That was a dream she’d all but buried with Davy and her family, that terrible winter when she was sixteen and her life changed forever. She’d put aside her London dreams then, too.
Bess’s aunt, her last link to her beloved mother, had needed her. So of course, Bess had stayed in Little Kissington.
In the dozen years since then, Bess had never had the funds, nor the time, for idle frivolities like travel, sightseeing, and adventure seeking. And for all that London was only a couple of long days’ carriage ride from Little Kissington, it might as well have been across an ocean for how much trouble and expense it would take her to get there.
It was quite impossible. Nothing but a daydream.
Until now.
The late afternoon sun barely penetrated the ever-present miasma of coal dust and smoke that hung in the air over the city; every breath Bess took was infused with the odor of too many unwashed bodies pressed too close together. A thrill of excitement fizzed below the surface of her skin.
Lucy seemed to feel it too, her gloved fingers tight around Bess’s and her fair skin flushed pink. “I want to get right down at the front, where I can see everything!”
This put Bess in something of a quandary. Bess was only in London by the grace of her friends, the Lively family. At nineteen, Lucy was supposed to be coming out this year, and with her older sister, Gemma, recently wed and setting up her own house in Little Kissington, they had asked Bess if she’d like to come along with Lucy and her mother, as a friend and companion.
Truly the best friends Bess had ever had, the Lively sisters knew how much she’d always longed to see London, and they’d made it happen. Each sister was a force of nature in her own way, and their advent into Bess’s quiet, steady life had been a deluge of new ideas, energetic schemes, and above all, loyal friendship.
Bess would do anything for them.
So here she was, on the banks of the Thames with her eager young friend, and Bess couldn’t help but feel some responsibility to not lead Lucy astray. At twenty-eight, Bess was nine years older—and there were times when their respective life experiences made that age gap feel more like ninety.
Bess knew she ought to say something sensible like what a dreadful crush it would be upon the riverbank and how they’d do much better to find a spot on one of the viewing platforms set farther back from the water. Entrance to the platforms cost a penny a person and therefore kept out the worst of the riffraff.
But the problem was, Bess had spent her whole life being sensible. And, truth be told, Bess herself was partial to the riffraff.
Riffraff had more fun, in her experience.
She’d hesitated too long. Lucy pounced. “Come on, Bess, I know you’d like to have a good view! Why should we not?”
Bess bit her lip. “Oh, Lucy. Of course I want to—but I promised your mother to keep you out of trouble.”
“I’m not a child,” Lucy said, with all the scornful dignity of the very young. “I don’t need to be kept out of trouble. Please, I’ve been so bored since we got to Town.”
Lucy’s coming out had thus far been a lot more staying in than Bess had expected. They’d been in London for a little more than a fortnight, and there had been no calls, no visitors, and no invitations. Lucy’s mother, Henrietta, was increasingly anxious about the situation, and the specter of the dowager duchess’s kind, worried face was what ultimately made up Bess’s mind.
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed Lucy’s hand and gave her an apologetic smile. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. What if someone saw you down by the river’s edge? Wouldn’t that hurt your prospects?”
“My prospects.” Lucy pulled a face. “I don’t care about that. I don’t want to get married. I only agreed to this trip because it means so very much to Mama and Gemma, and because I thought maybe we could have some fun.”
Fun was something the Lively ladies excelled at. In fact, Henrietta’s propensity toward fun had snagged her a duke when she was a servant in his household, and had produced two extraordinarily charming and vivacious daughters—but it had also led to Henrietta, now the dowager Duchess of Ashbourn, being shunned by most of Polite Society.
So-called Polite Society. For Bess’s money, they were a bunch of ill-mannered old biddies and cold-blooded stiff prudes…with unfortunately long memories.
As it turned out, not one of them had forgotten or forgiven the shock of a buxom nursemaid stealing a newly widowed Duke of Ashbourn right out from under their noses—and then for the pair to have the audacity to go on to loudly, boisterously enjoy their lives and each other? It wasn’t to be borne.
The haughtiest of the Haute Ton had turned their backs on the Duke of Ashbourn and his new duchess, leaving them to carouse with a less reputable but much more amusing set of scapegraces and ne’er-do-wells, wealthy young widows and notorious courtesans.
The Lively family’s life in London before Lucy’s father died had been one of leisure and revelry—a life of fun.
And now that Henrietta and Lucy were back in London, in what the gossips archly referred to as “reduced circumstances,” the fast set was no longer interested in them, and the Haute Ton wouldn’t cross the road to piss on them if they were on fire.
All because a lowly nursemaid had the audacity to marry a duke and make him happy.
Rich people really were terribly silly, Bess thought.
But they held a lot of power. The power to make or break a young lady’s reputation, for example.
Henrietta was beside herself about Lucy’s snub. It would hardly help matters if she and Bess made spectacles of themselves in such a public place.
