Oh, you do have the touch, Cecilia thought as Davy relaxed against his uncle. “And I hear that you have finished my 1808 cases and started on 1809.” Trevor put his arms around his nephew. “Do you think your mama would let me take you back to the City with me and become my secretary?”
“She would miss me,” Davy said solemnly. “P’rhaps in a year or two.”
“I shall look forward to it.” Trevor smiled at Lucinda. “I hear that you have been helping all day to make this little place presentable. My thanks, Lucy.”
Lucinda blushed and smiled at Cecilia. “Miss Ambrose says I will someday be able to command an entire household.” She looked at her teacher, and her eyes were shy. “A duke’s, even.”
Janet laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Possibly when pigs fly, Lucinda,” she snapped. “Uncle, I . . .”
“What you should do is apologize to your sister,” Trevor said. “Your statement was somewhat graceless.”
Lucinda was on her feet then, her face even redder, her eyes filled with tears. “I . . . I think I will go to bed now, Uncle Trevor. It’s been a long day. Davy?” He followed her from the room. With a look at Lord Trevor, Cecilia rose quietly and joined them in the hall. She closed the door behind her, but not quick enough to escape Janet’s words.
“I hope you do not expect us to take orders from that foreign woman, Uncle. That is outside of enough, and not to be tolerated. Who on earth is she?”
Cecilia closed the door as quietly as she could, her face hot. It’s not the first insult, she reminded herself, and surely won’t be the last. She turned to the children, who looked at her with stricken expressions, and put her finger to her lips. “Let’s just go upstairs, my dears,” she told them. “I do believe your uncle has his hands full now.”
Even through the closed door, they could hear Janet’s voice rising. Cecilia hurried up the stairs to escape the sound of it, with the children right behind. At the top of the stairs, Davy took her hand. “Miss Ambrose, I don’t feel that way,” he told her, his voice as earnest as his expression.
She hugged him. “I know you don’t, my dear. Your sister is just upset with this turn of events. I am certain she did not mean what she said.”
“You’re too kind, Miss Ambrose,” Lucinda said.
I’m nothing of the sort, Cecilia thought later after she closed the door to her pupil’s room, after helping her into a nightgown, and listening to her prayers for her older sister’s family and her parents, marooned in York with the measles.
“No, I am not kind, Lucy dear,” she said softly. “I am fearful.” She thought she had learned years ago to disregard the sidelong glances and the boorish questions, because to take offense at each one would be a fruitless venture. As much as she loved England now, after a lifetime spent in Egypt, it took little personal persuasion to keep her at Madame Dupree’s safe haven. She doubted that she ever went beyond a three-block radius in Bath. I have made myself a prisoner, she thought, and the idea startled her so much that she could only stand there and wonder at her own cowardice.
Reluctant to go downstairs again, she knocked softly on the door of the room that Davy was sharing with his uncle. Better to be in there, she thought, than to have to run into Lady Janet and her spite on the stairs. Davy lay quietly as she had left him, reading in bed, his knees propped up to hold the book. She looked closer, and smiled. He was also fast asleep. She carefully took the book from him, marked the place, and set it on the bedside table. She watched him a moment, enjoying the way his face relaxed in slumber.
I would like to have a boy like you someday, she thought, and the very idea surprised her, because she had never considered it before. I wonder why ever not, she asked herself, then knew the answer before any further reflection. Even though her foster parents had endowed her with a respectable dowry, she had no expectations, not in a country whose people did not particularly relish the exotics among them.
To keep her thoughts at bay, she went around the room quickly, folding Davy’s clothes that had been brought over from the manor and placing them in the bureau. He shared the room with his uncle, whose own clothes were jumbled on top of the bureau. Several legal-sized briefs rested precariously on his clothes, along with a pair of spectacles. She wondered if he even had a tailor, and decided that he did not, considering that his public appearances probably found him in a curled peruke and a black robe, which could easily hide a multitude of fashion sins.
She heard light feet on the stairs, and remained where she was until they receded down the short hall to Lucinda’s room. The door slammed, and Davy sighed and turned onto his side. She left the room, but it occurred to her that she did not know where to go. She had arranged to sleep on a cot in the little dressing room, but wild horses could not drag her in there now. To go downstairs would mean having to face further embarrassment from Lord Trevor. She knew he would be well meaning, but that would only add to the humiliation. Perhaps I can go below stairs, she thought, then reconsidered. All the servants’ rooms in this small dower house were probably full, too, considering that things were a mess at the manor. She also reckoned that a descent below stairs would only confirm Lady Janet’s opinion of her.