Chapter One
1922
âMum is going to absolutely kill you if she catches you with that,â a lazy young voice said, punctuated by the slow turning of a magazine page.
Lady Louisa Hattonâknown by everyone as Luluâlooked down at the cigarette between her fingers. It was dyed a stylish peacock-blue, and sent curls of silvery smoke out the open window into the warm summer breeze. It looked terribly chic and sophisticated, but⦠âAnd she would be absolutely right. Theyâre perfectly vile. Iâll have to learn to be glamorous without them.â
She extinguished it in the crystal bowl set on the window ledge. The foul thing disposed of, she tightened the sash on her dressing gown and turned around to face her younger sister. Jessica lay sprawled out in the middle of Luluâs bed, her feet propped on the carved headboard as she read the latest issue of Town Talk.
Town talkâthat all seemed terribly far away in the middle of a quiet country summer. Her London debut season seemed ages ago, even though it had just ended. Beaded gowns, tea dances, trips to the theater, masquerade ballsâ¦and the disappointing, fumbling kisses from men behind screens and potted palms. How could something be so exciting and so dreary at the same time?
She had waited so long to be grown up, to be part of the real world at last. She was so tired of being pushed to the side, of being âprotectedâ from things considered âunpleasantâ for her own good. But being a woman wasnât all it was cracked up to be, either. She still wasnât really allowed to have fun.
And the young men she met at those carefully orchestrated dinners and dancesâthey werenât what she had hoped for, either. Years of reading stuff like Jane Eyre and those delicious sheikh novels from America didnât prepare her for the truth of English courtship. For young men whose palms were damp as they danced with her, who talked on and on about cricket and house party pranks. They werenât Rochester or Mr. Darcy. They werenâtâ¦
Well, they werenât him. They werenât David Carlisle, which was so silly since she hadnât seen David in nearly four years. Even before that, all those summers when he would come to Hatton Hall to visit his school friend, her poor brother William, she had only been Billâs pesky kid sister to him. He teased her, laughed at her, loaned her books, and then went off to dance with beautiful debutantes.
But Lulu built a whole dream around David Carlisle, with his crooked smile and bright blue eyes. He became her ideal, and she was sure that once she really grew up, once she was one of those debs, with their satin gowns and upswept hair, he would seethat they were meant for each other. No one was as handsome and smart and sophisticated as he was. No one made her feel the way he did when he just looked at her.
Then the war came, and all her girlish dreams were just one of the millions of lost things. After the Armistice, David visited Hatton Hall once more, to tell them about Billâs last days. He wasnât the same David at all. His eyes were dark and haunted, and he walked with a stick. The left side of his face was red with scars. He had kissed Lulu on the cheek and said, âYouâve grown up while I was gone.â But she could tell he was not really there, that he had left his old self far away.
She looked for him in London, hoping he would appear at some party or at the opera. He never did, and she heard little gossip about him.
Lulu pushed away sad thoughts of David Carlisle. It did no good to dwell on him and on all that was lost, on old hopes and loves. It was just summer here at Hatton Hall, stirring up memories. In London, where everything was new and blindingly bright, she could hide from the past. Here it was everywhere she turned.
âWhatâs going on in Town Talk , then?â she asked brightly. She went and perched on the edge of