The Last Word Page 7

  David did not reply, but he didn’t walk away either.

  “Now you are supposed to offer to fetch me a glass of punch and find me a chair,” Lucinda whispered dramatically. “They covered this very clearly in finishing school.”

  “I do not wish to do that either,” he said at last.

  “What have I done to make you so uncivil?” she asked with her eyebrows raised.

  A dozen retorts sprung to David’s mind—none of which were appropriate in present circumstances—so he took Lucinda’s elbow and led her to the refreshment table, where he procured her a glass of punch and handed it to her. He accepted a second glass for himself and then led her to a sofa. He sat beside her as she sipped her punch daintily.

  “I see you are acquainted with the Butterfields,” he managed at last.

  “Yes, Miss Butterfield attended Miss Holley’s Finishing School,” Lucinda said.

  “I thought you had no friends at school.”

  “Friend is probably not the most correct term for our relationship,” Lucinda explained. “Miss Butterfield is of a religious inclination and wishes to become a foreign missionary. She feels it imperative to socialize with those of lower classes to acclimatize herself to their uncivilized ways.”

  David was drinking as she said this and choked on his punch. Lucinda lifted her glass to her mouth and sipped as if nothing had happened.

  “I spoke to your father today,” David said at last.

  “Ah,” Lucinda said. She tapped the side of her nose twice with her index finger. “I see why you are upset with me.”

  “He had no idea that you had helped with the ledgers. Nor that you had audited the Bath office with me.”

  “You make it sound so scandalous,” Lucinda replied. “Mrs. Patton was present the entire time.”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Presently sleeping.”

  Then suddenly the question was out of him before he knew he had spoken it. “Why did you lie to me? I thought we were friends again.”

  Lucinda swallowed. “Because I thought you would not allow me to help with the business if you knew the truth.”

  “Well, now you will never know, because you did not trust me.”

  “I trusted you once, and you know the result of that.”

  “Do not try to put me in the wrong this time,” David said. “You lied to me. You used me. And you—”

  “You…?” Lucinda prompted.

  “You—Mother, may I introduce you to Miss Leavitt?” David said, standing.

  “Miss Leavitt, how you have grown,” she said. “You look very much like your mother.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Lucinda said as she stood. “Please, take my seat on the sofa. Your son was so kind as to let me rest this dance.”

  His mother took her up on the offer. “Well, it appears, Miss Leavitt, that you owe my son a dance.”

  “Surely you do not wish for us to abandon you just as you arrive, Mother.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Young people should be dancing.”

  David reluctantly held out his hand to Lucinda, and she placed her gloved hand in his. The memory of her ungloved hand fixing his hair flashed into his mind. He glanced over to her and wondered if she was remembering the same thing. He led her to the dance floor and then put his hand on her waist. It would be another waltz, he thought dourly. He did not want to be this close to her. He did not want to touch her. And he certainly did not want to smell the fragrance of flowers that always seemed to cling to her body.

  “I am sorry that I misled you,” Lucinda said quietly, leaning closer to him. David felt his senses heighten at her nearness. “I should have told you the truth, but if you will allow me, I will tell you now.”

  David made the mistake of looking into her depthless blue eyes. He could see a myriad of emotions reflected in there: contrition, defiance, and another he could not identify. He turned his gaze away, but nodded slightly. He felt Lucinda lean in still farther—the space between them was nearly nonexistent.

  “I hoped when I returned from school, having dutifully learned how to act like a lady, I would be allowed to come back to the business,” Lucinda said. “But my father would not hear of it. He said I did not belong in the countinghouse. He engaged Mrs. Patton to chaperone me and assist my entrance into higher society. The society where he is not welcome nor wanted. And I tried to please him. I tried to interest myself in the busy nothings of a woman of means, but there is no alleviation to the boredom. The endless waiting to receive calls or to go visiting. And the household finances take me less than an hour a fortnight to complete. David, my mind was made for more than this. I am capable of so much more than this. Can you not understand?”

  David deftly led her around another dancing couple. “What I don’t understand is why you lied to me.”

  “I thought you would defer to my father’s wishes. To society’s rigid protocols that would have me leave my mind to waste because I was not born a man.”

  “I do not know what I would have done. But I would have preferred you to be honest with me.”

  “Were two days in my company so very intolerable?” Lucinda asked.

  David felt the corners of his lips go up in a reluctant smile. “Wretched.”

  Lucinda laughed at this. “You are unkind. I was on my best behavior!”

  “If that was your best behavior, I shudder to think of what is in store for me in the future.”

  “Then you are not cutting my acquaintance entirely?” she asked in a tight voice, her eyes downcast.

  The music stopped, but David stayed on the dance floor. He put his hand underneath her chin and lifted her face up so that he looked directly into her eyes. “I dare not cut it entirely.”

  “Because of my father.”

  “No, Lucinda,” he said, releasing his hold on her chin, “because then I would never discover the fate of the impecunious Eurydice Emerson.”

  Lucinda smiled. “That would be tragic.”

  “Unthinkable.”

  And they laughed together as friends.

  * * *

  David looked at the grandfather clock in his office. It was already past six in the evening. He had only three days until his aunt’s house party and a mountain of papers sat on his desk. He could not possibly finish them all in time before his trip to his cousin’s estate in Dorset.

  His mind returned again to Lucinda, but he wished it wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he’d entirely forgiven her for her deception. Still, it seemed ironic that he had more work to do than one person could possibly accomplish, and she had no work at all to do and complained of being bored at home.

  A thought occurred to David as he picked up several papers to bring home with him: Why not ask Lucinda for her help? Her father had specifically asked her not to come to the countinghouse, but nothing had been said about working at home. He looked at the papers he was already bringing home, then separated them into two piles. One pile consisted of business that he needed to complete himself and the other pile consisted of papers and analyses of financial numbers.

  David picked up more papers from his desk and continued to divide the workload between himself and Lucinda until every item on his desk had been accounted for. He picked up his leather bag and carefully placed all the documents for Lucinda inside of it, then put on his coat and hat. He grabbed his cane with one hand and his leather bag with the other and left his office. A quick glance down the hall showed him the gas lamp in Mr. Leavitt’s office was still burning.

  David locked the door to the building behind him and hailed a hansom cab, directing the driver to the Leavitts’ home. When they arrived, he alighted from the cab and dashed up the front steps, knocking on the Leavitts’ door with his cane. The butler opened the door. He recognized David and immediately let him inside and led him to the front sitting room.

  “I will let Miss Leavitt know you are here,” the butler said with a bow, and left the room.

  David had not waited long when the butler o
pened the door to the room for Lucinda. He stood as she entered. She was wearing a dark purple evening gown, and a necklace of amethysts adorned her throat. She dismissed the butler, who closed the door behind him.

  Lucinda walked toward David and stopped a yard shy of him. She idly played with a shepherdess figurine on the table beside her. “What odd hours you choose to make social calls, David. Morning calls are supposed to be made between the hours of three and five, before dinner. We’ve already eaten dinner and Mrs. Patton is finishing her toilette, and then we are off to an engagement at the Calders’. Shall I see you there?”

  David shook his head. “I am afraid that I have a great deal of business to attend to.”

  Lucinda nodded at this. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “I do not intend to take that much of your time, Lucinda,” David said.

  He placed his leather bag on the table next to the shepherdess figurine, opened it, and pulled out the stack of papers.

  “What are these for?”

  “You,” he said simply. “I have too much to do and you too little. I thought you might be willing to assist me with these, for a regular salary, of course.”

  David had barely finished speaking when Lucinda threw her arms around his neck and embraced him tightly. He inhaled her intoxicating scent and enjoyed the pleasure of her soft body pressed against his. She looked up into his face. He could see her usually creamy neck was red. She released her hold on him and stepped back.

  “I hope my embrace was not too wretched for you to endure,” she said. “I am just so delighted. Thank you so much for including me in the business.”

  “Not too wretched,” David assured her, and then attempted to collect his wits and senses by focusing back on the business at hand. “If you will give me a few moments to explain what I need accomplished, I will be on my way and you can go to your party.”

  Eight

  LUCINDA SAT ON THE EDGE of her seat in the carriage. Traveling was not nearly as enjoyable without David, though she felt warm inside just thinking about him. David had brought her work to do. Real work. Important business papers, and he had treated her as an equal, not as a member of the “weaker sex” who needed to be protected and pampered.

  Besides the two days in Bath spent in David’s company, Lucinda could not think of a time she’d enjoyed herself more than completing the assignments he had given her. The numbers seemed to speak to her, to dance in her mind in perfect harmony. She loved comparing offers and debating the return on investment versus the cost of production and the profit margin. Numbers were so neat and tidy. So exact. Feelings and people were much messier. It was harder to know the right answer and how everything would equal out in the end.

  As the carriage pulled into the gravel driveway of Keynsham Hall, Lucinda could not resist poking her head out the window for a better look. It was just the sort of estate the mysterious Lord Dunstan would have owned. The main part of the building looked as if it were several centuries old—like a medieval cathedral with large arched windows and porticos. To the south stood a wing of the house that resembled Tudor architecture with its narrow windows and U shape. The north wing looked to be the newest addition to the house; probably less than a hundred years old, in the Georgian style. It was perfectly perpendicular with three rows of evenly spaced windows.

  The park itself was equally eye-catching. The house stood on a slight hill surrounded on the south by a large lake and the north by a thick, densely forested area. Lucinda could see a couple of overgrown formal gardens in the center with a large fountain on each side of the driveway. She leaned her head farther out the window to get a better view.

  “Lucinda, sit back in your seat this instant,” Mrs. Patton said sharply. “What will the Adlingtons think if they see you gawking like a commoner?”

  Lucinda bit down her retort that she was in fact a commoner and reluctantly obeyed. Truthfully, she had only accepted Lord Adlington’s invitation to Keynsham Hall because of its close proximity to the village of Shaftesbury. Lucinda was playing her cards close. She wanted her father and Mrs. Patton to believe that she was a willing debutante, eager to be invited to society parties. But in reality, she was only there to inquire after Mrs. Smith’s surviving family. So she continued to look out the window of the carriage, but most of the view was obscured by the angle of the window. When they finally came to stop, a liveried servant opened the door and assisted Mrs. Patton and Lucinda out.

  Lord Adlington stood only a few feet away. He was not quite as tall nor as handsome as his cousin David; Alfred’s chin was round and his face a little too fleshy, but he had nice brown eyes and a dashing mustache. He strode toward them with a welcoming smile, his hand outstretched. He leaned over Mrs. Patton’s hand with great ceremony and then Lucinda’s. He grinned at her as he released his hold on her hand.

  “Allow me to introduce you to my mother, Lady Mary Adlington,” he said.

  Lady Mary gave a perfectly executed curtsy. She had the same round chin as her son and the hint of a second one. She smiled, but unlike her son it did not reach her eyes and she didn’t speak a word of welcome to either Lucinda or Mrs. Patton.

  “My mother and I are both so glad that you have come to stay in our home,” Lord Adlington said quickly to fill the awkward silence. “Miss Leavitt, you adorn every room you enter with your beauty and wit.”

  “What a pretty compliment, my lord,” Mrs. Patton simpered as if she were the recipient.

  Lucinda forced herself not to blush. “Your estate is perfectly charming, my lord.”

  “Almost as charming as I am,” Lord Adlington said with a teasing grin.

  “Nothing could be,” she assured him.

  Lady Mary finally spoke, “I’ll show you to your rooms now, Mrs. Patton and Miss Leavitt.”

  They followed Lady Mary through the main hall and up a staircase into the south wing. She showed them to a pair of rooms that overlooked the lake. The view was truly stunning.

  “I will have the servants fetch your things and bring you some refreshments. And then you may rest before dinner,” Lady Mary said.

  Nothing the countess could have said would have endeared her more to Mrs. Patton, who was all smiles. Lucinda thanked her, but had no intention of wasting the afternoon in her bedchamber. She shut the door and was relieved to be without the presence of Mrs. Patton. Lucinda directed the maid as she unpacked her trunk, and then thanked her. Once the maid left, Lucinda put her bonnet back on and tied it. She tiptoed past Mrs. Patton’s room and followed the hall around the corner, down a flight of stairs to an exterior door. She turned the knob and slipped out of the house.

  The shining blue water of the lake was impossible for Lucinda to resist. She walked toward it and saw the small waves as they gently brushed the pebbled shore. The sun was high in the sky, and the image of Keynsham Hall reflected blurrily in the water. Lucinda took a deep breath. The air in the country was so much purer than the smog-filled air in London. She wondered again where her mother grew up. Had she lived in a city or in a town? Did she live near water? Who were her parents?

  Lucinda felt hollow inside not knowing such little details about her mother’s life. All she knew was that her mother had been a nursery maid for a business acquaintance of her father’s. He’d met her, by chance, when one of her small charges had run into the dining room during a formal dinner. He’d always told Lucinda that he’d fallen in love with her mother at first sight. At least, he’d said this while her mother was still alive. Now, he never spoke of her. Never even said her name.

  Taking another deep breath, Lucinda began skirting the edge of the lake. It was so abominably hot. Lucinda took out her handkerchief and pressed it against her damp forehead and neck, looking longingly at the cool water.

  Lucinda glanced around the lake, then at the house. She did not see a soul.

  “Why not?” she whispered aloud.

  She sat down on an obliging tree stump and unlaced her boots. She pulled them off along with her stick
y (and now stinky) stockings and wiggled her toes. Lucinda stood and walked gingerly on the pebbled beach before lifting her skirts and wading into the water. It felt glorious to feel the mud between her toes and the cold water up to her ankles.

  “My, oh my, that’s a great idea!”

  Lucinda looked up to see a young woman around her own age with a narrow face, sharp features, and a pair of arresting gray eyes surrounded by light brown curls. The geometric design on her green skirt was the very latest in London fashion.

  “The water is delightfully cool,” Lucinda said.

  “Then I shall join you,” the stranger said in an American accent, taking a seat on the same stump and removing her own boots and stockings. She lifted her skirt with both hands and tiptoed from the beach into the lake.

  “I know it is untoward in England to speak to a stranger without a formal introduction,” the young lady said, “but I am afraid I am of a gregarious nature and cannot be quiet for so long a time. My name is Miss Persephone Merritt, and I am from New York City. That’s in the United States of America.”

  “I could tell from your accent, and I quite like it,” Lucinda said, holding out her hand. “My name is Miss Lucinda Leavitt, and I am from London.”

  Persephone released her hold on her skirt, allowing the hem to fall in the water. She took Lucinda’s hand between her two warm ones and shook it vigorously.

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance!” Persephone said a little too loudly, as she finally released Lucinda’s hand. “I am here with my parents and my younger sister.”

  “Touring Europe?”

  “No, just England.”

  “There are many places of historical interest, I believe,” Lucinda offered.

  Lucinda could see Persephone’s color heighten. “We are not really here to see the sights, but to find me a suitable husband.”

  “Oh,” Lucinda said. Before she could curb her tongue, she asked, “Why so far from home?”

  Persephone bit her lip before responding. “I am afraid we are not genteel enough for our neighbors in New York City. My father acquired his fortune in railroads, but we are excluded by the local blue bloods. And our country is currently engaged in a civil war, so there are not many young men to be met at home. My parents are hoping to find me a good match in England where my background will not matter as much.”