Tweed placed an enamel bathtub in front of the fire and filled it with steaming water. Mrs.Tweed and Mary then shooed him out and turned to help Lucy undress. Lucy stepped away, wrapping her arms around herself.
“No need to be shy, miss. We’re all women here.”
But it wasn’t shyness or modesty that stopped her; it was shame. As usual, Papa had only concerned himself with the appearance of things. The ugly orange dress might look expensive, but her underwear was a disgrace: worn, patched and repatched, barely even suitable for cleaning rags.
Oh well, she supposed, no use putting off the moment. They’d soon realize. Nothing was secret from servants.
She turned her back, stripped off her dress and then her underwear, and stepped into the bath.
Lucy could practically hear the silent looks Mary and Mrs.Tweed must be exchanging, but there was nothing she could do. Finally Mary said, “I’ll see what I can do with this dress. I just hope it hasn’t shrunk.” Lucy hoped it had.
After her bath, Lucy wrapped herself in the large, toasty-warm towels Mrs.Tweed had heated for her and, with a muttered thanks, hurried upstairs to her bedchamber.
Ten minutes later Mary knocked on her door. “Mrs.Tweed sent this up for you, miss.” She brought in a tray containing a large cup of hot chocolate and a slice of Dundee cake and placed it on the dressing table.
Lucy’s cheeks were hot. “Thank you, Mary.”
The whole episode had been an exercise in mortification. And kindness.
***
Evening fell and hunger was beginning to rumble in Gerald’s belly. But where to dine? The landlady of his bachelor suite provided an excellent breakfast, but that was all. He had a number of friends he could call on who’d be happy to join him for dinner, but truth to tell, he was becoming a little weary of the company of young men his own age. They were all too often... callow. Fine for a frivolous evening out, but right now he was not in that sort of mood.
Particularly since he’d lost the race by a whisker. Brexton would be crowing about it all over London. Brexton was not a gracious winner.
Gerald was a member of White’s, but so was his father and his father’s friends, and in their company he was the one who felt callow. The way his father spoke to him—especially in front of his friends—as if Gerald knew nothing and understood less—it grated. Anyone would think him a schoolboy, not a man back from years commanding troops at war.
So his preference tonight was for the Apocalypse Club, a club formed specifically for officers returned from war. He headed for St. James.
He entered the club and, to his surprise, spied a tall, dark-haired man he hadn’t seen since Waterloo. “Colonel Tarrant, well met.”
Of all the men Gerald might have run into, Tarrant was the most welcome. He’d been Gerald’s commanding officer, a fine leader and, despite the gulf between a colonel and a captain, a friend.
The tall man rose and held out his hand with a welcoming grin. “Paton. Good to see you. Join me for a drinkbefore dinner?” They settled back in comfortable leather armchairs and prepared to catch up.
“I thought you were still on the continent, colonel. How long are you back for?”
“For good, I hope,” Tarrant said. “And I’m a colonel no longer. I’ve sold my commission and am returning to civilian life.” He added gruffly, “And it’s Lord Tarrant now.”
“Oh yes. I heard about your brother. My sincere condolences. You were close, weren’t you?”
Tarrant nodded. “My best friend as well as my brother. Stepping into his shoes has not been easy.” He sipped his wine and grimaced. “Every time someone addresses me as ‘Lord Tarrant,’ I turn my head, expecting to see Ross.”
Gerald nodded sympathetically. “I’m still not used to people calling my father ‘Lord Charlton,’ when that’s always been his brother.”
“Oh yes, and you’re a viscount now, aren’t you? Lord...?”
“Lord Thornton, for my sins.”
Tarrant raised a brow. “Not enjoying your rise to the peerage?”
Gerald shook his head. “No, it’s—it’s... oh, nothing.” He shouldn’t have said anything about his new position. He wasn’t one to wash his family’s dirty linen in public. Not that his father’s miserliness and determination to control every aspect of his newly inherited estate was dirty linen, precisely. Just endlessly frustrating for his heir.
He pulled a face. “It’s nothing—just that now there is a title in play, my mother is after me to take a wife and start breeding an heir. She and my father never fail to remind me that my uncle died without issue. His wife was barren, you see.”
“Ah.” They sipped their drinks and stared into the flames.
Gerald glanced at Tarrant. “I suppose you’ll be doing much the same.”
