Pause. Pause.
“No. I find most dinner parties to be an incredible bore.”
“That pleases me. It provides evidence of a brain inside your skull.”
The schooling continued for four days to a point where Lucy thought she might just survive the grueling education. However, a disclosure from the duchess destroyed even that illusion. Shortly after Henry had left the house, agitated and mumbling one afternoon, Lucy and the duchess sat down for what she hoped would prove an unremarkable supper.
“Lucy, dear,” said older woman. “In your opinion, how does your training progress?”
She swallowed an overly large bite. “Well, I believe that although Mr. Beaumont is a particularly odious taskmaster, I am learning.”
“That assessment delights me. It gives me hope for the outcome of the event.”
Lucy began to retrieve another bite but froze. “Event? What event?”
The duchess’s eyes widened with seeming unease. She took a sip of wine and averted her gaze. “Nothing, really. Just a simple dinner party with a small number of individuals who may help assess your readiness for Society. My oldest friends.”
Panic welled within Lucy. “When?”
“Ten days hence.”
She rose from her chair in reaction to the blow. “A dinner party in ten days? With me on display? Are you daft?”
The face of the duchess grew stony. “Sit down, Lucy! Your current behavior undoes every effort of the past four days.”
She sat down but her brows remained knotted with restrained anger. “Does Henry know about this?”
“Yes.”
“And he did not deem it reasonable to tell me?”
“I forbade him from doing so.”
Lucy gritted her teeth as she clenched the tablecloth between her fingers. Disdain for Henry filled her senses. He probably took great pleasure in her coming humiliation, an event that would justify his lack of faith in her. The despicable nature of his subterfuge left her angry and bitter. She spoke to the duchess with as much restraint as she could muster.
“How will I be able to do this?”
The woman smiled empathetically. “Mr. Beaumont will walk alongside to guide you.”
“The great Mr. Beaumont!” she said with dripping sarcasm. “That makes all well.”
The duchess remained calm. “Sarcasm is unladylike, my dear. Please refrain from such a tone.”
“Another rule, then?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Lucy stood from the table and executed a much-improved but imperfect curtsy. “If it pleases Your Grace, may I be excused from supper to consider this new rule appropriately, as well as my impending humiliation?”
The duchess frowned but nodded. Lucy hurried to her room, forgetting every rule of posture. She definitely did not skate along the way. Once behind the door of her chambers, she threw her body onto the bed. How she hated this cage of rules! And how she despised Henry for his part in confining her to that cage! She cried for a time, considering yet again how she might escape the house.
An hour passed and her tears dried. The memory of her noble father came to her from that dark day at the Thames. To run away would be to ignore his final words to her—to take courage. Deep in the night, she came to a firm decision. She would stay. She would fight. And she would find a way not only to survive, but to win this game where every rule conspired against her.
…
Henry had worked with Lucy over the course of the first four days with mounting frustration. His efforts to teach the maddening woman had met a stiff wall of resistance that shifted between passivity and aggression. Even in the throes of conflict, however, he could not dismiss how he’d come alive in her presence. Her frank and impassioned speech had blown through him like a spring gale, withering in its force but cleansing in its sweep. And every time his frustration had reached a breaking point, she’d flashed him a radiant smile, he had sighed, and pressed on. If for no other reason than self-defense, then, he’d decided to make a game of the contest by prodding her into inevitable outbursts. Each time he’d pushed her to the verge of an eruption, though, she’d pulled back and even found the wherewithal to mock him. He’d withstood the mocking admirably…until the fourth day.
“You frankly cannot ask a man how many affairs he has had,” Henry explained. “Such things are simply not done.”
Lucy crossed her arms. “And yet a woman must be a virgin before marriage, and may even be subjected to a test of that condition? That hardly seems equitable.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Of course, the situation is not equitable. It is the solemn duty of fathers and brothers to protect their daughters and sisters from scandal until such time as…”
“They can sell them in marriage for the financial improvement of the family, even if said improvement involves a union with a disgusting old man who rattles when he breathes.” Henry began to disagree, but she plowed through his response. “I recall you have a sister. What price does the daughter of a country earl fetch in the backwaters of Northumberland? A pair of cows? A pack of hunting dogs? A slightly used phaeton?”
Henry’s ire rose. He stood from his chair so abruptly that it fell backward. Her eyes grew wide.
“Do not ever speak of my sister that way again,” he said with a growl. “She possesses a quality of character you will likely never reach, let alone understand. If such disrespect for her crosses your lips again, I will be done with this. And with you.”
He braced for what would surely be a hot outburst from Lucy. Instead, she gazed at him with astonishment. Then her eyes softened, and a warm smile curled her lips.
“Why, Mr. Beaumont,” she said sweetly. “I thought hysteria was more the realm of weak women than of strong men? Clearly, I was mistaken.”
He stormed from the room without another word. Before long, he was on the street and walking swiftly, mumbling with annoyance as would a madman. Words rumbled through his mind of how he might explain to the duchess that he was rejecting her money and abandoning the job. After a time though, his flush of anger began to fade. A single word found his lips.
“Hysteria.”
He chuckled softly as he recalled what Lucy had said to send him racing from her presence. Truthfully, her clever retort had been amusing. He considered how this entire situation must appear to her. One day, she was living a secluded life as the prisoner of a criminal, and the next day she was an heiress in a world she did not remotely understand. Despite the challenge, she possessed a keen ability to cut through the clutter of regulations to the absurdity beneath. Reluctantly, he admitted admiration for that quality.