“You’ve acquired a bit of wisdom in your short number of years.”
Lucy shrugged a shoulder. “I read a considerable amount. More intelligent people than I have said as much.” Her direct gaze skittered away, and her expression went suddenly shy. “The same is true for how things worked out with you and Mama. And with you and me.”
How vulnerable and young she appeared now. Percy called upon the heavens for the correct words. “I would like to change that.”
Lucy’s gaze found his. “St. Alban offered to adopt me.”
Gutted, that was the word for this feeling inside Percy. “I wasn’t aware.”
“This was before you returned to London.”
“Did you agree to it?” He had to know.
“I told him thank you, but no. I am content with being a bastard.”
A groan emerged from the deepest reaches of Percy’s gut. There was no stopping it. He wanted to howl and rage. A bastard. His daughter was a bastard.
Because of him. Because of his impetuousness and his inability to see matters through to the end. All those years ago, he hadn’t stopped long enough to consider that Olivia might be with child when he’d sped off to the Continent for war and vainglory. Truly, he’d thought it would be a lark. What a useless man he’d been.
“If we were a different family,” Lucy continued, “there would be consequences for me, but we’re one of the most powerful families in England. My bastardy doesn’t impact my life in the least.” She shrugged. “The ton is run amok with high-born bastards.”
Lucy’s cheeriness only increased Percy’s feeling of wretchedness. This awful fact that she had accepted for herself, he hadn’t accepted for her. “I would like nothing more than to be a father to you.”
“It might be too late for that. But—” She hesitated, and Percy felt his life hanging by a frayed thread. “It might not be too late for us. I’ve come to admire how you never fail to arrive for our weekly appointments to watch me read. It demonstrates a care for the after.”
It was only when his breath released that Percy realized he’d been holding it. A hope he’d long suppressed, for it would have been too painful to give it room to breathe, surged. Whatever form she wanted their relationship to take, he would accept. “I’ve noted your affinity for novels in particular.” He tried for light.
She laughed. “They do open one up to new worlds and other sorts of lives. For instance, about those harlots of yours.”
“They’re not really mine, Lucy.”
“You’re responsible for them.”
“I’m not sure that I am.”
“You are, and here’s what I think. Loads of heroines in the novels I read have occupations of some sort. So, if you can’t employ these women, then we can help them learn a skill.”
“I’m not qualified—”
“Apprenticeships, that sort of thing.”
The we she spoke warmed Percy through his bones. “Nothing stops you when you when you set your mind, does it?”
“Not especially.”
“It seems I’ve met my match in you.” If this mad venture she was proposing was how they could reach a more permanent we status, then it was how they would proceed. They would attain suitable occupations for the harlots who had agreed to stay at the Seven Dials house. He would find a way to explain it to her mother. “Shall we return to the musicale?”
Lucy pulled a face. “Must we?”
“We must.” What was that tone in his voice? Was it . . . fatherly? “Someday, Gardencourt Manor will be yours.”
“Mine?” Lucy’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Won’t it go to the son you will father with my new step-mama?”
Percy searched and detected no hint of bitterness in the question, only curiosity. “Gardencourt is unentailed. It will be yours. Part of embracing it is to take an interest in all of it, including village musicales. Especially village musicales.”
Lucy nodded solemnly. “You’re saying I must see it through.”
“All the way to the after.”
As they returned to the assembly room, Percy posed another question to Lucy. “Did you follow me tonight?” He had to know if she’d possibly heard more than the Savior of St. Giles business.
“I, um, yes and no,” she stammered. “While Mina, Hugh, and I partook of refreshments, I noticed you slip out the exterior door. Not long later, Mina decided it would be best if she left during intermission, because she is rising early in the morning. Something about Mars and Venus before sunrise. You know how she gets.”
Percy didn’t, but he let Lucy continue. “Anyway, Hugh volunteered to see her safely to Gardencourt, which got the Duchess all het up—you know, propriety and all.”
“I have a vague memory of the concept, yes,” Percy remarked drily.
“Well, after it was all sorted, I found myself quite alone. Then I remembered you, so I decided to investigate and discovered you to be none other than the Savior of St. Giles.”
From there, Lucy began chattering happily at his side about all manner of subjects, ranging from her favorite novelist—Miss Jane Austen, of course—to the stern headmistress of her school who had single-handedly eradicated the school’s rat problem with her withering glare—It’s what I admire most about Mrs. Bloomquist, God’s truth.
Percy wanted to bask in this new beginning with his daughter, an outcome he had been striving toward these last nine months, but the revelations from Hortense kept pushing to the forefront of his mind. Well, one revelation in particular. Isabel was Montfort’s intimately placed agent.
The pain of loss hadn’t subsided. By increments, he understood what had begun to bud inside him for her. That feeling but one step past infatuation, a feeling he’d denied himself for so many years.
Bitterness swelled. This was Montfort’s special talent, the poison touch. Nothing thrived beneath Montfort’s hand.
His strike was imminent, tomorrow likely, with the village providing distraction and cover at Gardencourt. Until then, Percy would play his cards close. Montfort—and Isabel—would have to come to him.
He would be ready.