On the Way to the Wedding (25 page)

She wondered what he would do if she botched it. Would he call off the marriage?

“. . . forty-nine, fifty-six . . .”

It was tempting. So tempting.

“. . . sixty-three, seventy, seventy-seven . . .”

She looked at her uncle. He was eating. He wasn’t even looking at her.

“. . . eighty-two, eighty-nine . . .”

“Eh, that’s enough,” Lord Davenport announced, coming in right atop the
eighty-two.

The giddy feeling in her chest quickly drained away. She’d rebelled—possibly for the first time in her entire life—and no one had noticed. She’d waited too long.

She wondered what else she should have done already.

“Well done,” Haselby said, with an encouraging smile.

Lucy managed a little smile in return. He really wasn’t bad. In fact, if not for Gregory, she would have thought him a rather fine choice. Haselby’s hair was perhaps a little thin, and actually
he
was a little thin as well, but that wasn’t really anything to complain about. Especially as his personality—

surely the most important aspect of any man—was perfectly agreeable. They had managed a short conversation before supper while his father and her uncle were discussing politics, and he had been quite charming. He’d even made a dry, sideways sort of joke about his father, accompanied by a roll of the eyes that had made Lucy chuckle.

Truly, she shouldn’t complain.

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And she didn’t. She wouldn’t. She just wished for something else.

“I trust you acquitted yourself acceptably at Miss Moss’s?”

Lord Davenport asked, his eyes narrowed just enough to make his query not precisely friendly.

“Yes, of course,” Lucy replied, blinking with surprise.

She’d thought the conversation had veered away from her.

“Excellent institution,” Davenport said, chewing on a piece of roasted lamb. “They know what a girl should and should not know. Winslow’s daughter went there. Fordham’s, too.”

“Yes,” Lucy murmured, since a reply seemed to be expected. “They are both very sweet girls,” she lied. Sybilla Winslow was a nasty little tyrant who thought it good fun to pinch the upper arms of the younger students.

But for the first time that evening, Lord Davenport appeared to be pleased with her. “You know them well, then?”

he asked.

“Er, somewhat,” Lucy hedged. “Lady Joanna was a bit older, but it’s not a large school. One can’t really
not
know the other students.”

“Good.” Lord Davenport nodded approvingly, his jowls quivering with the movement.

Lucy tried not to look.

“These are the people you will need to know,” he went on. “Connections that you must cultivate.”

Lucy nodded dutifully, all the while making a mental list of all the places she would rather be. Paris, Venice, Greece, although weren’t they at war? No matter. She would still rather be in Greece.

“. . . responsibility to the name . . . certain standards of behavior . . .”

Was it very hot in the Orient? She’d always admired Chinese vases.

“. . . will not tolerate any deviation from . . .”

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What was the name of that dreadful section of town? St.

Giles? Yes, she’d rather be there as well.

“. . . obligations. Obligations!”

This last was accompanied by a fist on the table, causing the silver to rattle and Lucy to jerk in her seat. Even Aunt Harriet looked up from her food.

Lucy snapped to attention, and because all eyes were on her, she said, “Yes?”

Lord Davenport leaned in, almost menacingly. “Someday you will be Lady Davenport. You will have obligations.

Many obligations.”

Lucy managed to stretch her lips just enough to count as a response. Dear God, when would this evening end?

Lord Davenport leaned in, and even though the table was wide and laden with food, Lucy instinctively backed away.

“You cannot take lightly your responsibilities,” he continued, his voice rising scarily in volume. “Do you understand me, gel?”

Lucy wondered what would happen if she clasped her hands to her head and shouted it out.

God in heaven, put an end to this torture!!!

Yes, she thought, almost analytically, that might very well put him off. Maybe he would judge her unsound of mind and—

“Of course, Lord Davenport,” she heard herself say.

She was a coward. A miserable coward.

And then, as if he were some sort of wind-up toy that someone had twisted off, Lord Davenport sat back in his seat, perfectly composed. “I am glad to hear of it,” he said dabbing at the corner of his mouth with his serviette. “I 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 On the Way to the Wedding

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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 fiancé. 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.

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“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 minus-cule 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 fi t? 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 On the Way to the Wedding

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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 fi rst 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 On the Way to the Wedding

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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 knew that she was always watching him, taking note of his social schedule.

And
commenting
on it. Violet Bridgerton could, when the inclination struck, converse on the topic of young ladies, dance cards, and the intersection thereof (as pertained to her unmarried son) with a speed and facility that could make a grown man’s head spin.

And frequently did.

There was this young lady and that young lady and would he please be sure to dance with both of them—twice—at the next soiree, and above all, he must never, ever forget the
other
young lady. The one off by the wall, didn’t he see her, standing by herself. Her aunt, he must recall, was a close personal friend.

Gregory’s mother had a lot of close personal friends.

Violet Bridgerton had successfully ushered seven of her eight children into happy marriages, and now Gregory was bearing the sole brunt of her matchmaking fervor. He adored her, of course, and he adored that she cared so much for his 2

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well-being and happiness, but at times she made him want to pull his hair out.

And Anthony was worse. He didn’t even have to
say
anything. His mere presence was usually enough to make Gregory feel that he was somehow not living up to the family name. It was difficult to make one’s way in the world with the mighty Lord Bridgerton constantly looking over one’s shoulder. As far as Gregory could determine, his eldest brother had never made a mistake in his life.