Page 46 of The Scoundrel's Daughter
Lucy Bamber’s laughter was wholehearted, spontaneous and annoyingly infectious. Gerald found himself smiling at stage antics he’d seen a dozen times and hadn’t thought funny the first time. But she found them hilarious. And he couldn’t help but smile in response.
Which was irritating. He didn’t want to smile along with her.
When the first act ended, she clapped ecstatically and turned to Aunt Alice with an expression that took his breath away. “Oh, Alice, isn’t it wonderful?” Then she saw him watching her, and the bright animation dimmed. She raised a brow as if to say, “Well? What are you looking at?”
Gerald stomped away to fetch refreshments.
He returned with champagne to find the box full of several visiting ladies and far too many visiting gentlemen. Tarrant, he noticed, hadn’t moved an inch from where he’d been sitting beside Aunt Alice. Gerald’s lips tightened. Tarrant had always been clever tactically.
Lucy Bamber was surrounded by young gentlemen—including two of his friends. She was sipping champagne and smiling. His friends were behaving like besotted fools, flirting and flattering. And she was lapping it up, dammit.
A small table had been brought in and spread with drinks, glasses and a range of appetizing refreshments. Of course Tarrant would have arranged provisions beforehand. He’d always been efficient.
The realization did nothing for Gerald’s mood. He drained his glass of champagne, poured another, leaned against the wall and watched his friends competing to make Lucy Bamber laugh. He wished he’d never come. He hated the theater.
***
They were well into the third act, and Gerald had lost all interest in the play. He sprawled moodily in his seat, legs crossed at the ankles, hands stuffed in his pockets, watching Lucy Bamber through half-closed eyes. The candlelight limned her profile. It wasn’t a classic profile by any means; she wasn’t a beauty. But something about her drew him, though he was damned if he knew what.
It was warm in the theater—all those candles and the heat of a thousand bodies—and she’d removed her long white gloves. Her cloak hung loosely over the back of her chair, as if she’d shrugged it off unthinkingly, letting it lie where it fell in folds around her. Her attention was wholly on the stage; they were at the part where everyone was pretending to be somebody else—stupid story—as if that would fool anyone. She stroked the swansdown edging of her cloak rhythmically, as if she were patting a cat, stroking the soft feathers between her fingers. Stroke... stroke... stroke.
He sat up frowning, a thought picking elusively at the edge of his brain. An image of another slender hand stroking something soft and white... Feathers... A long white neck...
And then it burst upon him. “The goose girl!” he exclaimed. “You’re that goose girl!”
Lucy Bamber didn’t respond. Her hands stilled. She gazed at the stage, frozen, lifeless as a statue.
“That’s where I saw you before. The goose girl!”
“Shhh!” Several people hissed at him.
“But I tell you—”
“Ssshhhhh!” Louder now. Heads were turning. Aunt Alice turned around, caught his eye and made a hushing gesture. Gerald hushed, but the knowledge wanted to burst from him.
He waited impatiently until the end of the act. The moment it did, he turned on Lucy Bamber. “I knew I’d seen you before. You’re that goose girl!”
She raised a slender, incredulous brow. “I’m thewhat?”
“That goose girl!”
She gave him a puzzled look, fingered the fluffy trimming on her cloak and said, “It’s swansdown, not goose feather.”
“I’m not talking about the blasted cloak. You’re that goose girl. I know you are, so don’t try to wriggle out of it.”
“Gerald dear—” his aunt began.
“I’m not mistaken, Aunt Alice. When I met this—this female, she was a goose girl.”
Lucy Bamber shook her head in a show of bewilderment that made him want to throttle her. “I dressed up as a shepherdess for a costume party once, so perhaps—”
“Don’t prevaricate!”
“But I really did dress up as—”
“We met on the Brighton road, not two weeks ago. You were carrying a goose. I knew I’d seen you before, and it only just came to me.”
“I?Carryinga goose?” She sounded utterly incredulous. She glanced at his aunt and Tarrant, as if inviting them to join in her incredulity. “What were you doing on the Brighton road, Lord Thornthwaite, when this goose and Isupposedly met you?” Her voice and expression were serious, but her eyes glinted with knowing mischief.
