Page 12 of The Beloved Escapade

She had wandered his corridors for hours. Opened doors she was not supposed to open. Peered into rooms that smelled of old leather and pipe tobacco. Climbed to the top of the tower with her braid coming loose and looked out at the estuary and the sea beyond and thought, in her ten-year-old way, that this was what a life ought to look like.

Grey House. It is mine.

Lucy set her hands flat on the arms of the chair to hold herself in place. Her mind was going in three directions at once. There was the part that was still numb with the declaration and the seven years and Uncle Henry gone. There was the part that could see the terrace at Grey House and the light on the estuary. And there was a third part now, a new part, that was doing sums.

Two thousand a year.

Plus investments.

Plus a house full of a lifetime’s collecting.

Plus every trunk and journal Uncle Henry had ever brought back.

Her father had walked into the study this morning with the court ruling in his hand, and now she was wealthy.

The word felt strange even inside her own head.

She was one-and-twenty and unmarried and wealthy and no longer under her father’s control.

I am free.

The thought hit her hard enough that a rough sound escaped her throat before she could stop it.

“Lucy?”

Her father was watching her. She saw suddenly that he had been dreading this moment. He had known what she would think. He had known before he walked into the study. He had probably known for weeks.

“Papa?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“I want to go there.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked older than he had a moment before. “I thought you might.”

“Not to visit. To live.”

“Lucy—”

“You cannot stop me … Can you?”

He did not answer at once. He set the will down on the desk and folded his hands over it. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“No, my dear. I cannot. As of this morning, you are the sole mistress of your fortune and your movements. You are of age. The law is unmistakable on the point. I have no instrument that would prevent you from taking up residence at Grey House this very afternoon if it pleased you.”

“But you would rather I did not?”

“I would rather,” he said, “that you were safely married to a sensible young gentleman with an income and a name and a house of his own. That you were mistress of a comfortable establishment with a husband to guide you. I would rather,” his voice cracked, “you were the sort of daughter I had prepared myself to have.”

She sat still. “I am not that sort of daughter, Papa.”

“No.”

“I never was.”

“No, Lucy.”

The fire had caught properly now. Little flames danced behind the fender. She could feel the warmth of it against her ankles for the first time since she had sat down.