“You may believe me, Lucy, when I say Edmund isn’t always the flawless gentleman he pretends to be. He was in a terrible temper, and behaved like a perfect savage.” Lady Felicia fell back against the seat with an outraged sniff.
“Why should Lord Markham suppose you don’t care for Lord Nash?” Eloisa’s brows drew together. “Why shouldn’t you care for such a handsome, charming gentleman? All the young ladies admire him.”
Lady Felicia tossed her head. “Well, I suppose he thinks he knows my feelings better than I do myself!”
Lucy glimpsed a flash of consciousness cross Lady Felicia’s face, and wondered if perhaps in this one instance, Lord Markham was correct. “Hmmm. What threw Lord Markham into such a terrible temper?”
“Why, nothing at all remarkable, but he’s been in a temper since yesterday. He called, you see, and while he was there a servant brought in a bouquet of hothouse flowers from Lord Nash—lovely pink peonies and white lilac. I was exclaiming over them, and Edmund’s face kept getting darker and darker, and the next thing I knew he’d fallen into a temper and was saying all manner of unpleasant things.”
“My goodness,” Lucy murmured. “What did he say?”
“He went on and on, and…well, I couldn’t make much sense of it, but something about ladies dancing with the same gentleman twice, then allowing him to take her into supper, and a lot of other incoherent nonsense. He was pacing from one end of the drawing room to the other like a caged animal, and it was all quite awful, and then Sebastian had to have his say, and he only made it worse, and—”
“Why? What did Lord Vale say?” Eloisa’s head snapped toward Lady Felicia.
“He agreed with Edmund! He said young ladies are calculating, cold-hearted things who tease and flirt until they gain a man’s attention, then they dangle him on a string and rejoice in his misery.”
Eloisa sucked in a furious breath. “That’s utter nonsense! If anyone’s a tease and a flirt, it’s Lord Vale!”
“I couldn’t agree more, Eloisa. Sebastian’s a dreadful tease, and so I’ve told him dozens of times, but do you suppose he listens to me?”
“Of course, he doesn’t! He doesn’t listen to anyone!” Eloisa huffed. “Certainly not to any lady who tries to reason him out of making a foolish choice he’ll regret for the rest of his life. Never mind she’s only trying to help him, and doing it for his own good!”
Lucy stared at Eloisa, her eyes wide.Foolish choice?One that would affect Lord Vale for the rest of his life? Surely her cousin could only mean one thing bythat.
“Vile, loathsome creatures,” Eloisa muttered under her breath.
My, it was a season for proposals, wasn’t it? Weren’t betrothals meant to be happy occasions? “I daresay everything will work out as it’s meant to in the end.” It would, too—for Eloisa and Felicia, that is. Lucy was far less optimistic about her own situation.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Ciaran’s face when she’d refused him, the way shadows had darkened the blue in his eyes. He’d looked hurt. If Lucy didn’t know better, she would have thought his heart was broken—
“No, it won’t work out in the end, Lucy. Things never do.” Eloisa’s voice was thick, as if she were about to burst into tears. “Everything’s a dreadful mess, and likely to stay that way.”
Lucy’s gaze shot to her cousin’s face, and in the next instant she was across the carriage, squeezing into the narrow bit of seat between Eloisa and Lady Felicia. “What’s happened tonight?” She took Lady Felicia’s hand in one of hers, Eloisa’s in the other, and braced herself. “Well, Eloisa? Felicia? Tell me at once.”
Silence at first, but it tipped over into chaos soon enough. “Lord Vale made me an offer, but I—” Eloisa began, at the same time Lady Felicia said, “Edmund offered me his hand, and I told him—”
That was as far as they got before the carriage door flew open and Aunt Jarvis scrambled in. “Dear me, girls! I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting. It’s such a crush it took me ages to find…oh, aren’t you uncomfortable, crowded together on one side?”
Lucy, Eloisa and Lady Felicia all shook their heads at once.
“No? All right, then.” Aunt Jarvis settled herself into the opposite seat and spread her skirts with a sigh before squinting at Lucy through the gloom of the carriage. “Lucy, my dear child. Are you quite all right? Such a terrible scene with Lord Godfrey!”
“Yes, Aunt,” Lucy said quickly, hoping to end the conversation before Eloisa or Felicia started asking questions. It would only upset them further if they knew about Lord Godfrey’s abominable behavior this evening.
But she hoped in vain. As soon as his lordship’s name was mentioned she felt Eloisa go stiff beside her, and Lady Felicia asked sharply, “What scene? What has Lord Godfrey done now?”
“It was nothing,” Lucy began, but her aunt interrupted her with an energy Lucy had never seen in her before. Perhaps she shouldn’t have put so much elderflower in that last batch of Dr. Digby’s Calming Tonic.
“Itwasn’tnothing. It was excessively unpleasant, and I don’t mind saying I’m not at all pleased with Lord Godfrey. I haven’t always approved of his behavior before tonight, but I never imagined he could be soveryungentlemanly.”
“What happened, Mama?” Eloisa asked, her face pale.
“Why, Lord Godfrey practically dragged poor Lucy into the set, and then what do you think? He insisted on keeping her out for three dances! I didn’t know what it meant at first, but then Lady Henley came over and asked when Lucy and Lord Godfrey intended to marry! Did you know, girls, if a gentleman and lady dance three dances together, it means they’re—”
“Betrothed,” Lady Felicia said flatly. “Or as good as betrothed.”
“Betrothed! You mean to tell me everyone at the ball tonight now thinks Lucy is betrothed toLord Godfrey?” Eloisa didn’t try to hide her horror.
