The Likelihood of Lucy (Regency Reformers Book 2)

by Jenny Holiday

  “Her more famous works—and her infamous life—aside, she wrote a great deal about the education of women,” Lucy said. “My methods have been heavily informed by her work—On the Education of Daughters, in particular, and of course by A Vindication of the Rights of Women.”

  Ah. He was beginning to understand. “So your methods were discovered, and you were turned away from your positions because no one wants a devotee of the scandalous Mrs. Wollstonecraft instructing their daughters?”

  Her raised eyebrows told him he had hit upon the truth.

  “Could you not conduct your work informed by Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s ideas without advertising the fact?”

  “I tried!” she protested. “Apparently I was not subtle enough because one day at dinner, one of my charges informed her father that it was ‘time for a revolution in female manners—time to restore them to their lost dignity.’ That’s a direct quote from A Vindication, by the way.”

  Trevor couldn’t help but guffaw. “Yes, I wouldn’t exactly call that subtle.”

  “Never mind subtle. Clearly, in the future, I shall have to resort to outright deception. And, sadly, that should not prove a problem because my copies of Mary’s books, along with all the rest of my possessions, remain at the home of my last employer.”

  “I’ll send for them. What’s the name of the family?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He stopped. “It does matter. You may have had a serious disagreement, and they may be within their rights to terminate your employment, but they can’t keep your personal things. And didn’t you say you had wages owed?”

  She shifted from one foot to the other and looked down the street. There was something she still wasn’t saying.

  “Hell,” he said, “I can steal your things back if you prefer. I used to be good at that.”

  His intention had been to make her smile, and he succeeded. The irony was that he was still good at skulking around conducting illegal activities. It’s just that now, they were in service to the Crown.

  “There’s no need to retrieve my things by means legitimate or otherwise,” she said, walking forward without him.

  She was definitely hiding something. Catching up to her, he took her arm. “Change of plan. We’re not going home just yet.”

  Chapter Four

  “What is this place?” Lucy asked as Trevor led her up the steps of a grand mansion on Grosvenor Square. “You can’t just knock on the door with a trout under your arm!”

  He raised an eyebrow as he lifted and released the heavy knocker.

  “Stanway.” Trevor greeted the butler and was rewarded with a slight smile from the otherwise inscrutable servant.

  He let them right in. “My lord and my lady aren’t at home to guests this morning, so you’ll have them to yourself,” he said, leading them to a morning room tucked away at the back of the house. It seemed like the sort of room the home’s occupants actually used. Lacking the formality of parlors that would be used to receive guests, the furniture was a tad threadbare, and a stack of newspapers littered a side table.

  “Not home to guests?” Lucy whispered as the butler retreated. “Are we not guests?”

  “No.” Trevor took off his coat and looked very much at home as he sank into a chair.

  “Trevor!” A small, dark-haired woman rounded the corner and made straight for him, holding out her hands and clasping his as if she were a sister who hadn’t seen him for months. “I’ve found the perfect teacup!”

  “We’ve settled on the cups! I’ve already ordered them.”

  “Oh, drat.” The woman pouted. “Well, they really were perfect—a little green ivy winding around the handles.”

  The woman had not noticed Lucy—or, apparently, the appearance of a tall, dark, devil of a man in the doorway. Lucy observed that one of his sleeves hung empty—the story of the earl who’d lost his hand on campaign on the continent had circulated through all the homes she’d worked in. He was quite intimidating as his eyes bored into Lucy’s, almost as if he were trying to see directly into her soul.

  “Good morning,” the man said, drawing the attention of Trevor and the chattering woman. Amazingly, they both looked at the frightening gentleman with obvious affection.

  “Blackstone, Emily, may I present an old friend, Miss Lucy Greenleaf. Lucy, the Earl and Countess of Blackstone.”

  Lady Blackstone moved to her husband’s side and nodded at Lucy. Good heavens! To think, twenty-four hours ago she’d been wet and homeless, and now she was a guest in an aristocratic home.

  “I need to speak with you,” Trevor said to the earl.

  “Your timing is impeccable, because I need to speak to you as well,” Lord Blackstone said.

  The countess reached for the bell pull. “I’ll order some tea for us, Miss Greenleaf.”

  “You should get along famously. You’re both reformers,” Trevor said. He looked at Lucy while nodding in Lady Blackstone’s direction and said, “Abolition.” Then he did the reverse and said, “Rights for women.”

  And drat the man if he didn’t then stride out without even a glance back, leaving Lucy standing in her ill-fitting dress, facing the prospect of tea with an abolitionist countess.

  “Things have been quiet since Waterloo.” Trevor remarked as Blackstone ushered him into the library. The earl and Emily had been married a year, but Trevor was still not accustomed to seeing her influence in his friend’s life. Not in the décor, so much, but in the sense that Blackstone’s longstanding habit of sleeping in the library was clearly no longer. Fire unlit, the unusually orderly room showed no signs of a twitchy gentleman passing restless nights within.

  “Yes. Amazing to think the wars are really over. But I am taking up a mission of sorts.”

  Trevor raised his eyebrows. “Having trouble adjusting to the quiet of domestic life, Blackstone?”

  His friend ignored the jest. “A man was murdered last summer.”

  Trevor took the chair near the fireplace. “I’m sure many men were murdered last summer.”

  “Yes, but not all of them were gruesomely disemboweled in their own beds.”

  Trevor let loose a low whistle.

  “Indeed. Captain William Gelling of the Oxfordshire Regiment. Murdered while on leave—in his wife’s parents’ home. No sign of forced entry. Nothing else in the house disturbed. His family have been searching for answers, and Bow Street has turned up nothing.”

  “And what have you turned up?”

  “Also nothing. But I’m just getting started. I’m going to try to speak to all his superior officers, and seconds in command. Will you help?”

  “The hotel is off-limits,” Trevor said, more sharply than he intended. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s your hotel as much as mine.” Indeed, Blackstone was one of seven investors who had helped get the outrageously expensive venture off the ground. And in addition to his own investment, Blackstone had used his connections to introduce Trevor to others among the ton looking for discreet ways to expand their fortunes.

  The hotel was everything Trevor had worked for. Unlike the mines and ships he owned, the hotel was four walls and a roof. A place to keep safe and dry. “I don’t want it mixed up in the spying. It’s just too…” Gad, he sounded like some kind of sentimental girl.

  “I haven’t said anything about the hotel, man. I just want to know if I give you some names, will you do some legwork for me?”

  Chastened, Trevor looked to the floor. “Of course.”

  Blackstone handed over a list. Trevor scanned the names—none of them familiar. But no matter, they had connections, and Blackstone had taught him well.

  “It’s your hotel, Trevor.” Blackstone spoke quietly, but Trevor was startled just the same. “If you don’t want spying there, there won’t be spying there.”

  God bless Blackstone. He could be a right bastard—or at least he had been before Emily—but he was a true friend. Had been since the day Trevor joined the company. The blacksmith’s apprentice
and future earl had cast their fortunes together ever since—on the battlefield, in espionage, in trade.

  “Besides, you have enough trouble keeping the investors calm as it is.” Blackstone smirked. “Can you imagine if they discovered the Jade was a hotbed of espionage?”

  “That’s why I have you, my pedigreed friend, to mollify the investors.” He made light of it, but it was true that the aristocratic men investing in the hotel were sensitive about anything they viewed as too gauche or newfangled. It went deeper than not wanting to be seen dabbling in trade, though that had them spooked, too. They were a conservative lot. The very idea of a hotel was still new within England. The English were accustomed to inns, smaller establishments geared toward travelers, offering simple fare to eat. Trevor’s hotel would be a destination in and of itself. And of course the word itself was French, which made the investors jittery. Though Trevor had done extensive research—taking them on excursions to Mivarts and even going so far as to escort a few of them to visit Elmfield House in Exeter—it was Blackstone’s advocacy that had ultimately won them over.

  “But none of this matters.” Blackstone waved his uninjured hand in the air. It’s time for you to answer the obvious question.”

  “It is? What is the obvious question?”

  “Who the hell is Miss Greenleaf?”

  Right. He cleared his throat. “Miss Greenleaf is a governess. She’s in need of a situation.” He didn’t mention his sense that she was hiding something, that there was something she wasn’t saying about how her recent employment had ended. Why else would she be content to let her employers keep all her personal belongings? “I need your help finding her a new position.”

  Blackstone’s eyebrows lifted slightly. For the taciturn spymaster, this was as close to shock as his face was probably capable of. Trevor had never outright asked for help before. “Of course,” his friend said, recovering his signature bland expression. “I’ll ask around. Who are her references?”

  “She hasn’t any—that’s the problem. She was dismissed from both her previous posts for espousing the philosophies of Mary Wollstonecraft.”

  Trevor expected a scowl. He expected expressions of incredulity. He did not expect the earl to throw back his head and let loose a peal of laughter. He found himself inexplicably defensive. “I beg your pardon. She’s been unfairly maligned!”

  “Who?” asked Blackstone, still grinning, “Miss Greenleaf or Mrs. Wollstonecraft?”

  He couldn’t help smiling at that. “Both, I think.”

  “A rogue female with reform on her mind. This way lies ruin, my friend.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Just because Blackstone’s countess had been a reckless abolitionist when they first encountered her, crisscrossing the country on wild schemes to take down dangerous men, that didn’t have any bearing on Lucy’s situation.

  “You haven’t really answered my question, you know,” said Blackstone, growing thoughtful. “Who is Lucy Greenleaf? Or, more to the point, why are you helping her? And don’t tell me it’s because of a sudden sympathy for her cause.”

  Trevor hesitated. There was no reason not to tell him. The earl knew about his childhood—was the only one who did, in fact. The investors thought Trevor a middle-class boy made good, and that was distasteful enough for them. If they knew where he’d come from, they would never have agreed to back the hotel. The earl, who was a profoundly decent man under his menacing exterior, didn’t care a whit about Trevor’s background. And equally as important, as a fellow soldier, he knew deprivation. He understood the bonds that were forged when people fought for survival side by side. So Trevor decided on the truth. “We grew up together. She was my closest childhood friend. Now she needs help.”

  “All right then.” Blackstone nodded decisively. “We’ll get her a situation.” He stood and moved to the door, pausing with his hand on it. “If that’s what she wants.”

  “What do you mean if that’s what she wants?”

  “Have you asked her?”

  He had not. And he wasn’t planning to. He hadn’t asked what she wanted back when they were children, either.

  She had come to him that horrible night, and he’d just decided that she had to get out. There had been no decision, really. Life for them was about survival. And he couldn’t survive if Lucy had been forced to take up her mother’s trade. So he had determined, right then and there, that he would find a way to get her out. To propel her into another, better life. Even if it meant giving up his best friend.

  He’d had to drag it out of her. He’d known something was wrong when she’d shown up at their willow tree in the park an hour after her mother had summoned her. When Lucy’s mother wasn’t entertaining, she liked to instruct Lucy. On those nights, her mother would drink too much gin and make Lucy conjugate French verbs or practice the correct method for serving tea—even though there was no tea and she was forced to pantomime. Trevor knew Lucy hated it. It made her a mark for the other children who sneeringly called her the Little Lady. But she endured it. To humor her mother was easier than the alternative.

  They’d been going to try to nick some vegetables for dinner that day, but he’d left off. It would have been no fun on his own. So he was mindlessly throwing pebbles at the tree trunk when she appeared next to him and tossed her own.

  “You escaped!” Suddenly this evening wasn’t looking so dull after all. “Why don’t we run over to the market and…” There was something wrong. She was crying, though she was trying mightily to hide it by turning her head and swallowing hard. “Lucy, what’s happened?”

  She shook her head and, unable to stem the tide of tears anymore, began to sob. She might as well have pulled out the small knife she carried in her boot and plunged it into his heart.

  “Tell me what’s happened!” he urged. Then trying to gentle his tone, he added, “Please. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

  She turned those anguished amber eyes on him and said, “My mother informs me it’s time for me to start earning my keep.”

  He sighed. He’d known this day would come. His own mother he kept at bay by stealing enough that she was content to let him run wild, master of his own days. But Lucy’s, as she cycled between succumbing to the poppy and periods of relative lucidity, would no doubt have decided it was time for Lucy to take in piecework full time, or washing.

  “She held an auction,” Lucy said.

  “An auction?” He shook his head, confused. “You haven’t anything worth auctioning.” Unless… He glanced at her hand, where she wore the jade ring with the stone turned inward so as not to attract the attention of would-be thieves.

  She shook her head. “I hide it from her. She doesn’t know about it.”

  “What then? What can she possibly have that will fetch any sort of price?”

  She looked at him, tears gone, eyes hardened. He hated to see her this way, like she was resigned to some horrible fate, being marched off to Newgate.

  “She has an eleven-year-old virgin.”

  “The countess implored me to call her Emily, can you imagine?” Lucy said as Trevor helped her into a hack he’d hired to take them back to the hotel. “If I was a friend of yours, she insisted, there was no choice but to call her by her given name. She said it as if it were an ill fate I was subject to!”

  Lady Blackstone had proved utterly not terrifying. In fact, she had read some of Mary’s works and was quite in sympathy with her arguments. Lucy had almost considered inviting the lady to join her society. She’d checked herself, though. One didn’t invite a countess to socialize with a group of governesses and shopgirls intent on rehabilitating the reputation of a woman widely decried as a hoyden.

  She was still marveling over the stimulating conversation they’d shared when Trevor broke into her reverie.

  “Lucy, do you want to be a governess?”

  The question hit her like a punch. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you looking for a new situation because you h
ave to or because you want to?”

  She hesitated for a moment before deciding on an answer that was not untrue, even if it did skirt the question somewhat. “For those of us who lack wealth, there is no difference between need and want.”

  “Bollocks.” Trevor slapped the seat next to him. “There’s always a difference. It might not be a difference that has any meaning given the circumstances, but it’s a distinction worth making, if only in one’s mind. What you said before about teachers and governesses being only upper servants who have more work than menial ones. Did you mean it?”

  “I was quoting Mary,” she said cautiously.

  “Yes, and I believe you cut yourself short. What did she say next?”

  “She, ah, referenced children being disagreeable and mothers unreasonable, and…” Lucy trailed off, suddenly feeling as if she were stepping into a trap.

  “And?”

  When she didn’t answer, Trevor said, “I’m perfectly capable of looking it up myself, so better you should save us both time and just tell me.”

  All right, then. She looked him in the eye. “She said, ‘in the meantime, life glides away, and the spirits with it.’” It was the truth. She’d felt it more strongly each year, as if she had to let more and more of herself fade away in order to continue doing her job. She supposed some women thrived as governesses, but the horrible truth was that she found it mind-numbingly boring, even in situations in which she felt affection for her charges. But she always forced her way onward by reminding herself that governessing was the key to her independence. So it didn’t matter how much she disliked it, because she disliked the alternative more.

  Trevor gazed evenly at her, almost as if he hadn’t heard her. The only thing that interrupted his silent regard was the halting of the carriage as they arrived back at the hotel. Paying the driver, he helped her down, still unspeaking, and led her around back. They entered through the kitchen door and, setting his hat down on a butcher block, he waved his arm at the row of three gleaming stoves. “Do you know how to use one of these?”