She could not adequately put into words—and normally she could adequately put nearly anything into words—the “why” of these things. Ever since that fateful day two months and two days ago, it was as though she, like paintings in her ruined sketchbook, had blurred and run off the page and continued on and on out of her own sight. She could no longer quite sense the boundaries that once constrained her. Where she began and ended.
“I suppose I was curious. I helped myself to one from your humidor before we arrived here and I found it in my reticule and... you said they relax you. The docks are unnerving and... smoking a cheroot seemed like just the sort of thing one would do near the docks,” she’d improvised hurriedly and shamelessly.
This was greeted with palpably baffled silence. They both knew little unnerved Lillias.
She took a breath. “I’m sorry... Papa.”
The word “Papa” usually made the thunderous crease between her father’s brows disappear.
This time it deepened to a trench.
He allowed Lillias to look at this trench for a full thirty seconds.
“You’ll ruin your looks if you smoke cheroots,” her mother finally said.
“Yes, dear.That’swhy she shouldn’t smoke cheroots,” her father said dryly. “Her looks.”
“Would it matter so very much if it did ruin them?” she said, a little desperately. Not entirely joking.
Her parents swiftly exchanged the kind of glance that contained entire paragraphs worth of that silent language married people seemed to share. She could almost hear them discussing whether she ought to be tucked into bed with afoul tisane and a hot water bottle. Perhaps the doctor ought to be called for. Perhaps some leeches or trepanning would suit.
“Go ahead then, and ruin your looks. I’m an earl. I can buy you a husband if it comes down to that,” her father said finally.
He was only half jesting. But it was the beginning of a thaw.
“We’re very fortunate that pleasant young American man was so very discreet. He understood immediately how horrified and concerned I would be if I’d known you were off smoking a cheroot. He has a sister, he told me, and his conscience wouldn’t let him leave you out there. He had a sense of the dangers you might encounter in an unfamiliar place, a young woman, all alone.”
Thedangersshe might encounter! That was almost funny. She ought to tell them she’d seen her own riveted expression in the American’s pupils, because that’s how close he’d been. That she could have reached out and touched her finger to the tiny crescent-shaped scar next to his bottom lip.
“And what would the proprietresses of The Grand Palace on the Thames think of us if they learned the oldest daughter of the Earl of Vaughn was wandering off alone to smoke a cheroot in a dangerous area under construction, full of nails and loose boards and whatnot? We’ve our family’s reputation to uphold. It’s been unassailable since the Conqueror.”
This was a bit much.
“To be clear, you’re concerned about impressing the proprietresses of an inn by thedocks, where we’ve been compelled to relocate in part becauseFather shot at an escaped poisonous snake that St. John won in a bet and inadvisably brought home. And is nobody concerned that the word ‘rogue’ isveryfaintly visible on the sign in the front, and that the pub nearest seems to be called ‘The Wolf and’? The Wolf andwhat?”
Lillias said all of this slowly. The unspoken words were, “...and you thinkI’mthe looby.”
Her parents were subdued for a moment. “It could happen to anybody,” her father said finally. “Shooting at a snake.”
Lillias couldn’t help it. She laughed.
Her father’s face finally relaxed into something like its usual content lines. He loved her laughter and cleverness and loathed being upset with her as much as she usually loathed upsetting him. “Come now, Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand are everything that’s kind and genteel and charming, and they run a tight ship and it’s clear the staff is happy and well-trained. The place is spotless, the food iswonderful, and I feel safe and very much at home already.” The earl gave the settee he sat upon a happy thump, as though it were a beloved pet. “And frankly, the lemon seed cakes we were greeted with were like the food of angels. Angels!”
Lillias said nothing. The place—a shining white building tucked into a somewhat notorious and begrimed if essential part of London near the East India docks—was frankly a fever dream. The formerly notorious Lord Bolt—Lucien Durand, the bastard son of a duke, former denizen of the broadsheets, back from the presumed dead—roamed the halls because he wasmarriedto one of the proprietresses; the other proprietress had oncebeen a countess, allegedly, and apparently the king himself had recently sat on a worn pink satin settee in one of the parlors. And God only knew what Delacorte was, apart from somewhat loud and somewhat egg-shaped.
“But... thoserules. And... and Mr. Delacorte.”
Mr. Delacorte (as he’d informed the earl) imported medicines comprised of things like the horns and testicles of exotic animals, herbs and flowers, and other interesting things crushed into teas, powders, and pills, and sold them to apothecaries and surgeons up and down the British coast. He carried them about in a case of samples. He’d said “bollocks” out loud in the parlor after Lord Bolt had made a skillful chess move.
This gave her mother a bit of pause. Then she brightened. “He’s a bit like a character in a pantomime, isn’t he, Mr. Delacorte? You like pantomimes! We can all play our part. It will only be for a short time. We shall endure.” She said this firmly. This “endurance” was clearly an order. “And it’s absurd to thinkanyof this should drive one into smoking cheroots.”
“And a list of rules won’t do you any harm, Lillias,” her father added, “given that you are either forgetting or disregarding the ones you were raised with.”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it, Lillias.
“Disregarding,” she clarified. Gently.
It was almost funny when her parents’ eyebrows dove in perfect unison, like birds of prey.
