Page 40 of The Gentleman's Deception

Lavinia choked on her tea and set her saucer down, coughing.

“Are you all right, dear?” Miss Weston asked.

Lavinia glared at Miss Weston over the napkin pressed to her mouth as she continued to cough.

One wouldn’t think a woman of advanced years would be inclined to stir things up, Lucas mused, but then, one would be forgetting it was Miss Weston one was talking about, who had already proven to be the unpredictable sort ever since she’d marched into his room while he was bathing.

Mr. Drake took up the reins now. “And so Delia and I and Hannah, of course, who has been our dear cousin Lavinia’s nurse and companion all these years—have made it our calling to take care of our sweet girl since the loss of her parents, may they rest in peace.” Mr. Drake raised his eyes toward heaven—Lucas didn’t think Isaac the vicar could pull off such a look of piety—before casting his gaze serenely at the other persons present in the room.

“For that is what a family does, does it not?” Miss Weston said.

“Indeed,” his mother said. “Well, we are certainly happy to have Miss Fernley and you all as our guests. Perhaps, now that you’ve had refreshment, you’d like to be seen to your rooms so you may settle in and rest for a while. Miss Fernley, may I rejoin you here in an hour’s time so we can get better acquainted? It isn’t every day a woman learns she is to be blessed with another daughter.”

“Thank you, Lady Thurlby,” Lavinia managed to croak, still suffering the effects of choking on her tea.

Lucas heaved a sigh of relief. They were dismissed—for now. And then a low voice spoke behind him.

“Lucas,” his father said, “join me in my study, please.”

* * *

“Cousins?” Lavinia said in a low, albeit piercing voice once she was alone with Delia, Artie, and Hannah in her assigned suite of rooms, consisting of a small sitting room and bedroom. She suspected it was one of the Jennings sisters’ rooms and had been given to her as Lucas’s “betrothed.” “Cousins? What happened to staying as close to the truth as possible?”

“It didn’t seem right, you having no family when there were so many of them,” Delia explained unapologetically. “Besides, Lucas started it by announcing you as his betrothed. If you’re going to be angry, you should be angry with him too.”

“Iamangry with him,” Lavinia said. She refused to see the parallel of what he’d just done to what she’d done at the White Horse. That had been a roomful of strangers and had been intended only as a simple ruse for escaping. No one would have cared or remembered once they were gone—barring the possible exception of the Earl of Cosgrove’s friends. Hopefully they’d been drunk enough to forget the incident.

What Lucas had done today wasnot even closeto the same thing.

“Besides, Livvy, weareyour cousins; I’m sure of it,” Artie added. “We are undoubtedly related through some tiny distant branch on your family tree. There is such a strong theatrical connection, you see; it must be in the blood.”

“Yes, well, if we go all the way back to Adam, I’m sure we’d find something,” Lavinia retorted. “And you said I lost my mother, Delia, as though she died. Sheleftus.Left. I have no idea who or where she is. Another untruth.”

“Not at all, Lavinia. You lost your mother,” Delia replied. “I cannot help it if they presumed she passed away. Isn’t language a beautiful, artful thing?”

“Indeed, Delia,” Artie piped up again. “As the Bard once said—”

“Enoughof quoting Shakespeare, Artie! Enough of Marlowe and anyone else you intend to dredge up. We are not cousins, nor am I betrothed to Lucas—”

“A pity, that,” Delia said with a sigh.

Lavinia fought for patience. “We are supposed to be starting a new life—no longer actors butnormalpeople.Normal! And yet, what is the first thing that happens when we arrive here? We areactingagain. Pretending we are family and I am Lucas’s betrothed.”

“That’s Mr. Jennings’s fault, luv,” Hannah said.

“Truth be told, Livvy, I’d rather be here under the pretext of being your doting cousin than a friend of your father’s,” Artie said. “I never liked the man all that much.”

Delia nodded in agreement. “Nor I. Artie’s right, Livvy; you must see that. And don’t worry; we areconsummateactors, as you know, and will have them convinced of our familial attachment to you with no effort whatsoever on our parts.”

Lavinia buried her face in her hands. “If I am to face his mother in one hour’s time, I think I’d better lie down,” she mumbled. “I’m going to need all the strength I can muster to get through that conversation convincingly. And then I am going to find Lucas and give him a piece of my mind.”

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