Page 101 of Give Him a Chance
Chapter Nineteen
June 14, 1841
Lucy saw theconcern rise in her mother’s pinched expression and did her best to ward it off. “Mama, this is perfectly respectable—there is no law against protesting!”
Her attempts did not work. “It’s not very elegant though dear, is it?” tutted the Countess of Lindow, standing in the melee of women standing outside the Brighton courthouse. “If only there was a way to do it elegantly.”
“If I can discover a way to thrust a placard in the air at a protest gracefully, Mama, you’ll be the first to know,” Lucy retorted—though most of her words were overcome by the chant that the Prison Reform Society had started up.
“End transportation! End transportation! End transportation!”
“And do they have to shout so, dear?” the countess asked, lifting a hand to her head and wincing. “I was up all night with your father—”
Lucy recoiled. “Mama!”
“—working out the logistics of a family matter that we discussed at Stanphrey Lacey,” continued her mother, raising an eyebrow. “Honestly, Lucy, I had not considered you a prude.”
It was quite one thing to be a prude, Lucy pondered wryly, and quite another to consider one’s parents… Oh, of coursethey’d had to at some point, but one rather presumed that sort of thing was behind them.
The crowd outside the Brighton courthouse was not quite what she had hoped for when Lucy had rallied the Prison Reform Society troops at their last meeting. Over fifty women had signed up and committed themselves for this on Friday, and as half of them were unwed, Lucy had hoped for at least twenty chaperones as well.
As it was, only about fifteen women had actually arrived, and though a few of them had brought their children, the scamps had wandered off to play, leaving a much smaller crowd than she had hoped.
But there it was, Lucy told herself briskly, raising her placard and allowing her mouth to shout their protest slogan without much thought. She had done it—and it had been weeks since she had done anything truly meaningful for the Prison Reform Society.
She had been a mite distracted.
“Lucy, I can do this. I can be anything you need!”
“But I don’t want you to fabricate who you are just to please me.”
Lucy pushed the memory right out of her mind—or at least, as best she could. The man was quite irritatingly infringing on more than one part of her day, refusing to be kept out of her sleeping hours as well as her waking ones.
But here she was doing what she had been made for. This was surely what she had been put on the earth to do, to change the world and make it a better place.
Lying, spying viscounts notwithstanding.
“And we really plan to stay here all day?” asked her mother faintly, glancing around them.
Lucy sighed. “I told you that you didn’t have to come, Mama.”
“Yes, but Percy is off with Benjamin doing something I probably don’t want to know about, and as my own maid is under the weather, Beachem is mending my favorite bonnet, and I couldn’t possibly send her off with you,” said Lady Lindow lightly. “And you are still an eligible young lady, Lucy. Just about.”
‘Just about.’
Lucy whirled around, almost whacking one of her Prison Reform Society companions with her placard. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I believe it says, ‘Reform our justice system,’ dear,” said the countess, peering at Lucy’s placard.
“I-I know what it says! I meant—”
“Well, honestly, Lucy, I would not have thought I’d need to explain it to you,” her mother said, swallowing before she spoke again. “Gadding about Brighton with him, dancing at the ball. I even heard that you went swimming together.”
Heat burned Lucy’s cheeks as she swiftly looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mama.”
“Hmm. My point is, you still have your reputation, just, and the nasty criminal has gone. And he’s not likely to come back, is he?”
Lucy knew her mother meant well, in that special way that mothers everywhere had of saying the most heart-wrenching thing and then smiling because they’d meant it as encouraging.
