How tame, especially when linked to a cataclysmic disaster worthy of an epic poem. He was a.s.suredly mad. Especially as his words and his aunt's delight made the impossible begin to seem possible again.

"It might not happen," he warned.

"Why not? What could she find lacking in you?"

"You're blind to my flaws."

She laughed. "That I'm not, but your virtues far outweigh them. Does she hesitate over your proposal?"

"We've not quite come to that point. Now she's of age, her thirty thousand pounds is her own. She asks why she should hand it over to a husband."

"How odd."

"Not really. Few women are in such a situation, but it gives them independence."

"I don't see why anyone, man or woman, would want independence if it meant a solitary life."

"There are friends."

She waved that idea away.

"In any case," he said, "she might not suit my needs. She plans to tie her money up in a trust."

That damped his aunt's enthusiasm. "Sensible of you to retreat, dear. She sounds a selfish sort of woman. She'd rule the roost."

She'd certainly demand to share the perch, but he'd gladly allow that.

Uncle Nathaniel came in then, beaming a welcome, and David had to repeat his tales of London.

His aunt introduced the subject of Lucy.

Uncle Nathaniel didn't take the same line. "Girlish stuff, Davy. Pay no heed. When she's wife and mother she'll see her husband's way is best."

David doubted that. What's more, he didn't want that, but now he saw a new problem. Lucy wouldn't like the geography here, but she might not like the society, either. The women here weren't weak, but they followed conventional ways. Fathers and husbands ruled. Even if the men often ended up doing as their womenfolk wished, the protocol was observed that the husband was lord and master of the household.

How would Lucy the bold, Lucy the keen-brained merchant's daughter, fit in with his family? Daniel Potter's daughter, trained by him to value goods and make shrewd business deals, and used to speaking her clear mind. She was more like Susan than Aunt Miriam, and Susan had never quite fit.

It was impossible and he must convince himself of that.

For the time being, he set to being good company, repeating some London stories for his cousins Henry and Amelia and receiving gossip in return. No dangerous rivalries among the gentry, but some minor scandals that amused him.

How simple most people's lives were.

As the light faded he said his farewells and made his way back to durance vile-to the Crag-without any hope of happiness there, now or in the future.

As if to underline the point, a wind had picked up and now carried rain. Salty rain, straight off the sea. The sort that shriveled tender plants.

Lucy Potter was a rose for a sheltered garden, not gorse for a blasted heath.

Chapter 23.

The morning after Clara's ball, Lucy woke early. Despite a gusty wind and the hint of rain, she went to the park, dressing herself quietly and sneaking out without Hannah. She didn't truly hope David would appear there. It was more a sort of pilgrimage. Or a wake.

She sniffed, but there was no one here to question that, to be told a lie about hay fever, and there was certainly no new-mown gra.s.s to explain her stinging eyes.

She saw the girl with the kite again, still struggling to get it to fly, but this time because the wind was too strong for her, and too unpredictable.

Foolish, stubborn child.

Foolish Lucy, but she went to help, and together they caught the wind so that the kite soared magnificently. But then it tore the spindle out of their hands. Lucy raced after, but the spindle was unwinding at speed. It ran out of thread and the kite disappeared, the long string trailing behind.

She turned, thinking the girl would be in tears, but she was simply gaping. Then she grinned, showing a missing front tooth. "That was splendid! I'd like to be a kite."

So would Lucy, but in another way entirely. "Perhaps one day you'll be able to fly in a balloon car."

"Oh, yes. I've seen one. But the kite flew on the wind, not on hot air. Don't you think people should be able to fly on a kite if it was big enough?"

"They'd be swept away."

The girl looked up again, to the speck that had been her kite. "It might be worth it."

"Now see what you've done, Miss Minnie," said a fretful nursemaid, hurrying over and giving Lucy an unfriendly glance. "It's gone now, and nothing to be done about it. Good thing, too. Not ladylike at all, messing about with a kite."

The girl turned back to thank Lucy, but then allowed herself to be dragged away, saying, "Papa will get me a new one."

Good for Papa, but as Miss Minnie grew older, would her father continue to encourage her free thinking and inventiveness? Indeed, why shouldn't a big enough kite be able to carry a person into the sky? People flew under hot air balloons. Steam drove powerful engines. There were even boats that could travel under the water. Anything was possible.

For her, too?

Her mother hadn't given up at the first obstacle, or even the second. One of those obstacles might have been her father.

She set off home, following startling thoughts.

The common view was that an upstart Cit had seduced a lady, but there had been so many reasons for her father to resist marrying her mother, and he was a strong-willed man. He was a man who tried his hardest to avoid folly, and nearly always succeeded.

In that, he and David were alike.

Even the most ardent love would not have pushed her father into a ruinous path, and yet her parents had married. What, then, had her mother had to do to win her father?

Lucy paused to blow out a breath. She shouldn't even think this way, but she would. It was important.

It wouldn't have been easy for her parents to meet, especially if Daniel Potter was trying his best to avoid folly, but they had met. It had to have been her mother who had made it happen. Her mother, only eighteen, but knowing what she wanted, and determined to get it.

What else had she done?

Lucy arrived at the question she'd been circling. Had her mother seduced her father? Afraid her outrageous thoughts might show on her face, she walked on again, briskly, as if trying to outpace them.

A little while ago she might have thought such a seduction impossible, but now she knew better. It didn't need a bed or a night, only a private s.p.a.ce and a little time, and pa.s.sion enough to overwhelm all controls.

She arrived home unsure whether her speculations were rational or the product of a deranged mind. She needed to talk to someone, but who?

Maria. She might know something of her parents' courtship, but would she tell?

She sent a message to ask if she could visit. At nearly eleven a note returned, inviting her immediately if it suited.

It did.

Maria greeted her warmly and they settled to tea.

"Now, tell me what troubles you."

Lucy stirred in a lump of sugar, trying to plan a way to approach such a delicate subject. "I'm not used to talking about myself. I've only recently realized that."

"Then don't, if you don't want to."

"I'm not sure." Lucy gave a little laugh. "After living for weeks in a storm of chatter I think I've embraced silence like a cloistered nun!"

Maria chuckled with her. "I can see how that might be. Have you enjoyed the season?"

Lucy welcomed a safe subject for now. "Some of the b.a.l.l.s and musical events have been superb."

"I think it's because it's concentrated. In the City, and in other towns and cities where people's lives don't differ much by season, all is spread more evenly. Here, the beau monde gathers for a month or two, cramming in as much intermingling, shopping, and business as possible before retreating with a sigh of relief to country ways."

"When you were married to Celestin, you lived mostly in London, didn't you?"

"He had a villa out beyond Chiswick, and a place in hunting country, though he rarely used it."

Lucy noted the "he." She didn't think Maria would phrase it that way about Lord Vandeimen.

"If you don't mind my asking, Maria, how did you come to marry Celestin?"

Maria gave a little moue, but there was a smile in it. "Folly, as I'm sure you guess. He came like a tiger amongst sheep. He had such vigor. He was handsome and could be charming, but I think his main appeal lay in being different. Not just by being a merchant, but by being a foreigner. We were sadly accustomed to French refugees from the Terror, but not to successful Belgians. You might not think it of me now, but then, when I was young, I thought taking the conventional path to marriage seemed intolerably dull."

Lucy responded to the subtle question in that. "I don't think I've ever felt that way. It's only that no conventional man appealed. Do you think that makes me lacking?"

"Perhaps other interests distracted you? You didn't sit at home working samplers."

"No. I wanted trade, not marriage. I wanted to follow my father into business. I wanted . . . I wanted to be his son. How stupid!"

Maria moved to sit beside her, to take her hand. "No, no. There's an excitement to business that domestic life lacks. And perhaps you wanted to be what your father wished you were?"

"Why didn't I want to be what my mother wished I was?"

"You responded to the most powerful wind? However, you were-are-what she wished. She loved you dearly."

"Love doesn't always mean approval."

"She approved of you. She was proud of you. I remember her commenting at times on your graces and your kind heart. And on your cleverness. She didn't dislike that."

"But she disliked my spending so much time with Father."

"I think perhaps she was a little jealous at times. I know that makes no sense, but most people can be sensible only part of the time. But also, she wanted you to have an ordinary life."

"Ah. Not like her."

"Not like her," Maria agreed. "She loved your father to a rare degree and never regretted her choice. I'm sure of that. But at times she implied that she wished her life had flowed down conventional channels to the same place."

"An impossibility."

"She knew that and accepted it. She wouldn't have done differently, given her time again."

"And you?" Lucy asked. "Would you do things differently?"

Maria looked away, frowning over that, then shrugged. "No. For how else could I be where I am? If I'd made a conventional marriage, I would never have married Van." She smiled at Lucy. "I am very happy to be where I am, and I hope you will be able to say the same one day."

They'd skirted unusual courtships and Lucy hadn't found a clear opening. She'd have to ask bluntly. . . .

"Would you like to visit my daughter? That means, of course, I'm eager to show you how clever Van and I have been to produce such a miracle."

The moment had pa.s.sed, perhaps because her courage had failed. How could she raise such a subject?

She went up to a nursery where a beautiful baby slept in a lacy cradle, watched over by a nurserymaid.

"I haven't had much to do with babies," Lucy said quietly. "I do want to be a mother."

"Another natural force, but not a smooth path."

"I know that giving birth is hard."

"And can be dangerous, but I didn't mean that. Children don't always make their parents happy. I grieved mine by my marriage, as did your mother. Van did the same by insisting on joining the army at sixteen. All our instincts clamor to keep them safe, but eventually we have to let them go into risk, even into folly and danger. It's so hard to imagine when they're young."

"What's the easy path, then?"

"Perhaps to be a wealthy spinster or bachelor. But does one always wish to be safe?"

They left the nursery and returned to the drawing room.

"Children require a man," Maria said as she sat again. "Preferably a husband."

"I'm not contemplating scandal," Lucy said with a laugh, settling into her seat, blocking all thought of the theater stairwell. "I had begun to think of Wyvern."