Free What Lucinda Learned by Beth Bryan Page A

feelings in public.
    With a guilty start, she thought again of the love-token. She must do something with it. But if Chloris already suspected her of developing a tendre for Mr. Devereux, she would have to be even more careful in restoring it. She sighed and looked askance at her two companions.
    “La, sir!” Belle slapped Sir Charles playfully on the wrist. “How can you say such things?”
    Sir Charles struck a dashing pose. “My dear Miss Ryland, you have no idea of how I am willing to dare, especially for so tempting a prize.”
    “Come, Charles.” Mr. Devereux had returned and now tapped his friend on the shoulder. “That is indeed a striking attitude, but take my advice, do not waste it on the Strand. Save it for Almack’s or the next ball, where it will have the audience it deserves.”
    Sir Charles laughed good-naturedly, and he and Belle got into their own carriage. Mr. Devereux handed Lucinda up and then seated himself opposite her.
    The others were in merry pin, but Lucinda felt that all her pleasure in the event had evaporated. Indeed, she refused an invitation to Gunther’s and requested Mr. Devereux to drive her back to Agincourt Circle.
    To Mrs. Cleeson’s enquiry as to how the afternoon had gone, she responded only that the noise had given her a headache. She immediately retired to her room till it was time for the evening’s events.
    When Lucinda came downstairs the next morning, she found Mrs. Cleeson standing in the hall with a long list in her hand.
    “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” her cousin was muttering. “Did I say the rose brocade or the violet damask? Because, you know, if I said the damask, then I must change the cushions’ colour, for of course the yellow will not suit the damask.”
    “Whatever is the matter, cousin Ethelreda?”
    “Oh! Good morning, Lucinda. I have just sent a footman off to Chippendale’s and I must send another down to the draper’s and I cannot remember which curtains I ordered for the front salon.”
    Lucinda glanced at the list, but it was so crisscrossed with additions and scratchings-out that she could make little of it. “Well, cousin,” she said reasonably, “why don’t you wait till the footman comes back and you can ask him? Then you may send to the draper’s in complete surety.”
    “I suppose I had best do so. But I must also see to the wallpaper for the breakfast parlour. Now where is my list for that?”
    “After breakfast,” Lucinda urged, and steered her cousin down the hall.
    Breakfast, however, did not soothe Mrs. Cleeson’s anxieties. She ate distractedly, peering and muttering at her lists. At length, she put them down.
    “Lucinda, I have quite made up my mind. Unless you should dislike it excessively, I shall cancel our morning engagements. We cannot begin to entertain until the house is completely in order, and the time for your ball grows closer. I believe I must go to Gedge’s myself and see about the tablecloths and the other linens and then of course there are the curtains for the bedrooms and...”
    Laughing, Lucinda held up her hand. “Very well, very well, cousin Ethelreda. It is most kind in you to have undertaken such a prodigious task. Papa must be overwhelmed when he sees the transformation. By all means take the time you require.”
    “You have no objection to not meeting our engagements?”
    “Not at all, but I should be glad to help you in your errands.”
    “Thank you, dearest; not for me, but for yourself perhaps.”
    “How so, cousin?”
    “I think you might take Albert and do some shopping. You could do with some more silk stockings. I would like to see a new bonnet for the azure muslin. Then you need gloves, and I have never been happy with the green boots and the sprig-muslin, so you might...”
    “Enough, enough, cousin! I shall need more than one afternoon for so many commissions. If you think it fitting, I shall go back to the Exeter ’Change, for I was much taken with the wares there.”
    “The very