Her expression shifted at once. Disappointment, cool and unmistakable, settled into her gaze as it found Lucy standing precisely where she ought not to have been.
Lucy’s thoughts scattered. Instinct rescued her where reason failed. She dropped into a curtsy, neat and reflexive, her pulse racing far faster than her posture suggested.
The couple noticed her then, offering polite nods, their happiness undimmed, untroubled by the small impropriety they had not perceived. Selina’s composure returned just as swiftly, smooth as silk drawn back into place.
“Well, I am always honored by your visit, Viscount and Viscountess Bellmont,” Selina said to them. “I wish you both every continued happiness.”
“And we wish you every success,” the Viscountess Bellmont replied, squeezing Selina’s hands once more before allowing herself to be guided away by her husband.
The door closed behind them.
The silence that followed was sharper than any reprimand. Selina did not look at Lucy at first. She walked back into the room, adjusted a paper on the table, straightened a book that did not require straightening, and only then did she turn.
“Lucy,” she said evenly, “come in. Now.”
Lucy obeyed at once, crossing the threshold with a chastened heart and a mind still humming as she closed the study door behind her with care. The room itself bore Selina’s mark. Orderly without stiffness, elegant without excess. Papers lay stacked in deliberate piles, correspondence tied with ribbon, a small vase of fresh flowers placed where the light struck them best.
Lucy remained standing.
Selina did not sit. She remained standing near the desk, one hand resting upon its edge, the other loose at her side, her posture composed but unmistakably charged. She crossed to her desk and rested her hands upon it, regarding her niece with an expression that was neither unkind nor indulgent but assessing.
“You will explain yourself,” Selina said, “before I decide how offended I am meant to be.”
Lucy inclined her head. “I did not mean to linger, but I couldn’t help it.” The faintest tension eased from Lucy’s shoulders,though she did not relax entirely. “I heard them,” she said quietly. “I heard what you did for them.”
Selina’s brow arched just perceptibly. “Lucy, I don’t know what to say to you anymore.”
“I’m just asking for a little understanding, Aunt Selina,” Lucy replied, the words carefully chosen though the feeling behind them pressed insistently against her ribs. “I am not speaking from impulse. I have thought about this... properly, seriously.”
Selina turned away from her then, crossing to the sideboard where a teacup sat untouched, its contents long gone cold. She did not lift it. She merely rested her fingers against the porcelain, as though grounding herself.
“You mistake persistence for preparation,” Selina said. “You have always been observant, Lucy. That much I will grant you. But observation is a far cry from judgement, and judgement is the only thing that separates a competent matchmaker from a dangerous one.”
Lucy followed her with her eyes. “You think I would be careless.”
“I think...” Selina said, sharply now, “... that you would be earnest, and earnest young women are the most dangerous of all.”
Lucy stiffened. “That is not fair.”
“No,” Selina agreed, turning back at last. “It is not kind. But it is accurate.”
Lucy took a step forward despite herself. “I do not want admiration. I want to be useful. I want to help people find the happiness they cannot quite reach on their own. I know what it is to see two people misjudge themselves, to believe they are ill-suited when the truth is simply that no one has ever stood close enough to notice what fits.”
“I will not have this conversation again, Lucy!”
“But you’re doing it!” Lucy snapped back, the words escaping her before caution could seize them. “You are the best matchmaker in all of London, Aunt Selina. People cross counties to seek your counsel, mamas write to you as though you hold their daughters’ futures in your hands, and husbands thank you as though you delivered them from ruin, and yet you would deny me even the idea of following you?”
Selina turned so sharply that the skirts of her gown whispered in protest.
“You speak of my life as though it were a template,” she said, her voice clipped now. “It is not.”
“Why not?” Lucy demanded. “You chose this path. You chose it deliberately. You have never married, never wished to, and no one dares call you wanting for it. You are respected. Independent. Useful. Why is it admirable in you and absurd in me?”
Selina’s eyes flashed. “Because I am not young.”
Lucy faltered, startled by the bluntness of it.
“You see what I am now,” Selina continued, advancing a step. “Established. Sought after. Secure. You do not see what I was at your age... questioned, dismissed, warned into silence by people who claimed to know better.”
