“I’m sorry,” Alexander said with a shake of his head. “I should not have burdened you with such a thing. But before I leave, do you happen to know where they might have gone? Perhaps a family home in the country somewhere, or…”
Mulligan chewed his bottom lip. He knew something, that much was clear. Alexander just needed to know what.
“I have an idea, yes,” Mulligan said, “but I think we ought to visit Lady Lucille first.”
Alexander balked and stepped backward, his hands raised in the air as if to defend himself. “With all due respect, Mulligan, I do not want to see her ever again. Whatever plan you and she have cooked up—”
“It’s not that,” Mulligan said. He held his hand out pleadingly, people bustling around him. “I’m not surprised you are having difficulty trusting anyone but listening to your story… I have come to believe that there is more to this than meets the eye.”
“Such as?”
Mulligan pushed his breath out of his nose. “I don’t want to make assumptions,” he said. “Just in case I’m wrong. But I believe Lady Lucille will have the answers.”
Alexander snorted, shaking his head. “And why on earth do you think she would give us those?”
“Because she has already lost everything,” Mulligan said with a shrug. “And so have you, by all accounts. Humor me, will you? And then I will tell you everything I know.”
And so it was that Alexander found himself with Arthur Mulligan on the doorstep of Lady Lucille’s home.
“What do you want?” Lucille asked when they were shown into the drawing room. “Mother and Father are out, and I am quite alone.”
To Alexander’s surprise, she looked exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in days.
Like me.
He almost felt a twist of pity for her. Almost. Any misery she was suffering, she had brought on herself. Just as she had brought on his.
“Good,” he replied. “For I doubt you want your parents to know what a manipulative and cruel woman you are.”
Lucille sighed and flopped back on the couch, any drop of her elegant, lady-like grace disappeared beneath a layer of something Alexander didn’t recognize. It was as if she had given up on life.
“All right,” Mulligan said, taking a seat on the opposite couch. “Let’s not get into that. We’re here for a reason. Your Grace, you wanted information, no?”
Alexander rubbed his face of the exhaustion he felt, and as he lowered himself next to Mulligan, he sighed.
“I can’t pretend to know what was going through your mind when you did what you did, Lucille, but you need to know that I will never marry you. I was not going to marry you before all this and now… well…” he scoffed. “I want to know what truly happened. It was all so convenient, you ending up in the Fairchild household. Was it all your own doing?”
She looked at him blankly, the dark circles heavy beneath her eyes, but she said nothing.
“my lady, if you will,” Mulligan replied. “I suspect I already know the truth, knowing my family as I do, but I believe we all need to hear it from you to be certain.”
His kindness ground at Alexander’s nerves, but he gritted his teeth. His grandmother had always told him you’ll never catch bees with vinegar, but sometimes that vinegar had a way of showing itself.
“You can either tell me what on earth is going on and I’ll try to be kind toward you, or I can destroy your reputationentirely by telling the wholetonwhat you have done. I will make sure you never find a husband.”
“Very well,” Lucille said in a soft voice. She knew she had been beaten, and it seemed she had finally accepted that Alexander would never forgive her. “If you must know, the entire thing was Lady Fairchild’s idea.”
Alexander scoffed again. “And we are supposed to believe that, are we? After all you’ve done!”
Lucille glared at him. “I am well aware that I have been no angel, but I promise you, neither is Lady Fairchild.”
Alexander thought back to that fateful night. Hadn’t he caught a sly smile being exchanged between the two of them? He’d had his doubts then, but he’d been so consumed with grief at losing Charlotte that he hadn’t given it much thought. But could he trust Lucille now, after everything?
“It’s true.”
The quiet voice came from beside him, and when he turned to face Mulligan, he had paled.
“I beg your pardon?”
