“Do you think that may be the case with Mr. Moore?” she asked. “Mother did say he’d been in Australia almost twenty years. He would have been younger than me when he was transported. A child really.”
“I don’t know. But you could do no worse than to ask him. He might be happy to unburden himself to you.”
“Even if he was a convict,” she said, “he appears to have done well for himself, don’t you think? Why, just look at the money he lost last night in your game.” For a moment she was hopeful, envisioning Brigham Moore as a reformed criminal. A frown drew down the corners of her full mouth and knitted her brows. She worried her lower lip. “His money might have been stolen. I hadn’t thought of that before. What if he’s—”
“Now you’re letting your imagination run and there’s no good that can come of it.” Samuel leaned toward Lydia and placed a light kiss on her furrowed brow. “Stop looking so fierce, darling. Smile. Unless I mistake the time, you should be preparing for your evening with Mr. Hunter.”
Instead of smiling, Lydia’s frown deepened. “But Mother doesn’t—”
“Let me worry about your mother.”
“Then you think it was all right to accept the wager?”
“Of course. Madeline is making too much of it. It was made with complete respect for you, and even though Mr. Moore didn’t win, Nathan is a good man.” He laughed lightly, tapping Lydia on the end of her pared nose. “I admit I was looking forward to taking you to the Cliff House this evening, but some things were not meant to be. Still, who’d have thought they would both beat my full house?”
“Perhaps they cheated.”
“In that case, Lydia, you’d do well to be terribly flattered. The only thing to be gained was your company.”
“My money,” she countered.
“Now you sound like your mother. You place much too much importance on your fortune and not nearly enough on the other reasons a man would be interested in you.”
Lydia did not fish for compliments. She simply looked at Samuel uncomprehendingly.
“You’re beautiful, Daughter,” he said sincerely. “A man can see it in your eyes.”
He meant to be kind, Lydia thought, but he was talking about her on the inside. She longed to hear someone say she was beautiful on the outside, even if it was her own prejudiced-in-her-favor father.
Lydia took her time getting ready for Nathan Hunter. Instead of the quick dip and scrub she had had upon waking, Lydia soaked in scented rose water and allowed Pei Ling to manicure her nails. She ate a light repast that her maid prepared to tide her over until her late dinner with Nathan. She accepted Pei Ling’s choice of a gown, thinking it was the least of all the evils in her wardrobe. The color was good for her, an ivory that accentuated the deep blue of her eyes and complemented her complexion, but the gown suffered from many of the same flaws as the yellow one: too much ornamentation in unflattering places, a draped skirt that made her waist look thick, and puffed sleeves that made her seem uncommonly broad in her upper arms. The total effect was one of disproportion. Lydia’s critical examination in the mirror, minutes before she went downstairs to meet Nathan, focused on each flaw. Most troubling, she thought, was that her appearance mattered at all to her. It was Nathan Hunter who was waiting for her, not Brigham Moore.
“Here she is now,” Samuel said, holding out his hand to Lydia as she entered the library. “And how lovely she looks. Don’t you think so, Nathan?”
Lydia wanted to turn and run. Instead, she forced a smile, pretending to believe what Samuel said and what Nathan was going to say.
“I thought blue might be your color,” said Nathan, purposely evoking remembrance of things past, “but I may have judged too quickly. Ivory suits you beautifully.”
The compliment and the deliberate reference to last evening brought a flush to Lydia’s face. He had a way of talking to her which breeched her defenses. Immediately she was annoyed with herself for believing anything he said, or wanting to.
The evening was clear and cool. The sun had dropped over the horizon hours ago, but dusk still lingered. Nathan covered Lydia’s shoulders with the short satin cape she handed him. The beaded embroidery was cool beneath his fingers and his hands lingered on her shoulders for a moment. The inquiring glance she shot him over her shoulder made him realize what he was doing. He dropped his hands, and after bidding goodbye to Samuel Chadwick, Nathan escorted Lydia to the waiting carriage. The liveried driver gave them a jaunty salute with his whip and a tilt of his head.
Lydia sensed a change in Nathan’s mood once they were alone and underway. “If you would rather not go,” she said, “we could have the driver stop now before we’re completely down the hill.”
Nathan didn’t answer immediately. The blue-gray light filtering into the carriage was adequate to observe Lydia’s face, and there was nothing in her features to suggest she was troubled. Which meant she didn’t know.
Nathan loosened one of the buttons on his jacket and reached inside to the vest pocket. He pulled out a slip of paper and held it out to Lydia. He was flattered when disappointment flashed briefly across her face. “It’s not the wager,” he said, correcting her assumption.
She took the paper, recognizing it now as a newspaper clipping. Pride demanded that she had never thought it was anything else. “I didn’t think it was,” she denied. “However, I can’t read this here. It’s too dark. Is it so important?”
“I think it is. It’s from thePolice Gazette.”
“Mother doesn’t allow that paper in our house,” she said primly. “Most of what they report is lurid, sensationalist twaddle.”
“So it is…some of it.” He took the article back and tucked it away. “This isn’t. A prostitute was murdered late last night. Very late. Which is why it didn’t make the morning editions of a paper you might have read.”
“I have no idea why you’re telling me this.”
“Her name was Virginia Flynt.” Nathan watched Lydia carefully, saw her confusion, then knew the absolute moment of her understanding as her mouth parted slightly and her eyes widened. She stared at him unblinkingly.
