Chapter 6
The pearls or the amethysts?” Arabella stepped in front of the mirror in which Violet had been gazing, holding out an ornamented bandeau in each palm.
“The …” I don’t care, Violet had been about to say, but seeing her sister’s eager face, she listlessly pointed at the purple gems. “The amethysts, I suppose.”
“Excellent choice.” Arabella darted behind her, pulling the bandeau over Violet’s coiffure and arranging it artfully atop her head. “There. You’re going to make the prettiest bride. Are you pleased?”
Violet returned to peering in the mirror at the corner of her sister’s bedchamber, surveying her finery.
The lilac gown with the lacy overskirt and bodice.
The small pendant at her throat that glinted beneath the candlelight.
Her mass of hair that, with great effort from her lady’s maid, Edith, had been contained in a series of elegant knots.
The image staring back at her was her own, most assuredly. But at the same time, she felt a sense of detachment. As if the girl preparing for her wedding tomorrow was someone else entirely.
“Oh!” Arabella’s cry snapped Violet away from her musings, and her sister released the bandeau, pressing her hands together in delight. “Do you know what would make you even lovelier? If we added flowers to your hair. I’ll go down to the garden and cut a few irises.”
“There’s no need to trouble yourself at this hour.” Violet shook her head, the mirror image copying the motion. Reminding her that she, in fact, was the one soon to get married.
“Nonsense. It will only take a moment, and I’ll bring a lantern. It’s best you try them now so you can see what you think, and your ensemble will be exactly as you wish it when you get ready tomorrow.”
Any further protests Violet thought to make were vanquished by Arabella’s rapid departure. Her sister had grown particularly light of foot over the past few days, flitting about almost like one of the springtime butterflies that appeared in the garden.
And why shouldn’t Arabella be happy? A mere two days after news of Violet’s impending nuptials spread, Lord Frederick had written to his sweetheart to invite her for a game of pall-mall as if no rift had ever occurred.
Since then, Arabella had been at Watley Hall for two luncheons, three dinners, and a musicale, her smile growing brighter each time she returned home to relay all the charming things Lord Frederick had said and done.
Her dreams of a betrothal had been restored.
Consequently, their mother hadn’t complained of a single megrim or ague all week.
Violet frowned into the mirror, giving the bandeau an impatient tug to the side.
She couldn’t begrudge Arabella some happiness.
Only, she was tired of dressing up this evening.
She knew Arabella meant it as a kindness, that she’d summoned Violet to her bedchamber and inundated her with a selection of jewelry and other fripperies because she wanted her to experience the same excitement over her wedding that Arabella would surely feel when it came time for hers.
However, Violet’s stays—which their mother had instructed Edith to tie tighter when she’d popped in earlier—pinched, and she’d had enough.
She knew her hips were wider than the fashion, that her bosom was overlarge, and she wouldn’t protest tomorrow as she was finagled and laced into her gown.
Tonight, though—her last night in her mother’s country house as an unmarried woman—was another matter altogether.
“Edith?” she called, kicking off her satin slippers with the too-tight toes and spinning away from the mirror.
After helping Violet dress and completing the hard-fought task of making her hair look presentable, the lady’s maid had removed herself to Violet’s room to turn down her bed and ensure her trunks were packed.
But while her bedchamber was situated directly across the corridor from Arabella’s, she received no answer.
“Edith?” She tried again, padding out to the corridor in her stockinged feet and easing open her partially closed door.
However, her bedchamber sat vacant, the bedclothes still tucked tight over the pillows.
Drat. Where had the maid gone? If she didn’t return soon, Violet would be forced to wait for her sister to come help her, and Arabella seemed disinclined to bring their fashion endeavors to an end.
She slunk back to the threshold of the corridor, peering up and down the frustratingly empty space.
Which was the precise moment a giggle emerged from the direction of the stairway.
She bounded toward the sound, her eyes darting in all directions, trying to adjust to the low light from the sconces.
Had she not been so intent, perhaps she wouldn’t have noticed Edith tucked into a shadowed alcove with a chambermaid hovering beside her, a tiny glow emerging from the candle they shared.
Their backs were turned, and they left just enough space between their bodies for Violet to see they each held something that commanded their attention.
Pamphlets, it looked like. And amusing ones at that, for another stifled peal of laughter broke out between them.
Violet gave her foot a pointed tap against the floorboards, and when that did nothing, she cleared her throat.
At once, the two women whirled around to face her, their giggles becoming startled gasps.
“Miss Collingwood.” Edith’s voice had a strange, wobbly quality, and though she was quick to bend into a curtsy, she nearly tripped over her feet while doing so. “Did you require my assistance?”
Violet said nothing, merely studied the two maids, who both stared back looking like a pair of foxes who’d been caught pillaging a henhouse. For a moment, no one moved a muscle.
Until suddenly, the chambermaid shoved the candle and papers into Edith’s hands, then bobbed an ungainly curtsy of her own.
“B-begging your pardon, miss,” she said, the words ending on a noise that was part hiccup, part squeak.
And then, she fled down the stairs before Violet could so much as blink.
Edith’s mouth opened. Closed. Her face turned from the color of whey to that of a summer strawberry, and Violet was no longer certain whether her lady’s maid looked like a fox caught scavenging or the hen that was about to be made into the fox’s dinner.
She placed her hands on her hips, eyeing the pamphlets within Edith’s trembling fist. “What do you have there?”
“I …” The blood drained from Edith’s cheeks once more. Yes, she’d definitely become the hen.
“I insist on seeing it at once.” Violet wedged herself into the alcove to take the place the chambermaid had just vacated, her chest burning with an equal mixture of impatience and curiosity.
Fortunately, when she reached for the collection of pamphlets, they slid from Edith’s fingers without resistance.
She leaned toward her lady’s maid, bringing the open pamphlet close to the candle until the flame illuminated a passage in the middle of the page. His hand glided over skin smooth as cream, slipping between glistening thighs and traveling to her netherlips—
“Dear Lord!” She coughed, choked, and spluttered all at the same time, her side hitting the wall as she gave a startled jump. Her hands, like Edith’s, became shaky, and she tightened her grip, adjusting the pamphlet’s position in the sparse light so she could read another passage.
She moaned her desire, her cries intensifying as he circled the heart of her pleasure—
Violet nearly tore the page in her haste to close the pamphlet, her attention going to the large letters upon the cover.
“The Scandalous Scholar?” She shot Edith an incredulous glance, then rifled through the remaining pamphlets in the pile, each one containing the same bold typography to denote the title.
“The Naughty Vicar, The Illicit Earl, Mrs. Rumpteaser’s Footman, Three Merry Kitchen Maids … and a Groom?”
Her eyes went wide. Cheeks grew hot. Belly became even hotter. She’d known things like this existed, but she’d never read … never seen …
And now, she was standing in the corridor holding a whole collection of erotic literature when Arabella might return at any moment, as could their mother.
“Come with me,” she hissed, tugging Edith’s arm. Fortunately, the startled maid followed her rapid footsteps without missing a beat, all the way back to the safety of Violet’s bedchamber.
She threw the door closed with a noisy click, then let her weight sink against it, taking several deep gulps of air.
“It’s fortunate my mother didn’t choose this time to come up from the drawing room, for had she been the one to discover your activities in that alcove, she may well have had an apoplexy.
” She tried to make her expression stern, although she didn’t doubt she looked flustered.
Flushed. Besides, she had much less interest in chastising Edith than in satisfying her curiosity. “Where on earth did you get these?”
“From Lord Frederick’s valet,” Edith blurted out, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Her complexion reddened beneath Violet’s shrewd gaze, but Violet refused to relent. Not until Edith made free with the rest of the story.
She waited with all the patience she could summon while Edith slowly lowered the hand from her face, giving in to Violet’s silent demand that she continue.
“I suppose I should say from Lord Frederick’s cousin’s valet,” Edith said, “who got them while serving his master at Cambridge. He gave them to Lord Frederick’s valet when they all met in London at Easter, and Lord Frederick’s valet then gave them to Lady Kingsland’s lady’s maid when they journeyed to Watley.
He’s sweet on her, you know. She told me all about it because we’ve grown to be friends, which is why she shared the pamphlets with me so I could—”