Lucia winced. “Sorry, miss. Another tangle.” Jane smiled at Lucia apologetically in the mirror of her rosewood dressing table and raised her weapon again. “It’s my fault,” Lucia said. “I should have waited for you before I took my hair down.” But it seemed as though she’d been in a hurry about everything tonight. She couldn’t wait to leave Ethan and Francesca’s dinner party and only escaped the ball she was to have attended afterward by pleading a headache. For once her mother hadn’t argued with her, only kissed her forehead and told her to get some rest. After the night she’d had, rest was exactly what she needed. She rolled her stiff neck to get rid of the kinks and nodded absently at whatever Jane was saying. The worst of it was that she hadn’t even lied about the headache. The pounding in her temples had begun with a vengeance as soon as Alex left the garden, and she’d been forced to soothe Reginald’s bristling temper. He was angrier than she’d ever seen him.
