Page 84 of Regency in Color

Chapter Two

When Andie arrived home, dinner was just beginning. With a conspiratorial nod to Clement at the front door, she removed her slippers, carrying them with her up the stairs to avoid alarming her mother. She dropped them when a familiar figure appeared on the landing.

Eyes sparkling with mischief, Alexandre posed like Louis XIV and pursed his lips. In his best impression of their father, he quietly demanded, “And where have you been, young la—”

His words were cut off as she launched herself into his arms. Her eldest brother had been gone for more than a year, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed him. “Alex, thank God.” She pulled back and looked at him properly. His dinner jacket was spotless, and he smelled of lavender and bay laurel. “You just got off a ship and you look better than I do. When did you arrive?”

“Late this morning. I made arrangements for everything to be taken to the warehouse and made it back before tea to surprise you. Father sends his love.” He took in her disheveled hair and plain clothes. “You look…different. Where have you been?”

“Shoreditch,” she said before she thought better of it. “I had an audition.”

He opened his mouth, but it was a full five seconds before any sound came out of it. “In Shoreditch?” A sudden understanding lit his eyes. “Wait—is The Crow’s Nest still open?”

“That’s where—” She broke off, alarmed by the intensity in his expression. “How do you know about The Crow’s Nest?”

“I’ve…been there before, is all.” He shrugged. “Is Frank still running it?”

A peculiar heat flooded her chest as she was reminded of that afternoon, sitting beside him on the edge of the stage, surrounded by foil stars and faceted crystal. His curious scrutiny was as bright and warm as a gas lamp, dangerous to sit too close to but undeniably delicious. Dear God, you have freckles. She still didn’t know his opinion of freckles, but she liked that he’d noticed. “He is.”

Alex wasn’t buying her feigned nonchalance. He laughed under his breath. “How’s that for a lark? Mum’s going to love this.”

“Andromeda, is that you?” their mother called from the dining room.

Andie closed her eyes, cringing at getting caught coming in late. “Yes, Mother.”

“Dress for dinner and come down. Your brother has returned from St. Croix.”

Andie stifled a laugh as Alex wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll just be a moment.”

With a last smile, Alex jogged down the staircase, sure-footed though he’d just spent a month at sea. Andie envied her brother’s easy self-assurance. He was the life of every gathering, comfortable with himself and his place in the world even though their position had changed in his lifetime and, depending on what happened in France, may yet change again.

Born the heir to a marquis with an ancestral chateau in Chartres, by thirty Alex was all but running the London side of St. Croix Luxury Imports, a business their great-grandfather had established in the 1680s to the horror of the French court. Shunned by Versailles for his race and his working-class wife, Achille had gotten the last laugh; when the revolution began a century later, their family left France but kept St. Croix, surviving the Terror and thriving in England as displaced—yet still staggeringly wealthy—aristocrats.

Alex didn’t care about the castle or the lost title. He liked London, and he was happy with his life.

Andie was less certain about where she fit in.

Dressing quickly, Andie wondered how she would tell her mother about The Crow’s Nest. Her family had always been supportive of her music, but surely that support would not extend to Shoreditch. She’d never exactly lied to her mother, but she wasn’t eager to tell her the entire truth.

Besides, she might not take the job.

Andie snorted, tying her coral necklace and sliding a white camelia into her hair. No, The Crow’s Nest was not where she’d imagined herself, but she was oddly drawn to it. It was older, comforting yet oddly seductive, a little broken…kind of like Frank. If nothing else, she wanted to see him again.

But why? In the ten years she’d been out in society, very few men had turned her head, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Far more interested in music than marrying, Andie hadn’t encouraged them, knowing full well most wanted a fat fortune and a silent, pretty wife.

Over the years, they had sent her countless bouquets and carefully lettered poetry, but they didn’t listen to her. Even the ones who praised her singing talked through her songs. Not one of them had ever really looked at her.

Andie studied her reflection in the candlelight, noticing her own freckles for the first time in years.

It was nice to be seen.

* * *

The Crow’sNest blazed like a bonfire on Friday night.

Dozens of people milled about in the street outside, restless but in good spirits. The crowd was mainly working class, men and women from all parts of London and much further afield if their accents were anything to go by. As she made her way to the door, she overheard bits of Italian, German, and Cockney so broad she didn’t immediately realize it was English. She had been a little nervous about coming on her own, but few paid her any mind in her oversized blue coat and dove-gray walking skirt. As strange as the situation was to her, for the first time in a long time, no one was looking at her like she didn’t belong.

Andie smiled to herself, breathing deeply of the temperate evening air. The people milled about, talking and laughing. Carriages rolled by slowly, delayed by the crowd and the half dozen food stalls set up in the street. One sold bacon baps and picked eggs, another paper cones of roasted nuts, and a third sold tea in china cups. The tea smelled more like chicory than Darjeeling, but it was hot enough that great clouds of steam billowed into the sky every time a new cup was poured. To Andie’s amazement, it was drunk just as quickly, the cups returned to the stall keeper for a quick rinse in hot water before they were passed onto the next customer.