“Playing at, Aunt Alice?” Gerald said with an innocent expression.
She eyed him narrowly. “You know very well what I’m talking about.”
Mr.Carswell leaned forward and gave her a reproachful look.
Alice leaned closer to Gerald. “I’ll speak to you later.”
***
I’m going to strangle Gerald,” Alice declared after he’d delivered her and Lucy home from Vauxhall. “I’ve asked him to call on me first thing in the morning. I was too angry to speak to him tonight.”
“Didn’t you enjoy yourself, Alice?” Lucy asked. “I did, immensely. Especially the fireworks.”
Alice looked at her. “You can’t possibly have enjoyed Mr.Carswell’s conversation.”
Lucy gave a gurgle of laughter. “The Baron of Beef? I did, in a way.”
“But the man was such a bore!”
Lucy giggled. “I hope you spell itb-o-a-r.”
Against all inclination, Alice laughed. “Exactly! But how could you have possibly enjoyed talking to him—or listening to him, I should say. You looked quite rapt.”
“I wasn’t. I was just pretending to listen. Men like that only need the appearance of an audience.”
“Then why—”
“Didn’t you notice your nephew’s face?” Lucy said with a mischievous smile. “The more I doted on Mr.Porker’s conversation, the crosser Lord Thornton got. It was the same with Mr.Ffolliot. I cooed agreement with that dreadful man while Lord Thornton sat there glowering. It was so entertaining.”
“So you think Gerald is doing it deliberately?”
“Offering me impossible men? Yes, of course. I must say, he’s showing a great deal of ingenuity in coming upwith them. I expect he’ll be running out of impossible gentlemen soon and will have to dig up some poor creature out of the gutter. Or debtor’s prison.” She laughed.
“Don’t you mind?”
“Not at all. It’s vastly entertaining.”
“But why is he doing it?”
Lucy’s smile was like the cat’s that ate the cream. “Perhaps to punish me for making him lose his race. He certainly gets cross when I seem to enjoy these men’s company, doesn’t he? And they enjoy mine.”
Alice doubted it had anything to do with the wretched race. “Well, you might not mind these ridiculous stratagems, but I do,” she said with asperity. Getting Lucy safely married was not a joke to her. Her future peace of mind rested on it.
Lucy seemed to realize this. She leaned forward to place a hand on Alice’s arm. “Please don’t worry, Alice. I promise you I will find myself a husband, and quickly. It just won’t be with your nephew’s help, that’s all.”
***
But, Aunt Alice, you said you wanted your goddaughter to meet suitable eligible men.”
“Don’t try that flummery on me, Gerald,” Alice said. Gerald had called on her, as she’d requested the previous night. Lucy had gone off with Lady Peplowe and Penny to visit Hatchards bookshop, so Alice had her nephew to herself.
“Not one of the men you’ve produced has been in the slightest bit suitable—eligible, perhaps, but you can’t possibly believe that a girl like Lucy, who is bright and lively, could be interested in marrying a man who never speaks or one who never stops speaking, and then only about pigs! Or one with the kind of attitudes that Mr.Ffolliot espouses? Or the rest? Honestly, Gerald, you couldn’t possibly have dredged up any worse candidates if you tried!”
“Nevertheless, she seems to have made a conquest of them all,” Gerald muttered.
“Is that disappointment I hear in your voice, Gerald? BecauseifLucy has made a conquest of any of those impossible gentlemen, it is simply because she is a polite, kindhearted girl. She might appeal to them, but none of them could ever appeal toher.”
Gerald snorted. “Polite and kindhearted? She’s just trying to annoy me.”
