Chapter 16 - Dahlia
CHAPTER SIXTEEN- DAHLIA
The following morning, Dahlia swept through the door early in the morning, Rachel in tow.
Her first visit had been moderately successful, though she could have accomplished more if the Preston ladies had sat still longer.
Dahlia was determined to sketch at least five full ensembles per lady before she returned home.
The breakfast room looked just as it had the previous morning—the same polished mahogany table before the carved marble fireplace, the plush rug underfoot.
The same large footmen flanked the stone-topped sideboard, wearing the same dour expressions.
However, the two vacant place settings waiting at the table were more precisely placed than they’d been yesterday.
The sight made Dahlia want to smile—they’d been expected.
The only addition to the room was the presence of the olive-skinned gentleman standing just to the right of William’s chair. He held out a folio and flipped the papers quickly; William signed page after page with a flourish, a half-full teacup clutched in his other hand.
The man was clearly Indian—if the shade of his skin and his thick dark hair hadn’t given it away, his clothing surely would have.
He wore a long red tunic threaded with gold that was tightly buttoned over his chest but split at the waist to flow over loose tan pants that cinched just above his leather shoes.
Dahlia thought his outfit was quite pleasing—she instantly decided to steal the cut of his tunic for her mental file of ideas.
The same principle could be applied to the jacket of a walking dress, for instance, to excellent effect.
It would be something just slightly different than the norm, which was one of her favorite tactics to utilize.
Perhaps Claire would agree to the design—it would look best on someone with her angularity.
William nodded in their direction as they entered. “Miss Dahlia Warrington, Miss Rachel Warrington, allow me to introduce my personal secretary, Mr. Abeer Dev.”
"Why, you’re foreign," Rachel said, blinking up at Abeer.
"It’s certainly clever of you to notice, Miss Rachel," Abeer said.
Rachel blushed.
Dahlia blinked. She couldn't remember the last time her sister had been embarrassed, but she supposed that if anything warranted it, that exchange certainly did.
"Apologies," Rachel said to the stately gentleman. "I'm in the habit of speaking my thoughts out loud, and not all of them are worth the effort. I assure you, I meant no offense."
He smiled, a twinkle in his eye. "Think no more of it, Miss Rachel."
"But this is wonderful." She leaned forward and grinned. "If you're from India, then you might know more of Lord Darnby Thornton."
Abeer inclined his head. "I've actually met the fellow, as has his lordship. We were lucky enough to sit next to him and his wife on a boat ride to Bombay within the last year."
"How tall is he?" Rachel asked.
Of all the questions that she might have levied at someone who’d met one of her heroes, this was not the one Dahlia expected. It appeared to be a surprise to Abeer as well, though he recovered quickly.
"Not nearly as tall as Lord Cavendish, but perhaps slightly taller than myself."
Rachel slid her eyes between the two of them as if imagining someone who would fit into the gap.
"I only wonder, you see, because he claims he discovered the baya weaver bird by walking past a tree, glancing over, and spotting a nest. However, in much later writings, he advises that the baya weaver usually builds its nest toward the top of a tree.
I've always thought it suspicious, myself. "
Abeer smiled. "Do you not believe his story?"
"Little anomalies like that bother me."
"Would you find his discovery less impressive if it had occurred in a different way?" William asked.
"It's not so much that. I simply prefer the truth," she said. "I thought that perhaps he cut down a tree or that maybe some fearsome beast had frightened him and forced him to climb. I find it a curious discrepancy, one which I've always wondered about."
"If you like," William said, "the next time I write the gentleman, I can relay your inquiry."
"Would you really?"
"Of course. Lord Thornton and I are actually business partners of a sort."
Here, Abeer chuffed a laugh, and William gave him a quelling look.
"Speaking of stories that are a little suspicious," Dahlia muttered.
Margaret snickered; William ignored them both. "Ladies, what are your plans for the day?"
His eyes flitted towards Claire, who, although she had not fled from the Miss Warringtons’ presence, had been taciturn and frowning down at her plate, eating with a dogged speed that spoke of an impending departure.
"I’ve come up with a solution for these ladies’ nerves at being sketched," Rachel announced. "I've brought a basket full of things to entertain, only we must all stay in the same room."
"Things to entertain?" Beatrice wrinkled her nose. "Do you mean whist?"
"Good heavens, what is your attachment to whist? All you talk about is whist," Margaret said, throwing her hands in the air.
"It was one of the few games we had," she said, frowning.
Dahlia saw William wince.
"I haven't brought whist." Rachel shook her head. "Though I've never learned how to play and would dearly love someone to teach me."
Beatrice brightened and sat up straighter.
Margaret rolled her eyes. "You have no idea what you've just done. My sister will plague you endlessly until you sit for a game.”
“What manner of diversions did you bring if not a card game?" Lily asked, her head tilted.
"Games of my own invention."
Dahlia speared a piece of sausage upon the tines of her fork and placed it into her mouth. Rachel had refused to tell her what was in her basket when she’d asked. The most she’d promised was that there was nothing alive in there.
"And if we run out of the entertainment I brought," Rachel was saying, "we can certainly invent more. I don't suppose that your housekeeper has any old sheets she'd be willing to part with?"
"Absolutely not," Dahlia said, putting her fork upon her plate abruptly. "You cannot play ghosts."
"Why ever not?" Rachel said, frowning.
"For one thing," Dahlia said, "asking for old sheets when you're visiting someone's house simply isn't done. For another, I need to be able to see the ladies in order to draw them."
Rachel was supposed to distract his sisters from the fact that Dahlia would be drawing them all day. The thought seemed to occur to Lily as well, for she frowned at Dahlia as if in sudden fear.
"Perhaps we should begin in the library," William said. "We have an excellent collection of books. Claire and Lily have been exploring the titles."
Rachel's smile widened with a nearly scandalous delight. "You truly wouldn't mind if I looked through your books?"
"Of course not," he said with a smile. "That’s the purpose of books, after all—to be read."
"Not everyone shares your opinion. Some people think that their books should remain as some sort of museum installation that never is touched.”
“I don't ascribe to such a notion. It’s my belief that the pages of books should be regularly aired with reading."
"Excellent." Rachel looked at Lily. "Tell me, what are your favorites?"
"I prefer histories mostly. Either that or a good Greek tragedy."
"How wonderful! I detest Greek tragedies." Rachel grinned.
“Why is that wonderful?”
"There's no possibility we'll want to read the same book at the same time. We will make perfect library companions."
Dahlia tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as she pulled her sketchbook from her satchel, placed it next to her plate, and began to draw.
Lily had never looked so radiant as when she spoke of books, and inspiration had struck suddenly, as it was wont to do.
It was a strange, special feeling to be allowed to capture the image in her mind’s eye immediately upon its arrival, instead of storing the idea for translation onto the page later.
She could feel William watching her now and then as she sketched a sweeping, pale peach ballgown with flourishes of crepe de chine along the neckline. The embellishment would cross against her back, then flow forward to drape on either side of her waistline.
Rachel didn’t look back over at her sister once, though Dahlia was fairly certain her sister knew that she was sketching.
Instead, she fully captured Lily’s attention with questions and conversations about her favorite books.
Dahlia finished noting her fabric and embellishment selections, then closed the notebook, placing her pencil precisely along the edge.
“Well done,” William leaned in and murmured. “I don’t think she noticed what you were about at all.”
Dahlia glanced up and happened to meet Claire’s eyes. The lady’s lip curled upward in unmistakable disgust. William followed Dahlia’s gaze; Claire pushed back from the table and dropped her napkin next to her plate.
“I’m finished,” she announced, then swept from the room.
William sighed and the other ladies blinked their surprise before Rachel asked whether they’d ever read an entire set of encyclopaedias.
“Why ever would you read an entire encyclopaedia?” Margaret wrinkled her nose. “Those are just reference books.”
“There are hundreds of wonderful things from A to Z. Some fairly scandalous things, too.”
Margaret leaned forward. “Such as?”
“You’ll never know if you don’t read the encyclopaedia.”
“Certainly you’re bluffing and this is a poorly veiled enticement to get me to read those boring tomes. There cannot be anything truly scandalous in an encyclopaedia.”
“My dear, they cannot edit everything good out.”
“Give me a hint, then.”
“Did you know that bonobos—that’s a type of monkey—”
“No, Rachel.” Dahlia snapped. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s right there, in the encyclopaedia!” Rachel gestured vaguely toward the doorway.
“Reading it is one thing. Telling it to others at a breakfast table another thing altogether.”
“William,” Margaret said sweetly. “May we be excused?”
William did a poor job of hiding his smile. “If you’re finished.”
There was a clamor of silver dropped against china plates, pushed back chairs, and napkins tossed down.
The four ladies headed for the door with barely concealed alacrity.
Margaret and Rachel broke into a run as soon as they passed the threshold of the breakfast room; there was soon a shrill stampede on the staircase.
“I’m very sorry.” Dahlia sighed. “Rachel has a keen enjoyment of the absurd and inappropriate.”
William chuckled. “I tend to agree with Margaret on the matter. How obscene can information be if it’s included in an encyclopaedia?”
“You’d be surprised. I don’t think the authors expected that young ladies would be reading it. At least, not as meticulously as Rachel does.”
“So what on earth is so inappropriate about bonobos?”
Her cheeks warmed. “You cannot expect me to repeat such a thing, especially after I prevented my sister from doing so only moments ago.”
His answering chuckle warmed something in her stomach. She pushed the confusing feeling away; she couldn’t examine it further, not when William’s green eyes were watching her so closely, not when he was still smiling at her like that.
“Fair enough.” He waved his hand lazily at the footmen; they disappeared through the door.
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Forgive the impertinence," he said. “But I would speak with you alone a moment. There is a small flaw in our scheme.”
“Our scheme?”
He chuckled again, and she resolved not to amuse him for the rest of the day. His laughter provoked a reaction within her, one that whispered of danger, though she didn’t quite know why.
“I passed along your sketches to the seamstresses, and they wrote me back immediately, saying they couldn't possibly choose the fabrics for the gowns.”
“I’m not asking them to choose. I left very clear instructions.”
“Perhaps your notes are clear to you, but”—here, he pulled a note from his inner jacket pocket—“‘Silk charmeuse in a pale grey-green that doesn’t skew at all blue’ isn’t as plain to them as it is to you. They don’t want to choose the wrong fabric and be responsible for such a costly mistake.”
“This is going to be an intensive endeavor even without me having to nip down to Madame Aubert’s to pick out fabrics.”
“I’m working on a solution for that, but I feel it would behoove us to have more sketches completed before I present it to you.”
“There cannot be any delay.” She shook her head. “I don’t think such a number of gowns is even possible, unless you had as many seamstresses at your disposal as Madame Aubert does.”
“As I’ve said, let me worry about that part.” He smiled.
William looked especially nice this morning, in a dark charcoal suit with a crisp white shirt underneath. There was something in the juxtaposition of his large frame in a cultured suit that Dahlia found more than a little intriguing.
Attraction—that was the emotion she was feeling. How inconvenient to feel such a thing, especially since she’d be forced to spend so much time with him for the foreseeable future.
“Well,” she said, pushing back from the table, “if I’m to design dresses, I must be in the room with the ladies.”
“I’ll show you to the library. Perhaps they’re already finished with the Encyclopaedia B…”