Lucy didn’t much care whether she ever danced the quadrille again, but she only nodded meekly. “No, Monsieur.” She darted a glance at Eloisa, who gave her a sympathetic smile. “I apologize for my clumsiness. I’ll do better next time,” she promised the other ladies and gentlemen in the set, her cheeks heating with embarrassment.
It wasn’t that she objected to dancing, or even to dancing lessons. She’d spent many pleasant hours whirling about the ballroom at Bellamy Park with her father, or, if he was having one of his bad days, their butler Popple, who was quite spry, despite his advanced years.
Indeed, she would have said she already knew how to dance a quadrille before she even set foot in Thomas Wilson’s Dancing Academy. Somehow, though, the quadrille she’d learned at home bore little resemblance to Monsieur Guilland’s tedious mincing. Every time she began to enjoy herself, Monsieur Guilland fell into a paroxysm of despair. Lucy couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t dancing meant to be pleasurable?
Monsieur Guilland indulged in a heavy sigh. “I beg you will, Lady Lucinda, but perhaps we’d all benefit from a brief rest first. Ladies, gentlemen!” He clapped his hands for attention, then fluttered his handkerchief toward the row of chairs lining the wall, much in the manner of a man waving a flag of surrender. “My dear Lady Lucinda, do try and pay attention when we resume, won’t you?”
“I don’t intend toevergo through such misery again,” Lucy declared as she and Eloisa made their way to the side of the room.
“You have to. You can’t refuse every gentleman who asks you to dance the quadrille,” Eloisa said. “Father won’t like it.”
Lucy shrugged. “No, I don’t suppose he will, but neither will he like my making a cake of myself in front of all of London, either.”
Eloisa sank down in the chair next to her with a sigh. “You’re not at all clumsy, Lucy. I daresay you’re just more, ah, unpredictable a dancer than Monsieur Guilland’s usual pupils.”
Lucy shot her cousin a grateful look. “I suppose. I’m sorry my uncle forced you to take these horrid lessons with me, Eloisa. You don’t need them. Your quadrille is lovely.”
Eloisa let out a short laugh. “My father doesn’t think so. He says I dance as if I have hooves instead of feet.”
“Why, that’s the most absurd thing I ever heard!” Lucy exclaimed, anger sparking in her chest. They’d all be better off if Uncle Jarvis was a touch less free with his opinions.
She’d been willing enough to give her uncle the benefit of the doubt at first. She’d overlooked his boorish manners, his propensity for drink, his insatiable appetite for cards and dice. She’d pretended not to notice his preoccupation with the contents of her bodice, and had borne his frequent tempers without a word of complaint.
But after three weeks in Brighton and another two in London, her patience with him had snapped. She’d suspected he was a villain from the moment she met him, and her first impression was correct.
Uncle Jarvis was about as pleasant as a poisonous snake.
He couldn’t lay eyes on his daughter without berating her. As far as he was concerned, Eloisa wasn’t pretty enough, charming enough, or accomplished enough to attract an eligible match. He railed at fate for cursing him with such a disappointing daughter. He predicted with much bitterness Eloisa would end a spinster, and he’d be obliged to clothe and feed her until he was laid in his grave.
He was scarcely more generous with his wife. Lucy could hardly blame her aunt for hiding behind a veneer of ill health. She might have done the same if she had such a husband.
Uncle Jarvis was, in short, the most appalling guardian a lady could possibly be burdened with.
But then she’d be out from under his thumb soon enough. Her twenty-first birthday would be here soon enough and then she might do as she pleased. Until then she had no other choice but to tolerate her uncle’s slippery attempts to assert control over her.
Or more accurately, over her sixty thousand pounds. There was nothing Uncle Jarvis loved more than money.
“It’s not true, Eloisa. Your dancing is wonderful. You mustn’t listen to your father when he says things like that.” Lucy gave Eloisa’s hand a quick squeeze, and Eloisa squeezed back.
“I confess I don’t remember the quadrille being so irksome as this. Has it always been so, or is it just Monsieur Guilland’s teaching that has me in such fits?” Lucy swung her foot back and forth, her heel striking the leg of her chair. “I tell you, Eloisa, I won’t dance the quadrille at all this season if it’s going to be such a blasted—”
“Hush, Lucy!” Eloisa hissed, tilting her head toward Lady Felicia, who was making her way over to their side of the room.
“Blessed nuisance,” Lucy finished. “Good afternoon, Lady Felicia.”
Lady Felicia took the chair next to Eloisa’s. “Good afternoon. How do you do?”
Lucy grimaced. “I own I was far better before I tried to dance the quadrille. I beg your pardon for upsetting the dance. Monsieur Guilland has quite despaired of me.”
All three young ladies glanced across the room at Monsieur Guilland, who was mopping his brow, waving his handkerchief about, and muttering furiously to himself.
“Oh, dear.” Lucy clapped a hand over her mouth to smother the wild giggle that tickled her throat. “I fear I’ve broken him.”
Lady Felicia stared at her in surprise for a moment before dissolving into an answering giggle. “No, it’s not so bad as that.”
“Bad enough. But I can’t think of any reason whyyoushould be cursed with Monsieur Guilland’s instruction, Lady Felicia,” Lucy observed. “Your dancing is as graceful as my cousin’s is.”
Lady Felicia sighed. “Sebastian insisted I come. I believe he thought it would heighten my enthusiasm for the season. I didn’t want to come to London at all, you see.”
