Chapter 7
“How is your courtship progressing with the charming Mr. Barrington?” Louisa asked Rebecca, as she strolled arm in arm with Emmeline down the length of Shepherd Market.
Louisa blushed. “Most pleasantly,” she admitted. “There is even less tension between Emmeline and the earl.”
Louisa’s brows rose in surprise as she turned her gaze to Emmeline. “Oh?”
Emmeline shrugged in answer. “We spoke briefly of our childhood during a promenade of Hyde Park while chaperoning Rebecca and Mr. Barrington.”
“It is a beginning,” Louisa noted with approval.
“I would not place much hope upon it,” Emmeline advised. “It was a fleeting moment of nostalgia, nothing more.”
Before Louisa could question her further, their conversation was interrupted by Rebecca suddenly darting into the crowd.
“Rebecca?” Emmeline called after her sister. Rebecca ignored her and disappeared from sight. “Where did she go?”
Louisa gave her a puzzled look. “Is she prone to such behavior?”
Emmeline shook her head. She pulled Louisa along with her as she chased after her sister. They found Rebecca talking with a young woman holding a basket of linens in each hand. They were speaking with the familiarity of two people who knew each other.
“Rebecca?” Emmeline called her name as they approached.
Rebecca turned around. In reply, she said, “Martha, this is my sister, Emmeline, and our friend, Louisa.”
Emmeline and Louisa exchanged a glance of concern. Rebecca had completely ignored the rules of their society. Introductions were meant to be done with the highest-ranking person being given priority, and the appropriate titles made clear.
Given names alone were never meant to be used when introducing a member of the nobility or aristocracy.
Emmeline examined the woman before them.
She appeared to be a servant, a laundry maid by the look of her work-worn hands and the baskets of linens she was carrying.
Dull brown hair framed earnest blue eyes in a face marked by weariness.
Remembering her manners, Emmeline gave a polite smile. “Martha, is it?”
Martha bobbed a curtsy. “Aye, my lady. Martha Gouldsmith.”
“I am, Lady Emmeline Livingston, nee Frampton, the Marchioness of Worthington. This is my friend, Lady Louisa Beauchamp, Viscountess of Harlow.”
“My lady,” the laundry maid curtsied once more.
Rebecca shot Emmeline a look of annoyance. “There is no need for formalities between friends.”
Emmeline arched a brow in disagreement. “How do you know one another?”
“The market is a wonderful place to meet new people,” Rebecca asserted, giving her sister a warning glare.
Sensing the tension between them, Martha cleared her throat and bobbed another curtsy. “If you will excuse me, my lady. I must return to my work.” She turned and scurried away, as fast as her heavy baskets would allow.
Rebecca watched her go with disappointment in her eyes. She turned back toward Emmeline, her jaw clenched in anger. “How could you be so rude?”
“Rude?” Emmeline echoed, confusion wrinkling her brow.
“Yes, rude,” Rebecca asserted.
Emmaline shook her head. “I merely provided the proper introductions.”
“You have become as cold and aloof as our mother. There is more to life than proper etiquette and titles,” Rebecca accused heatedly.
“Have you no compassion for the struggle that most of London must endure? Have you grown so blindly selfish that you would judge a woman simply for how she must survive?”
For the briefest of moments, Emmeline feared that Rebecca might spit at her feet, she was so incensed.
“How could you say such things?” Emmeline was genuinely hurt by Rebecca’s outburst. “All that I have ever done was for the honor of our family and the security of your future.”
“Ladies,” Louisa’s voice calmly intervened. “We are drawing attention to ourselves. Shall we adjourn to a more suitable location for such a debate?”
Rebecca and Emmeline turned angry eyes to the onlookers who had stopped to watch the argument, causing them to scatter for fear of earning the ire of those more powerful than themselves. Emmeline sighed. “I have only ever wanted what was best for you. It is my duty to protect you.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I do not need your protection. I am no longer a child who needs continuous guidance. I am capable of making my own decisions. Much has changed in your absence.” Head held high, shoulders firmly set, Rebecca turned and walked back down the street from whence they had come.
Emmeline closed her eyes, breathing in silence for a brief moment to calm her inner turmoil. She opened her eyes to find Louisa standing beside her with a look of sympathy in her eyes. “She knows not of the sacrifices that you have made so that she might benefit.”
Emmeline nodded. “I know, and may she never know the truth of it. It pains me to be at odds with her. I only wish to see her happy, but she knows naught of the world of men. Counter to her words, she does need to be protected.”
“From herself it would seem,” Louisa agreed. “Perhaps a gesture of sisterly love would smooth the disturbance between you.”
Emmeline nodded in agreement. “She does love gifts. Perhaps I might find her something on the way home. We should not let her get too far ahead of us. It is not safe for a young lady to roam the streets alone.”
Louisa nodded, and they set off together after Rebecca.
As they reached the end of the market street, a flash of sunlight on silver caught Emmeline’s eye.
She paused, sending Louisa on after Rebecca.
She lifted the silver trinket to find a beautiful locket with flowers carved into the polished metal.
Smiling, Emmeline paid the shop owner, then hurried after her companions. As she turned to exit the market, she saw Martha, the laundry maid, watching her from afar. An uneasy feeling passed along Emmeline’s spine, but she shook it off.
“Rebecca,” she called out after her sister, putting the woman firmly out of her mind. “I am sorry,” she apologized as she extended her peace offering. “I did not mean to be discourteous to your friend. Can you forgive me?”
Rebecca’s eyes lit up in delighted surprise at the delicate silver locket in her hand. “Of course I forgive you,” she gushed as she cradled the gift to her heart.
Emmeline smiled, relieved that her sister’s fondness for gifts had not changed. “Shall we return home and play a game together?”
Rebecca’s smile broadened to a grin. “There is no need to return home. I had already arranged a game for us here at the market in celebration of your return.”
“Oh?” Emmeline asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“You remember how much fun we used to have with father and his riddles,” Rebecca stated mischievously.
“I do,” Emmeline confirmed.
“I created a riddle and made all of the arrangements with help from Mr. Hardy. If you answer the riddle correctly, then there is a gift for you at the end,” Rebecca explained, her eyes sparkling with challenge. “Louisa can help you.”
Louisa nodded good naturedly in agreement. “What is the riddle?”
“Forget not thy lady love, whose heart was won upon first waking, her glove a token of grace and beauty, upon which I have sworn my fidelity.” Rebecca’s eyes twinkled with challenge as she relayed the riddle.
Emmeline and Louisa exchanged an amused look, then began to dissect the riddle as they searched the market. “Forget not thy lady love,” Emmeline murmured as she searched the neighboring stalls, “whose heart was won upon first waking…”
“Her glove a token of grace and beauty, upon which I have sworn my fidelity,” Louisa finished, tapping her gloved hand on her chin in thought. “Tokens were given to knights during tourneys,” she mused. “I did see a woodcarver whittling chess pieces earlier. Perhaps he has a knight?”
Emmeline nodded. “Perhaps,” she agreed. “Shall we go and see?”
Louisa smiled in agreement, and the three women reentered the market in much better spirits than when they had departed. Upon arriving at the woodworker’s stall, they did indeed find two wooden knights.
“I see the knights, but I do not see evidence of a lady love,” Louisa noted. Pursing her lips in thought, she searched the woodworker’s assortment of carvings. “I do not see anything resembling a lady at all, or a glove, for that matter.”
Emmeline shook her head. “It is seldom so simple as solving one line of the riddle to find the answer. Each stanza of the riddle must be taken into account.”
She turned around in a circle, taking in the surrounding environment.
“Forget not thy lady love, whose heart I won upon first waking,” she tapped her fan against her reticule.
“Why does that sound familiar, as if I have heard this story before?” She searched her memory for anything that might be of help.
“Le Roman de Perceforest has a scene regarding a sleeping woman, but I would not think that to be an appropriate tale for an innocent,” Louisa noted doubtfully.
Emmeline shook her head. “That is not it. It is something far less sinister than what befell that unfortunate soul. That has naught to do with love.”
Louisa agreed. “What then?”
Emmeline stood whispering to herself. “Forget not…” She breathed out slowly as a group of customers moved down the street, revealing a stall with gloves and other sundries.
Emmeline grabbed Louisa’s hand, and they hurried together over to the stall. Their eyes scanned the table of wares, but once again there was no sign of a lady love. Emmeline turned, frustrated but determined.
As she stared down the street, going over the words in her mind, her eyes fell on a brightly colored stall. “Forget not…” She moved almost by instinct toward the profusion of colors. “Forget me not,” she announced in jubilation, as her eyes took in a nosegay of the tiny pale blue perfect blooms.
“Yes,” Rebecca laughed in delight, letting Emmeline know that she was on the right path. “Keep going!”
“There is a legend attached to these flowers,” Emmeline stated as she picked up the nosegay.
“There once was a knight, Sir John, who was called away to battle. Filled with sorrow at his leaving, his lady love, Lady Mary, gifted him a bouquet of these blooms to take into battle with him. Her parting words are how the flower gets its name.”
“What did she say?” Louisa asked, intrigued.
Emmeline thought back to when their father had told them the tale. “Forget me not, my love, for these flowers will bloom forever, just like our love.”
“That is romantic.” Louis nodded in approval. “What happened to them?”
“Sir John died in battle, and the flowers returned upon the wind to Lady Mary informing her of his demise.”
“How sad.” Louisa frowned in understanding of the Lady Mary’s loss. “So, the first part of the riddle, ‘Forget not thy lady love’, but it does not appear to answer the second stanza unless he fell in love with her or she with him while waking.”
Emmeline shook her head. “This flower does not, but this one does,” Emmeline replied, picking up another nosegay, this time of pansies. “There is a legend about a girl who awakens to fall in love with the first face she sees.”
Louisa laughed. “It does look like a face, does it not?”
“Indeed.” Rebecca beamed. “Keep going!”
“Forget not thy lady love, whose heart was won upon first waking…,” Emmeline repeated, pleased to have found the first two clues, “…her glove a token of grace and beauty, upon which I have sworn my fidelity.” Her eyes scanned the assembled assortment of flowers. “Glove! Foxglove!”
She lifted a stem of the flower from its place among a myriad of roses. “Hmm,” she mused as she took in the colors of the surrounding flowers. “Pink for grace, burgundy for beauty, and yellow for fidelity,” she mused as she plucked a rose of each color from the stall.
“Yes! You did it!” Rebecca clapped her hands together in excitement.
The shop owner smiled, nodding her head in approval.
“When Mr. Hardy came to me and told me of your game, I was not certain that anyone would come to claim their prize, but surprise me you have.” The shop owner reached behind her stall and emerged with a beautiful bouquet of roses wrapped in paper and string. “Your prize, my lady.”
Emmeline laughed in delight, handing the shopkeeper the flowers that she had pulled from the stall in her excitement to solve the riddle. “I thank you for your kindness.”
Emmeline pulled a coin from her reticule, but the shop owner shook her head. “Mr. Hardy has already delivered payment, and he arranged for these as well.” The shopkeeper handed the nosegay of forget-me-nots to Louisa and the pansies to Rebecca. “A gift of cheerful devotion for the ladies.”
All three women beamed with delight. What had started out as a most troubling experience had ended with joy.
As the three ladies turned to leave, Emmeline caught sight of the laundry maid watching them from behind a neighboring stall.
Reaching out, she grabbed Louisa’s arm. Louisa, seeing the concerned look on Emmeline’s face, followed her gaze. “A curious lass, is she not?”
“Indeed.” Emmeline nodded, her mind unsettled.
She turned to ask Rebecca a question about the girl, only to find her sister had already moved on down the line of stalls.
Turning back toward the maid, she found that the girl had disappeared into the crowd of market goers.
“Louisa?” she asked, her brows lifted in question.
Louisa shook her head. “I did not see where she went.”
“I am concerned for Rebecca’s association with this woman,” Emmeline admitted.
Louisa’s eyes held a similar suspicion. “Perhaps their friendship is not as innocent as your sister would have you believe.”
“Or worse, that Rebecca has no notion of the girl’s intentions at all,” Emmeline mused, a need to protect her younger sister hastening her steps to follow behind Rebecca’s retreating back.
As they left the market, Emmeline could not shake the uneasy feeling that they had not seen the last of the curious laundry maid, and that there was more than curiosity surrounding the girl’s peculiar behavior.