The Last Word Read online

  Mrs. Patton was snoring in her seat. Lucinda stood and gently shook her shoulder. “Time to go, Mrs. Patton.”

  She sat up straight and blinked rapidly.

  “I am ready,” she declared. Lucinda put a hand underneath Mrs. Patton’s elbow to help her up, but the older woman shook her off. “I am not so old yet as to need assistance.”

  “Of course, not,” David agreed, and opened the door for both ladies.

  * * *

  The trip to the train station was uneventful, and they were boarded and settled into their own compartment with remarkable ease.

  Mrs. Patton sat contentedly beside Lucinda, and within a quarter of an hour fell asleep. Lucinda looked at David, who had taken off his beaver hat and was using it to fan himself.

  “It is so hot and stuffy in here,” Lucinda said.

  “Unbearably so,” David agreed.

  “I’m going to open the window.” Lucinda tried to slide open the small window, but she had no luck.

  “Shall I?”

  Lucinda didn’t respond to David’s offer. Instead, she stood up and gave the handle a great yank. The window slid open much faster than she was expecting; she lost her balance and with an undignified yelp fell backward onto David’s lap.

  As he put his hands around her waist to steady her, Lucinda found herself breathless and blushing. She stood again just as the train came to a stop, and she fell back into his lap. She could feel his breath on her ear and his soft laughter.

  “May I assist you now?” he asked.

  Without waiting for her reply, David lifted her from his lap and onto the seat beside him. Their shoulders still touched. Her large skirt still brushed against his pant legs. Lucinda felt breathless again. She was grateful for the small breeze of air on her hot cheeks coming from the newly opened window.

  “See? It isn’t too difficult to accept assistance every now and again,” David said in his cockiest manner.

  “I have accepted your help with my search for the author.”

  David chuckled. “I don’t think you accepted my assistance so much as demanded it.”

  Lucinda laughed, and then they were laughing together. She felt again the warm camaraderie that they once had shared in their youth.

  David was silent for several moments before he asked, “I am curious why finding Mrs. Smith is so important to you. It is only a story, after all.”

  “I suppose if it was only a story, I am being very silly.”

  “I was not saying that.”

  “Mrs. Smith was more to me than just a story,” Lucinda explained. “I found Mrs. Smith’s books about a year after I started finishing school.”

  “And?”

  Lucinda smiled wryly. “I had no friends at school. No acquaintances. For none of the girls wished to be associated with a girl of low birth, who even the teachers despised. And then I discovered Mrs. Smith’s serialized story, East and West, and her fictional characters became my only companions. And when that book was finished, the magazine began to publish her next story—She Knew She Was Right. Eurydice Emerson is the closest thing I have to a friend.”

  David was silent for several more moments. “I am your friend,” he said. “And we will just have to find out if your Mrs. Smith left any clues for us. Where was the woman from again?”

  “Shaftesbury.”

  “I know that town,” David said. “I’ve passed through it many times. It’s not more than five miles from my cousin Alfred’s estate.”

  “I would suggest we set out at once,” Lucinda said, “but I know you have a great deal of business to attend to.”

  David nodded.

  The train began to move forward again. Lucinda leaned her head back against the seat and looked out the window. They sat in what Lucinda thought was companionable silence, until she realized that David had fallen asleep. Lucinda smiled to herself. Then the train gave a small lurch, and David’s head fell onto her shoulder and rested there.

  Lucinda’s heartbeat quickened. She held her breath, but David didn’t wake up. He rubbed his cheek into the fabric of her sleeve and then rested contentedly. Lucinda looked across the compartment at Mrs. Patton. She too was still sleeping soundly.

  Lucinda exhaled slowly. She felt uncomfortable with his proximity, but also thrilled at his closeness to her. Not just because he was an attractive gentleman, which he undoubtedly was. But because no one had really touched her since her mother died.

  Her mother. That tall, beautiful, black-haired woman who had held Lucinda in her arms and sang her to sleep. Who had danced with Lucinda and sang “Ring Around the Rosie.” Who had wiped away Lucinda’s tears and plaited her hair. Lucinda remembered the last time she had touched her mother—it was while she lay in her coffin. Her mother’s skin had felt cold and her face did not look quite right. Lucinda’s last memory of her mother was kissing her cheek, with her father standing by her side, weeping.

  After her mother’s death, her father never embraced her, but simply patted her on the head if she did something that pleased him. The servants kept a respectful distance from her, and as she had admitted to David, she had no real friends. The only contact she had with others was through gloves while dancing. And there was definitely a thrill to have a man’s hand on her waist, but this feeling was different. More wholesome. Warm.

  Maybe I do have a real friend after all.

  She wanted to touch another person with her hands. To feel her skin upon the skin of another. But would it be an intrusion? Lucinda wondered, then reconciled her conscience that if anyone was intruding, it was he by laying his head on her shoulder. She waved aside the thought that he was sleeping and he hadn’t purposely done it. She exhaled slowly again and pulled off one of her gloves. She gently placed her fingers in his hair and softly ran them through it. David opened his eyes slowly and blinked. Lucinda watched his face as he realized where he was and what he was doing. He sat up quickly, nearly bumping the side of his head into her face.

  “I am so sorry, Miss Lea—Lucinda,” he said without his usual poise, a red blotch suffusing his neck. “I did not realize that I had—that I was—forgive me.”

  Lucinda shrugged slightly. “I do not mind. I am used to my companions falling asleep.”

  He grinned at her and she returned it. Lucinda looked down at her gloveless hand. The glove was no longer in her lap, but on the floor of the compartment. Before she could stoop down to reach it, David had picked it up. It was Lucinda’s turn to blush. He handed her the glove and gazed at her questioningly, with one eyebrow raised.

  “I—I—I was just fixing your hair.”

  “My hair?”

  “Yes,” Lucinda lied. “It was quite mussed up and I was trying to make you look respectable.”

  “And how is my hair now?” David asked.

  His usually meticulously combed hair was, in fact, a disaster. If anything, when Lucinda had touched it she’d made it messier than before.

  “Picturesque.”

  David laughed and attempted to pat his hair down. Lucinda’s ungloved hand, seemingly of its own volition, reached over and carefully smoothed down his curls.

  “You’re presentable now.”

  “My many thanks,” he said.

  Mrs. Patton snorted. David and Lucinda jolted farther apart on their side of the compartment, David crushing his beaver top hat as he sat upon it. Mrs. Patton blinked as he pulled his top hat out from underneath him.

  “Lucinda, why are you sitting over there without me?”

  Lucinda peeked at David, who was busying himself with pushing out the top of his smashed hat. It was very crumpled and would never be the same.

  “I was just hot,” Lucinda managed. “I could feel the breeze from the window better from this side. But I am quite cool now and will return by you.”

  Lucinda felt anything but cool, but she stood anyway and returned to the seat next to her chaperone. Mrs. Patton let out a long sigh and said cheerfully, “I do so enjoy a good train ride.”

&nbs
p; “As do I,” David said soulfully. “As do I.”

  Lucinda bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  Seven

  “I HAVE SENT MR. MURPHY,” DAVID explained to Mr. Leavitt. “He shall take over the Bath office until a suitable replacement is found for Mr. Baxter.”

  “Excellent choice,” Mr. Leavitt said. “There is not another fellow in the company that I trust more than he. And of course, you, Randall. I am impressed you discovered the pigeon-livered fopdoodle. I shudder to think what that fellow could have done left unchecked.”

  “Some of the credit should go to your daughter,” David told him.

  Mr. Leavitt leaned forward in his chair. “Lucy? Lucy has nothing to do with the business these days! She was only in Bath to purchase lace.”

  David realized in that moment that Lucinda had learned at least one thing at finishing school—the art of lying. The girl he’d known had no guile, but the woman it seemed was positively made of it. “Oh … it … it was just something Miss Leavitt said that made me look closer into the Bath office.”

  Mr. Leavitt seemed to accept the explanation, because he sat back in his tall wingback chair. He gestured to all the piles of paper on his desk. “We are burdened with too much business at the moment.”

  “The best kind of burden.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Leavitt agreed. “But I have been thinking of late that we might need to bring another man on. Someone to handle the internal finances, oversee the ledgers and such. Chief financial officer for the company. Prevent a Bath situation from reoccurring.”

  “Do you have someone in mind, Mr. Leavitt?”

  “Presently, no,” Mr. Leavitt said. “But I thought you might keep an eye out for such a man. You’re young and you move so much more in society than I am inclined to.”

  “I will.”

  David left his partner’s office and returned to his own down the hall. His desk was equally laden with unfinished tasks that kept him there late almost every night. Part of David wanted to ask one of the clerks for assistance, but he couldn’t. It would be like admitting that his father was right. That David couldn’t handle the workload. That he wasn’t clever enough for the business.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, which reminded him of Lucinda and waking up next to her on the train. Why had she lied to him? He knew she wanted to travel to Bath to find out about the author, but why did she lie about the audit? Not that David rated Mrs. Patton’s intelligence very highly, but Mr. Leavitt was no fool.

  Lucinda plagued his thoughts for the rest of his workday. He accomplished less than he should have, which meant he would have all the more to do tomorrow, but he’d promised his mother that he’d escort her to the Butterfields’ party that night.

  His mother was waiting for him when he arrived home. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and promised not to be more than a quarter of an hour changing into his dinner clothes. David’s valet was ready and waiting to assist him in dressing.

  Once finished, David stepped quickly down the stairs, and his mother stood to meet him. She was a small woman with dark hair and large brown eyes surrounded by several wrinkles. She smiled at him. “You’re late, son,” she said playfully.

  “I am a disgrace,” David agreed, and led her out to the carriage.

  He sat next to his mother and tapped his cane to the top of the carriage to signal the driver to go.

  “You’re as handsome as your father,” his mother said fondly. “If only you could find a nice young lady to marry.”

  David stiffened at the comparison to his father. “I am in no hurry to marry, Mother. I’m barely nineteen years of age.”

  “I know,” his mother agreed with a wistful sigh. “I married your father when I was nineteen.”

  “I am much too busy with business right now.”

  “I hope you are not too busy that you have forgotten your aunt’s invitation to stay at Keynsham Hall next week.”

  David groaned. He had forgotten it entirely. “Could you possibly attend without me?”

  His mother shook her head. “I could not. You promised me you would attend, and if you do not, your aunt’s numbers will be off. There will not be enough gentlemen, and you know how infrequently she can entertain these days because of their straitened circumstances. And how much work she puts into planning her house parties.”

  “Very well,” David said. “I will bring my work with me.”

  David knew his mother well enough to read the expression on her face. She wasn’t pleased with this response, but was willing to leave the argument for another time. His mother was all smiles as he escorted her into the Butterfields’ home and greeted the hosts. David nodded civilly to his many acquaintances. He left his mother talking to her friend Lady Swithen and was slowly making his way to the cardroom. He was in no mood to dance and make inane conversation with debutantes this evening.

  He passed through the dancing room and stopped midstep when he saw Lucinda. Indeed she was impossible to miss. She was nearly a head taller than any lady present and even some of the gentlemen. Her dark curls seemed to shine in the light of the gas lamps, and her blue eyes sparkled like the stones at her throat. She was dancing with some fellow a few inches shorter than her. When Lucinda caught his gaze on her, she winked at him, and continued to dance with her partner.

  “Your Miss Leavitt is a goddess,” a voice said in his ear. “Aphrodite.”

  David recalled his surroundings. “Alfred, how are you this evening?”

  “Better now, my dear cousin David,” he said. “Definitely better.”

  David crushed down a feeling of irritation. “It seems an agreeable party.”

  Alfred gave a catlike smile. “An agreeable party needs only beautiful ladies, of which I see plenty.”

  “I shall leave you to them, Cousin,” David said with a curt nod.

  He continued to the cardroom and played several hands of whist and a couple rounds of piquet. But his mind was not on cards, and he lost nearly fifty guineas. Mr. Winter suggested another hand, but David respectfully declined. Instead, he stood and found himself walking back to the dancing room, where he found Lucinda dancing with Alfred. He saw her laugh, and his feeling of irritation changed to a darker one of anger. David turned to leave the room, when for the second time that evening someone was standing at his elbow.

  Miss Clara Hardin placed her gloved hand on his arm. “Excuse me, Mr. Randall. I did not see you there.”

  When Miss Hardin did not release her hold on his arm, David mechanically asked her if she would like to dance. She accepted, and he led her to join the set.

  Dancing with Miss Hardin wasn’t too great a sacrifice, David admitted to himself. She was a pretty young lady with blond curls, dark blue eyes, and a rosebud of a mouth set in a permanent pout. David went through the motions of the dance, but his mind was still on Lucinda. Miss Hardin supplied conversation about the hotness of the weather and the latest gossip about another possible wedding in the royal family. David only nodded in response until finally the musicians played their concluding notes, and he led Miss Hardin to the side of the room.

  David told himself it was only coincidence that he was leading them near to where Lucinda and Alfred were standing.

  “You and your chaperone must join my mother’s house party next week,” he overheard Alfred say.

  “I am not sure if we can,” Lucinda demurred.

  “I shan’t take no for an answer,” Alfred said, eyeing David and Miss Hardin. “Ah, Miss Leavitt, allow me to introduce you to another lady who will be one of our party, Miss Hardin.”

  “But we are already acquainted, Lord Adlington,” Miss Hardin said, and gave Lucinda a cold nod.

  Lucinda returned an even colder one, her pert nose slightly turned up. “We attended finishing school together.”

  “And my cousin David you already know,” Alfred said.

  “Good evening, Mr. Randall,” Lucinda said, and curtsied to him.

  David bowed.

  “M
iss Leavitt was just telling me that she will not dance with me a third time,” Alfred said and held out his hand to David’s partner. “Miss Hardin, would you take pity on a poor fellow and dance with me?”

  “Yes, Lord Adlington,” she said in her breathy voice. “It would be my honor.”

  Miss Hardin released her hold on David’s hand and took his cousin’s. Alfred gave David a nod as he led Miss Hardin back to the dance floor. David stood next to Lucinda but said nothing.

  “You are supposed to ask me to dance with you,” Lucinda supplied.

  “I don’t feel like dancing.”

  “I would be delighted to accept,” Lucinda said, and before he knew it, her hand was in his.

  They walked a few steps before he put a hand on her waist and gently led her through the first turn. She responded instinctively to his lead. He felt her warmth through his gloves and resolutely looked away from her, trying to focus on something else.

  Anything else.

  “Don’t be such a spoilsport, David,” Lucinda whispered. “You looked at me the entire time I danced with your cousin, and now that I am dancing with you, you won’t look at me at all.”

  David found her smiling face so close to his own. Her height made the distance between them seem insignificant. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek and could smell the scent of flowers on her body. Thinking was difficult; speaking seemed impossible. In his chest was a confusing mixture of anger and attraction. He wanted to wipe the smile off her mocking lips, but he also felt an overwhelming urge to kiss those same lips.

  “You just trod on my toes.”

  “No, I did not,” Lucinda said, but glanced down at their feet. She looked back up to his face and laughed. “But don’t worry, I plan to trod on your toes very soon.”

  “And yet, I stand here unafraid.”

  “Oh, David, you should be. You. Should. Be. Afraid.”

  Before David could respond, the music ended and all the couples clapped. He led Lucinda to the side of the ballroom and bowed over her gloved hand.

  “Thank you for asking me to dance, Mr. Randall,” Lucinda said with another of her infernal winks. “I am very tired and very thirsty.”