“It seems so. It must be a mistake, of course. That is, I realize Lord Godfrey’s been calling on you, Lucy, but your uncle hasn’t said a word to me about…”
Aunt Jarvis trailed off as she came to the same conclusion Lucy, Eloisa, and Lady Felicia had already reached. Uncle Jarvis wasn’t in the habit of sharing his plans with his wife. That Aunt Jarvis didn’t know a thing about a betrothal between Lucy and Lord Godfrey meant precisely nothing.
“Oh, dear.” Aunt Jarvis darted an uneasy glance around the carriage, wringing her hands. “You don’t think—”
“No, no. I’m sure it’s a simple misunderstanding, Mama.” Eloisa shot a warning look at Lucy. “You needn’t worry. It’ll all be sorted out by morning.”
It wouldn’t be sorted out. Lucy knew that well enough, and if the heavy silence that fell over the carriage was any indication, everyone else did, too. Even her aunt remained quiet until they drew close to Lord Vale’s townhouse in Hanover Square. “Shall we leave you here, Lady Felicia?”
Lucy, Eloisa, and Felicia glanced at each other, then Eloisa shook her head. “No, Mama. Her brother will fetch her from Portman Square on his way home from the Weatherby ball. Lady Felicia is…ah, she doesn’t like to stay in the house unless he’s there.”
Given that Lord Vale had dozens of servants Lucy thought this an implausible excuse, but Aunt Jarvis didn’t argue. “Very well, then.”
They continued on to Portman Square. Once they were there, Eloisa made quick work of seeing her mother from the carriage up to her bedchamber, where Aunt Jarvis promptly swallowed a dose of Dr. Digby’s Calming Tonic, and went to bed.
When Eloisa came back downstairs, Lucy and Felicia were waiting for her in the entryway. “Come with me.” Eloisa beckoned to them to follow her down the hall.
As soon as Lucy realized where her cousin was headed, she came to an abrupt halt. “Eloisa, no! We can’t risk it. Your father could come home at any moment.”
“We can, and we will.” Eloisa was already pushing open the door of Uncle Jarvis’s study. “This business with Lord Godfrey has gone far enough. There’s no longer any doubt Father means to marry you off to that despicable man. The question is, how and when? We need to get into that locked drawer and see what we can find out.”
Lucy couldn’t help thinking Eloisa sounded very much as Ciaran had when he’d begged her to go with him tonight. She paused on the threshold of her uncle’s study, misgivings plaguing her. Perhaps she should have listened to him, and done as he bid her.
That is, not the marriage part—no, not that. Never that, no matter if the thought filled her with longing. She wouldn’t be the one to lock him away in a gilded cage. She knew too well the unhappiness and resentment that would follow.
But mightn’t she have let him take her off to Grosvenor Street with him, just until they could figure out what else could be done? Eloisa was as worried about this mess with Lord Godfrey as Ciaran was. Lucy couldn’t help but notice she was the least worried of the three of them.
Perhaps that was a mistake.
“Where’s that dashed letter opener gone to?” Eloisa was tossing the papers on her father’s desk about, searching underneath them. She’d clearly decided the time for caution had come and gone, because she was making the sort of mess it would be difficult to hide from her father.
Lucy hurried across the room to her cousin’s side. She grabbed for the papers, trying to put them back where they belonged, but Eloisa was tossing them aside faster than Lucy could straighten them. “Stop it, Eloisa! You’re making a dreadful mess. Your father will know we’ve been—”
She was interrupted by a gasp from Lady Felicia, who was standing beside the desk. In her hurry to empty the drawers Eloisa had tossed Uncle Jarvis’s ledger onto the desk, and Felicia had snatched it up. She raised a shocked gaze to her friends’ faces, the ledger open in her hands. “Five thousand pounds!”
“Five thousand, three hundred, and six pounds, to be exact. Ah, here it is!” Eloisa held up the letter opener, wielding it like a sword. “Now, let’s see what else my father’s been hiding.”
She attacked the lock on the drawer that had resisted them the first time they’d rifled through Uncle Jarvis’s desk, but Lucy snatched the letter opener away from her after a few fruitless jabs. “Give that to me. Do you even know how to pick a lock, Eloisa?”
Eloisa looked surprised. “Pick a lock? No. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I was just going to break it open.” She leaned over Lucy, watching with interest as Lucy prodded delicately at the lock with the tip of the letter opener. “How doyouknow how to pick a lock?”
Picking locks was the sort of skill one acquired when one had an unpredictable father, but Lucy was saved from having to offer this answer when the catch on the inside of the lock clicked. “Ah, here we are.”
She placed the letter opener back under the piles of paper where Eloisa had found it, then held out her hand for the ledger book. Lady Felicia handed it over and Lucy put it carefully back in its place under the stationery box while Eloisa and Lady Felicia bent over the opened drawer.
“Papers, and more papers.” Eloisa was pawing through them, a frown on her face as she dug through the piles, scanning each paper quickly before putting it back where she’d found it. “Dash it, it looks like it’s just more tradesman’s bills—”
She broke off as she caught up a small, neat bundle of papers and skimmed the top page. Her gaze moved over it, her face draining of color as she read. “Oh, no.No.”
A chill swept over Lucy, puckering her skin. “What is it?”
Lady Felicia was reading the pages over Eloisa’s shoulder. When she reached the bottom of the page she looked up, her stricken gaze meeting Lucy’s. “Dear God. Your uncle is an utter villain.”
“Not a penny of pin money. No jointure.” Eloisa was flipping through the pages, her fingers curling into the paper as if she was on the verge of ripping it to shreds.
Pin money? Jointure…
“Marriage settlements.” Lucy’s legs began to shake, and she dropped into the chair in front of the desk. “My uncle has had marriage settlements drawn up.”
