Chapter 5 #2
First off, for many a society lady, a hat was about propriety.
Sometimes, it was about protection from the elements, like sun or rain.
Those were the practicalities of a hat. But a perfect hat also needed to convey a lady’s sense of style to the world.
And topmost of all, as went a perfect hat: it must flatter, drawing the eye toward and away as one preferred.
“Tilly!” a voice rang out.
One of the girls—Maude—waved from her place behind a large rectangular table stacked with hatboxes waiting to be picked up. “I was just saying—” Her gaze shifted over Tilly’s shoulder, and the words stopped dead in her mouth.
The lord in the shop had been spotted.
Well, he was hard to miss.
Another girl rushed forward, a greeting on her lips… That stopped dead, too.
Then, as suddenly, the shop went all aflutter. Seeing as how the place was empty of customers other than Tilly, its cause could’ve been precipitated by none other than that too-handsome lord.
The most handsome lord Tilly had personally beheld, she could allow.
Lawks.
Usually, she stayed for a while, taking her time to peruse various ribbons and trimmings. She liked to keep up-to-date about the newest products. Today, however, her business needed to reach its conclusion posthaste.
She needed to get rid of this lord.
She was tempted to give him the ring.
An idea she rejected for one reason alone.
This too-handsome, wastrel lord needed to learn something about life, and she supposed she was the one who was going to teach him.
And even if he learned nothing about life, he would learn something about her.
She wouldn’t be bullied.
“Now,” she said, firmly but kindly to the yet awestruck Maude, whose plainly infatuated gaze kept flicking over Tilly’s shoulder, “let’s take a look at this chapeau femme.”
She liked using the French word for hat.
Everything sounded better in French.
Tilly’s words seemed to break whatever spell that wastrel, rake lord held over Maude, and she set to the business of locating the correct hat box and prising the lid off.
Carefully, Tilly lifted the hat and held it to the light pouring through the front window.
“The color is perfect.” That saffron yellow would bring out the vibrant green of Isabel’s eyes.
“And I do like this bit of lace…” She turned the hat.
“But perhaps a more delicate netting would suit it better?” There was nothing worse than an overdecorated hat to overwhelm a lady.
“Look here.” She pointed. “Trim along this line all the way to the back, then instead of letting it drape, tuck it under and sew it in.”
Maude nodded along, soaking up every word.
“And do you have any pheasant feathers in?”
“Aye.”
“Put one here—” Again, she pointed to the precise placement. “And how dashing will Lady Percival look at that house party?”
“Oh, yes, Tilly, that’s it.” Maude smiled as she reclaimed the hat.
“Can you have it ready the day after tomorrow?”
The girl nodded. “I’ll start on it right away.”
Tilly could’ve, in fact, taken the hat and altered it herself—she had an entire cabinet full of supplies—but then Maude would never learn anything, would she? She would never know the pleasure and accomplishment of getting something just perfect for a client.
Tilly’s sense of rightness in the world was short-lived, for she’d remembered something.
A man was in this shop with her—a lord.
She turned subtly, enough to locate him from the periphery of her vision. There, at the edge of her eye, stood his large, still form.
He’d been observing her exchange with Maude.
Unable not to, Tilly half twisted and met his gaze directly.
He didn’t flinch.
Sudden and unexpected, she felt aflutter and observed and…oddly exposed.
That awareness she’d experienced in the carriage when they’d shaken hands yet pulled an invisible thread between them…tethering them.
“Will that be all for you today, Tilly?” asked Maude.
She snapped to and tore her gaze from that man. What sort of spells was this wastrel lord capable of casting upon the female sex, anyway? With a light clearing of her throat, she turned toward Maude. “Got any new ribbons in?”
“Oh, yes,” said the girl, brightening as she reached beneath the table. A few seconds later, several spools of ribbon of various colors and fabrics were strewn across the smooth pine surface.
Tilly didn’t have much use for ribbons herself, but they would be the perfect gift for Miss Lavinia Asquith, who was the second cousin of Miss Lucy Bretagne, Lord Percival’s daughter from his first marriage and Isabel’s step-daughter.
Tilly knew she wasn’t on the hook to buy all these folk Christmas gifts, but she liked doing it.
She liked giving a gift and sparking that joy in a person’s eyes when they knew they’d been thought of.
Anyway, Miss Asquith was a horsey sort, and a pink satin ribbon would look lovely fluttering in the breeze behind her as she rode.
While she was at it, Tilly also purchased a few yards of gold grosgrain that would make festive decoration in the drawing room in the lead-up to Christmas Eve and Day.
Then, she was speaking her farewells and exiting the shop, fully aware of the wastrel lord at her heels, as she made for Burlington Arcade, which was a few blocks away.
In a matter of seconds, he was walking abreast with her and shooting her sideways glances.
The man had something to say. But as with every man she’d ever met, her lack of prompting wouldn’t stop him from saying it.
It only took him a few more steps. “Most people don’t behave that way when their purchase is wrong.”
She didn’t know what words she’d expected him to speak, but they wouldn’t have been those. “Well, I believe in second chances in this old life.”
“So, your name is Tilly?”
She almost said yes.
Tilly was her name, after all.
Everyone called her Tilly.
But with this man—this handsome, wastrel lord—she might consider exercising a bit of cautious wisdom and establish a more formal relationship from the jump.
In fact, that was definitely the course of cautious wisdom.
“You can call me Miss Birdwell.”
He nodded, taking in both what she’d said—and what she’d left unsaid. But that was a rule in the haut ton, wasn’t it? In his world, a gentleman didn’t call a lady by her given name—even if that lady was a mere woman.
A satisfied smile tickled about her mouth. It felt right nice to turn a rule around on a lord.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“You can certainly ask.”
“Why were you in front of the Duke of Arundel’s manse today?”
She saw no reason not to tell him at this point. “I’m Lady Percival’s lady’s maid, aren’t I?”
“So, you’re employed by Lord Percival, then.”
“Lady Percival is who I answer to.”
He nodded as if she’d confirmed something for him, and Tilly felt her satisfied smile slip and a little knot form in her stomach. This game wasn’t feeling so very fun anymore, for she could tell this nob hadn’t finished with his questions yet.
They’d rounded the corner onto Piccadilly when he asked, “How did you come by an invitation to the masquerade?”
Really, she should have seen the question coming.
A surge of outrage had her exclaiming, “What’s this about?
” She was attracting no few askance glances from their fellow pedestrians, but she had no care, for she was good and het up.
“You couldn’t bully me, so now you’re aiming to get me sacked?
” She didn’t wait for his response. “Because I’ll have you know what me and Lady Percival have between us is loyalty, and some wastrel rake lord ain’t going to get between us. ”
Silver-gray eyes wide, he lifted both hands, palms out, as if he were attempting to soothe a bristling cat. “That is not my intention.”
Strangely, she believed him.
It wasn’t just the gesture, but the look in his eyes, too.
This son of an earl might’ve been a wastrel and a rake, but he might’ve been an honest wastrel and rake.
Interesting, that.
She realized she was facing him like an adversary. So, while she was looking him in the eye, she took the opportunity to ask, “And what’s your name?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Lord Rhys Osborne,” he said with a slight bow.
Mollified somewhat, she nodded, then started walking again.
“Where are we off to next?”
Lord Rhys looked like he expected an answer.
The bloody cheek of this man!
Tilly picked up her pace, her boot heels a sharp click-clack against cobblestones. Heat in both her step and her voice, she tossed over her shoulder, “We aren’t off to anywhere next.”