THE
LIKELIHOOD OF LUCY
by
Jenny Holiday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Trevor
Bailey is on the cusp of opening the greatest hotel in London. His
days as a gutter snipe are behind him, as he enjoys a life of wealth,
society, and clandestine assignments as a spy in the service of His
Majesty. Until one tumultuous night churns up the past he'd long left
behind...
Turned
out by her employer for her radical beliefs, Lucy Greenleaf reaches
out to the man who was once her most beloved friend. She never
expected that the once-mischievous Trevor would be so handsome and
gentleman-like and neither can deny the instant attraction.
But
Lucy's reformer ways pose a threat to the hotel's future and his
duties as a spy. Now Trevor must choose between his new life and the
woman he's always loved…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt;
“How
do you know if you want to marry someone?” Lucy watched Catharine’s
eyes for signs of shock. Still, better not to be too specific.
“Hypothetically speaking, I mean.”
Catharine
tilted her head and examined Lucy quizzically, making no mention of
the abrupt nature of the query—the tea had only just been poured
and the footman had hardly got the door closed behind him before Lucy
unleashed the ambush. “How do you know if you want to marry
someone? A good question. If you have options—and unlike most
women, you do—it’s quite easy.”
That’s
what she’d been afraid of.
“You
should marry someone who makes you feel a very great deal of
discomfort,” Catharine declared. “At least initially.”
Lucy
swallowed the very unladylike string of curses accreting in her
throat. “This discomfort you speak of. What does it signify? It
would seem to stand in contradiction to what you said in our earlier
conversations. You said that a woman should look for a man who
concerns himself with his wife’s pleasure. Are not pleasure and
discomfort opposing states of being?”
“No,
they are not.” Catharine must have heard Lucy’s silent plea for
an explanation, because she grinned. “I know it may seem that way.
But in my experience, the degree of discomfort—misery, even—a man
makes a woman feel is directly proportional to the amount of pleasure
he can bring her.”
“But
why must everything be so extreme?” Lucy cried. Then, embarrassed
that her question had very nearly become a wail, she took a deep
breath and tried again. “Is there no place in this world for more
moderate sentiments? Contentment, say? Equanimity and intellectual
compatibility? I’m talking about a feeling of being adequately
matched. What is so wrong with that?”
“Nothing,
of course. Many successful, pleasant marriages are built on just such
a foundation. And I would never counsel a woman against accepting a
man who brought those qualities to her life.” Lucy was about to
protest that Catharine contradicted herself, when the older woman let
her
teacup fall to its saucer with a clatter and looked intently at Lucy.
“If she had no other options.”
Lucy
slumped against the back of the settee, and when, after a few
seconds, she didn’t speak, Catharine moved from her chair to sit
beside her. “And let me make myself perfectly clear. We’ve been
talking about pleasure, and given my reputation—and what you’ve
seen of me in our colorful conversations with Emily—you probably
assume that we’re speaking of the sort of pleasure found in the
marital bed.” Lucy started to protest. She’d heard enough
already—her
worst
suspicions had been confirmed. But Catharine waved away her
objection. “We are, of course. And heaven knows Emily likes to
tease me about my, ah, fondness for that kind
of
pleasure. But that’s not really what I’m talking about.”
“What
are you talking about, then?” Lucy whispered, fearing the
pronouncement was about to get worse.
“Love.
I’m talking about love. I shy away from the word, generally.” She
shrugged. “I’m like a man that way. But what I’m trying to say
is that if you have any choice in the matter, you should marry
someone you’re in love with.
**
“Stop
cleaning,” Trevor said.
Lucy
turned. “And a good morning to you, too.” Another precept she’d
always tried to instill in her pupils—a false show of confidence
could sometimes lead to the real thing. Not that she was preaching
affectation. Never that. Mrs. Wollstonecraft—her guiding light in
all things—would not
approve.
He did
not stop scowling. “You are a guest here. Guests don’t clean.”
“Well
somebody has to. Beds don’t make themselves.”
“Why
make them at all?”
“What
do you mean?”
“I
don’t make mine. Why bother? You’re just going to get into it
again later.”
She
would have laughed, but he seemed perfectly in earnest. And she had
to admit there was some logic to his position. Still, she felt
compelled to defend herself. “A servant worth his or her salt would
not be able to look at an unmade bed and not remedy it. You have no
servants at all?”
“I’ll
have an army of them when the hotel opens—a hiring spree is my next
major task, in fact, and not one I’m looking forward to. For now, I
have a woman who comes in for half days and cooks. But no one enters
my private apartments. Ever.”
“I
did.”
“Yes.”
He moved to the bed and threw the counterpane back, undoing her work.
“And you’re not a servant.”
She had
to cover her shock at his deliberate mussing of the bed. “That’s
debatable. The fate of the governess is to be forever lodged in the
limbo between the household and its staff. She is not quite a
servant, not quite a member of the family. Mary Wollstonecraft once
wrote, ‘A teacher at a school is only a kind of upper servant, who
has more work than the menial ones. A governess to young ladies is
equally disagreeable.’” Clamping her mouth shut, she checked
herself. There
was no
need to start up with Mary. That was exactly what had landed her in
this mess to begin with. It’s just that Mary’s words were always
so close to Lucy’s heart. It was difficult to censor herself
sometimes. But that’s exactly what she had to learn to do if she
was lucky enough to secure another position.
“Be
that as it may, at the Jade, you are a guest.” He set a package on
the unmade bed. “Put this on, and then we’re going out. I’ll
meet you in the kitchen.”
He was
gone before she could answer.
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Jenny
Holiday started writing in fourth grade, when her awesome hippie
teacher, between sessions of Pete Seeger singing and anti-nuclear
power plant letter writing, gave the kids notebooks and told them to
write stories. Most of Jenny's featured poltergeist, alien invasions,
or serial killers who managed to murder everyone except her and her
mom. She showed early promise as a romance writer, though, because
nearly every story had a happy ending: fictional Jenny woke up to
find that the story had been a dream, and that her best friend,
father, and sister had not, in fact, been axe-murdered. From then on,
she was always writing, often in her diary, where she liked to
decorate her declarations of existential angst with nail polish
teardrops. Eventually she channelled her penchant for scribbling into
a more useful format. After picking up a PhD in urban geography, she
became a professional writer, and has spent many years promoting
research at a major university, which allows her to become an
armchair astronomer/historian/particle physicist, depending on the
day. Eventually, she decided to try her hand again at happy
endings--minus the bloodbaths. You can follow her twitter accounts
@jennyholi and @TropeHeroine or visit her on the web at
jennyholiday.com.
Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/jennyholiday
BUY
Links:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a great host and the post :)
ReplyDelete