“Not just us,” Joe, her second oldest brother, said with a long-suffering smile. “We left Cole and Parker in London.”
“So you’re all here. How delightful.” Although Lucy considered it anything but delightful. “Did Father come as well?”
“No,” Harry said, and Lucy breathed a silent sigh of relief. “We thought someone should stay at home. It didn’t make a great deal of sense for all of us to come.” Harry was the oldest and not at all prone to undue alarm or jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Pity his sister wasn’t more like him. “It didn’t make sense for the four of us to accompany Mother either, but she was worried about you.”
“Really?” Lucy widened her eyes in feigned disbelief.
Harry nodded, but curiosity shone in his eyes. “The rest of us knew there was probably nothing to be concerned about.”
“After all, you’ve never done anything to cause concern before,” Joe said, eyeing her thoughtfully.
“I do apologize, Mother, if I’ve caused you to worry. Although I can’t imagine why.”
Harry and Joe traded glances.
“Oh, and I think you can.” Mother’s eyes narrowed. She was a good inch shorter than her daughter, her hair still vibrant but a few shades darker than Lucy’s. In her early fifties, Mother looked at least ten years younger. “I think you can well imagine my surprise when I received a letter from a, well, a long-lost side of the family, if you will.”
Lucy winced to herself.
“Lady Northrup wrote expressing her delight in meeting a member of the American branch of the family. The letter was quite lovely, extolling the virtues of my only daughter. How terribly brave and independent you were, she wrote.” Mother’s eyes flashed. “Why, she would never have had the courage at your age to visit a foreign country accompanied only by a surprisingly youthful traveling companion.”
“Have you met Miss West?” Lucy said brightly.
“As she just left, it was unavoidable.” Mother’s jaw tightened.
“She’s very efficient and well organized,” Lucy added, as if efficient and well organized would negate everything else.
“And pretty,” Joe said to Harry. “Very pretty.”
“And she did appear”—Harry grinned—“extremely well organized.”
“I don’t care if she is the most efficient and organized creature ever to walk the face of the earth,” Mother said sharply. “What happened to Mrs. Channing?”
“Didn’t you get her letter?” Lucy said innocently.
“I most certainly did not!”
“I can’t imagine what happened.” Lucy shook her head in a regretful manner, ignoring the memory of Mrs. Channing’s letter merrily burning away in the fireplace in this very room. “But you know how unreliable transatlantic mail can be.”
“Nonetheless, I want to know what happened to her, and where on earth is Jackson?”
“I did write to you,” Lucy pointed out.
“And in spite of the untrustworthy nature of the mails, I did receive your letters. Quite regularly until the first of the year, and since then there have only been two.” A sharp note sounded in Mother’s voice. “Neither of which mentioned that you were no longer in Elizabeth’s company. Nor did they mention that you and Jackson had indeed parted company, which I assumed, by the way, given Lady Northrup’s suggestion that her son, Alfred—”
“Freddy,” Lucy said.
“—and you made such an attractive couple and perhaps we could encourage the two of you along those lines.”
“Goodness, Mother.” Lucy waved away the comment. “That happened before I left New York.” She paused. “Jackson and I parting ways, that is, not marrying Freddy. Which I have no interest in doing, by the way.”
“I was hopeful the differences between you and Jackson would be resolved when you came to England.”
“They weren’t because there really weren’t differences to resolve,” Lucy said firmly. “We were simply ready, more than ready really, to go our separate ways. You and Mrs. Channing were the only ones who thought differently.”
“She’s right there, Mother.” Harry nodded.
Joe scoffed. “The rest of us knew by the third or fourth time they postponed their engagement that this was one marriage that was never going to happen.”
“Fine,” Mother snapped. “My question still has not been answered. What happened to Elizabeth and where is Jackson?”
“Shall I be perfectly honest?” Lucy asked.
“I’ve never known you to be less than perfectly honest before.”
“Thank you, Mother. Well then.” She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“What?”
Lucy shrugged. “They could be anywhere. Europe, the Orient, Persia.”
Mother’s brow rose. “All of them?”
“Jackson set off to travel and seek adventures with his father. His mother is accompanying them.”
Mother’s eyes widened. “Elizabeth Channing is traveling with her husband?”
“Colonel Channing?” Surprise sounded in Harry’s voice. “The husband we all thought was dead until recently?”
Lucy nodded. “They decided to, oh, see if marriage was to their liking, I think. Something like that.”
“Good Lord.” Mother sank down onto the sofa. “In all the years I’ve known Elizabeth, she scarcely ever mentioned the man’s name.”
“He was dead, Mother,” Joe pointed out.
“Will wonders never cease,” Mother murmured, then she drew a deep breath. “So you have been alone here?”
“Not at all.” Lucy scoffed and sat down beside her mother. “I had Clara—”
“The lovely Miss West,” Joe said.
“And Lady Dunwell.” And Cameron Effington-Fairchild-Aldrich. She ignored the thought. “I haven’t been the least bit alone.”
Mother stared. “But what have you been doing?”
“Oh, the usual sort of thing.” Flying in a balloon, baking a cake, being painted in the nude. She shrugged. “This and that. Seeing the sights. All the expected things that tourists do.”
Mother stared.
“What fun.” Harry grinned and Lucy threw him a grateful glance. While all her brothers were overly protective, they were also fairly easygoing in nature. Any one of them would probably appreciate the quest she’d been on.
“All right then.” Mother rose to her feet. “I assume you’re ready to return to London with us. We plan on staying for the rest of the week, then we have passage booked back to New York. Passage for six.”
Lucy stared at her mother for a long moment. The oddest wave of resignation and defeat and sorrow washed through her. She had known this moment would come and she hadn’t expected to accomplish everything on Great-aunt Lucinda’s list. Certainly there was no reason why she couldn’t continue her quest at home, although she doubted she would. In New York she was Miss Lucy Merryweather, the perfect, proper, and always well-behaved daughter of a director of Graham, Merryweather, and Lockwood Banking and Trust. Lucy Merryweather, who would have married the man everyone expected her to marry and lived the life she was expected to lead. Lucy Merryweather, who would never buy an elephant or wear a mustache or dance on a frozen terrace in the moonlight.
In New York she would be far away from The Daring Exploits of a Runaway Heiress and far away from its author. The man who had betrayed her and deceived her and broken her heart. And the sooner she could put an ocean between them, the better.
“Excellent, Mother.” She cast her mother her brightest smile. “I can’t wait to go home.”
Chapter Twenty
“As large as Channing House is, it’s beginning to look a great deal like a florist.” Mother glanced around Lucy’s room. “Not in here, of course.”
Lucy had absolutely forbidden any of the numerous offerings of flowers that had arrived for her in the three days since their return to London to be placed in her room. It was bad enough that Mother had refused to allow her to throw them away, insisting, as hot
house flowers were so dear in February, that it would be a terrible waste to simply discard them.
“I think flowers are unnatural at this time of year,” Lucy murmured. She reclined on the chaise, Albert curled by her side, and paged through a copy of The Woman’s World magazine as she was no longer reading any publication that bore the name Cadwallender.
“So you’ve said.” Mother paused, then sighed. “Are you going to tell me who this young man is and why you refuse to see him?”
“No, Mother, I’m not.” Lucy turned the page she’d been staring at but had yet to read so much as a single word. She couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything but the clippings of The Daring Exploits of a Runaway Heiress Beryl had given her. Those she had read over and over so often they were nearly committed to memory.
“Do you intend to acknowledge his flowers and the numerous notes accompanying them?”
“No, Mother, I do not.” Although she had read every note as well as the one he had brought to her room at Millworth the night they had spent together. One would think now knowing everything would make his actions more palatable. Her jaw tightened. It did not.
“Yours is not the only heart ever to have been broken, you know.”
“Goodness, Mother.” She glanced up and forced a firm note to the lie. “My heart is not broken.”
“Oh, well, my mistake then.” Mother hesitated. “You know, if you and Jackson had—”
“We would have had a practically perfect life together.” Lucy smiled. “However, Jackson has found the love of his life and I am quite happy for him.”
“Of course,” Mother murmured. “And what do you intend to do with yours?”
“I intend to return home with you and hope I never have need to step foot upon English shores again,” she said with far more vehemence that she had intended. It was not the way to convince her mother that there was nothing wrong.
“I certainly don’t blame you.” Mother moved to the foot of the chaise and sat down. “You know,” she said slowly, “I’ve only ever wanted the best for you. If I have been wrong in the past, especially about Jackson, well . . .” Her face crumpled. “I am truly, truly sorry.”
“Mother.” Lucy sat up and shifted to sit next to her mother. Albert gave an annoyed grunt and moved to her other side. “Are you crying?”
“No.” Mother sniffed and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t cry.”
“I’ve never seen you cry before.” Lucy pulled one of several wrinkled handkerchiefs from her pocket and handed her mother one that was still dry. “Why are you crying now?”
“I’m not.” Mother sniffed and accepted the handkerchief. “I have only ever tried to do what is best. If I have been overbearing in that effort, my intentions have always been good.”
“I know.”
“And now you’ve become this independent, self-sufficient creature.”
Lucy widened her eyes. “I’ve what?”
“You needn’t deny it, dear. There’s an air of, oh, I don’t know, confidence about you that was never there before. Lady Northrup mentioned it in her letter and even your brothers have noticed, and you know how obtuse they can be. And I can see a definite change in you.”
“Can you?” Lucy stared.
“Oh my, yes.” Mother nodded. “Admittedly, it’s nearly obscured by your obvious distress at the moment, but it’s there all the same. And I have no idea why. Nor do I know what you have done here these last few weeks.” She sniffed, sat up straighter, and met her daughter’s gaze. “I had always hoped it would be the two of us united in a house full of men.”
“Oh, Mother.” Lucy’s heart melted.
“I hoped you would be able to confide in me. I hoped, when you were an adult, we could be close, but it never seemed we had any common ground. You’ve always been so, well . . .”
“Perfect?”
“Exactly.” Mother nodded. “And I’ve always been so . . .”
“Demanding? Expectant? Intractable?”
Mother’s brow furrowed with dismay. “Have I really?”
“No.” Lucy scoffed, then grimaced. “Somewhat.”
“Oh dear. I never meant to be. I was just trying to do what was best. What was right. I suppose I was trying to be my mother.” Mother shook her head. “After four boys you have no idea how much I wanted a daughter. Didn’t you ever wonder why I never made much of a fuss about you and Jackson postponing an engagement year after year?”
“You did mention it rather frequently,” Lucy said wryly.
“That’s my job, dear. But I quite selfishly didn’t relish the idea of your not being around every day. So as much as it might seem that I pushed you and Jackson together, believe me, I could have done far more.” She sighed. “I just wanted your life to be perfect. Mine has been and I owe it all to my mother.”
“Your mother?” Lucy’s grandmother had died before she was born.
Mother’s eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t think I wanted to marry your father?”
“Well, actually, yes, I had.”
“Oh, good Lord, no. For one thing I had no desire to be Mary Merryweather.”
Lucy choked back a laugh. “Who?”
“My first name is Mary. I’m surprised you didn’t know that, although I never use it anymore. My mother pointed out if I married your father, I could use my middle name—Pauline. I always loved Pauline. Mother hated it. She thought it sounded like an actress.” Mother flashed her a grin. “Part of why I liked it.”
“Mother!” Lucy laughed.
“Your father thought the whole thing was very funny.” She smiled. “He has an excellent sense of humor.”
“My father?”
“Oh my, yes. That’s what made up for his being a banker. And what made me fall in love with him.” She shook her head. “I had no desire to marry a banker.”
“You didn’t?” Lucy said slowly.
“No indeed. I wanted a man of adventure who would take me along on adventures with him. An adventurer or an explorer.” She thought for a moment. “Or a pirate.”
“Mother!”
“I know it’s extremely silly but I was very young.” She thought for a moment and her voice softened. “And then he became a man of adventure. During the war they all were, really. I nearly lost him at Gettysburg. Did you know that?”
She stared. “I had no idea.”
“He was home right before the battle and you were born the next year. After Gettysburg, he was transferred to the quartermaster corps, the perfect place for a banker. He had managed to avoid it up till then and he was furious.” She smiled. “I was delighted.”
Shock coursed through Lucy. The idea of her imposing, solid father as being anything approaching adventurous was hard to accept or believe. “I didn’t know any of this.”
“There was no reason why you should. It was a very long time ago. Your father never speaks of those days and neither do I.” She shrugged. “It’s pointless really. The past is over and done with. And our lives have turned out well in the end.”
“I’m so . . . glad.” Lucy had never really thought of her parents as being anything other than the socially prominent Harold and Pauline Merryweather, pillars of the community. Eminently proper and extremely dull. Now, she had a glimpse of a woman in love with a husband who had gone off to war. A young mother with four sons who feared the man she loved might never return.
“As am I.” Mother smiled. “It was my mother who encouraged me, no, pushed me toward your father. I’ve never regretted it. It hasn’t been perfect, mind you. Your father can be high-handed, inflexible, and quite annoying.”
Lucy snorted back a laugh. That she could believe.
“We’ve been quite happy, Lucy, for more than thirty-three years now, and I don’t think one can ask for more than happiness. It has been the most wonderful”—her hazel eyes twinkled—“adventure.”
“I never thought of you as the sort of woman who was interested in adventure,” Lucy said without thinking.
Mother laughed. “Life itself, my darling girl, can be the most marvelous adventure with the right person by your side. And even if someone’s life might seem rather staid and boring—”
“Oh, I have never thought . . .”
Mother raised a skeptical brow.
“Well, perhaps I did,” Lucy said weakly.
“Of course you did.” She patted her daughter’s hand. “No one ever imagines their parents might have done anything even remotely interesting before they became parents.”
Lucy wondered what she and this woman she now realized she hardly knew had missed through the years with both of them trying very hard to be what they were expected to be. She drew a deep breath. “May I confide something to you?”
“Always, but can it wait?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Because I came up to tell you there’s a very dashing young man downstairs wishing to see you.” Mother studied her closely. “A lord something or other.”
“Cameron Effington?” Her hopes rose and she viciously slapped them down. She really didn’t care if he was here or not, but it had been three days and if the man truly loved her, one would think he would make some sort of effort to see her.
“I think so. He’s the one who has been sending the flowers, isn’t he?”
Lucy nodded.
“I can have your brothers throw him out, you know. Or give him a sound thrashing if you’d prefer.”
Lucy smiled. “That would be lovely.”
“Very well then.” Mother stood and started toward the door.
“No, Mother, wait,” Lucy said quickly. She didn’t think her mother would actually set her brothers on Cameron, but she was learning all sorts of things she never suspected about her mother today and it might be best not to take a chance. “I will see him.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.” She blew a long breath. It might be best to have it out with him and then never see him again. There were things she needed to say. “But I’ll see him nonetheless.”
“Of course you will,” Mother said staunchly. “Besides, your brothers can always thrash him later if you wish. I might well assist them myself.” She flashed her daughter a wicked smile, then paused. “I won’t press you about him, but I am here to listen if you ever feel the need to talk to someone. Someone who will always, always be on your side. But, if I may give you a piece of advice.”
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