“Yes. The duke wished to know details of his son’s arguments against disinheritance. He also wished to determine where they had gone, but we did not know. He seemed a severe fellow, but I do recall apparent concern for his son, and even more for the granddaughter he had never met.”
She gripped the reins to hide the tremble of her hands. “Really? How interesting.” Her quivering voice betrayed her attempted show of calm.
“Yes. Quite interesting. However, the most compelling aspect of the story is my personal meeting with the granddaughter during her visit. An odd creature, to be certain.”
“Oh? How so?”
“The girl barged into my secret room and demanded that we read some frivolous fairy tale, and then she read it poorly at that. Very odd indeed.”
She failed to restrain her indignation before erupting. “She did not barge in! She was kind to you, not demanding! She read Robinson Crusoe as you most certainly know, and read it quite well, thank you!”
Lucy regretted the outburst even as the words tumbled forth, but she seemed powerless to stop them. Henry stared at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw.
“I considered that you were…but did not truly think the possibility was…” He stopped as if to gather his scattered logic. “You are supposed to be dead!”
She returned his stare, her mind in chaos, until his confusion forced her eyes away. “Clearly, I am not,” she whispered.
“But I remember the story well, as it involved someone near my age. The tragic accident. The daughter lost to the river…”
“And her body was never found, so everyone simply assumed her dead.”
Henry rubbed his forehead. “Why not, then, just tell the duchess you are her long-lost granddaughter?”
She shook her head adamantly and snorted disdain. “No, I cannot.”
“Why not?”
She stared ahead while grasping for an answer amid the complexity of her reasons. She settled for the one most primal. “I want nothing of the insidious cage of nobility. Steadman warned me repeatedly of its corrosive effects on basic human decency. Why would I trade bread for poison? And now that I have found liberty, why would I exchange it for shackles more confining than those I left behind?”
His eyes squinted further. “Shackles?”
“Do not judge me. You may possess all the privileges in the world but judging me is not one of them.”
He turned to watch the road. “It is not judgment I feel. I am merely perplexed by your odd reasoning.”
“There is that word again. Odd. You seem to enjoy describing me that way. Do you consider me odd?”
“Yes. Very.”
Her annoyance bubbled over. “At least I am true to my character. You, however, seem to lack any insight whatsoever into yours.”
His nostrils flared and his jaw flexed as he appeared to bite back a curse. “At least tell me what happened.”
“I owe you no explanation.”
“True. But might you enlighten my ignorance?”
Lucy balked. She had never told anyone exactly what had happened that day. Not even Steadman. Now, this arrogant man wanted the truth? Before she could deny his request, though, her heart flooded unexpectedly with the need to tell her story. For the first time. To anyone.
“I will tell you, but only for the sake of your benighted ignorance.”
“As you wish, Miss Locket.”
She inhaled a deep breath and poured forth the story of the dark day, eleven years earlier, when her idyllic world had crumbled.
Gripped by the terror of an incomprehensible event, Lucy stared fixedly at her father. He crouched before her as the carriage rocked to a stop. Every fiber of her senses strained toward his grimly urgent instructions.
“You must take courage, Lucy. Courage beyond anything you have required before.”
She held her father’s gaze while highwaymen on horseback shouted threats both vague and oddly specific, and noted an air of nobility surpassing anything she had recognized in him before. Unkempt hair framed an angular face, while the fine coat bearing the dukedom’s crest strained against his shoulders.
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
He nodded with pride in his eyes before retrieving a familiar locket from his coat. He slipped the chain over her head and patted it against her chest.
“This bears the seal of House Huntington, Duke of Ramsbury. It marks you as protected by the Crown and beyond ill treatment. If the worst happens, the locket may preserve your life. Protect it as if sacred. Protect it for our family. Do you understand?”
She nodded numbly, her emotions awhirl, and tucked the locket inside her dress. Her father stepped from the coach to confront the highwaymen, speaking to them calmly. Not so calm, however, was the driver who discharged a pistol while tossing it to the ground. The horses bolted, throwing Lucy to the floor. When she regained her seat, her eyes met those of a man wearing a purple mask. His mount flew alongside the carriage as he strained to recapture the runaway vehicle. After an eternity of trying and failing, he reached one hand through the window.
“Take my hand, girl! Before…”
As if in anticipation of his unspoken warning, the horses broke free and the carriage careened from the road and down an embankment toward the gushing Thames, all the while tilting slowly to one side. Lucy tumbled against the opposite door as the carriage tipped past the perilous point of no return. A bone-jarring shudder marked the moment of impact with the river, followed by a shocking inrush of chill waters. The flow closed quickly around her and muffled the chaos. Disoriented, she thrashed wildly in search of bearings as the coach door drifted open in the darkness of the swollen river. With her last breath leaking from an open mouth, Lucy beat desperately toward the light for what seemed an eternity before surfacing. She immediately inhaled part breath and water, producing a violent cough that increased her panic and threatened to return her to the murk below. Fortunately, her aquatic skills, honed over the course of many Mediterranean summers, served to keep her afloat. With waterlogged eyes, she scanned for a glimpse of the shoreline. There! Although carried rapidly by the current, she dipped her head and paddled toward a wall of trees. Two dozen desperate strokes brought her within grasping range of the tall grass that carpeted the bank. After a few failed attempts, she found purchase sufficient to haul her body into the shallows.
Lucy lay unmoving, half submerged in the tugging current before crawling wearily onto the tree-lined bank. She collapsed into the grass and dropped her head between gathered knees, sobbing. How long she remained that way she could not tell, but a hand upon her shoulder roused her. She spun, expecting to find her father safe and sound. Instead, she met the studying gaze of a familiar stranger. The purple mask now lay limp against his neck. She leaped up and nearly stumbled into the river before he pulled her to safety.