The Last Word Page 3

  He didn’t look at her. He never looked at her.

  “To my study,” he said. “I have work to do.”

  “But it’s nearly nine o’clock.”

  “Excellent,” Mrs. Patton said, standing. She grabbed Lucinda’s elbow and steered her away from her father. “Lucinda and I shall adjourn to the sitting room for some coffee.”

  “But I—” Lucinda started to protest, but her father was already gone. Mutely, she allowed herself to be guided by the much shorter—and yet surprisingly strong-gripped—Mrs. Patton to the sitting room, where she dutifully and dully drank her coffee.

  * * *

  The next day Lucinda ran her pen down the column of her household accounts. Every farthing was accounted for. Naturally.

  The sitting room faced west, and the heat of the afternoon blared through the three large windows that faced the London street. Lucinda tapped her pen against the table impatiently. Her mathematical mind was wasted on simple household accounts. The repetitious inanity of it all!

  Lucinda needed something to occupy her time. She picked up a sheet of paper and touched the end of her pen to her lips before writing:

  No. 15 Laura Place, Bath

  To the Owner of the Establishment:

  I am writing to request any forwarding information on a guest, Mrs. B. Smith, who you had staying in your boardinghouse from January to February of this year. I am trying to locate her family or nearest relations on important business. I have enclosed a fresh sheet of paper and a penny stamp, so replying to my letter will not cost you a farthing. I appreciate your time and attention in this matter.

  Yours sincerely,

  L. Leavitt

  London

  Lucinda poured a little sand on the letter to help dry the ink and then blew it off. She picked up a second sheet of paper and folded it inside the first, then placed a penny stamp inside the letter and sealed it with wax. She waited for the wax to firmly dry before turning the letter over and addressing it, and then she pulled the cord for a servant. Mr. Ruffles came into the room with a bow.

  Lucinda handed him the letter. “Please see that this letter leaves with today’s post,” she said.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Thank you, Ruffles,” Lucinda said. Across the sitting room, Mrs. Patton was snoring ever so slightly, her head hung to one side and her mouth agape. Mr. Ruffles looked at the sleeping companion and shook his square head in distaste before bowing to Lucinda once more and leaving the room.

  * * *

  A week later, Lucinda had yet to hear back from the proprietor in Bath about Mrs. Smith. She dabbed the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief and noticed the door to her father’s study was ajar. She carefully eased the door open farther so her enormous skirt could fit through. Lucinda closed the door behind her and walked over to sit in her father’s chair.

  On the desk was a large stack of ledgers. She opened the first one and ran her finger down the column of numbers. She dipped the pen in the inkwell and put a checkmark at the bottom of the column. And then the next one. And then a third. She found a few petty errors—which she corrected—but nothing substantial.

  Finally she opened the last ledger—a Mr. Quill’s from the Bath office. The first eight pages were flawlessly perfect, but the ninth page was perplexing. The beginning numbers did not match the ending numbers on the eighth page. The ninth page was added correctly, as were the twenty pages after it. But between the eighth page and the ninth page, twenty-three pounds had simply disappeared.

  Lucinda bit what was left of her thumbnail. Perhaps a page had fallen out? She turned the ledger over in her hands, but it looked brand new, the binding clearly intact. Had the clerk simply forgotten to carry over a few numerals? Lucinda doubled-checked her math, but surely not even the greenest of apprentices in her father’s employ could make such a blatant error and not notice. There were no two ways about it: Mr. Quill was an embezzler.

  Lucinda stood excitedly. She could show her father this ledger and prove she was clever enough to work in his countinghouse. That she was capable of so much more than her current banal existence of embroidery and endless sitting.

  She tucked Mr. Quill’s ledger underneath her arm and tiptoed out of the office. Mrs. Patton was lying on the sofa, fast asleep. Lucinda quietly left the sitting room and asked Mr. Ruffles to call for her carriage. She carefully placed the ledger into her embroidery bag—which finally had a useful purpose.

  * * *

  When Lucinda arrived at the countinghouse, all the windows were open but the heat was just as unbearable there as it had been at home. She walked past the clerks, who were mopping their sweaty brows with handkerchiefs, and went upstairs, where she opened the door to her father’s office without knocking. Her father looked so slight sitting in the large wingback chair at his desk. The top of his head was bald and shiny with sweat, a gray band of hair surrounding it. His beard and mustache were the same iron gray of his hair. His long, thin fingers gripped his pen tightly as he wrote a letter. Lucinda did not wait for him to greet her before entering the room.

  “Hello, Father,” she said gaily.

  He glanced up at her, but his eyes immediately dropped back down to the letter he was writing. “Lucy, what are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping I might be able to assist you,” Lucinda said. “I found some ledgers at home and I checked them. There were only a few petty mistakes, until—”

  Her father shook his bald, shiny head back and forth, still not looking her in the eye. “Ledgers are not for young ladies, Lucy.”

  “Then I could help you with your letters, Father,” Lucinda pressed, touching the stack of letters on his desk. “You had me open and file letters when I was only a little girl. Surely I could be more helpful now that I am eighteen.”

  He stood, though he was several inches shorter than her. “Your mother wanted you to be a lady, and a lady is what you will be.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” he said, raising his right hand. “This conversation is nonnegotiable. There will be no more looking through ledgers at home and no more visits to the countinghouse. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, but I don’t agree,” Lucinda muttered.

  “You don’t have to agree,” he said. “Now, shall I escort you back home?”

  “No need, Father,” Lucinda said, and then lied, “Mrs. Patton is waiting in the carriage. I will shut the door behind me.”

  Lucinda pressed the door closed and leaned back against it, exhaling slowly. She looked at the floor and breathed in and out several times. She wanted to yell in rage and frustration at the unfairness of it all, but she didn’t. If there was one thing she had learned from finishing school, it was to keep everything bottled up inside. Arguing had only ever earned her stripes from the strap and enforced isolation in the attic. She continued to breathe slowly in and out until she dropped her embroidery bag on the floor and heard a clunk.

  Mr. Quill’s ledger was still inside of it. Her father had never given her the opportunity to tell him about the embezzler. She looked down the hall and saw that David’s office door was open again. Probably for the circulation of air, she thought.

  Lucinda lifted her head and walked resolutely to David’s office. She knocked lightly on the open door.

  David sat at his desk with his cravat untied and the top of his linen shirt open. His vest and jacket were hung on the coatrack in the corner. She could see a bead of sweat on his exposed collarbone. The slight breeze from the windows behind him stirred his hair. He did not look up but continued to write a letter; he must not have heard her knock.

  Lucinda took a few steps forward and cleared her throat.

  David glanced up at her and shot to his feet in surprise. Or attempted to. He’d forgotten to push out his chair first, so instead, the tops of his knees slammed into his desk, and he nearly toppled back into his chair before he managed to stand. He gave her a stiff bow and then clutched at the opening at the top of his shirt.
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  “Lucy—Miss Leavitt, how do you do?”

  Lucinda grinned; she’d never seen the perfect Mr. David Randall so disheveled. She pointed to the chair and said primly, “May I sit, please?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. He hastily buttoned up his shirt, one button off of the correct one.

  Lucinda sat. After a moment she said coyly, “Must you tower over me?”

  He dropped into his chair instantly and then looked over his shoulder for his vest and coat. He stood again as if to go retrieve them.

  “There’s no need,” Lucinda said. “It’s hot enough already.”

  David smiled at her, and inexplicably she felt hotter. He sat back down, rested his elbows on his desk, and interlaced his fingers. “What can I help you with today, Miss Leavitt?”

  “Why do you assume I need your assistance?”

  “I can think of no other reason for you to be here in my office.”

  Lucinda let out a tinkle of laughter. “I am not here for your assistance, but rather to offer you mine.”

  “What assistance?”

  She pulled Mr. Quill’s ledger out of her embroidery bag and handed it to David. “My father had me go over some of the ledgers at our home, and I found one I think you ought to look at.”

  He opened it and looked at the first couple pages. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The numbers between pages eight and nine are not consecutive,” Lucinda said. “Somehow between the two pages, twenty-three pounds disappeared into thin air.”

  David turned a few more pages and then looked back and forth from page eight to page nine. “You are right.”

  “My father would like us both to go to the Bath office and perform an audit on all the books,” Lucinda continued quickly, careful not to look him in the eye. It was easier to lie if you didn’t maintain eye contact. Another invaluable lesson from finishing school. “You’ll probably want to contact the justice of the peace about Mr. Quill while we are there.”

  “I do not see why you need to come,” David said slowly.

  “Don’t you want my help?” Lucinda asked. “I’m much faster at numbers than you.”

  “That’s true,” David admitted. “But I can’t help but think you only wish to perform the Bath audit so you may visit Laura Street and inquire after your dead author. And I am very busy at the moment.” He gestured to the stack of letters on his desk.

  “I have underrated your intelligence, David,” Lucinda said, forgetting to be formal in her excitement. She untied her bonnet and took it off. “But I do believe the Bath audit is truly essential. And if we are, by happy coincidence, already in Bath, what could it hurt to take a brief trip to Laura Street to make an inquiry? And, if we hurry, we can finish all the correspondence on your desk and set out for Bath on the earliest train tomorrow. I should not think we need stay there for more than a night. Be sure to have your man pack the appropriate clothes.”

  “I cannot escort you to Bath—”

  “Without a chaperone,” Lucinda finished. “Mrs. Patton would love to visit Bath and drink the waters. The poor dear’s health seems quite precarious; she falls asleep at the least provocation.”

  David exhaled loudly.

  “Which stack of letters shall I start on?” Lucinda asked brightly.

  * * *

  Lucinda stood perfectly still as her lady’s maid dressed her in a blue taffeta gown for dinner. She felt like a doll as her maid moved her arms up and down and buttoned the back of her dress. The maid curled the hair around Lucinda’s face and intertwined a matching blue ribbon through her locks. Then, she expertly applied carmine on Lucinda’s lips and rice powder on her face. Lucinda stuck her tongue out at her reflection in the mirror—she truly looked like a white-faced porcelain doll.

  But when she went down to dinner, she wore her best weapon—her smile. Lucinda nodded politely at all of Mrs. Patton’s ramblings during the first three courses.

  “I had my own horse when I was a young lady, named Nebuchadnezzar,” Mrs. Patton said. “A neatish brown mare with the most excellent of manners.”

  “It is a pity Nebuchadnezzar isn’t still alive,” Lucinda said as she picked up her wineglass. “With his excellent manners, we could have invited him to dinner. I am sure he would have enlivened the conversation.”

  She sipped her wine while Mrs. Patton laughed and her father even smiled.

  “My dear Lucinda,” Mrs. Patton said. “You know, you can really be charming when you wish to be.”

  “Dear Nebuchadnezzar reminds me of something that happened at finishing school,” Lucinda said, setting her glass back on the table. “Miss Ursula Atkinson put horse manure on her face because Miss Clara Hardin told her it would rid her of her freckles.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Patton said with a high-pitched laugh.

  “I assume it did not,” her father said dryly.

  “It did rid her of something.”

  “What?” Mrs. Patton asked.

  “Companions,” Lucinda said. “The poor girl smelled awful for a week and never lived it down.”

  Her father laughed. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh in nearly four years. It was extremely loud and jolly. Miss Clara Hardin would have called it vulgar. Lucinda loved the sound of it. She could tell he was pleased. She was behaving like the sweet society debutante he wanted her to be.

  “Father,” Lucinda said, sensing her opportunity. “Another schoolfellow, Miss Amelia Butterfield, told me of a lacemaker in Bath that makes the most exquisite point lace. It would be the perfect trimming for my scarlet evening gown, and I want to look my very best at my first dinner party next week. It is terribly important that I make a good impression. Please say Mrs. Patton and I may go to Bath to purchase some point lace? Please, Father?”

  He stroked his chin. “Bath seems an awfully long way to go for lace.”

  “Lacemaking is an art form,” Mrs. Patton said, coming to Lucinda’s aid. “A truly gifted tatter is worth seeking out whatever the distance.”

  “And Mrs. Patton and I could drink from the waters of Bath,” Lucinda added quickly, surprised Mrs. Patton had supported the idea so easily. “It has been so hot and I have been feeling quite poorly, which has caused me to behave in an unladylike manner. I believe drinking the waters of Bath would be just the thing to set us both up. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Patton?”

  “I have drank the waters of Bath before and found them to be greatly beneficial,” Mrs. Patton said. “I was a lady’s companion to Lady Louisa Moulton then. Such a dear girl. She made a very good match to Viscount Etters.”

  “Please, Papa,” Lucinda begged, using the name that she’d called him as a child. It was the ace in her hand, and she played it with precision.

  “I suppose—” he began.

  “Excellent,” Lucinda said, cutting him off. “Mr. Randall is traveling to Bath tomorrow, and he can accompany us.”

  “Mr. Randall would be an excellent escort,” her father said.

  “How do you know that, Lucinda?” Mrs. Patton asked.

  Lucinda’s eyes darted from Mrs. Patton’s suspicious ones to her father’s shrewd ones. “My dear Mrs. Patton, I forgot to tell you. Mrs. Randall paid us a call this afternoon and told me all about it. I almost woke you, but you were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t.”

  Her father’s sharp eyes turned from studying Lucinda to evaluating Mrs. Patton. She saw the older woman’s color heighten as she sat up even straighter in her chair.

  “In the future, always wake me, Lucinda,” she said, attempting to retrieve her slipping dignity. “I am not only your companion, but your chaperone. It is vital for your social importance to have me present when you have visitors.”

  “I did not know,” Lucinda said as innocently as she could. She lowered her eyes as she added, “I am so sorry. It will not happen again.”

  “I should not have been sleeping,” Mrs. Patton said. Then fanned herself and added, “But this heat is so oppressive.”

  Lucind
a stood. “I will go have the maid pack my things. We have an early train to catch tomorrow.”

  She left the dining room still in the character of an elegant young lady, but when she reached the stairs, she climbed them by twos. And once in her room, she jumped up and down and squealed silently. Tomorrow, she would escape her prison.

  Four

  MRS. PATTON YAWNED WIDELY AS THEY stood at the entrance of Paddington Station. Lucinda pulled out her pocket watch and looked at the time: It was half past eight. If David didn’t hurry, they would miss the first train.

  As if he’d heard her anxious thoughts, David stepped out of a two-wheeled hansom cab with a small portmanteau. He paid the driver and strode purposefully toward them with his broad shoulders back and his head held high.

  “There you are, David,” Lucinda said with a wave of her hand. “Allow me to introduce my chaperone and companion, Mrs. Patton.”

  He touched his gloved hand to the rim of his top hat. Mrs. Patton, for once, was wide awake and gave him an enormous smile and curtsy. He isn’t that handsome, Lucinda thought with annoyance.

  “Mr. Randall, please accept my apologies for my charge addressing you so informally,” Mrs. Patton simpered. “Lucinda, a lady never calls a gentleman by his given name unless they are closely related family members.”

  “Very well,” Lucinda said. “Mr. Randall, will you please help us with our luggage?”

  “Are both of those yours?” David asked, pointing to their two sizable trunks.

  “Yes.”

  “We are only going for one night.”

  “I know, or else we would have had to bring four trunks,” Lucinda said brightly. “Being a lady requires a great deal of baggage, does it not, Mrs. Patton?”

  “Yes, yes it does,” Mrs. Patton agreed emphatically.

  David shook his head bemusedly. “I’ll get a porter.”

  “Not strong enough to carry them yourself?” Lucinda asked teasingly.

  “Not stupid enough,” David retorted. He returned in less than a minute with a porter dressed all in blue, pushing a trolley. The porter loaded the two heavy trunks onto the trolley and led the way to the platform where they would board the train. Lucinda walked beside David as Mrs. Patton endeavored to keep up.