Bess could feel herself opening up, day by day, like a plant unfurling to catch every stray drop of rain, thirsty for more.
Lucy, by contrast, appeared almost to be shrinking. Every day saw her shoulders hunched a little further, her cheeks washed a little paler, the light in her dimmed a little more.
It had been almost a year and half since she and her mother and sister had left their life in London behind. This trip was supposed to be something of a triumphal return to launch Lucy into Society—but it hadn’t turned out like that.
And, as Bess reminded herself, what might sound like petulance in another girl was undoubtedly a sign of some deeper discontent in her friend. Lucy had lost much in her short life and had faced those challenges with pluck and good cheer. So for her to be sullen now—Bess looked her over more closely.
As if feeling Bess’s gentle inspection, Lucy ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet obscured her face. “Ignore me, Bess. And we needn’t go home, if you’d rather stay and see more. I can buck up and stop being such a wet blanket, I promise.”
“How many of your friends have called since we’ve been in Town?” Bess asked, with one of the flashes of perception that used to make her mam laughingly cross herself.
The bonnet dipped lower. “Not a single one.”
Bess's heart squeezed even as indignation surged along the surface of her skin. What sort of a world was this where a kind, intelligent, charismatic girl like Lucy Lively couldn't keep friends without a fortune to back her up?
Or perhaps it wasn't even about the money so much as it had to do with Lucy's awful older brother.
Bess had heard all about Nathaniel Lively, the new Duke of Ashbourn, and none of it was good.
Not only had he tossed his stepmother and half-sisters out on their ears before the previous duke was even cold in his grave, he'd also refused to reinstate Lucy’s dowry unless she and Gemma danced to his tune. The sisters had sent him away with a flea in his ear, and rightly so.
No, Bess had never seen the man, but she'd heard enough to know that she had no great opinion of His Grace, the duke.
He sounded like the worst sort of snobbish, grasping, selfish aristocrat who cared for nothing more than his own comfort and consequence.
Certainly he didn’t seem to give two figs for his family.
Bess was still fuming and trying to come up with something encouraging to say in the face of Lucy's embarrassed disappointment when Lucy suddenly and unexpectedly broke away from her.
Bess made a grab for the back of Lucy’s green-striped pelisse, but just barely missed her as Lucy shoved through the crowd toward the shoreline.
“Lucy, come back here at once,” Bess called. “What on earth?—?”
But even as she said it, Bess saw what Lucy was after. A man had struggled ashore, sodden and trembling as he collapsed face down in the muck. All around him, the people who’d gathered to watch the mock sea battle stepped aside and turned their backs, uninterested in his suffering.
But not Lucy.
Quick as a cat, Lucy scrambled to the poor man’s side and bent down to speak to him, one gloved hand reaching out to prod him in the shoulder when he did not immediately respond.
Bess hurried up just in time to see Lucy kneel down in the silt of the Thames river bed, uncaring of the state of her sprigged muslin walking dress. “Bess, help me with him, he’s hurt.”
The soaking wet form was dressed like the sailors from the sea battle; he’d clearly gone overboard in the melee. Resigning herself to doing laundry later, Bess got her arms under the man’s torso and heaved with all the strength she’d earned running the kitchen of a bustling country inn.
She and Lucy got him over onto his side, where he immediately began to cough up water. What concerned Bess more, however, was the growing red stain upon his shoulder.
“Lucy, this man has been shot. We need to find a doctor.”
“Shot!” Lucy sprang to her feet, her blue eyes ablaze. “What, with a real bullet? This is monstrous. Are they using live ammunition?”
A lazy masculine voice came from behind them. “I should certainly hope so. It would be a devil of a bore if they weren’t.”
Bess craned her neck round to see an exquisitely dressed gentleman, several years younger than herself, at the head of a bevy of similarly attired dandies. Lucy whirled to face them.
“How dare you! This man is a human being, not a...a prop to be destroyed for your idle amusement.”
Another, more jovial voice joined the conversation. “Hardly the first time you've amused yourself at the destruction of another, eh, Thorne?”
“As I said,” Lucy repeated icily. “Monstrous. But I should expect no better of you, Thornecliff.”
