Chapter Seven
Eden darted away from her so quickly he knocked his ankle against a wooden table leg and cursed under his breath. It amused her, but not as much as it might have had she not been so thoroughly enjoying their dancing lesson. It was sweet watching him become more self-assured. It made her feel a little girlish. She knew about seduction—she was, after all, a genius at it—but it was rare indeed to be on the receiving end, given a whore was a sure thing. It was all playacting, but she liked the game.
“Steady there, milord,” she said to Eden. “You need that foot for dancing.”
He looked nervously at the door and put a finger to his lips to shush her. “That will be the dressmaker,” he whispered. “She thinks you’re my sister. She can’t know we were dancing.”
Tha?s nodded solemnly. “I’ll tell her we were kissing instead.”
His face contorted into horror, and she laughed. He was so easy to tease. It made her fonder of him.
“Remember,” he whispered, “you’re a governess visiting, and your luggage was stolen from the coach on your journey here from London.”
“Aye, aye,” she said, waving her hand. “I won’t expose your perverted ways.”
He walked over to the door and opened it. A plump blond-haired, blue-eyed woman stood there, holding a basket in one hand.
“Good afternoon,” Eden said. “I’m Mr. Smith. You must be the seamstress Hattie recommended. Mrs.—”
“Sophie Gerity,” she supplied.
“And who might this be?” Eden asked in a warm voice, peering down into the basket. Tha?s stood on her toes to see over his shoulder.
“A baby!” she exclaimed. The little creature was an angel, all wisps of blond hair and fat, rosy cheeks and eyes as blue as his mother’s.
“What a precious darling,” she said, edging Eden out of her way so she could get a better view. She reached down and put her finger to the baby’s tiny pink hand. He squeezed it and her heart along with it. She adored babies, even strangers’ babies, even—especially—ugly scrunch-faced babies. In the list of things she loved, they numbered only below her friends and money. And she needed money in part so she could, eventually, have a baby of her own. Perhaps even a whole family of her own, complete with a handsome, fawning husband.
It was her most secret fantasy: a family life.
“What’s his name?” Tha?s asked the dressmaker.
“Charlie,” Sophie said, smiling down at him.
“This is my sister, Miss Jane Smith,” Eden said.
She nearly laughed. He’d given her the blandest name he could think of, obviously.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Smith,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry to hear about your stolen trunks. Terrible, what people will do for a few pounds. But we’ll have you some new gowns before the week is out.”
Sophie didn’t sound suspicious of their story. Eden must have noticed too, for she could sense him relax.
“A week? You must work quickly,” Tha?s said.
“My sisters help me. There’s six of us, and I’m the oldest and the only yet married. Youngest one is nine. No brothers. Usually they mind the little one when I make calls, but it’s washing day at home, and they can’t be spared. But he’s a good baby. Hardly cries at all, except when he’s hungry. But don’t you worry. I fed him just before I left.”
This woman clearly loved to talk. Just as well, as Tha?s didn’t mind listening, and the fewer questions Sophie asked the better.
“I’ll leave you ladies to it,” Eden said. “Sophie, it was a pleasure to meet you.” He withdrew to his study, closing the door firmly behind him.
“My bedchamber is upstairs,” Tha?s said, using her fine lady voice. “We can do the fitting there.”
“Such a lovely home,” Sophie said as she followed Tha?s up the stairs. “A warm, sunny place to spend your holiday. Except for yesterday, when it was raining, of course. But the sun can’t shine every day, can it?”
“How would we appreciate good weather if it did?” Tha?s asked.
“Exactly,” Sophie said. “Undress then, if you would, and I’ll take your measurements.”
“Of course.”
As Tha?s unlaced her bodice and shimmied out of her skirts, Sophie continued to talk about the weather.
“Nasty out, it was, yesterday, and the day before. I was meant to deliver two ball gowns up to the old viscountess’s house, but my nag wouldn’t have made it up the hill. Have you seen the house, yet, Dunsmoor? Finest establishment in all of Gloucestershire if you ask me.”
“A viscountess lives nearby?” Tha?s asked.
She was surprised Eden wasn’t worried about being spotted by someone of his class.
“Well, a dowager. Getting on in age. Seventy if she’s a day, and mostly blind, poor thing. Lift up your arms for me, love, will you?”
“And yet she still goes to balls?” Tha?s asked, shifting so that Sophie could measure her bust. “She must be impressive.”
“Oh, the gowns aren’t for her. They’re for Lady Maria. That’s her granddaughter. She’s staying with her for the summer. Sixteen, I think, but the viscountess allows her to attend the local dances as long as she’s chaperoned by her maid. Pretty girl. She’ll marry well, that one, when she’s old enough. Of course, I was married at fifteen, but they do it differently in the upper crust. She has to be presented to the queen. The queen! Can you imagine?”
“I certainly cannot,” Tha?s said with a chuckle. That would be the day.
The baby gurgled, and Tha?s and Sophie both bent over to coo at him.
“You like children,” Sophie observed.
“I do. I sometimes feel as though I’m a mother to my students.” She did not add that her students were primarily young prostitutes who wished for training to be courtesans. She ran her own small charity to elevate such girls, taking on a few students a year.
“You have the hips for it,” Sophie said, measuring around Tha?s’s rump. “I have them too, good birthing hips. This one came right out, only three hours’ labor. Of course, he’s not my first. That’s my little Molly, four years next month. Took six hours to get her out, but then, the first one’s always hardest.”
Tha?s imagined Eden overhearing this conversation and suppressed a laugh. “God blessed you,” she said.
“Oh, indeed he did.”
Sophie continued to chatter as she finished her measurements, telling Tha?s all the village gossip. She was so detailed that it made for a rollicking yarn, even though Tha?s did not know any of the people Sophie spoke of.
“Three gowns, then. Will that be enough?” Sophie asked. “Or maybe four, since you’re here a month? Nice not to have to wear the same thing every day. I can do the first one for you in the next two days, the others inside a week, if I get the girls to do the stitching. They have nimble fingers. Our mother was a seamstress too, and she’d slap our knuckles if she caught us missing a stitch. Painful, but it worked, didn’t it? It’s her dress shop that I run. Well, mine now, I suppose. She passed a few years back, poor thing. A tumor, they said, though we couldn’t see it.”
“How awful. I’m sorry.”
“It’s nature’s way. But we miss her every day. I’ll send your first gown over with Hattie when it’s done, save you a trip to town.”
Tha?s thought of twenty-nine more endless days stuck in this tiny cottage and nearly groaned. “Oh, you needn’t,” she said. “I can come collect it from your shop.”
“No use,” Sophie assured her. “Hattie lives next door, she does, and she’ll be coming here.”
“Thank you,” Tha?s said reluctantly. “How kind.”
“I’ll see myself out, if you don’t mind, since you’re in your unmentionables. The baby will need to eat soon, and I’d best get home before he fusses.”
“Very well,” Tha?s said. “Thank you for coming.”
Tha?s dressed and went downstairs, for lack of any other entertainment. Perhaps she could pick up where she left off with Eden. She’d liked their little lesson.
He was still in the study with the door closed. She considered knocking, but it would be more fun to barge in, and fun was scarce to be had in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.
He looked up from his papers when she walked in, spectacles on his eyes and a quill in his hand. A lock of black hair had fallen over his brow. She liked how his hair was tousled. She would ruffle him up when he finally allowed her in his bed.
“Mrs. Gerity is gone?” Eden asked.
“She is. Took her time. Quite a talker, that one. Chattered off my ear. Not that I minded. Full of gossip. Did you know the last schoolmaster here was sacked for fornicating with a barmaid at the carnival?”
His eyes widened. “No. How outrageous.”
“And,” she said, “the baker’s wife is sleeping with the surgeon the next town over, and everyone knows except the baker.”
He craned his neck at her, like he was not at all sure why she was telling him this. “Oh? I’ll remember that the next time I eat bread.”
“You don’t want to hear about the village scandals?”
“Not particularly. We don’t know any of the people and aren’t likely to meet them.”
“Here’s one you might care to know. There’s a dowager viscountess living a few miles away.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“You are? I’d think you’d be worried about being recognized.”
“Camberwell mentioned it when he set me up here. Assured me she’s half-blind and never leaves the house. I’m not acquainted with her anyway. Her son and I don’t see eye to eye, as you know.”
“Her son?”
“Lord Bell,” he said, naming Elinor’s estranged husband. A man so vile his very name sent the devil’s fingers down her spine.
“Lord Bell?” she sputtered. “Elinor’s husband?”
“The very same,” he said.
“But he knows who you are. And he certainly knows who I am. Hates me and anyone else who loves his wife.”
“He’s a bastard,” Eden said grimly. “But we needn’t worry. Camberwell told me he hasn’t been here in years. Not exactly the type to dote on his mother, unsurprisingly. And since we won’t be going out, we won’t be spotted.”
She was hardly listening because suddenly she remembered Sophie had mentioned a girl named Maria.
Elinor’s daughter was named Maria.
Which meant Elinor’s missing daughter was living a few miles away.
“Gracious bleeding Jesus,” she muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Maria’s there.”
He looked at her blankly. “Elinor’s girl,” she explained. “Bell’s been keeping El from her children. She thought they were in Devon. She’s there looking for them. I have to write her.”
His face softened in immediate sympathy. She liked him for it.
“Of course,” he said. “Do it today, before Hattie picks the post up in the morning.”
“Do you have another quill? I’ll do it now.”
He rummaged in the desk and produced a bottle of ink and a quill, which he sharpened deftly. He handed it to her along with paper.
“Thank you,” she said.
She hurried to the parlor table to sit down and write her news.