Loving Lucy

by Lynne Connolly

  Lucy’s heart leapt. Why she wasn’t quite sure now, but she knew it must be good. Voices could be heard in the hall, and then steps hurrying up to the drawing room.

  The door opened and there, unannounced, was Sir Geoffrey Sanders.

  He looked magnificent. His carefully tailored dark blue coat shadowed the strong lines of his shoulders, tapering off into a slim waist and hips. His height emphasised his good looks, as did the dark hair carelessly tumbled in a style elaborate in its simplicity. He turned warm, brown eyes to her. “Lucy, you look wonderful,” he said.

  Mildly surprised to see him, Lucy offered her hand for him to kiss. “Thank you.”

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Lady Royston. “Surely you should be at the church.”

  Sir Geoffrey grimaced. “I didn’t want to be left waiting,” he explained. “I wanted to be sure there was something worth waiting for. And I see that there was.” His smile warmed Lucy and she smiled back muzzily.

  “You cannot travel with us,” Lady Royston said. “The bride and groom cannot go to their wedding in the same carriage.”

  “Mine waits outside,” he informed them, not taking his gaze from Lucy. He looked her over hungrily, like a man sizing up a good meal. “How are you now, my dear? Fully recovered?”

  “A slight headache,” she said quietly. “But it’s gone.”

  “I can hardly wait,” he said, and took her hand to his lips again.

  Lucy watched the intimate gesture with puzzlement. “Why are you coming to my wedding?”

  Sir Geoffrey laughed out loud. Then he stopped, frowned and looked at her more closely. “Is she quite well?”

  “Completely,” Lady Royston said smoothly. “I gave her a sleeping draught last night to help her rest, and put a little more in her chocolate this morning. She’s docile enough, and by the time the drops wear off she’ll be a married woman.”

  Curtis took a sharp breath. “What drops, my lady?”

  Arrogantly, Lady Royston turned her gaze to the maid, but deigned to reply. “Laudanum. I always have some by me.”

  Curtis clapped one hand to her mouth, horrified. “Lady Lucy complained of a headache this morning and I gave her a dose.”

  Lady Royston’s look of complacent superiority vanished, to be replaced by contemplative concentration. “How much?”

  “Just a normal dose.”

  “So did I.”

  Sir Geoffrey bent to stare at Lucy. “She’s gone,” he said calmly. “You can hardly see the blue in her eyes. But she’s awake, she’ll recover. I’ll just have to keep her awake until the dose wears off.”

  Lady Royston looked a trifle anxious, an unusual state for her to be in. It compounded her anxiety of the last few weeks, and gave way to irritability. “Oh my goodness, I must have taken as much myself from time to time. A wonderful medicine, quite harmless, I’m sure.”

  Lucy smiled warmly at Sir Geoffrey. “Shall we go now?”

  Then a lot of things seemed to happen quickly, one after the other, just like a play. The doorbell rang, and despite a lot of shouting from below, footsteps could again be heard on the staircase. But there seemed to be a lot of people this time, a herd of heavy footsteps galumphing up the stairs. Her mother would not be pleased, Lucy thought. Not refined at all.

  The door to the salon burst open and an astonishing number of people suddenly rushed in. Lucy stepped back, afraid at the sudden incursion. People she knew, oh yes - the Carmichaels, and Lord Edward Wenlock. Come for her wedding? But where was Philip? Oh yes, she would see him in church.

  Mrs. Carmichael looked very, very angry, and Christina, following in her wake, just as fierce. They had brought Janet too, and Mr. Chumleigh - Lucy knew she had signed what she needed, so why was he here? It was all too difficult to understand. She found a chair behind her and sank into it gratefully, feeling the need of its support.

  “I would appreciate it if you would leave at once.” Lady Royston said in freezing tones.

  “I’m sure you would,” came the disobliging reply from Mrs. Carmichael.

  Turning from her ladyship, Mrs. Carmichael looked at Lucy, arrayed in all her finery, her beringed hands clasped in her lap. “Do you want this?” she demanded.

  Lucy looked up at her and smiled. “More than anything.” she breathed.

  Mrs. Carmichael looked uncertainly at her daughter, and then back to Lucy. “I thought you dreaded it above all things? I thought - “ She frowned. “ I know what he did. If I hadn’t seen it myself I don’t think I would have come.”

  Christina went over to where Lucy sat while her mother concentrated on Lady Royston. “Have you seen it?” Mrs. Carmichael demanded. This was the confrontation Lucy had sometimes imagined, tucked in her cosy bed in Red Lion Square, but she was in no condition to enjoy it.

  Lady Royston was temporarily taken aback by the invasion. “Really, I - “

  “You haven’t, have you? That man - “ she indicated Sir Geoffrey with one sweep of her practically gloved arm. “ Could have killed her. How could you let this happen? What kind of mother are you?”

  “Mama - “ Janet came forward and touched her mother on the shoulder, but Mrs. Carmichael shrugged her off with a brief - “And as for you -.” She cast a darkling look at her daughter and then back at Lady Royston. That lady stood totally still, her back completely rigid, the epitome of aristocratic outrage.

  “This is too much.” she burst out. “If you will not leave I will have you ejected at once. With as much violence as needful.” she raised her voice to a level rarely heard. “Greene.”

  The huge man came forward, but Lord Wenlock raised his hand, and he stopped uncertainly. “Wait. We have more than indignation for you.” He turned to Mr. Chumleigh.

  That gentleman reached inside his pocket and drew out a thick piece of paper, with an undoubtedly legal look about it.

  Before he could speak, Christina turned an anxious gaze on her mother. “Mama. Lucy’s been drugged. Her eyes are enormous, and her breath smells too sweet.”

  “She only had chocolate this morning, it may be from that,” said Curtis, but no one took any notice. Lord Wenlock was across the room in two strides, and he bent to Lucy. He lifted her chin, gazed at her and then sniffed. Standing up, he demanded, “How much did you give her?”

  “It seems she had two doses of laudanum instead of one this morning,” Curtis said.

  The silence was deafening, eventually broken by his lordship. “You could have killed her. You must have given her a massive dose to put her into this state.”

  “It was inadvertent,” Lady Royston was forced to admit. “I had already given her a dose when Curtis administered another for a headache.”

  “Did either of them know you have given her some?”

  “Why should they? I’m her mother; I do what is best for my daughter.”

  Mrs. Carmichael’s sharply indrawn breath of indignation made more impact than if she had screamed. But all she said, softly, was, “I doubt that. Take her out to the carriage, she’s coming home with us.”

  “No.” Sir Geoffrey came forward. Lord Wenlock looked him up and down as if he was a beetle, despite Sir Geoffrey being half a head taller. “She will not be marrying anyone today, sir,” he said very quietly. “She is not well enough to marry anyone.”

  “She will marry Sir Geoffrey in half an hour,” said Lady Royston. It was as though no one had spoken.

  It was Mr. Chumleigh’s turn. Smiling his unctuous, professional smile, which usually meant nothing but this time meant a great deal, he cleared his throat, and in the ensuing quiet announced; “I have here a copy of a paper presently lodged at my office. You are free to come and view the original whenever you wish. It’s Lady Lucy’s signed and witnessed statement that she does not wish to marry Sir Geoffrey Sanders, now or at any other time. She revokes the contract she signed and states that if she should marry him, it would be by compulsion.” He paused to let his words take effect. “A marriage conducted when one of the particip
ants is under duress is no marriage at all.”

  He had succeeded in distracting Sir Geoffrey from Lord Wenlock, and the knock-down fight that was threatening to overturn the usually tomb quiet drawing room. Mr. Chumleigh very much feared the outcome wouldn’t be good for Lord Wenlock, and thought it more prudent to rely on other measures.

  Sir Geoffrey stepped forward and took the paper from Chumleigh. He read it through and then, before Chumleigh’s face, tore it in two. “It means nothing next to the marriage contract.” He was furious now, his hands balled into fists, his soft brown eyes blazing with temper.

  “I have the original in the office,” Mr. Chumleigh repeated. His calm was a distinct contrast to the man who stood before him. “I think there are enough of us here to witness that Lady Lucy is temporarily not in her right mind, and must not be made to go through with this ceremony.”

  “She’ll feel better by and by,” Sir Geoffrey said easily.

  “I doubt that.” said Mrs. Carmichael. It was her turn to face up to him. “You are nothing less than a bully, sir, and certainly nothing more.” She turned her attention back to Lady Royston. “As for you - a more unnatural mother it has never been my ill fortune to come across.” She could be said to be bridling by now. “To compel your only child to make a match with a man who might kill her before he’s done. I have no patience with you, ma’am.” she stood still, and the only sound in the room for a few moments was her laboured breathing as she attempted to recover her serenity. “Lucy is a good girl and she deserves better than you. I intend to see she gets it.” Without looking round, she said; “Take her out to the carriage, girls. I’ll come out directly.”

  Christina and Janet helped Lucy to her feet. She smiled at them, obviously oblivious to the scene going on around her. “Is he here yet?”

  “Not yet,” Christina said, but she didn’t elaborate. Lucy went with them willingly enough, getting into the hackney which waited outside. They set off for Red Lion Square.

  Inside the room Lady Royston turned and looked out of the window that overlooked the garden. She wasn’t used to defeat, and might even yet be planning how to turn the situation round. Her faithful companion went to stand close to her but didn’t say anything, waiting until she should be required.

  Seeing her defeat, Mrs. Carmichael felt nothing but sorrow. To see a mother lose her child in this way couldn’t evoke any other emotion in her. Her indignation at the vile treatment meted out to Lucy in this house centred instead on her betrothed, who had committed the vilest of vile deeds. She looked at him, and then turned away. “Come away now,” she said to Mr. Chumleigh, swallowing the words she had meant to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lucy woke up suddenly, bathed in sweat. Startled blue eyes snapped open and stared uncomprehendingly around. She had been standing at the altar next to Geoffrey, and he held her hand, but he had a riding crop in the other. The dream had been so vivid she had smelled his perfume, felt the warm grip of his large hand in hers. The feeling of being trapped was overwhelming and as she sat up in bed she shouted, “No.”

  “Lucy?” that voice again, the one which had woken her up from her nightmare before. Looking wildly about her she eventually recognised the little flower strewn room, Potter, and - someone else. “Philip? What are you doing here?”

  He smiled reassuringly. “They let me sit with you. Christina has but this moment gone downstairs for her dinner.” He came over to her, touched her hand where it lay on the bed. She looked down, returned the clasp a little feebly. “Forgive me - I don’t quite know what’s happened, where I am.”

  He took the chair Potter drew up for him and kept hold of her hand. “You’re safe, in Red Lion Square. Your mother must know where you are now, but you’re not to worry about that. She won’t take you away again.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “The Carmichaels came and fetched you.” He looked at her for a moment. “Would you like something? Are you hungry, thirsty?”

  “Thirsty,” she said.

  Potter poured out a glass of the barley-water that stood on the little table by the window. Philip helped her to sit and drink. She felt very shaky, and was grateful for his help. She would have liked to have continued to rest against him, but mindful of the proprieties, he gently laid her against the pillows when she had done and sat back on the chair.

  “Tell me,” she said simply.

  “How much do you remember?”

  With her hand in his, Lucy felt safe enough to go back. “I can’t tell what is real and what isn’t,” she said. “Please - am I married?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No, not yet.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. Most of the dreams of the last - however long it had been had centred on the altar. “What day is it?”

  “Wednesday. About six o’ clock.”

  She could hardly believe it. Her look of astonishment must have told him what she was feeling, for he said, “You were given a massive dose of laudanum. I think your mother wanted to keep you docile at the altar, but your maid gave you another dose on top of it, and by the time they got to you, you were dangerously near the edge.”

  “I’m not used to laudanum,” she said. “But my mother takes it a lot. Perhaps she gave me what would be a normal dose for her.”

  He shook his head. “It was criminal in her not to tell anyone what she had done. Your maid gave you a small dose for a headache, but it could have been enough to kill you on top of what you’d already had.” His grip on her hand tightened momentarily.

  “They kept you awake for a while,” he said, “Afraid to let you sleep, but when you began to recognise people and your surroundings, they put you to bed. I arrived this morning. You were past any danger then.” He paused for a moment. “I would never had gone had I thought they would do such a terrible thing.” His voice nearly broke.

  “My mother likes everything to be as she arranges it. I kept telling her I wasn’t going to marry Geoffrey, I threatened a scene at the altar, so she must have decided to keep me tractable. I thought I might bring her round at first, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “We’ll look after you here until Saturday - if you still want to go ahead, that is?”

  The carefully controlled query nearly broke her heart. She smiled at him as warmly as she could. “More than anything else.”

  Her reward was an answering smile and a slight squeeze of her hand. “Thank you.” His relief was palpable. “I won’t rest safe now until I have you safe.”

  They looked at each other in peace for a moment until he said; “Everything else is arranged. Uncle George is back at his house and willing to marry us on Saturday. I have the licence safe.”

  “My mother doesn’t know about that,” she told him. “She doesn’t know about you, unless I babbled it in a laudanum dream. She knows you’re involved - Edward Wenlock’s presence and the involvement of the Carmichaels must have told her that - but I didn’t tell her. I think I was afraid to tell her. I thought I could get away, but they posted Greene outside my door, and I couldn’t. I was planning to refuse him at the altar, so my mother thought to drug me to stop me doing it.”

  “My poor love.” he said warmly, and then, “You would have been better off without your fortune, wouldn’t you?”

  She smiled, realising the truth of what he was saying. If Philip had been given the bulk of the money as well as the estate, her mother would have been a lot more accepting of her choice. The money had brought nothing but trouble recently. The knowledge that her mother had been clandestinely dipping into the funds made her sorrowful, rather than angry.

  Potter came forward. “I’ll go and find some dinner for you, my lady, and tell the others that you’re awake. I won’t be more than ten minutes.” She bobbed a curtsey and left the room.

  “Tactful woman.” said Lucy, opening her arms to him.

  He held her tightly against him for a full minute before he drew back a little to kiss her. She responded with all the passion
her exhausted mind and body could summon up. “I like it here,” she said, finally. He smiled at her comment, but said; “When I think how close I came to losing you without even knowing it. You might have had grounds for annulment, but the scandal would have been terrible, and you might even have decided to make the best of it.”

  “Oh no,” she said. She looked at his face, smiling. “I would have come back to you, one way or another. If you wanted me, that is.”

  “Always,” he said, and kissed her again. “I still can’t believe what I looked for hopelessly all those years is about to happen. Perhaps that’s why I had a feeling of foreboding on Easter Sunday, or perhaps I just missed you.”

  “Maybe,” she replied. “I missed you, so much.”

  Philip drew back hurriedly when the door opened to admit Christina and Mrs. Carmichael, but they merely smiled in a knowing way and came to the bed. After a long, searching look, Mrs. Carmichael kissed her forehead and sat on the chair Philip found for her. “We were very worried about you for a little while,” she said, “But you seem to be well enough now.”

  “You didn’t know any of us,” added Christina. She sat on the edge of the bed, the room having no more chairs to offer, and settled her skirts. “We thought you’d lost your wits completely.”

  “No, it was only the drug,” Lucy said. “I knew you all very well as my good friends and protectors. I’m so grateful you came for me.”

  “We tried earlier,” said Mrs. Carmichael, “But they wouldn’t let us in and even offered us violence.”

  “Oh dear.” Lucy said. “I spent a lot of time in my room, because I didn’t want to be with them. That’s on the second floor, at the back. Perhaps if I’d been downstairs I might have heard you.”

  “Perhaps.” Mrs. Carmichael shrugged. “But we came back yesterday with Mr. Chumleigh and a bailiff. Lord Wenlock was visiting at the time - “was it her imagination, or did Christina blush? The girl had a florid complexion, but Lucy was sure that becoming shade of pink wasn’t the heat - “And he offered to come with us. The combination of his lordship, Mr. Chumleigh and the bailiff did the trick.” She paused. Lucy had slipped her hand back in Philip’s, but she reached the other one to her kind friend. Mrs. Carmichael smiled warmly. “That was a scene I would like to see again. Perhaps I might prevail on someone to make a play of it.” She took a deep, sighing breath. “But when we saw you, my dear, I thought the game was up. You were dressed for your wedding, and seemed quite reconciled to it. But it soon became obvious you were confusing two events, so we brought you home.”