Robert turned away briefly, twisting the hem of his coat in his hands.
“Couldn’t you talk to him again?” he asked desperately. “Our father.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Robert swallowed.
“My mother has gone to Russia. And my aunt has come to stay, you know, and she’s not bad. But the house is so big when I come home and it echoes and it’s like a mausoleum, don’t you think? Far too shiny. Right dull it is.”
Oh God. He thought of Robert rattling around in there, lonely and bored, and what a lonely and bored and clever child could get up to.
And then all at once Lucien knew he could handle anything the duke would say or do even if he did disapprove of Robert speaking to Lucien. And perhaps—just perhaps—he could speak to the duke again, now that he’d come to terms with the fact that the duke was not and never would be the sort of man Lucien wished he could be. He would speak to him as one man to another. Perhaps. It would bear more thinking.
Life was a series of adjustments and negotiations. It was a balance sheet that, in the end, ought to be reconciled to one thing: love. If at all possible.
He thought of Angelique, and what she would want him to do.
And it was precisely what he wanted to.
And then he looked back at Captain Hardy and Delacorte. Strength and wisdom and discipline. Kindness and openness and joie de vivre. He could think of no two more diverse, or better, examples of the various shades of a good man. God only knew one could learn patience and tolerance from simply being near Delacorte.
He sighed. “Would you like to see the ship?”
Robert’s jaw dropped. He was speechless with joy for a full two seconds, his eyes like lamps. It was impossible not to smile at that.
“Cor!WouldI!”
Lucien sighed heavily and gestured with his chin for his brother to follow him to where Captain Hardy and Delacorte waited.
While Lucien and Captain Hardy and Mr. Delacorte—perhaps the most unlikely trio ever to combine forces—went down to the docks, Angelique went back up to the sitting room with Delilah to take up some of the never-ending mending which was, actually, one of her favorite things to do. So satisfying to transform something torn into something whole, just like that.
The past few months had been the most joyous and chaotic and full of Angelique’s life.
While Captain Hardy had moved with alacrity into Delilah’s little room at the top of the stairs—he was accustomed to small, cramped quarters and was frankly happy to sleep anywhere, as long as Delilah was in the room with him—Lucien was less certain he wanted to live in a room half the size of the one he’d paid three guineas for and reserved with half a token. He wanted lovemaking to be noisy and abandoned, but not necessarily overheard. But they soon discovered that lovemaking needn’t be confined to only one bedroom, or even to a bed. They were resourceful and discreetly tested the acoustics of every room in the Annex as it underwent its transformation.
They would stay in the room at the top of the stairs for now, where Angelique had slept from the moment she’d arrived at The Grand Palace on the Thames. They seldom used it for anything apart from sleeping, anyway. They were both so delightfully busy.
And besides, there were larger rooms at the top of the stairs in the Annex; perhaps one day they would move into one, when the buildings were cleverly connected with an enclosed walkway enabling servants and guests to move to and fro freely, no matter the weather. For they still wanted everyone to eat together, when at all possible. They still wanted everyone to gather in the drawing room. She and Delilah had earnestly discussed the rules, and decided that all of them would stand. Including the jar.
And while an unnerving lull in guests did indeed follow in the wake of the item about Angelique and Lucien in the broadsheets, it was difficult to know whether it could be attributed to that item or was just part of the general ebb and flow of life.
“If anyone who looks a bit shifty eyed comes to the door—”
“Shifty eyed?” queried Dot.
“Shifty eyed,” Angelique reiterated, demonstrating by shifting her eyes, “should come to the door, they are likely from the newspaper and looking for more gossip, hence the shifty eyes. And if they ask for Mrs. Angelique Breedlove, you may tell them that no one by that name lives here or has ever lived here.”
It was an ingenious solution, because this wasn’t entirely untrue. She had never been a Mrs.; her real name was Anne; she was now Mrs. Durand, Lord Bolt.
And someone had indeed come looking for Mrs. Angelique Breedlove. Dot dispensed with them with alacrity with the instructions she’d been given—“Nobody by that name lives here, and good day to you, sir.” Her native resting expression—confused, a little dreamy—helped make this assertion very convincing. The hopeful gossip writer went away and did not return. It seemed an unlikely place for a doxie to live, anyway, this shining white building by the docks. Obviously a respectable place, even if it was adjacent to a pub called The Wolf And, with some vestiges of a word that looked like “Rogue” visible beneath the painted sign swinging on chains above the building.
But that afternoon, shortly after Angelique had scattered the maids and she and Delilah had repaired to the sitting room at the top of the stairs, Dot appeared.
“Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Durand.” Dot was whispering.
“What is it, Dot?” Angelique whispered, reflexively, and felt a right fool.
“There is a woman downstairs who is asking for Miss Annie Breedlove. Not Mrs. Angelique Breedlove.”