“Or something stronger,” Mr. Beckett mumbled, following his wife down the stairs.
Lucy and Alex followed, too, arm in arm with weary limbs and sore hearts, all the way to the drawing room. Mr. Beckett pulled out a bottle of brandy from a cabinet, and Mrs. Beckett called for tea before gesturing for Lucy and Alex to sit with her. No one spoke until the tea had arrived and all had been fortified by a heavy swallow of something or other.
“My, my, my,” Mr. Beckett said. “What a night. Never yet experienced the like.”
“Nor me.” Mrs. Beckett rested her cup on her leg. “Did either of you know? That these… men were about?”
“No.” Said together.
Lucy, like her mother before her, had been tricked, seduced by a charming grin and a mouth that said the right things, made promises the heart had no intention of keeping. The disappointment in her mother’s eyes when she found out…
Damn that lying scoundrel.
Damnherself.
Mrs. Beckett tapped a finger on her shoulder. “And you truly believe your brother, Lady Alexandra?”
Alex had stopped trembling, and she stared out the window at the lightening sky. “I do. And I do not think Lord Finley meant any harm, either. He simply wanted to know where I was. He was… worried. I perhaps overreacted. The last time I saw him… It is not a good memory.” She picked at one fingernail, the skin around it raw and angry. “We will send him away, and he will be silent.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” Mr. Beckett asked.
Alex nodded.
“Well, then.” Mrs. Beckett pulled herself up tall. “We’ll throw them out.”
“I must dress and speak with Mr. Sacks,” Mr. Beckett said. “He allowed this to happen.”
After he left, Mrs. Beckett refilled their cups and considered them in silence. She need give no reprimand. Lucy’s bones wailed. She’d been cocky and careless. A bit like how Alex had described Keats.
Lord Rainsly.
Lucy stood. “You need say nothing, Mrs. Beckett. I know this is my fault. You told me what would happen. I put every woman in this house in danger, every child, you and Mr. Beckett. Mr. Sacks will lose his position because of me. I—” She’d hurt herself as well, letting the stable hand with a cocky grin much too close and trusting him with her heart. That organ had gone silent, hardly seemed to even beat.
The natural consequence of loving. Then losing.
She made for the door, every limb screaming the pain she could not voice.
“Where are you going, dear?” Mrs. Beckett asked.
“Home.” More lies. She took all the stairs to the attic and stared down Pat and Fred.
“Can’t let you beyond this point, miss,” Pat said.
“For yer own good,” Fred added.
“I appreciate your concern, but I will enter. He has lied to me, and I will have my say.”
They shared a look, then shuffled away from the door.
She swept inside, and Keats’s gaze hit her like a wall of flames, his shocked gasp of her name an arrow to her heart. Lucy faced the door and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She hated this. Hated him. Hated herself.
“Don’t cry, angel.”
Her eyes flew open, and she swung around to face him. Keats—no, Rainsly—stood across the room, hands slouched into pockets, his face pale in the early morning light. He rocked toward her.
“Stop right there.” She held out a flat palm, a shield.
He froze. “You’re angry.”
