Bess had turned to survey herself in the looking glass—and oh, the luxury of it, a full-length glass when at home she made do with a handheld mirror that was too small to show her entire face at once—and she’d gasped in dismay.
Though she’d never had a fitting, the dress seemed to have been painted onto her. The fit in the bodice was exquisite, cupping her breasts so lovingly, she doubted she even needed her half-corset.
The silky material skimmed tightly to just above her natural waist, then fell like a gleaming bronze waterfall to the floor. And the way the color of the dress brought out the different shades of gold, russet, and chocolate in her eyes…
“I can’t wear this,” she’d said at once, panic rising in her breast, but they'd spent so long getting Lucy dressed that there was no time to change. Jenkins had tossed shawls about their shoulders and bundled them down the stairs and out the front door to the waiting carriage before Bess could even catch her breath.
And then they were in the carriage, and the footman was closing the door and making a sign to the groom to drive on.
“Wait!” Bess had cried. “What about the duke?”
“His Grace left half an hour ago,” the footman informed her. “He will meet you at the ball.”
Then there they were, two women on their way to a ball that neither of them wished to attend, with no escort.
“I’d rather wear brown than all these pastels,” Lucy was saying, “You’re lucky you don't have to dress like a wide-eyed miss advertising her virgin purity to all the world.”
Bess’s lips quirked but she managed not to smile. It would be easy to dismiss Lucy’s complaints, which made her sound a bit like a spoiled child. But Bess thought it wasn’t the cut of Lucy’s gown that had her in such a state.
“Tonight will be the first time you’ll see your London friends, won’t it?” Bess asked.
“I haven’t any friends in London.” Lucy looked out the window, crossing her arms over the very high waist of her pale blue gown.
“Every one of my so-called friends was perfectly happy to cut our acquaintance when we lost Father and…everything. If they speak to me tonight, I’ll know they are only pretending friendship because they hope to be introduced to my brother, the duke.” Lucy glanced back, her intense blue eyes burning in the darkness. “They’re all so frivolous and ignorant, obsessed with hair ribbons and the latest tittle-tattle and who’s courting whom.”
“That is the world they live in.” And if it sounded like a boring world devoid of purpose and meaning to Bess, well, she was only a visitor. She’d never be welcomed there at all if anyone found out she was only a lowborn woman who worked for a living as a cook in a coaching inn.
Not for the first time, Bess wondered if they were doing the right thing, attempting to shove Lucy back into a mold that perhaps no longer fit her.
“But they know nothing of the real world,” Lucy cried. “Most of them have never left London except to visit their country estates.”
“I’m not saying that you must rekindle your friendships, Lucy, and I do understand why it might be hard to trust that their intentions are true. But consider that time has passed. They may have matured since you went away. You certainly have grown up a lot in the time I’ve known you.”
“I’ve lived over a busy coaching inn for more than a year! Of course I’ve matured. I’ve seen some things!”
“Aye, that you have,” Bess agreed peaceably. “Especially once your sister convinced all the toffs that Five Mile House was the most fashionable place to stop on the way from London to Bath.”
“She did have some help with that, you know.” Lucy had a younger sister’s dislike of giving her elder sister too much credit. “For one thing, people kept coming back, and telling their friends about Five Mile House, because of your wonderful cooking!”
“That’s kind of you to say.” Bess missed her kitchen at Five Mile House with a sudden, visceral ache. The heat of her coal oven, the yeasty smell of the bread dough in the kneading trough, the satisfying hustle and bustle of supper time when the farmers stopped in for pint on their way home to mingle with the shopkeepers’ families coming in for a bit of stew and fresh bread, and the weary travelers in their dust-smudged finery on their way to take the waters and sample the delights of Bath.
“And of course, there’s The Gentle Rogue,” Lucy continued. Her voice went a little low and caressing, as it always did when she discussed her favorite hero of the news rags.
“That highwayman did not turn Five Mile House into a successful business,” Bess said sternly. She had no patience with the way the newspapers romanticized a man who held up mail coaches and private carriages at gunpoint. “He’s nothing more than a common thief, and a dangerous one, at that.”
“How can you say so?” Lucy cried. “He’s much more than a thief! He loves music—multiple accounts from witnesses speak of his beautiful singing voice, because he will sometimes hum a lively tune?—”
“While he pilfers their belongings.”
“They say he dresses and speaks like a perfect gentleman?—”
“Which only proves he’s no need to be haring about the countryside, taking ladies’ jewelry and...other things.”
The rumor was that the Gentle Rogue liked to steal a kiss or two along with whatever bauble a lady was willing to part with. It was a rumor Lucy herself had started when she penned her first anonymous piece for a broadsheet—but it had now been corroborated by multiple eye witnesses.
Evidently The Gentle Rogue read his own press.
“He's never hurt anyone,” Lucy passionately defended her idol. “And I’m convinced within myself that he doesn't keep the money or the trinkets he takes—I believe he gives them to the poor, like Robin Hood!”
