Silence. The carriage hit a rut and they were all tossed to the left.
“Why?” Ivy whispered.
“Because,” said Drew, “she did not approve of the match. James was a gentleman in spirit but a commoner by birth. We were powerless to stop her, and he was sent away.
“So,” she finished, looking to Imogene, “perhaps I’ve not been subjected to the great unfairness of freely kissing men whenever the mood strikes, but other arbitrary laws of society have been imposed on my happiness.”
She’d barely survived the heartbreak of her mother’s interference. To this day, she invoked the simple tactic of putting it out of her mind and never speaking of it, just to get by. Even this abbreviated version of the story reopened old wounds.
“Weare not the same, you and I,” gritted out Imogene. She turned her face back to the window. “I don’t care what you say.”
“Genie,” whispered Ivy, a scold.
Imogene ignored her.
“It’salright, Ivy,” assured Drew. She took a deep breath, allowing the defensiveness and hurt to drain away.
“We’ve had a long morning,” she continued gently. “We’re hungry, and out of sorts, and it’s freezing in thiscarriage. We’ll have a lovely luncheon, perhaps take a nap, and then the French tutor will arrive after teatime.”
Imogene dropped her head against the window, the gesture of someone whose endurance had run out.
“An hour only to begin, Imogene,” said Drew. “Perhaps you’ll like French. It’s the internationallanguage of love.”
Chapter Fourteen
Drewsmina Trelayne’s Rule of Style and Comportment #6: A young woman may never steal away alone, out of sight and unaccounted for, with a man. Not once. Not even for a moment. The ramifications of being discovered are not worth risking the strict inflexibility of this rule. [Repeated as #6 for emphasis.]
“Miss Trelayne?” Lachlan asked at the close of dinner. “Might I have a word with you in private?”
“Very good, Your Grace,” Drew said, agreeing without really hearing the question. She’d been laughing over Imogene’s joke about Jericka Tavertine and her slavishly vigilant staff.
Dinner, she was happy to note, had been peppered with intermittent laughter; the mood around the table being... if not loving and jovial, at least civil and far less strange. They were making progress. In five days, they’d made actual progress.
“And what was your impression of the dressmaker’s, Vee?” Lady Tribble, more engaged than ever before, asked Ivy.
“They have a dog there,” volunteered Ivy, pushing back from the table.
“Ivy?” Drew prompted carefully. “We spoke this morning about something pertaining to the end of mealtimes. Do you recall?”
“May I be excused?” recited Ivy softly.
“Oh lovely,” praised Drew. To Lady Tribble she said, “Baroness, I believe Ivy has directed this request to you.”
“A dog in a dress shop, how clever,” said Lady Tribble.
“Not the dog, my lady,” said Drew gently, “the request to be excused.”
But Ivy was already to the door, her nose in a book.
“Everyone is excused,” declared Lachlan. “I need to speak to Miss Trelayne. Get out.”
“But, I’ve not finished my pudding,” complained Imogene.
For the second night in a row, Drew had watched Imogene use a series of nudges and scoots to reposition one of her mother’stwowine goblets close enough to be absorbed into her own place setting. Now she casually sipped claret in between bites of soufflé.
“Fine,” said the duke, “we’ll go. What is your progress on the pudding, Miss Trelayne?”
“Oh,” said Drew, unprepared for his urgency. “Quite finished, Your Grace.”
