On The Way To The Wedding

am reassured to see that they still teach deference and respect at Miss Moss’s. I do not regret my choice in having sent you there.”

Lucy’s fork halted halfway to her mouth. “I did not realize you had made the arrangements.”

“I had to do something,” he grunted, looking at her as if she were of feeble mind. “You haven’t a mother to make sure you are properly schooled for your role in life. There are things you will need to know to be a countess. Skills you must possess.”

“Of course,” she said deferentially, having decided that a show of absolute meekness and obedience would be the quickest way to put an end to the torture. “Er, and thank you.”

“For what?” Haselby asked.

Lucy turned to her fiance. He appeared to be genuinely curious.

“Why, for having me sent to Miss Moss’s,” she explained, carefully directing her answer at Haselby. Maybe if she didn’t look at Lord Davenport, he would forget she was there.

“Did you enjoy it, then?” Haselby asked.

“Yes, very much,” she replied, somewhat surprised at how very nice it felt to be asked a polite question. “It was lovely. I was extremely happy there.”

Haselby opened his mouth to reply, but to Lucy’s horror, the voice that emerged was that of his father.

“It’s not about what makes one happy!” came Lord Davenport’s blustery roar.

Lucy could not take her eyes off the sight of Haselby’s still-open mouth. Really, she thought, in a strange moment of absolute calm, that had been almost frightening.

Haselby shut his mouth and turned to his father with a tight smile. “What is about, then?” he inquired, and Lucy could not help but be impressed at the absolute lack of displeasure in his voice.

“It is about what one learns,” his father answered, letting one of his fists bang down on the table in a most unseemly manner. “And who one befriends.”

“Well, I did master the multiplication tables,” Lucy put in mildly, not that anyone was listening to her.

“She will be a countess,” Davenport boomed. “A countess!”

Haselby regarded his father equably. “She will only be a countess when you die,” he murmured.

Lucy’s mouth fell open.

“So really,” Haselby continued, casually popping a minuscule bite of fish into his mouth, “it won’t matter much to you, will it?”

Lucy turned to Lord Davenport, her eyes very very wide.

The earl’s skin flushed. It was a horrible color-angry, dusky, and deep, made worse by the vein that was positively jumping in his left temple. He was staring at Haselby, his eyes narrowed with rage. There was no malice there, no wish to do ill or harm, but although it made absolutely no sense, Lucy would have sworn in that moment that Davenport hated his son.

And Haselby just said, “Fine weather we’re having.” And he smiled.

Smiled!

Lucy gaped at him. It was pouring and had been for days. But more to the point, didn’t he realize that his father was one cheeky comment away from an apoplectic fit? Lord Davenport looked ready to spit, and Lucy was quite certain she could hear his teeth grinding from across the table.

And then, as the room practically pulsed with fury, Uncle Robert stepped into the breach. “I am pleased we have decided to hold the wedding here in London,” he said, his voice even and smooth and tinged with finality, as if to say-We are done with that, then. “As you know,” he continued, while everyone else regained his composure, “Fennsworth was married at the Abbey just two weeks ago, and while it does put one in the mind of ancestral history-I believe the last seven earls held their weddings in residence-really, hardly anyone was able to attend.”

Lucy suspected that had as much to do with the hurried nature of the event as with its location, but this didn’t seem the time to weigh in on the topic. And she had loved the wedding for its smallness. Richard and Hermione had been so very happy, and everyone in attendance had come out of love and friendship. It had truly been a joyous occasion.

Until they had left the next day for their honeymoon trip to Brighton. Lucy had never felt so miserable and alone as when she’d stood in the drive and waved them away.

They would be back soon, she reminded herself. Before her own wedding. Hermione would be her only attendant, and Richard was to give her away.

And in the meantime she had Aunt Harriet to keep her company. And Lord Davenport. And Haselby, who was either utterly brilliant or completely insane.

A bubble of laughter-ironic, absurd, and highly inappropriate-pressed in her throat, escaping through her nose with an inelegant snort.

“Enh?” Lord Davenport grunted.

“It is nothing,” she hastily said, coughing as best she could. “A bit of food. Fishbone, probably.”

It was almost funny. It would have been funny, even, if she’d been reading it in a book. It would have had to have been a satire, she decided, because it certainly wasn’t a romance.

And she couldn’t bear to think it might turn out a tragedy.

She looked around the table at the three men who presently made up her life. She was going to have to make the best of it. There was nothing else to do. There was no sense in remaining miserable, no matter how difficult it was to look on the bright side. And truly, it could have been worse.

So she did what she did best and tried to look at it all from a practical standpoint, mentally cataloguing all the ways it could have been worse.

But instead, Gregory Bridgerton’s face kept coming to mind-and all the ways it could have been better.

Fourteen

In which Our Hero and Heroine are reunited, and the birds of London are ecstatic.

When Gregory saw her, right there in Hyde Park his first day back in London, his first thought was-

Well, of course.

It seemed only natural that he would come across Lucy Abernathy in what was literally his first hour out and about in London. He didn’t know why; there was no logical reason for them to cross paths. But she had been much in his thoughts since they had parted ways in Kent. And even though he’d thought her still off at Fennsworth, he was strangely unsurprised that hers would be the first familiar face he’d see upon his return after a month in the country.

He’d arrived in town the night before, uncommonly weary after a long trip on flooded roads, and he’d gone straight to bed. When he woke-rather earlier than usual, actually-the world was still wet from the rains, but the sun had popped out and was shining brightly.

Gregory had immediately dressed to go out. He loved the way the air smelled clean after a good, stormy rain- even in London. No, especially in London. It was the only time the city smelled like that- thick and fresh, almost like leaves.

Gregory kept a small suite of rooms in a tidy little building in Marylebone, and though his furnishings were spare and simple, he rather liked the place. It felt like home.

His brother and his mother had, on multiple occasions, invited him to live with them. His friends thought him mad to refuse; both residences were considerably more opulent and more to the point, better staffed than his humble abode. But he preferred his independence. It wasn’t that he minded them telling him what to do-they knew he wasn’t going to listen, and he knew he wasn’t going to listen, but for the most part, everyone remained rather good-natured about it.

It was the scrutiny he couldn’t quite tolerate. Even if his mother was pretending not to interfere in his life, he