The Likelihood of Lucy

by Jenny Holiday

  Before he could analyze that astonishing thought any further, she whispered, “They’re gone.” And she was right. The conversation had ceased. He hadn’t heard them shut the door, but then, he hadn’t really been paying attention, had he? This was the way to endanger a mission, this sloppiness.

  After peeking out to make sure they were truly gone, he reached back in to help her out, unsure what, if anything, to say about the intimate contact—and the outrageous proposal.

  “They’ve gone to a cemetery,” she said.

  That could be significant. “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. They were talking about a list. ‘The next on the list,’ he said. Then, right before they left, he said, ‘I’ve only got to fetch these.’” She looked around the room as if trying to imagine what they had taken.

  He did likewise, secretly glad for a task that required their attention, because he wasn’t sure he was prepared to resume their previous conversation. “The flowers,” he said, his gaze alighting on an empty vase on the small dining table that had previously been filled with a bunch of pink blossoms.

  “How do you do that?” she exclaimed.

  He shrugged. “Practice. Was the other man the same one? This Gunst fellow? Could you tell by the voice?”

  “Yes, I think it was. We should follow them. Now. Before they get too far ahead.”

  “I should follow them.” He’d gotten over that initial urge to take her with him everywhere he went to make sure she was safe. Especially when his outing involved following the killer they were after.

  “We should follow them. If we get close enough, I’ll be able to listen to what they’re saying at the cemetery.”

  He had no argument for that. He sighed and held out his arm. At least he wouldn’t be able to put his hands on her in public. And she wouldn’t be able to brush up against him like a goddamned temptress. They were safe from each other out in the world. He hoped.

  …

  “This isn’t that different from when we were kids,” Lucy whispered. This time, spying was proving to be much more entertaining than it had been during their excursion to Mr. Hammond’s house. Because Jespersen and Gunst had set out on foot, she and Trevor had been forced to duck into doorways and laneways as they followed, trying to keep the men in their sights but also not be noticed.

  As inside the armoire, there were several occasions that required them to huddle close together in order to obscure themselves from view. Probably, since they were in pursuit of a potential murderer, she should not be noticing the solid mass of Trevor’s chest, or the way his body seemed to possess a coiled strength, a tension that felt only precariously under control, simmering just beneath the surface. She should not be wondering if he’d understood what she had suggested earlier, when they were interrupted before she could make herself clear.

  “Second stone from the pathway, seventh row from the fence.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She hadn’t been paying attention. She felt certain that if there were a spying handbook, “pay attention” would be rule number one. It was difficult, though, when one was sandwiched between Trevor Bailey and the cold granite of a tomb. The marble was cool on her back. The rest of her? Not so cool.

  “That’s the stone they’re looking at. We just need to wait them out, and when they’re gone, we’ll see whose grave it is.”

  “Right.” Pay attention.

  The minutes that followed felt like an eternity. She closed her eyes and willed her heart to slow and her thoughts to turn to something mundane, like the Jade’s accounts. But it was useless. It was as if he were a snake charmer weaving a spell. And of course in this unfortunate metaphor, she was the snake.

  Why was she so restless? So bothered by his proximity? She had tried to go back and analyze their intimate interactions, as if they were entries in her accounting ledger. There had been that first time, when she’d been running from Galsmith, and Trevor had been newly arrived home from his trip. Then again about a week and a half later when they were tasting dishes in the kitchen. Another week and half later had been the opening party.

  Each time, each episode, had felt utterly inevitable, as if the force of their attraction was a river, and they were only debris being helplessly borne along with it. Then, things would return—more or less—to normal for a while. Looking at the situation with her bookkeeper’s eyes, she couldn’t help but see a pattern. As for what was the matter now, she could only come to the conclusion that they were…overdue. It had been exactly ten days since the opening party. This thing between them was like an itch: all-consuming if not properly scratched.

  The great question was, did he feel it, too? Would he agree to her proposal that they scratch it together? Or would he suddenly go all proper on her and refuse—or, worse, feel himself obliged to marry her? She might be baffled about a great deal of things, but she was crystal clear about one. She wasn’t following Mary down the path to heartbreak. And that was where marriage led—heartbreak and subjugation. She’d worked too tirelessly to give up her hard-earned independence. And so had Trevor, for that matter. The Jade was his mistress, and rightly so.

  Besides, even if she wanted to get married, trying to make someone love you was like trying to make the clouds stop moving. She understood now that was exactly what had driven Mary to the brink of madness. The trick, she’d decided, was to approach carnal matters without an overabundance of emotion. If she could talk Trevor into some experimentation divorced from sentiment, it would be just the thing.

  He cleared his throat, and she jumped. Right. Paying attention. That was where this all started. Trevor made a tiny gesture with one finger, pointing out toward the cemetery. She peeked around the edge of the tomb and saw Jespersen leaning down to place the flowers he’d pilfered on the ground by the gravestone. Then he straightened, and to her utter astonishment, spat on the stone.

  “Hmmm.” She felt the puzzlement echoing in Trevor’s chest more than she heard it.

  “They’re gone.”

  He was gone, too, before she could catch up. She hurried after him, feeling the loss of his solid presence against her.

  She could tell before she caught up with him, knew what she would see. Still, to see the letters carved in stone, chilled her.

  “Major General Burton Clark,” she read aloud, her voice quivering. “Died September 3, 1814.”

  …

  The walk back to the hotel was much easier than their outbound trip had been. There was no reason to hide on this leg, no call for ducking around corners and flattening themselves against each other. He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. Now Trevor was free to just be an unremarkable gentleman strolling through the streets with his lady.

  A lady. Not his. A lady.

  A lady with whom, if he wasn’t mistaken, he had some unfinished business.

  Business he had no idea how to address. So, coward that he was, he turned to evasive tactics, telling himself that it was better to let her bring up the matter again if she so chose. “Have you, ah, read Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s book on the French Revolution?”

  She stopped in her tracks, and her eyes darted around as if she were waiting for something ominous to happen. Well, that hadn’t been quite the reaction he’d been anticipating.

  Her eyes finally landed on him. “Have you?”

  “Indeed. Last night in fact.” When her eyebrows shot up, he felt it necessary to add, “I found myself unable to sleep.”

  “And what did you think of it?”

  “Well, one hesitates to criticize…”

  “Since when have you hesitated to criticize?”

  She had a point. Why was he being so careful with her all of a sudden? He very much doubted Mr. Lloyd would censor his ideas to protect Lucy’s delicate sensibilities. “Well, she seems awfully blasé about the horrors of the revolution, doesn’t she?”

  She sighed. “I admit that I struggle with her interpretation of the French situation. She wrote an earlier letter on the topic, w
hen she first arrived in France in 1792. In it, she reacts with more emotion against the revolution, charging that an aristocracy of riches had replaced an aristocracy of birth.”

  “That’s well put,” Trevor said. It earned him a smile, though he hadn’t said it to please Lucy but because he’d meant it.

  “Later, in her book, she seems to have revised her earlier impression, and seems somewhat reconciled to the initial violence and chaos that accompanied the change. And she clearly still believes in the perfectibility of man, and in reason.”

  “And of course, it’s difficult not to be moved, in theory at least, by the idea of the starving masses moving against a gluttonous, undeserving aristocracy,” he said.

  “Exactly!” she exclaimed. The more animated their discussion became, the faster she walked. “The question is, did the barbarism of the revolution lead to a genuine social improvement?”

  “Let’s say it did. Is it possible to rationalize such barbarism in retrospect?” he asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. I don’t think so. But sometimes one despairs of ever seeing any genuine social change without violence.”

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. Look at the abolitionists. Would Emily agree with that statement?”

  She tilted her head and stared off into the distance as they walked. “I take your point, I suppose, but all they’ve done is outlaw the trade. It is still perfectly legal to hold a human being in bondage.”

  “But it won’t be forever.”

  “Evolution, not revolution—is that what you’re saying?” She stopped and turned to him, grinning in a way that made him see two images of her superimposed on each other. She was eleven years old, eating a piece of pilfered cake. And though it should have been impossible, she was also a grown woman, smiling at him in the sunshine on a fine London afternoon.

  “What I’m saying is sometimes change is violent and disruptive, and sometimes it sneaks up on you, carrying you along by degrees.”

  And sometimes both at once.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “This concludes the meeting,” said Lucy, beaming at the women assembled under a large tree near the Serpentine in Hyde Park. “Thank you all for coming, and I’ll look forward to our next meeting, to be held at the same time and place a month from now.” She refrained from adding gushing thanks to Catharine and Emily for providing half a dozen copies of next month’s book. With any luck, they could pass the books among themselves over the coming month, and there might be a chance that some of the ladies would do their assigned reading for once.

  As it was, it had been lovely to talk with Emily and Catharine, who, unlike the others, had actually read this month’s selection. She hoped that they would provide an example of sorts to the others, perhaps inspiring emulation. At the start of the meeting, the two women had been reluctant to speak overmuch, having told her ahead of time that they didn’t want the group’s longstanding members to feel as if they were being invaded. But once they realized Lucy was the only one who was going to talk, neither woman could prevent herself from chiming in. The result had been a very lively discussion—about, of all things, Mary’s volume on the French Revolution. Two discussions in the same week about the same book! Though she had planned this one, her conversation with Trevor had been quite surprising. The last thing she ever expected from him was an animated discussion of political philosophy.

  Trevor. She suppressed a sigh. She’d spent last evening berating herself for not taking up the matter of her proposal with him on the walk home from the cemetery. There was just never an appropriate opening, because they’d been having such an animated discussion. And, frankly, she’d lost her nerve, having had to screw up her courage so much the first time she brought it up.

  “I had a grand time,” said Catharine, who had remained behind with Emily after the others had taken their leave. “I only hope our presence did not…stifle the group.”

  “I assure you, it did not.” Lucy rolled her eyes, adding, “alas,” which caused the other women to laugh. The sound gave her a little shiver. She forced her mind from thoughts of Trevor, because really, what a thrill, what a novelty, to be in the park on a fine summer day, laughing with friends! Between these women and Mrs. Murray, who had paid Lucy a social call the day before, it was almost an embarrassment of riches.

  “She’s just being kind,” Emily teased Catharine. “You probably shocked everyone into silence.”

  “I kept my remarks focused exclusively on the book and associated matters!” Catharine protested.

  Emily patted her friend’s arm. “It doesn’t matter. Your reputation will have preceded you. You’re shocking just by virtue of being you, my dear.”

  “Here’s something shocking.” Catharine looked to the sky as if seeking divine guidance. Then she fell back in melodramatic fashion on the rug they had spread on the ground and covered her face with her hands. “I am with child.”

  Lucy couldn’t have been more surprised if the infamous Viscountess of Vice had announced she was entering a convent. She saw her own shock mirrored on Emily’s face, and for a moment no one said anything. Then Emily let loose a shriek of joy that sounded rather like a feminine war cry and collapsed on the ground next to her friend, embracing her and not even bothering to stem happy tears. “Oh, Catharine, how marvelous!”

  Catharine sat up then, looking embarrassed, which was itself odd because Lucy had not so far observed anything faze the mighty Mrs. Burnham. Tugging Emily up, too, she pulled a twig from her friend’s fair hair. “Marvelous?” She said it like she was rolling the word around on her tongue, unsure it would be to her taste. “I suppose so, though I would have expected you to use a word more like shocking.”

  “Why is it shocking? I think it’s wonderful!”

  “Because I am rather old, you’ll recall. And, having had, ah, ample practice in the matter yield nothing for more than a year, I had assumed that I wasn’t able—”

  “Oh, you’re not that old! What does James say? He must be over the moon!”

  “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Pardon?” shrieked Emily. “Why ever not?”

  “Because.” Catharine rolled her eyes. “He will drop everything and become a mother hen. I won’t be allowed to do anything.”

  “I’ll help you look after the school!”

  “It’s not just that—it’s everything. For example, once he knows, I guarantee he won’t touch me again until…” She gestured vaguely at her stomach and curled her lip.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Catharine! Isn’t it true that early on, there’s no problem with…”

  “Tupping?” teased Catharine.

  Lucy had been trying to follow the coded conversation, and Catharine’s vulgar declaration confirmed that they were, in fact, talking about what she thought they were talking about.

  “Oh, Lucy,” said Emily, “you must think we talk of nothing else.”

  “Well…” drawled Catharine. “To be more accurate, I talk. You blush and grow missish.”

  “I want to ask you a question,” Lucy blurted before she lost her nerve. Both women turned surprised expressions on her. This was the perfect opportunity to clarify things, so she forced herself to plunge onward. “Is there something that happens…a feeling that comes over one, something that feels all-consuming and wonderful and awful at the same time…when one engages in…”

  “Yes,” Catharine interrupted.

  A spark of anger ignited in her chest, though she wasn’t sure to whom it was directed. Miss Grisham’s perhaps, for saying they were doing a complete job but falling far, far short. After all, Lucy could outrun most men. Steal anything. She’d seen men and women incapacitated with drink, with the poppy. She’d seen far worse things than that, too. So to not know about this? It was irritating. “And that’s normal?” she asked, just to be absolutely clear.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Wait a minute!” exclaimed Emily, who until now had been followin
g the exchange as if she were watching a clock pendulum swing hither and yon. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “She asked; I answered,” said Catharine. “Do you need further direction, Lucy?”

  Lucy’s brazenness had abandoned her, and she could only shake her head.

  “What you are describing is called a crisis,” Emily said. “Or a release. Quite possibly no one has told you about it. And if you haven’t discovered it on your own heretofore, I imagine it could be quite a shock.”

  “I have heard the term but thought it applied to men.”

  “Certainly it does, but not exclusively.”

  “The unjust truth of the matter is that the man’s crisis is generally a given,” said Catharine, warming to the expanded discussion. “It’s required for the act of procreation, whereas a woman’s is not.”

  “And I’m given to understand,” Emily said, “that many men do not concern themselves with their wives’ pleasure.”

  Catharine snorted her disgust, and Lucy inferred that this was not the case with these two ladies and their marriages. It would certainly explain a lot—Emily’s flushed, tardy arrival at Catharine’s school the other day, Catharine and James being caught in a delicate position at the opening party for the Jade.

  “Let’s just say, Lucy dear, that consideration is an excellent quality to look for in a husband,” said Emily. “If you take my meaning.”

  “Oh, I’m not looking for a husband,” Lucy assured them. “If I’ve learned anything from my careful study of Mary Wollstonecraft, it’s that husbands only cause problems. If one wants to lead a truly independent life of the mind, one is better off avoiding romantic entanglements.”

  Catharine sighed and threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Why do I attract you sorts?” When Lucy narrowed her eyes in confusion Catharine added, “Emily was similarly disinclined to marry.” She aimed a friendly poke at Emily’s shoulder. “I believe you equated it with slavery, did you not?”

  Lucy didn’t know if she’d go that far, but clearly Mary’s biography should be interpreted as a cautionary tale.