Page 51 of Give Him a Chance

Lucy stifled a giggle.

Oh, he was clever. And kind! By pretending to be the one wishing to hire the room, a gentleman, no less, it was quite clear that Mr. Forthright would be unable to decline—but of course, Mr. Forthright wished to help her but couldn’t.

It was the perfect solution, and it had been Bernard who had seen it.

“Lucy? Lady Lucy, I mean,” added Bernard hastily, his bravado fading. “The day and time?”

“The day and—oh, yes. How often it is you forget,” Lucy said quickly, inventing wildly and thanking the Lord she would never have to grace a stage. “So I wrote it down for you. Here.”

Thrusting her hand hastily into her reticule, she pulled out the piece of card where she had written the details.

Bernard took it with a smile and a small bow, then immediately handed it over to Mr. Forthright. “I think that is everything.”

“There is just the small matter of, ahem.” Mr. Forthright looked pained. “Payment.”

Lucy froze. Bernard would have no money to pay for the room—why would he? He was a criminal who had been released from prison with naught but the clothes on his own back, and even those clothes had not been particularly present.

She would have to hope he had another idea. Becauseshedidn’t. She wished Mr. Forthright would just let the charade go on. Didn’t he see Bernard was offering the solution?

“Ah. Yes, payment,” Bernard said hopelessly, turning to her. “Lady Lucy, did you happen to remember—”

“That you would wish to make a fifty percent deposit now, and pay the remainder on the day? Yes, I did remember,” Lucy said decisively, thrusting her hand into her reticule again and hoping to goodness she had enough on her. She’d been expecting a bill sent to the Prison Reform Society itself. “Somewhere, I’ve got—look, there’s a shilling… Blast, I really thought I had a pound note.”

“I think the hotel will send the bill to your residence, Mr. Dixon, and accounts can be settled that way,” said Mr. Forthright, rescuing her from her floundering with a kind smile that was nonetheless tight. “All I will need is your address, and your signature here…and here…”

It was all done and over within a matter of minutes. Bernard even wrote down her father’s address in town. But Mr. Forthright likely wouldn’t know that. Utterly dazzled, Lucy drifted out of the hotel with plenty of thanks from Mr. Forthright to Bernard for thinking of the Regency Hotel for his event, and then Lucy and Bernard, lady reformer and her criminalconfidence man, were standing out in the sunshine, the location secured.

“There,” said Bernard happily, beaming as he turned to her. “I knew they’d have no choice but to accept my booking as a gentleman—which of course is an outrage, but at least we’ve found a way round it. Right?”

Lucy did not reply.

That was, she did not reply in words. She did not have the words to reply, and so she relied on the most instinctive thing she could think of: a hug.

It was a good hug. As Lucy stepped into his arms, Bernard seemed to read her mind and brought his hands around her, pulling her close. Her face pressed against his shoulder and she breathed him in, the steadiness, the certainty, the knowledge that she could depend on him.

All she wanted to do was stay in this moment.

“My goodness!”

“My word, young people these days,” muttered a pair as they passed them on the street.

Cheeks burning, Lucy pulled herself from of the embrace and looked very carefully not at Bernard.

Fine, it was reckless. But… But it was Bernard.

And it was not as though she could marry him or anything. The very thought! Which, she realized, meant it was all the more dangerous for anyone to recognize her alone with the man—let aloneembracinghim. Bernard was a very nice man, Lucy told herself confidently, but he was a commoner. Worse than a commoner, a criminal! He had no fortune, no rank, no connections, and no clean record. He was absolutely not the sort of man that a woman of any good family should be considering as a marital prospect, let alone a Chance.

And yet…

Lucy pushed the thought away as she said determinedly, and as businesslike as she could manage, “Thank you for organizing that. I shall ensure the bill is paid promptly when it arrives. I would hate for you to gain a reputation for avoiding your debts.”

“Thank you,” returned Bernard, a smile dancing on his lips. “Yes, that would really damage my reputation.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if that was what had led him into a life of criminal and general skullduggery—not paying debts? Had he stolen, perhaps, or rescinded on an agreement, or—

But that was his old life. Lucy could not keep telling herself that Bernard Dixon’s criminal past was in the past if she kept bringing it up, could she?

Even if her curiosity burned to know… Well. Everything. Everything about him.