“Make a life for myself.”
“What kind of a life? Where would you go? What would you do?” The girl had no family that Alice knew of. Only her father. And the world was a harsh place for a young girl alone.
Lucy made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be this, pretending to be someone I’m not, cold-bloodedly hunting a lord, all to live a life where I’ll never belong, never be happy. I don’t belong in high society, and I know it, if Papa doesn’t. He’s not the one who’ll suffer. He won’t be rejected and scorned and humiliated and looked down on.”
“What makes you think it will be like that?”
“It was at school—every one. Papa always chose really exclusive schools, the kind that only take girls from aristocratic families. He lied. He told them I was the granddaughter of a baron.” She rolled her eyes. “The girls invariably knew, of course. First it was my accent—”
“But your accent is quite good.”
“It is now,” Lucy said. “After five fancy schools it should be.”
“Oh.”
“And it’ll be the same here. People will soon find out I’m not ‘one of them,’ and it will be just like school. So I’d rather not go through any of it, if it’s all the same to you.” She leaned forward, her expression pleading now. “So will you do it, my lady—give me the money, I mean?”
After a short silence, Alice sighed. “I’m sorry, Lucy, I can’t do that. Your father and I made an agreement and I—”
Lucy flung up her hands. “Oh! You’re just like Papa! You don’t care about what I want at all! It’s all about money with you people, isn’t it? A person’s happiness doesn’t matter to you at all!” She stormed out of the room, furious and, if Alice was any judge, on the verge of tears.
Alice sank onto the nearest chair, shocked by the outburst and what it had revealed. The reasons for Lucy’s atrocious behavior were clear to her now—and in retrospect, she should have realized. But she’d assumed that Lucy was merely spoiled and indulged and used to having her every whim met.
Some frank talking was required. And an apology.
Because understanding Lucy’s reluctance to enter the ton didn’t make Alice’s situation any better. If anything, it made it worse. Somehow, she had to get those letters back. But how?
Maybe she could talk Bamber into changing his mind about a lord. But in that case, would he still give her the letters? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t do nothing.
The first step was to find out where Bamber was living. And where he kept the letters.
***
Lucy,” Alice said at breakfast next morning, “Do you know where your father lives?”
Lucy looked up sharply. “Why? Are you going to tell him—”
“It’s just in case I need to contact him. He never left me his address.”
Lucy sniffed. “That’s because he hasn’t got one.”
“What do you mean?” He must have one. Everyone had an address.
“I told you I never had a home, didn’t I? Not since Mama died. That’s because Papa doesn’t stay anywhere very long.”
Alice was troubled, and not just by what Lucy was telling her. There was a brittleness beneath the girl’s seemingly careless outlining of her situation. “But how do you contact him?”
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t.”
“But what if you were ill or in desperate need of him?”
Again she shrugged. “I survive or I don’t. But he finds out eventually. He seems to have eyes and ears all over the place.”
“What about letters? Doesn’t he have an address to which people can send correspondence?”
“He had to leave an address with the headmistress when I was at school,” Lucy admitted.
“Well then—”
