The Likelihood of Lucy

by Jenny Holiday

  “And by that you mean I’m not one of you. I’m not highborn,” came the bitter retort. “Why don’t you just say what you mean?”

  “I’m not talking about rank. I’m talking about you hiring a woman to manage the hotel without asking us.” It was the first, angry voice again.

  “Without asking you?” Disdain dripped from Trevor’s voice.

  A new voice: “Let’s be frank here. We’re not just talking about a woman. We’re talking about a—”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t finish that sentence.” Trevor’s voice was loud, pitched so as to drown out the murmuring of the other men. When they fell fully silent, he said, “Where is Blackstone? I’m not having this conversation without Blackstone.” Still, no one said anything. “I see. You all decided to ambush me without the investor you knew would take my part.”

  “You needn’t see everything as a personal attack, Bailey,” said the voice she had come to recognize as the diplomat among the group. “She’s bad for business, plain and simple. You just admitted that business is down, and we’re telling you she’s the reason. News of your lightskirt manager is all over the ton. That’s why bookings are drying up. And they’re going to keep plummeting as the story spreads. The bottom line is that if you don’t do something, she’s going to ruin the Jade.”

  She’s going to ruin the Jade. Lucy realized then that she had been living in fear since she’d come here, fear that Trevor was going to send her away again. And here was a perfect reason for him to do so. He should send her away. Endangering the hotel was the last thing she would want to do. It was everything. It was Trevor’s home. His love.

  “This is all Galsmith’s doing,” Trevor said. “He has an irrational bias against her, and he’s gone out and started these vicious rumors.”

  “Be that as it may, you’ve got to let her go before she runs this place—this place you’ve worked so hard to build—into the ground.”

  A long silence settled over the group, and Lucy bit her lip to forestall the tears she knew were coming. Then Trevor, his voice clipped, curt: “I’ll take care of it.”

  The next thing he didn’t say aloud, not in the here and now. But she remembered it, heard it crystal clear, as if he were speaking directly into her ear, as he had been last night.

  The Jade is more important than anything.

  …

  Something had changed inside him last night. Trevor could tell because the investors had lost their power to anger him. In fact, they’d lost their power over him entirely. Bounding back up the steps after dispatching them with a vague promise to remedy the matter, he almost laughed. What the hell was the matter with him that he had allowed those pompous aristocrats to lure him from a warm bed with Lucy in it? He was going to remedy that error, too, immediately—and in a very decided, not at all vague, fashion.

  He did laugh then, with delight as he reveled in the still-new sensation of being able to take a deep breath. It was unfamiliar. So was the heat spreading across his face when he thought of her, so beautiful and uninhibited, riding him, her long hair tangled around her shoulders. She would be shy this morning. He would have to coddle her. Tease her, coax the same passion from her with the sun streaming in through the windows.

  He would figure out what to do about the investors later. Go to Blackstone and ask for a loan so he could buy them out, sell his mines and ships, whatever it took. It didn’t matter. They were insects to be swatted away for now and poisoned later.

  He made such haste up the stairs that he was out of breath by the time he reached the door to his apartment, panting as he locked it behind him—they would not be disturbed again. The hotel could flood and be besieged with a plague of locusts and he still would refuse to be dislodged. He didn’t care if he had to barricade the door with every piece of furniture he owned.

  “Lucy!” he called, selfish, not caring whether she was still asleep. His fingers were afire. He had to touch her—now. They had their whole lives to sleep. “Lucy!”

  The room was empty. She’d drawn the drapes and sunlight poured in, mercilessly illuminating everything. He looked around, his eyes catching on something that made his stomach drop as surely as the appearance of the investors downstairs had. No. No, no, no.

  The bed was perfectly made.

  …

  “How do you know if you want to marry someone?” Lucy watched Catharine’s eyes for signs of shock. Still, better not to be too specific. “Hypothetically speaking, I mean.”

  Lucy had made a last minute decision after she’d overheard the investors. Instead of throwing herself into work as she’d intended, when she reached the kitchen she just kept right on walking. Out the door, along Oxford Street, and to the Burnhams’ home.

  Catharine tilted her head and examined Lucy quizzically, making no mention of the abrupt nature of the query—the tea had only just been poured and the footman had hardly got the door closed behind him before Lucy unleashed the ambush. “How do you know if you want to marry someone? A good question. If you have options—and unlike most women, you do—it’s quite easy.”

  That’s what she’d been afraid of.

  “You should marry someone who makes you feel a very great deal of discomfort,” Catharine declared. “At least initially.”

  Lucy swallowed the very unladylike string of curses accreting in her throat. “This discomfort you speak of. What does it signify? It would seem to stand in contradiction to what you said in our earlier conversations. You said that a woman should look for a man who concerns himself with his wife’s pleasure. Are not pleasure and discomfort opposing states of being?”

  “No, they are not.” Catharine must have heard Lucy’s silent plea for an explanation, because she grinned. “I know it may seem that way. But in my experience, the degree of discomfort—misery, even—a man makes a woman feel is directly proportional to the amount of pleasure he can bring her.”

  “But why must everything be so extreme?” Lucy cried. Then, embarrassed that her question had very nearly become a wail, she took a deep breath and tried again. “Is there no place in this world for more moderate sentiments? Contentment, say? Equanimity and intellectual compatibility? I’m talking about a feeling of being adequately matched. What is so wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, of course. Many successful, pleasant marriages are built on just such a foundation. And I would never counsel a woman against accepting a man who brought those qualities to her life.” Lucy was about to protest that Catharine contradicted herself, when the older woman let her teacup fall to its saucer with a clatter and looked intently at Lucy. “If she had no other options.”

  Lucy slumped against the back of the settee, and when, after a few seconds, she didn’t speak, Catharine moved from her chair to sit beside her. “And let me make myself perfectly clear. We’ve been talking about pleasure, and given my reputation—and what you’ve seen of me in our colorful conversations with Emily—you probably assume that we’re speaking of the sort of pleasure found in the marital bed.” Lucy started to protest. She’d heard enough already—her worst suspicions had been confirmed. But Catharine waved away her objection. “We are, of course. And heaven knows Emily likes to tease me about my, ah, fondness for that kind of pleasure. But that’s not really what I’m talking about.”

  “What are you talking about, then?” Lucy whispered, fearing the pronouncement was about to get worse.

  “Love. I’m talking about love. I shy away from the word, generally.” She shrugged. “I’m like a man that way. But what I’m trying to say is that if you have any choice in the matter, you should marry someone you’re in love with. And love can sometimes feel…unpleasant.”

  “That’s the discomfort you were speaking of,” Lucy said.

  “Yes, though, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure discomfort is really the most apt word. For a woman like me, who until recently led a…difficult life, love was, at least initially, excruciating.”

  Giving up any pretense of this d
iscussion being hypothetical, Lucy buried her head in her hands. Catharine placed a hand on her arm and left it there, its warmth a touchstone as Lucy struggled not to cry.

  “My feeling is that you, dear Lucy, have also had a difficult life.” She took Lucy’s hand, then, and squeezed. “It’s harder for us.”

  “This is a hypothetical discussion,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, of course!” Catharine nodded. But she had been so kind, and Lucy didn’t want her to misunderstand.

  “Not in that way. Of course we’re talking about me. What I mean is if the gentleman who makes you feel so wretched doesn’t feel wretched about you in return, then it’s all hypothetical.”

  “Well, if that’s true, which I’m not sure I believe, then he’s a…a…vainglorious by-blow!” she cried with a grin, and Lucy couldn’t help but smile in return. She didn’t know if Catharine knew they were talking about Trevor, but it didn’t really matter. It was time to begin exercising the other options Catharine kept reminding her of.

  “May I ask if you are still looking for a languages teacher?”

  Catharine cocked her head. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  Well, then. Might as well make the break as clean as possible. “And would it be possible to supervise the girls’ dormitory like you mentioned some of the teachers do?”

  “Life as a hotel manager is not suiting you?”

  “No,” said Lucy, hoping to leave it at that, though she recognized the studied nature of Catharine’s casualness.

  “Well, then you’re hired, Miss Greenleaf. For as long—or as short—as you like.” Catharine clinked her teacup against Lucy’s. “See, this is why it’s nice to have options. The beauty of life in the nineteenth century is that a clever woman doesn’t need a man. Isn’t that what Mrs. Wollstonecraft would want for womankind?”

  Lucy huffed a laugh. “You know, I always thought Mary’s marriages were mistakes.”

  “You thought she was a hypocrite?”

  “No, not precisely. I just didn’t understand all the things we have been discussing—the discomfort, the pleasure, the…” She couldn’t make herself say the word. “I didn’t understand the pull of them.”

  “Yes, well, love makes us into fools, does it not? That’s one way men and women are exactly alike. We may have miles to go before we achieve political equality, but, alas, we have perfect parity in this one arena.”

  Lucy sighed, feeling relieved to have the decision made. She had just lowered her head to accept a heavy yoke and was about to begin the long trudge that would be the rest of her life. But it would be a respectable trudge. It would be hers. “There’s just one more thing,” she added. When Catharine raised her eyebrows questioningly, Lucy said, “I need to call on Mr. Lloyd.”

  The eyebrows inched higher. Finally, it seemed, she was capable of surprising the indefatigable Catharine Burnham. “Do you indeed?”

  “Yes. He’s waiting for me to answer a question he recently posed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Trevor ran into Blackstone on his way out through the kitchen garden—literally crashed into the man in his haste to get outside and figure out where the hell Lucy had gone. He’d already wasted nearly an hour searching the hotel and trying—and, he feared, failing—to question the servants in a way that made him seem merely casually interested.

  “Have you seen Lucy?” he asked when they’d both finished cursing at the undignified collision.

  The earl ignored the question. “Jespersen just left the building.”

  “Pardon?” It took Trevor a moment to remember that a mission was underway.

  “It’s September 1, man.” Blackstone was a master at concealing his emotions, but Trevor had known him long enough to understand that the slight flaring of his nostrils signified extreme irritation. “We’ve only two more days. We hand this over to the police tomorrow, and I’d much rather do so with firm evidence in hand regarding the other murders.”

  “Right.” Blackstone must have been watching the building. He had been yesterday when Trevor set out to the park, and he’d been bemoaning the fact then that Jespersen had been holed up, making no outings, not even receiving visits from Gunst. It was as if the plan was in place, and he was just waiting for September 3 to roll around.

  “I’ve got a man on Jespersen and another stationed at the front to warn us the moment he reappears. I don’t know how long we have.”

  Trevor swallowed a howl of exasperation. It wouldn’t have done any good, because he didn’t have a choice. Not when lives were at stake. Lucy would have to wait.

  But it was the last time.

  Several minutes later, Blackstone was tearing apart room 203 with a fervor that would have alarmed an impartial witness. But Trevor knew it was this uncompromising intensity of focus that had kept both of them alive through many dangerous missions. As usual, he did the best he could to go around after Blackstone and put things to right.

  When the earl slit open a pillow, though, scattering feathers pell-mell, he had to speak, “Hey, now! What if you don’t find anything incriminating? He comes back to the room and sees this, and he’ll know someone is after him.”

  Blackstone shrugged. “If we find nothing, we fail.” He left unsaid the rest, which was that failure was not an acceptable option.

  Trevor sighed and joined Blackstone in the search.

  He found it in the armoire. The very one he and Lucy had hidden in three days—a lifetime—ago. It was a large box of watches and small clocks in varying states of disrepair. He almost tossed it aside, but Blackstone had taught him to be thorough to the point of ridiculousness, so he plunged his hand in, feeling for something differently textured than the bits and baubles and chains that filled the box to the brim.

  Then his hand hit it. Something larger than everything else, something more forgiving, not made of metal. When he dumped the contents onto the bed, a bible fell out, smaller and newer-looking than the one they already knew about. He flipped through it—also in Danish.

  Opening it to the front, he wondered if he would see the same list of dead family members scrawled there.

  He did. But there were other names, too, one paired with each of the family members.

  Ina Jespersen, b. January 7, 1769–September 3, 1807… Colonel Martin Oldham, d. September 3, 1811

  Agnarr Jespersen, b. September 22, 1788–September 3, 1807… Lieutenant Harry Hill, d. September 3, 1812

  Helmut Jespersen, b. November 30, 1790–September 3, 1807… Captain William Gelling, d. September 3, 1813

  Nils Jespersen, b. April 16, 1791–September 3, 1807… Major General Burton Clark, d. September 3, 1814

  Everything was written in the same black ink, including the first part of the final entry. “The last one,” Lucy had reported Jespersen saying.

  Margit Jespersen 1798–1807 …

  There she was, the youngest of Jespersen’s children. But Margit’s accompanying name and date were sketched in pencil, making them look like ghosts against their dark, inky counterparts.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise—Blackstone had already pieced it together. In fact, as missions went, this was a relatively straightforward one. Still, it was sobering to see it there, a foretold death for a man who even now had blood coursing through his veins as his heart beat faithfully.

  … Captain John Hammond, d. September 3, 1815

  Presumably once the bloody deed was done, Jespersen would go over the pencil with ink.

  Trevor sighed. He only hoped they could keep the news of an enemy of the crown having stayed at the Jade from boiling over into a total scandal.

  But then he remembered this morning with the investors. It didn’t matter anyway. The Jade was probably done for regardless.

  Thinking of a curtain of mahogany hair and a pair of warm amber eyes, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

  “Blackstone,” he called. “You’d better come see this.”

  …

  It was early evening before the p
olice inspector hauled Jespersen away, and runners had been dispatched in search of Gunst. It was all very anticlimactic, as far as these things went. Jespersen had merely come back to his room, and, seeing that he was vastly outnumbered, surrendered.

  Trevor had been trying to catch a glimpse of Lucy all day. It shouldn’t have been so hard. Though they’d tried valiantly to contain the clamor, word must have leaked, for servants and guests alike loitered for much of the day in the corridor outside room 203. But never her. He’d even managed to steal away for a moment while Blackstone was watching Jespersen’s questioning. He’d gone to her rooms, only to find them empty.

  He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was wrong. He kept seeing the image of his bed, perfectly made, in dramatic contrast to what had occurred in it the night before. But the bed was immaculately made in her room, too, so perhaps it was just her way—something he would have to grow accustomed to. Probably she would even make him help. He grinned in spite of his worry.

  “Where is Mrs. Greenleaf?” he murmured to a footman as he eyed Blackstone striding toward him across the lobby.

  “I haven’t seen her all day, Mr. Bailey. Shall I ask in the kitchen?”

  “Please do.”

  “Well, that’s it,” Blackstone said as he approached.

  “Have you got Gunst?”

  “Not yet, but Jespersen was forthcoming with details that should lead us to him. And Gunst knows Jespersen was adamant about committing this murder himself, so he’s unlikely to act alone. But of course we’ll have men on Captain Hammond just in case. But it should only be a matter of time.” He pressed his lips together grimly.

  “Don’t look so glum, man. You’ve done it again.”

  The spymaster didn’t smile, but his lips relaxed. “We’ve done it. And now we’re done. I’m sorry the Jade had to be involved. I know you love it above all else.”

  “The Jade is in trouble,” Trevor said, still glancing around the space, as if Lucy might appear at any moment. “What Catharine said is true.”

  “Well, with Jespersen out of the way, we can turn our attention to it now.” He quirked a smile then. “Or perhaps I should have just let you kill Galsmith. But, really, how much power can one man have? Catharine will be able to think of some Machiavellian scheme to silence him.”