allotment of ten pounds, and she had to spend with caution. Money could be made by other means. She knew that, but she was reluctant to practice cunning craft when she did not have to. Every spell cast required herbs and paper and pen and ink—things that cast money or might be missed. More than that, she’d never felt comfortable with the idea of using magic to earn money. What came into her purse must exit from another’s, and how could she say whose need would be greater?
So she told herself that she did what she could. She learned what she could learn, and she planned as best she could plan. She was who she was—a young woman of limited means and almost no freedom, and she could not help being that. If she truly were at the center of things, as so many had told her, then would not the right opportunity present itself? Fate had sought her out in quiet Nottinghamshire. She could hardly be said to be hiding in London.
Meanwhile, the routine of fashionable London life soon settled on her, and a week had passed before she knew it—a week in which her sister, Martha, lived with a monster and her poor niece was held captive somewhere by something Lucy dared not even contemplate. Instead of searching for lost alchemical books or battling creatures from the invisible world, she browsed in dress shops, attended music recitals, and visited fashionable homes to view art and collections of curios. There was more in her future too: the opera and the playhouse and the tea gardens. On all of these excursions, Mrs. Emmett accompanied her, as though she were Lucy’s chaperone, and dutifully allowed herself to be sequestered in kitchens and servants’ rooms when they were not in transit. Servants began to complain of her, however. They spoke to Norah, and Norah, in turn, spoke to Lucy.
“She makes them uneasy,” she said one afternoon as they sat in the parlor. She kept her voice down, as though afraid Mrs. Emmett would overhear her, even though she had been sent halfway across town upon an errand. “They say she never eats and never talks except when directly addressed, and then she says only the most absent and polite things.”
“You make her sound like the perfect serving woman,” Lucy said.
“She is certainly not the sort of serving woman to be found in fashionable homes, and I’m afraid she’ll have to go.”
Lucy did not pay Mrs. Emmett, and did not know how to dismiss her or even if she could. She had visions of the woman mooning about the town-house door like a stray dog, or worse—sneaking inside. There would be constables and bailiffs and magistrates. She could not allow any of that.
“I don’t know that I can do without her,” said Lucy.
“Of course you can,” said Norah. “There are a hundred women in London who will do for you a thousand times better than that country oaf.”
“I cannot part with her,” said Lucy, and because she did not know how to argue the point, she left the parlor and fled to her own room.
The next morning, Mr. Gilley found her descending the stairs, and took her by the elbow to the empty parlor to discuss the matter. Lucy did not like that he touched her so freely. Something about his expression suggested an intense and disproportionate pleasure in the act. It occurred to her, as he led her into the room, that she had never before been alone with her friend’s father, and did not much care for this development.
“I understand there is some difficulty with your serving woman,” he said to her.
“Norah says the others don’t like her. I know she is odd, but I cannot let her go.” Lucy kept her eyes lowered because she wished to appear pitiable and because she did not care to see how Mr. Gilley looked upon her. She could all but feel the heat of his gaze upon her skin.
“If it is a matter of money,” said Mr. Gilley, “I can offer some assistance and send her off. She can offer no objection.”
“It is not that,” said Lucy. “I cannot do without her. If she cannot remain, then I must return home.”
Mr. Gilley said nothing, and Lucy felt the quiet of the room, and the warmth that came from the fireplace and the nearness of Mr. Gilley’s lurking form.
Mr. Gilley looked at her and pressed his lips together in a tight approximation of a smile. “That shall not be necessary. My servants will be more tolerant. You must never fear that I will fail to look after you, Miss Derrick.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Lucy, curtsying. It was the most formal, distancing thing she could think to do, but it was too late to correct her error. She had put herself in the power of a man who was determined to extract from her what he could, and Lucy did not know that she could ever again let down her guard while under his roof.
While the crisis with Mrs. Emmett had been building and resolving, the rest of the household had been attentive to but one thing: the assembly at Almack’s, to which Mr. Gilley, with some pains, had secured tickets. The Wednesday assembly was the most fashionable event in all of London, and only the grandest people went. If it were known that Lucy had never formally been presented at court, she would have been barred entry, but Lucy chose not to raise the point, and Norah conveniently forgot to tell her parents—likely less out of concern for Lucy than for the difficulty such a revelation might present.
Lucy’s joy at the prospect of attending was incomplete. Shortly after arriving at the Gilley house, she’d received a letter from Martha in which she made every effort to put a happy face upon her suffering, but Lucy had no doubt that Martha was worried to distraction about what she believed to be her baby. Even Martha’s handwriting appeared unsteady and distraught.
Lucy had to find a way to get to Kent and to the next pages of the
Norah insisted upon new gowns for the both of them, and when Lucy announced she did not have the money, Mr. Gilley offered to pay for hers, explaining that he should love to see her in a new gown above everything. She hated to put herself in his debt, but it was too awkward to refuse, and so she accepted with many thanks. Lucy walked away from the experience with a trainless, stomacher-front gown of a beautiful coral color, flattering to her shape, perfectly matched to her complexion. Accompanied by a shawl of a charming ivory shade, and with her hair dressed up and curled, precisely to the fashion, and then covered with a prim little hat with a saucily small brim, Lucy felt very pleased with herself indeed. When Norah, who looked fine in her somewhat less-flattering tunic of too bright a red—a color she had loved in the milliner’s shop, but now required constant reassurance that it had not been a mistake—told Lucy she looked “well enough,” that was sufficient to feel like a triumph.
Lucy had to feign enthusiasm for the assembly, but her apathy vanished when they walked into Almack’s ballroom—beautifully lit, as bright as day, full of the most fashionable ladies and the most handsomely appointed men that either she or Norah had ever witnessed. The room was perhaps four times the size of that any dance the Nottingham, and it was peopled with likely ten times the number of occupants. Unlike the Nottingham assembly, where one conversed with farmers and small landholders and petty merchants, here were lords and ladies, men and women whose every act was written up in the newspapers, the stupendously wealthy by birth, nabobs freshly returned from India, actors and actresses who graced the London stage, poets and novel writers and painters and celebrated musicians.
“It is safe to say,” Norah told her, “that if a person is fashionable, and if he is in London tonight, then he is here in this room.”
The ladies had no choice but to remain in tow behind Mr. Gilley, but if Norah yearned to be asked to dance by some fashionable gentleman, Lucy was content to witness and observe and be unobserved, for she feared any conversation must expose her country ignorance. After introductions to a near endless procession of peers and foreigners of significance and a sprinkling of navy men, Mr. Gilley fell into close conversation with a handsome man in his sixties. He was dressed quite beautifully, Lucy thought, in a plain dark suit that both bowed to and defied the current London fashions. The man’s hair receded, his face was wrinkled, and he was short, thin, and quite pale, and yet there was something appealing in his face that was hard to deny. Lucy had little doubt that, in his youth, he had been striking. In his old age, he remained charming.
After exchanging jovial words with Mr. and Mrs. Gilley, he demanded to be introduced to the ladies.
Mr. Gilley cleared his throat and turned to Norah. “My dear daughter, Miss Norah Gilley, allow me to present to you Mr. Spencer Perceval.”
Norah conducted herself with excellent grace, and curtsied low. Lucy, for her part, was taken by surprise, and gasped quite openly. She did not follow politics closely, but there was no avoiding the knowledge that she was
