Page 1

Chapter 1

The Tooth and Nail Inn

London, 1826

At the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel, Lucy Holbrook stuck a last branch of golden forsythia in a black jug on the sideboard of the Tooth and Nail’s only private dining room. By placing the forsythia just so, she concealed a spot where the edge of the ivy wallpaper curled away from the wall. To Lucy the inn’s flaws were as dear as its comforts, but she didn’t want her home to appear shabby or rustic in her friends’ eyes; and worse, she didn’t want them to blame Papa for the inn’s defects. She knew her father had meant to get to the wallpaper, and she was sure he had given her a childhood as golden as the flowers in the jug. She took a quick look around the dining room, prayed that its faults would be overlooked in the pleasure of the company, and descended to meet her guests.

The usual crowd of neighborhood men, who came for their daily pint and a smoke, had ceased their talk to gawk at the visitors on the landing as if the curtain had opened on a wonder at the St. Botolph’s Fair sideshow.

The ladies, for their part, took no notice of the bench sitters. The twins, Cassandra and Cordelia Fawkener, in matching dark green, fur-lined cloaks, concentrated on removing blue kid gloves and black bonnets. The sisters were used to being remarked upon from their habit of dressing in matching outfits since their come-out some twenty years earlier.

Only Margaret Leach turned to Lucy with a broad smile and opened her arms. Lucy stepped without hesitation into her friend’s embrace. A brief flood of memories washed over her. So many times at school when the subject of a girl’s connections had arisen, Margaret had offered kindness and wisdom. Lucy had come to appreciate the distinctly feminine nature of such comfort. While he was alive, Papa had patted her shoulder and told her she would be a lady someday. And old Adam had mutely squeezed her hand when he sensed her distress. But her friend Margaret knew when to hold her. Enfolded in that familiar embrace against a silken, scented bosom, Lucy felt yet unshed tears threaten. She pulled back. Tears could wait.

“Dear Lucy,” Cassandra began, turning her back on the public room, “we’ve been so worried.”

Lucy smiled at that. “Surely not, though I expect you’ve been eager for me to return that third volume of Mrs. Raby’s romance.”

“To think of you here, alone, child,” Cassandra added, draping her cloak on the growing stack in her footman’s arms.

“Which you see I am not.”

“Lucy”—Cordelia thrust a brown-paper-wrapped package at her—“we’ve brought you a gift. You must open it.”

“Don’t rush the girl, Cordelia,” Cassandra advised.

Lucy thanked Cordelia and took the package. “I’ve a private room ready for our luncheon.”

The ladies exchanged a glance of obvious relief and turned their backs on the bench sitters. As they climbed the stairs, Lucy took a moment to summon Hannah to help the footman with the cloaks and tell him that he might make himself at home in the taproom or the stables.

In the little room that she and Hannah and Ariel had done their best to smarten up, the ladies studied the cold collation Mrs. Vell, the inn cook, had consented to serve on a Sunday. Pigeon pie, sliced tongue, pickled eggs, and a glistening apricot pudding filled the inn’s best plates, arranged on a clean white linen cloth with shining silver serving spoons. While the ladies filled their plates, Lucy poured glasses of a raspberry cordial she had persuaded Mrs. Vell to uncork.

“We have not put you to any trouble, I hope,” Margaret said, looking up from the sideboard.

Lucy saw where Margaret’s glance caught a yellowing water stain like a lace fringe above the bow window.

“None,” Lucy insisted, unless one counted persuading Mrs. Vell to alter her time-honored patterns. “It’s a cold collation, as our cook has strong feelings about Sunday cooking.”

The ladies settled themselves at the table and gingerly picked at the food.

“We’ve missed you at services, dear. Our little readers’ group is not complete without you,” Margaret said. Their group called itself the Back Bench Lending Library from their habit of exchanging novels after services each week at the chapel in South Audley Street. Lucy had not joined them since her father’s death a fortnight past.

“But we’ve brought you a book,” Cordelia added, breaking off at a look from her sister. “Well, Cassandra, really, Lucy can see without unwrapping it that it is in fact a book, and what else, pray, would we be bringing?”

Most people could not tell the fashionable dark-haired twins apart until they spoke. Then Cassandra’s forcefulness of personality made one notice the sharper arch of her brows and jut of her chin. And Cordelia’s eagerness to please made one conscious of the softness about her mouth and eyes.

“Nevertheless, Cordelia,” Cassandra said, turning to Lucy. “Before we get to the book, we must talk about your situation, dear girl.”

“My situation?” Lucy held her fork suspended above a pickled egg. It was a careful word, a word that meant there was a problem to be dealt with, something that could be fixed or altered or improved, the way one cleaned a chimney that smoked or moved one’s seat away from a draft.

The three ladies nodded in vigorous unity. Cassandra looked to the other two and clearly received some signal to proceed. “You do see that you must leave the inn.”

Lucy put down her fork and slid her hand into her lap. She did not want her friends to see that hand tremble. She should not be surprised that they judged the inn as an unacceptable setting for a lady of their acquaintance.

“Yes, now that your dear father is gone,” Cordelia added, “you may not stay in a common inn.”

“But the inn is my home. It’s where I live.”

“It is what you’ve been accustomed to, to be sure,” said Cordelia, “while your father was alive. However, a gentlewoman does not stay in a public house without a male relation on the premises and indeed without a female companion.”