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“Help you?” He pulled back slightly. “Legally, it all depends on your husband. There’s nothing to be done.”

“Nonsense. There’s always something to be done,” someone said in a husky voice, not a little bit reproving.

Lucy. The Duchess of Weston.

She stalked around Lavinia and stood glaring at Anthony, hair a loose tangle, cat clutched to her breast.

“But you won’t figure it out tonight. Look at her. She’s practically extinguished. Another minute and she’ll topple over.” She turned her sharp eyes on Lavinia. Many women—most women; all women that Lavinia had ever known—would unleash hell’s furies if their husband’s former fiancée showed up to his bedchamber in the dead of night. This one had jumped to defend the interloper.

Maybe she remembered that, not long ago, she’d been the interloper herself.

Or maybe she plotted her attack.

Suspicion made Lavinia bristle. “I’m hardly extinguished.”

Lucy struggled as the cat turned a circle in her arms. “I’ve half a mind to extinguish this monster if he won’t behave himself.” She lifted him away but his claws caught in the embroidery on her silk wrapper. She sighed, working the claws free.

“What I meant to say is I’ve gone without food and rest myself. I can tell when someone’s hungry and tired. Ouch.” She gave a tug and bent her knees to let the cat leap the short distance to the floor. Straightening, she focused on Lavinia. “You need hot soup and a good night’s sleep.”

“Hmph.” Lavinia pursed her lips. Hot soup. To her mortification her stomach rumbled audibly. She clasped her hands at her waist and stood straighter. Lucy was watching her, watching her without pity or gratification. Simply waiting for Lavinia to agree with the obvious.

Lavinia exhaled. Why make things harder? If Lucy found it in herself to offer hospitality, then she would find it in herself to accept it.

“I could do with a little supper.” She nodded stiffly.

Accept it graciously.

“Thank you,” she added.

“Excellent.” Lucy smiled a wide, utterly disarming smile that made her almost pretty. “Hot soup. And hotter water. I’ll have a bath drawn. Anthony, tell Mrs. Perkins to prepare a room.”

“Also . . .” Lavinia hesitated. But she was beyond embarrassment. She plunged on. “The cabman is waiting in the courtyard. He has my trunk. It seems I lacked the money for the fare.”

Anthony was frowning. Lucy gave a short nod and settled her hands on her hips.

“You heard her,” she said, turning to Anthony. “Go pay the cabman. And have the soup sent up. And tea.”

Slowly, Anthony shook his head. Lavinia felt her heart plunge, but he wasn’t refusing his wife’s command. He was conceding, a bemused expression on his face.

“Unbelievable,” he murmured, a hint of a growl in his low voice. “You are unbelievable.” The glance he and Lucy exchanged made Lavinia drop her eyes.

The lump that rose in her throat was formed of equal parts relief and envy.

After a long moment, Anthony heaved a dramatic sign. “Let me put on my britches at least.”

“Why?” Lavinia pulled a face as she looked up. “Everyone in London has already gotten an eyeful.”

Lucy snorted. The year before, she had painted a nude portrait of Anthony that caused a stampede at the Royal Academy of Art’s summer exhibition. The public couldn’t get enough of it.

The cabman was likely to whip out his own print reproduction and ask for a signature.

Anthony opened his mouth, then closed it with a pop. He glanced between Lucy and Lavinia, then shrugged and strolled, bare-legged, for the stairs.

“He doesn’t need much encouragement,” Lucy murmured, looking after him, and it was Lavinia’s turn to snort.

Surely it was giddiness after a long, emotionally harrowing day that made her flood with warmth. Not fellow feeling. And yet . . . she and Lucy together in the hallway, shoulder to shoulder . . . it seemed something like camaraderie.

“He never did,” Lavinia agreed, and a wave of tiredness caught her around the knees so she thought she really might topple.