* * * *
“Lucy, who is that man staring at you?”
“Nobody.” Lucy took her aunt’s arm, but as she hurried her toward the door Eloisa paused and turned to glance over her shoulder. It caught Aunt Jarvis’s attention, and she stopped as well.
She let out a little gasp as her gaze fell on Lucy’s dark-haired tormentor. “My goodness, he’s a handsome, gentlemanly looking sort, isn’t he? Have you an admirer already, dear?”
Lucy smothered a snort. Her reluctant hero was still staring at her. He had a decidedly odd look on his face, but she doubted it was admiration. Disdain, perhaps, or some sort of gastric ailment. This was Brighton, after all. Didn’t everyone here have gastric ailments?
“No, Aunt. I’ve, ah, never laid eyes on that gentleman before. He must have mistaken me for another lady.” Lucy flinched at the lie, but she could hardly tell the truth, could she?
He saved me from being trampled to death in a brawl at a bare-knuckle boxing match.
No, a lie would have to do.
“It’s very rude of him to stare like that.” Lucy sniffed, trying once again to herd her aunt and cousin out the door.
But Eloisa refused to be herded. “Are you certain, Lucy? Because he’s still watching you, and he looks a bit, oh, I don’t know…dejected?”
Dejected? Lucy was tempted to look back at him to see for herself, but she resisted the urge. What was the point? It wasn’t as if the two of them were going to become friends. She’d already tried to befriend him, and he’d rejected her both times. She had too much pride to offer a third time, and anyway, she’d changed her mind about him.
She didn’t care for rude gentlemen who so carelessly tossed about words likemad, no matter how pretty their eyes might be. “Yes, yes, I’m quite certain. Come along, Eloisa, before your mother becomes fatigued.”
Aunt Jarvis had had a good day today, and Lucy wanted to keep it that way. Uncle Jarvis had taken himself off somewhere, and her aunt’s spirits had risen with every hour of his continued absence.
Lucy didn’t suppose it was a coincidence.
It was true her Aunt Jarvis could be tedious, with her dozens of bottled cures and hosts of imaginary ailments, but underneath her fits and palpitations she had a good, kind heart. On her best days, Lucy could see glimmers of the mother she’d lost in her aunt, and she was growing quite fond of her.
Aunt Jarvis sighed. “I am indeed fatigued, but my nerves are a bit agitated. I’m afraid I won’t sleep tonight.”
Lucy had taken Eloisa’s arm to hurry her out the door, and she felt it stiffen under her fingers. Whenever her aunt complained her nerves were agitated and she wouldn’t sleep, it meant she intended to dose herself with laudanum. Aunt Jarvis’s appetite for the stuff alarmed Eloisa. So much so her cousin would now insist on staying at her mother’s bedside all night to watch over her.
No, no. This wouldn’t do. Aunt Jarvis was becoming dozy and dull-witted, and Eloisa was worrying herself to a frazzle. “Never mind, Aunt. I have just the thing to soothe your nerves.” Lucy patted her aunt’s hand.
“Have you, dear? What is it?”
“It’s ah…it’s called Dr. Digby’s Healing Tonic.” The lie rolled so easily off her tongue Lucy wondered if she shouldn’t be ashamed of herself. “You’ve heard of Dr. Digby, of course.”
Aunt Jarvis gave her a blank look. “No, I can’t say I have.”
“Indeed? How curious. Everyone in Devon knows of him. He’s dead now, but in his day, he was one of England’s most famous apothecaries. His tonic was said to cure every ill.”
“Every ill? Even the headache? You know how badly I suffer from the headache, Lucinda.”
Lucy did know. A headache that could be traced directly back to Uncle Jarvis. “I know, Aunt, but I’m certain Dr. Digby’s tonic will set you to rights. Shall I make up a batch for you tonight, to help calm your nerves?”
“Can’t we simply go to the apothecary and fetch a bottle tomorrow?” Aunt Jarvis asked.
“Oh, well, as to that…er, you can’t buy it anymore. Dr. Digby has been dead for some years now. My father was friends with him, though, and the doctor was good enough to share the recipe with him. I made it for my father countless times, and I know it by heart.”
Eloisa made a small, choking sound. Lucy glanced at her cousin out of the corner of her eye and saw the tiniest smile on Eloisa’s lips.
“Indeed, Mama, it sounds like just the thing.” Eloisa cleared her throat. “I think you should try it.”
“I daresay I will, if Lucinda doesn’t mind taking the trouble to make up a batch for me.”
Lucy hid a grin. “Not at all, Aunt.”
