Loving Lucy by Lynne Connolly Page B

the end of the street, but to her dismay, there wasn’t a hackney carriage to be seen. She had hoped there would be some kind of function here in one of the great houses, with hackneys waiting outside with the chair men and the link boys, but the square was empty and deserted.
    Sighing, she picked up the carpet bag again, took Lady Lucy’s hand and began to walk. At least they had less chance of meeting anyone unsavoury if it was quiet.
    They walked down two sides of the square and then took one of the streets leading off it.
    Although the walk was negligible, it seemed to take forever. Lady Lucy said nothing, just plodded on by Potter’s side. She had to concentrate to see where to go. She knew the way, but it was all so different at night. There were pavements in this part of the city, which was a blessing, but all the houses seemed the same in the night time, and except for the street names emblazoned on the corners, she would have got well and truly lost.
    They got to Grosvenor Square at last. It was almost as deserted as the other, except there was something going on in the opposite corner to the house she was looking for, and there were more lights. The sound of merrymaking echoed across the gardens, and Potter tried to shrink back a little, to make herself and her charge less conspicuous. She approached a house and lifted the knocker, ready to wake the devil if she had to, but she heard the sound of carriage wheels and turned to see who was coming.
    It was the elusive hackney she had searched for. She watched a gentleman get down and reach his hand into the capacious pocket of his greatcoat, but then he looked across at them. And froze.
    He held his hand up to the hackney driver and strode across. “I thought I couldn’t be mistaken. Lucy. And Potter. At this time of night. What brings you here?”
    “She’s been hurt, my lord,” Potter said directly. “I couldn’t think where else to go.”
    “What.” He still kept his voice down. He looked at Lucy, took in her blank face and vacant expression. “What has happened? What made you bring her here?”
    “She’s not safe at home, my lord.”
    “Wait. I’ll pay off the hackney, then - no.”
    He thought rapidly. “It would compromise her reputation too much to take her into my house. I have an idea - how long have you got before they miss you?”
    “Till tomorrow afternoon, I think,” Potter replied. “Miss Honoria is going to say I’m visiting my sick mother.”
    “Good.” He didn’t seem to notice the incongruity of welcoming someone’s illness. “We’ll take her somewhere else while you tell me what’s happened - then we can decide what to do.”
    Potter could see the sense in that. If it became known that Lady Lucinda Moore had visited a single gentleman’s residence at the dead of night her reputation would be ruined, and all the more reason for Sir Geoffrey to marry her.
    Lord Royston hurried them into the still waiting hackney carriage and gave the driver an address Potter didn’t quite hear. He swung up into the coach and sat down with them, Lucy between himself and Potter. She still stared in front of her with that terrible, blank stare. “It’s an inn in the City,” he explained tersely. “Perfectly respectable, but not the sort of place earls and countesses stay. We can say our coach has broken and we finished the journey in this. I’ll get us a room and we can talk in peace and decide what to do.”
    Potter was doubtful that explanation would hold but she let him take control for the time being. She was exhausted. She had been up since six the previous day, laying fires and cleaning, and now it must be near two o’clock and still no sign of a bed for her. Resolutely, she pushed the thought aside.
    They reached the inn quickly, one of the many King’s Arms that adorned the metropolis. It was a coaching inn, but not one of the main ones that stood at the junctions of the great roads which criss-crossed the country. Still, it