanded, still bristling. “She’s his cousin, after all.”
“Oh, friend, no question.” Surely, no matter what Rudyard was about, he would allow Bertie and Lucasta to remain friends.
He could bar her from seeing Judith, however.
“We pronounce you an honorary Gorgon,” said Annis, tapping Bertie on each shoulder with her bow. “Which goddess do you wish to be?”
“Er—perhaps you might choose for me?” Bertie’s smile turned uncertain. Lucasta had found that Bertie’s education, overseen by her mother, was nothing like that given the girls of Miss Gregoire’s.
“Hestia?” Selina proposed. “Goddess of the hearth?”
“Oh,” Bertie said. “Domestic things?”
“Demeter, goddess of fertility and the keeper of sacred law.” Lucasta grabbed a cluster of tall bound grasses from a nearby urn holding decorative foliage. “Here.”
“Demeter. Yes. Thank you,” Bertie said gratefully.
Selina drew Bertie to her side and engaged her in friendly, innocuous chat. Every fiber in Lucasta’s body tensed as a tall man stalked toward her, dressed in an ermine cape and a crimson velvet robe of state, the regalia of the Britain monarch.
“King Arthur.” She recognized Jem. “How quaint.”
“I am Alfred the Great.” His brown eyes glinted, austere and aloof. “King of England.”
He had no right to look so majestic. Those eyes skimming her frame made Lucasta feel like her linen tunic was transparent. He might see her heart furiously beating, the blush spreading over her chest as she recalled their kiss.
That warm, enthralling man who had woven her into a spell of silk and seduction was gone.
