“Sounds good to me.” Lucy seemed indifferent to the conversation. She was folding her napkin into some intricate shape.
Alice smacked her hand on the table. “No, it’s not nearly good enough, Lucy. You don’t seem to understand. To most of the people in the ton, background is everything. If anyone suspects I never saw you or any of your family before this week, and that I’m trying to pass you off—falsely—as my goddaughter and a friend of the family, we’ll be ruined.”
Lucy looked up. “We?”
“Yes, we—both of us. You for not being who they think you are—the ton can be very unforgiving of people who try to deceive them in order to gain access to the highest levels of society. As for one of their own who aids and abets such a deception . . .” She shook her head.
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
“We’ll have to agree on the story then,” Lucy said, quite as if this were an everyday occurrence for her. And perhaps it was.
“Exactly, but we should keep it as close to the truth as possible. Now, what was your mother’s name?”
“Louisa.”
“And her surname—her maiden name?” Alice prompted.
Lucy’s brow furrowed in thought, then she shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
Alice was shocked. “You don’t remember your mother’s maiden name?”
Lucy gave a careless shrug. “She never talked much about the past, never mentioned her parents. And if ever I raised the question, she’d change the subject.”
“What about your father? Surely he knows.”
She shook her head. “I asked him once and he got so angry, I never asked again.”
“I see.” How strange not to know such basic information about one’s parents.
“Do you know where your mother grew up?”
Lucy shook her head. “No. What about where you grew up? Was that in the country?”
“Yes, in the village of Chaceley, in Worcestershire. My father was the vicar there. I implied this afternoon that your mother and I knew each other as girls, but had lost touch after she married and moved away,” she said.
Lucy nodded. “That’ll work. We moved a lot. Papa has what he calls ‘itchy feet’—he always likes to keep moving.”
Alice couldn’t imagine not having any place to call home. Even if home wasn’t very comfortable.
“What should we tell people if they ask about your father?”
“That he’s away, traveling. It’s what I usually say.”
“I suppose that will have to do.” It was all very peculiar, but then this was a very peculiar situation. For all Alice—or Lucy—knew, her mother could have been Romani. This whole wretched business was a fantasy. Or a nightmare, if it got out.
Chapter Five
Alice paused in the doorway of the Charlton House reception rooms. They’d arrived late on purpose. As she explained to Lucy, it was easier to enter a room full of people than to be standing awkwardly, waiting for everyone else to arrive. Besides, it was fashionable to be a little late.
“Don’t be nervous, it’s just a small family party,” Alice murmured.
“I’m not nervous.” Lucy gazed around the room curiously.
No, if anyone was nervous, it was Alice. She’d attended very few social events since Thaddeus’s death—none at all during her year of mourning, and very few since she’d gone into half mourning. She hadn’t enjoyed them.
At each event, some so-called gentleman had sidled up to her and, after some token conversation, had made her an improper proposition. How could they imagine she’d be interested? She’d given them no reason to think so—she didn’t even flirt!—but it was apparently a widespread belief that a widow must be desperately missing her husband’s marital attentions.
Alice was relieved to be spared them.
But tonight she was here en chaperone. All she had to worry about was Lucy, because surely, at a family party—her late husband’s family at that—nobody would approach her with indecent suggestions.
That was why she’d allowed her maid, Mary, to persuade her into the new dress that Miss Chance had made her. The design of the dress was perfectly respectable and the color quite comme il faut for a widow of eighteen months, and yet it felt like a gorgeously frivolous froth of a dress, a gleaming smoky cloud of lilac silk and taffeta—too pretty, no doubt, for a small family party, but who cared? It had been ages since she’d worn anything new, and in this dress she felt somehow lighter, younger. Ready to go dancing, though there would be no dancing tonight. Almeria’s parties were invariably dull.
She knew, she just knew that Almeria would disapprove of the dress. If Almeria had her way, she’d have Alice wearing black widow’s weeds for the rest of her life. And just the thought of that put a smile on Alice’s face.
She glanced at Lucy, who was scanning the crowded room with a faint anticipatory smile on her face. She, too, was feeling the magic of a pretty new dress and the confidence that came with the knowledge that she was looking her best in pale gold muslin and a lacy cream shawl.
Alice could hardly believe the difference between the girl who stood beside her now and the one she’d first met—sullen and withdrawn in the unflattering, overly elaborate dress and the heavy, fussy lacquered mass of ringlets.
Mary had braided Lucy’s tawny hair in a simple coronet around the crown of her head and tucked in some tiny yellow faux rosebuds. The simple style showed off Lucy’s lovely complexion and bright eyes. Her face had the roundness of youth, and now that it wasn’t half drowned in a mass of fat corkscrew curls, you could see the cheekbones that would emerge as she matured. She wasn’t a beauty, but she was quite arresting.
As long as she behaved herself, Lucy couldn’t fail to make a good impression.
Alice glanced around, looking for her hostess. It was rather more crowded than she’d expected. Not quite the intimate little “at home” gathering Almeria had indicated. Alice knew about half the people there, and as for the others, some she’d seen before, though never met, and quite a few were complete strangers. Not as many young gentlemen as she’d expected, though, which surprised her. One would have thought a party to celebrate a young man’s birth would have attracted more men of his age.
Alice found her sister-in-law, resplendent in puce silk and gold lace, and greeted her cordially. “Almeria, what a very pleasant gathering. Thank you for inviting us.” Strictly speaking, Almeria hadn’t invited them at all. Gerald had.