The Likelihood of Lucy

by Jenny Holiday

  “It’s not just Galsmith. It’s all of them. They came to see me this morning.”

  Blackstone raised an eyebrow.

  Trevor braced for battle. “I’m not sacking her.” Blackstone was a friend, yes, and obscenely wealthy, but he had never been one to spend profligately—or on failing ventures. He hoped his stance on Lucy’s continued employment would not cause a rift between them.

  Blackstone merely shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll find another solution.”

  Davies approached. “Mr. Bailey, I’ve a note for you from Mrs. Greenleaf.”

  Finally! “Where is she now?” he asked. “I’ll just go see her.”

  “I don’t know, sir. Monsieur Bellanger found the note in the kitchen. She wasn’t answering knocks on her door earlier this afternoon when you dispatched us in search of her—I’d assumed she was at the market, as she’s taken to going with the head kitchen maid to supervise the purchasing—but perhaps she is back in her rooms by now.”

  Trevor dismissed the servant and tore open the seal.

  Dear Trevor,

  It has been quite an eventful day. I am for bed early with a pounding headache—and, honestly, a desire for solitude to allow the drama of recent events to settle a bit. I beg your indulgence. Let us speak tomorrow.

  Sincerely,

  Lucy

  “Something wrong?” Blackstone asked.

  Yes, something was wrong. She was hiding. And he wasn’t having it. And she’d signed off “sincerely,” when he knew and she knew that the correct closing salutation was “Yours.” Because she was. “No,” he answered, smiling blandly. “If that will be all, I think I’ll go work on that other solution you spoke about.”

  But by the time he reached her door, having taken the stairs two at a time, second thoughts had begun to crowd out the resolve he’d initially felt about going to her. He’d been going to break down her door if he had to, and then…what? That was the problem. She preached the importance of women being accepted as independent, autonomous persons, capable of making their own decisions—decisions that should be respected by society.

  Yes, he could charge in there, and probably fan the flames of the spark that was always there between them—especially now that she knew her capabilities. But that would only cloud the matter, postpone the inevitable outcome.

  For if he knew one thing, it was that the outcome was inevitable. Lucy had come back to him for a reason. He had that tattoo for a reason, and hadn’t shown it to anyone else for a reason. He’d been biding time.

  And he could bide a little more, as much as he didn’t want to. Because Lucy needed to decide to have him. The way to appeal to her was through her intellect. Her enormous capacity for reason. Her beautiful mind. He had to let her come to him in her own way. Not that he wouldn’t make his case, but he would do it on her terms.

  He grinned as he headed for the final flight of stairs that would take him to his apartment. It was going to be a long night.

  Perhaps he could locate another volume of Wollstonecraft he had yet to read.

  …

  Lucy just needed a day. The brave thing to do would have been to simply tell him, to say, Trevor, I’ve moved out, I resign, I wish you—and the Jade—all good things. But it had been such an emotionally wrenching day. And of course she’d had to talk to Mr. Lloyd, to decline his offer of marriage. He’d taken it with remarkably good cheer, which had, in her mind, only ratified everything Catharine had said about love. Lucy rather imagined that if Mr. Lloyd had loved her, he would have been more dismayed by her refusal.

  Still, despite the relative ease of the task, it had been taxing. By the time it was done and she was set up in Catharine’s guest chamber—she would move to the school tomorrow—she was exhausted and simply could not face the prospect of…Trevor. She needed an evening to compose herself before doing what needed to be done.

  There was also the matter of her heart. It was, simply, broken. Shredded so badly she couldn’t be sure she would ever be able to walk outside again, to hold her face to the sun and rest easy in the beauty of the nature she so loved. Her throat ached with the pain of staying away from him, but it was the only choice. He loved the hotel above all else. It was the distillation of everything he had worked for, fought for. It was his home. She of all people knew what that meant. I’m not rational about this place, he’d told her, early on. But she was, and she could see with absolute clarity that he couldn’t be separated from it—couldn’t be forced to choose between it and her. So she would do it for him. It was, perhaps, the one thing she could give him in return for all he had given her. He’d saved her—more than once—and she could save the Jade.

  She would save the Jade—by leaving it.

  And, as in all things, she had Mary to instruct her. She couldn’t get up and travel to exotic lands post heartbreak, but she could pick herself up and keep going. One foot in front of the other until perhaps, finally, one day, instead of this searing anguish, there would be only numbness. She took her hair down and removed her half boots and stockings. And she still had her society, and Mr. Lloyd’s salon, assuming he would still have her. The intellectual companionship she’d sought all her life was hers for the taking now. She just never imagined, after wanting it for so long, that it could feel so very…insufficient.

  She would have to face Trevor tomorrow. In fact, she half expected he would ignore her note, break down the door of her room, and, not finding her in residence, track her here. And then she would have to tell him the truth. Well, the truth and a lie: I can’t see you anymore would have to be followed with because I don’t love you.

  She had never lied to him—not even in the note. She did have a headache, and an intense desire for solitude. She knew he would assume she was upstairs in her room, so perhaps she had lied by omission, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty. There was no room left for guilt as she contemplated the task ahead of her. Only grief. Loss. And all of it made worse because she knew what she was missing. What she was giving up.

  She was too bone-tired to don the night rail Catharine had left for her, so she merely removed her fichu. She couldn’t even muster the energy to pull back the covers and slide beneath them. So she laid on top of the counterpane in her day dress and let the tears come.

  She woke up to someone shaking her. Her heart skidded: Had Trevor come to her?

  No, of course not. She’d forgotten for a moment that she was in Catharine’s house. Her sleep- and heartbreak-muddled mind took a moment to grasp the fact that it was the lady of the house urgently—almost violently—shaking her awake.

  “The Jade! It’s on fire! Wake up!”

  Catharine’s guest chamber might as well have been aflame, too, for Lucy felt as if she was trying to breathe smoke. Her body began to crumple, but she forced herself to sit up, to form the only question that mattered. “Is Trevor all right?”

  “I think so. A footman sent word to Blackstone, who’s gone there, and Emily came here. The footman said Davies was going in after Trevor, and that his end of the hotel wasn’t afire yet.”

  Lucy had been struggling to roll up her stockings when she was struck with the thought. A revelation like a snake, hissing its way down her chest, curled itself into a slab of dread in her gut.

  Dread be damned, it took only a heartbeat for her to galvanize into action. She flung the stockings aside and began stuffing her bare legs into her boots.

  “Blackstone will get him out if he’s not already,” Catharine said, leaning down and lacing one of Lucy’s boots while she struggled with the other.

  “It’s not that,” Lucy managed to choke out, her words battling the snake inside her.

  “Then what?” said Catharine, who was already at the door.

  “Trevor thinks I’m inside the Jade.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Lucy!” It was his first thought when he jolted from sleep.

  “No, sir, it’s Davies.” The butler, having uncharacteristically entered Trevor’s a
partment without permission, shook him forcefully. He’d fallen asleep on a chair in the library. “You must get up! The Jade is on fire!”

  “Fire,” he echoed. The word expanded in his mind, like ink dispersing through water, so there was a lag before the taste of the word on his lips lined up with a meaning he could make sense of. The next word rushed in, slamming against it. “Lucy!” More than a word, it was a directive. As acrid smoke filled his nose, his body sprang into action.

  He was halfway down the first flight of stairs when Davies grabbed him. “The fire started near the rear entrance, and it’s burned up the back of the building. You won’t be able to reach her safely.”

  Shaking the man off like a fly, Trevor covered his face with his sleeve and made for the stairs. The front end of the fourth floor was flooding with smoke. He made his way by feel, barely registering the entreaties of Davies behind him.

  “Lucy!” he shouted, though he knew it was impossible that she should hear him over the creaking of the building. Sparks fell from the ceiling, tiny knives that ate into the back of his neck. The heat was stifling.

  “You won’t be able to get her!” Davies shouted.

  Trevor pushed his way into the nearest room. The scene was oddly serene. Though it was filled with smoke, the chamber was dotted with the mundane details of the life of a traveler—an open trunk, a comb on the dressing table. A pitcher of water sat next to the comb. Thank God he had stumbled into one of the few occupied rooms. He glanced around—and thank God, it appeared its residents had made it out. Grabbing the nearest bathing linen, he plunged it into the water pitcher, then wrapped the whole sodden thing around his head.

  The corridor was worse now. He tried to resume feeling his way along by gliding his hand along the wall, but he howled and pulled it off—the plaster was too hot to touch.

  “Lucy!” he cried, the smoke hampering his attempt to throw his voice and doubling him over in a fit of coughing, even as he continued to struggle blindly forward.

  “The north side is lost!” Davies yelled. “Come away!”

  Trevor refused to believe the man, though flames licked across the ceiling above him, coming from the direction of her rooms. “No!” he shouted. Or meant to—it didn’t even come out as a whisper. All he could manage was to mouth the words. Falling to his knees, he resolved to crawl the rest of the way.

  “It’s too late!”

  Yes. Too late. Something deep within finally recognized that the servant spoke the truth. No matter, then. He still had to make his way to her, if only to die with her. Even as part of his mind recognized the insanity of it, he felt for a minute that he was already inside her room. That he’d barged in there last evening as had been his original impulse. That her arms were around him now.

  “Get up, you bounder!”

  A new voice.

  He lifted his head long enough to ascertain that it was Blackstone. Eyes heavy, he was too weak to resist when two sets of hands hoisted him up. “I’ve dragged your sorry arse off too many battlefields to let you die here, you nodcock!”

  Stairs then. So many stairs. His brain rattling inside his skull. So loud.

  Then air. Water. Blessed water being poured over his head, lifted to his mouth. The tattered remains of his shirt being torn off and a coat thrown over his blackened chest, which was so sooty he could barely make out his tattoos.

  Tattoos.

  “Lucy!”

  He began struggling again, but Blackstone held him tight.

  “I can’t.” He was weeping openly now. “I can’t go on without her.”

  Blackstone said nothing, just kept holding him, his grip unrelenting, even long minutes after Trevor had stopped resisting because his wrecked body had finally surrendered. The spymaster held him so long that Trevor began to understand that Blackstone wasn’t restraining him so much as embracing him.

  He wasn’t sure which of them heard it first. Blackstone’s arms tensed at the same moment an enormous, irrational explosion of hope ignited in Trevor’s chest.

  “Trevor?” It was a quiet voice. If Blackstone had not begun wildly glancing around, Trevor would have thought it a cruel voice, a well-deserved jeer sent by the devil.

  He hadn’t noticed the crowd until now. The chaos. There were people everywhere, men working to douse the still-burning hotel, guests weeping, neighbors gaping.

  “Trevor.”

  “Dear God,” Blackstone breathed.

  “Where is she?” He kept spinning, cursing his smoke-damaged eyes. “Where is she?” he shouted.

  Blackstone’s hand came down on his shoulder, spinning him a few degrees.

  “Trevor!” She’d seen him now, and she was running. Lacking a cloak or a hat, both her hair and her dress flapped behind her as she ran.

  Blackstone let go of him, and he fell to his knees. Merciful God. Merciful, merciful God. Struggling up, beating onward, he dragged himself to her.

  To Lucy.

  Then he put his arms around her and vowed never to let go.

  …

  Lucy couldn’t surrender to Trevor’s embrace. Once she’d seen him, looked into the green eyes peering out from his soot-streaked face, once the tidal wave of relief that he was alive receded, all she could do was stand stiffly in his arms and look over his shoulder at the burning Jade. The fire was nearly out, limited to only a few licking flames painting the burned shell of the building. It was all lost.

  His jewel, his life’s work. His home.

  She hadn’t been able to save it, after all.

  Leaving had done nothing. She hadn’t gone far enough. She hadn’t gone soon enough.

  “I’m sorry I came back,” she whispered.

  Trevor disengaged enough to hold her at arm’s length, keeping hold of one of her hands and searching her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “It can’t have been Gunst.” Blackstone’s deep voice carried over the chaos that was all around them. “He was picked up earlier today by my men.” He was speaking to Catharine and James, but the whole group was approaching.

  “Who would do this?” Blackstone asked Trevor, who merely stood mutely.

  “It might have been an accident,” James said. “A cheroot left burning perhaps.”

  “A police inspector has already found oil-soaked rags all over the garden,” said the earl.

  Arson.

  She knew before any of them said it. There were people everywhere, squabbling and shouting. Embers glowed like menacing jewels in the dark, and the few stubborn flames that endured cast eerie shadows on the faces of the assembled as the truth flowed through her.

  Trevor, who had been staring at her while she took in the scene, oblivious to it himself, shook his head. When she opened her mouth, he clamped a hand on her forearm as if to forestall what was coming.

  “Galsmith,” she said.

  The single word had the effect of quieting the throng. A heartbeat elapsed before Trevor said, “No,” with so much force it made her jump.

  “That day in the park,” she insisted, needing, for some reason, to make him understand that this was all her fault. “He said he wouldn’t rest until I burned.”

  “Oh my God,” Catharine said. “Of course! We all assumed he meant it metaphorically.”

  Trevor just shook his head and stared at the ruins of his home.

  “It makes sense.” Blackstone laid a hand on Trevor’s shoulder.

  Lucy understood what the earl did not. Trevor wasn’t disputing the truth of the matter, only what it would mean. He knew as well as she did that though Galsmith was the arsonist, she might as well have handed him a flint. His home, his work, his hard-won stability—all the things he loved—would never be safe around her.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered, tugging on the hand he still held, trying to free herself.

  She wasn’t quick enough, for she hadn’t taken a step before he was there, capturing her in an iron grip. Without a word, he began walking, away from the fire, away from the muttering mob, away from the ques
tions Blackstone was firing after him, away from it all.

  As he picked up speed, she felt like a child being towed along by a nanny in great haste. But she knew better than to argue with him. She’d been naive to think she could just slip away into the night. Of course, she had to let him speak. He wouldn’t let her go again without saying good-bye—the thought was surprisingly comforting. Last time, there had been no good-bye, and it had nearly broken her heart.

  He seemed to have a specific destination in mind, so she silently rushed along with him, trying to memorize the feel of his strong hand clasping hers. She would return to this feeling, later. It would sustain her through the long, lonely life that stretched ahead of her. It would have to.

  They approached a small park that wasn’t far from the Jade. It was home to paths that meandered, and one of them crossed another via a stone bridge that allowed the top path to rise above the perpendicular one that passed beneath. It was utterly unlike the bridge under which she’d passed their last week together as children—and yet her heart understood the reference. A final reckoning beneath a bridge.

  She choked on a sob as he propelled her ahead of him along the lower path. Then he pressed her up against the stone pile that held up the bridge and his mouth came crashing down on hers. He was almost angry, leaving her no room to object. Not that she would have. It took only a moment before that now-familiar heat sparked low in her belly. If this was good-bye, as it must be, she would greedily take her fill of him one last time. Shamelessly, she pressed herself against him as they kissed, trying to maneuver as much contact as possible between their bodies.

  He broke the kiss as abruptly as he’d begun it but did not let go of her, held tight to her upper arms. Green eyes glittered. “We survived, Lucy. Again.”

  She shook her head. Not that she disputed the fact but in confusion over what it signified. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tamping down the urge to shake loose of his grip and use her sleeve to clean his sooty face.