Page 14 of Give Him a Chance
“Well, breakfast started about five minutes ago,” Beachem said, turning away from her and starting to bustle about the bedchamber tidying up the detritus of that morning’s dressing. Ribbons, pins, and the like were carefully put away in boxes as Lucy merely sat there.
Sat there, wondering how on earth she was going to explain to her parents that she had not only brought a dastardly criminal into their midst, but she was now somehow responsible for him. How was one supposed to begin?
“Mama, Papa, Mr. Dixon is not part of the Prison Reform Society—that is, he might be, but from the other direction, as it were.”
“Papa, you know how I feel about transportation to Australia, and when I heard that Mr. Dixon—yes, he is a criminal—that Mr. Dixon was about to be…”
“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, Mama, that just when you think you’re going to a courthouse to argue for prison reform with a judge, you end up being given a criminal as a gift! Isn’t that funny!”
Lucy groaned, dropping her head into her hands. No, none of those approaches would work; none of the ideas she’d toyed with had been up to muster.
How on earth was she going to tell them about this?
“My lady?”
“Nothing,” Lucy said reflexively, rising to her feet and giving the maid a bright smile she certainly did not feel. “Thank you, Beachem. That will be all.”
“Are you certain? You have no places to be, no plans without your parents or brother as chaperone?”
Lucy actually wasn’t sure yet, but whatever the day held for her, she knew it would be more difficult with a chaperone breathing down her neck. “No, you may spend the day as you please. Get some mending done. Take a break. Have a lovely day.”
A lovely day. The weather certainly agreed with her, sunlight streaming through the windows on the landing as Lucy descended the stairs. It was going to be another hot day, from what she could tell, which would mean her brother might attempt to drag her to the beach in the hope of bathing, and she would wish to do nothing more than lie in the garden and do nothing.
But she couldn’t do nothing. She had a criminal to keep.
Lucy groaned as she reached the bottom of the stairs, causing the thin-faced family butler to raise an eyebrow.
How on earth did he do it? No matter what she tried, she could not get the look of imperiousness right.
Perhaps she should ask Cousin Lilianna how she did it. No one could look imperious like Lilianna.
“Good morning, Lady Lucy,” said Cawthorne with a bow.
“Good morning,” replied Lucy, not bothering to point out that it was not a good morning, that there had never been a worse morning, and that it was only going to get worse. “Is everyone else up?”
“Your mother decided to take breakfast with you and your guest, Mr. Dixon,” said the butler quietly. “Though I regret to inform you he has not descended yet. Your father—er, sent his valet to him with some old attire. Seeing as how yourguestarrived without luggage.”
Lucy’s spirits rose. Well, that was all to the good. The servants would get Dixon cleaned up so he could be on his way. Meanwhile, if she could have this conversation with her parents without her would-be ward present, that would surely only help.
It would be most awkward to reveal the man’s skullduggery—whatever it was—in front of him. Besides, he was a most irritatingly charming man. She was liable to tangle her tongue if she tried to speak for long periods of time before him.
Most annoyingly.
“Right,” Lucy said, steeling herself for the worst.
The man who had known her from birth smiled. “Ready?”
The man could not know, of course. Unless Dixon had told him, but Lucy had to presume a man escaping a criminal conviction would want as few people as possible to know the truth of his past.
Perhaps it was just her air of doom that made the butler smile in such a way.
Lucy nodded, shoulders back and fears forward. “Ready.”
The breakfast room was light and airy, re-decorated recently in the French style and with a pair of footmen sedately circling the table, assisting the family in accessing their breakfast needs.
“There she is!” Lucy’s mother smiled as she nudged her husband, removing her disliked spectacles and absentmindedly dropping them off the table. “I told you, the odds were that she would be down before Mr. Dixon. She is most attentive to her guest.”
“A male guest,” the Earl of Lindow said pointedly as he looked over at his daughter approaching the table. “Just when were you going to tell us that you had befriended a gentleman to such an extent that you would extend an invitation for him to stay without asking me first?”
