She just hoped that Octavius Bamber hadn’t underestimated the cost of launching a young lady in her first season.
“Tweed generally sounds a gong ten minutes before mealtimes to let you know when to come downstairs. Mrs. Tweed will show you where we will eat.”
Lucy went upstairs with the Tweeds, and Alice fought the urge to collapse into the nearest chair and pour herself a glass of something strong.
She regretted now that she’d had the blue room prepared for Lucy. She’d given the instructions in a foolish moment of sympathy, a reaction to her own dislike of the father and his impossible ambition for his daughter. But now, having spent several hours in a carriage with her, exposed to her sullen, barely cooperative conversation—like drawing teeth, and she was not shy, whatever her father claimed!—Alice had decided any sympathy was wasted.
Lucy Bamber was reserved, difficult and prickly. And her dress sense was dreadful. It was not a promising start.
Somehow Alice had to find a titled gentleman willing to marry this rude, spoiled hedgehog of a girl.
* * *
* * *
Lucy followed the housekeeper up the stairs. Past the first floor—“Reception rooms,” the old woman told her. Past the second floor—“That’s where Lady Charlton’s bedchamber and favorite sitting room are.” She led Lucy up the narrower stairs to the third floor and down the corridor to a room right at the back of the house. Lucy’s lip curled. That’d be right. In with the servants, no doubt.
Mrs. Tweed opened the door and gestured for Lucy to enter.
The ancient butler set down a valise and two bandboxes and trudged off to fetch the rest of her luggage from the hall, while his wife bustled about the room, twitching things into place and explaining things in a familiar, chatty manner. Lucy wasn’t really listening.
Papa had stressed to her that she must learn to treat servants properly, to speak firmly to them when you wanted something and to ignore them for the most part, as if they weren’t there. Because that’s what the aristocracy did.
Most importantly, she was not to allow any cheek or personal references. He’d explained that Lady Charlton had no idea how to treat servants and had allowed hers to get into some very bad habits. He’d added that her butler was a very cheeky fellow in need of a severe set-down.
Lucy didn’t think the butler was the slightest bit cheeky. She found his solemn air of dignity quite intimidating. And now the butler’s wife was being all cozy and motherly. What was she supposed to do about that?
And they were both practically a hundred years old. Their faces were as wrinkled as the skin that formed on warm milk, the housekeeper’s hair was silvery white, and the butler had almost no hair at all, just a thin fringe of white circling a shiny pink pate. She was plump; he was thin and stooped, and he wheezed slightly as he set the last of her baggage down in front of the wardrobe.
It made Lucy a little uncomfortable, letting an old man carry her things up all those stairs. She knew how the aristocracy treated servants. She’d learned it the hard way, and she didn’t much like it.
“Now then, miss, you let us know if there’s anything else you need,” the old woman finished. “Tweed and me’ll do what we can to help you settle in. Nice to have a young lady visiting,” she added warmly and patted Lucy on the arm.
Lucy murmured her thanks and wondered whether she ought to have reprimanded her for that pat on the arm. She was certain Papa would have, saying it was encroaching and overfamiliar and she was not to allow a servant to treat her that way.
But it felt . . . nice. Friendly. Not encroaching at all.
Oh, she was never going to manage this. Marry a lord? She couldn’t even handle servants. What had Papa been thinking?
The comtesse had treated Lucy as a kind of mix between a pupil and maidservant. She was prideful and arrogant and impossible to please, and would drill Lucy mercilessly for an hour or two each morning, rapping out orders in French about how to curtsy according to rank and instructing her in other obscure rituals of the ancien régime. Correcting her accent. Teaching her to behave as ma charmante invitée. Then she would send her off to dust the furniture, scrub the floor, fetch the eggs and chop onions in the kitchen, like a servant. Frau Steiner had been much the same, only with her, it was music, not manners. And all in German.
Would Lady Charlton be any better? She doubted it.
The minute the Tweeds had closed the door behind them, Lucy plumped down onto the bed. Her fists were knotted in frustration, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream or cry—or both. But what was the point? Papa had done what he always did: appeared out of the blue, swept her away to God-knew-where, for who-knew-what reason, dumped her in a strange place with a strange woman and minimal explanation—and then left.
Lord knew when she’d see him again.
The comtesse had been most put out by the lack of notice, but Papa had ignored the old lady’s ranting. His behavior had been a far cry from when he’d first brought her to the comtesse—then he’d been all over the old lady, as charming and obsequious as a honey-dipped snake. But he’d got what he wanted from her and was barely polite to the old lady now. He’d hustled Lucy away so quickly she had no time to say farewell to anyone. Not that she’d had any actual friends there.
They’d stopped for a few days at Epsom—for the races, of course—and afterward Papa had presented her with several new dresses, including the ugly pink one she’d worn yesterday and the orange thing she was wearing now. She detected the less-than-subtle taste of one of Papa’s ladies—he liked them bold and a bit vulgar—and she’d said so, quite bluntly.
Papa said it didn’t matter, that she was going to London to make her come-out and marry a lord, and that the lady who would sponsor her come-out would take her to the finest French mantua-maker and order her a whole new wardrobe. In the meantime Lucy would wear what he had provided and like it.
There was never any point arguing with Papa. He never listened. And since all her old clothes were faded and a bit tight—it was several years since she’d had anything new—she had no choice but to obey. Though not the bit about liking it.
She flung herself back on her new bed. She felt like drumming her heels on the counterpane, kicking some of her frustration away. But it was quite a nice counterpane, and she was still wearing her new high-heeled half boots, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to have her first act in this house be an act of vandalism.
Besides, experience had taught her that giving way to temper only ever made things worse.
She took ten long, slow breaths, forcing herself to become calmer. There was no point in being upset—she was stuck here in this house with this woman who Papa said was going to get her married to a lord.
A lord! Really, Papa was the absolute limit. As if any lord would be interested in plain Lucy Bamber, of no particular beauty, no fortune, no background and no accomplishments. Another one of Papa’s plans that was bound to end in humiliation—Lucy’s humiliation.