15. February 23, 1711 Venice, Italy
Beatrix knots the black silk ribbon behind the lady’s head, careful not to disturb the blond curls she has just finished pinning into place.
The young woman’s soft features disappear beneath a white porcelain mask painted with a golden beak and edged with iridescent feathers.
Of course Lady DeSallowe would choose the peacock.
Beatrix knew it the moment she saw the finished dress, the morning she packed the trunks for Carnevale.
It had taken the tailor four trips to the manor to perfect, with its layer upon layer of blue and green silk skirts, fitted bodice lavishly beaded in gold, and gauzy sleeves embroidered with feathers.
She still packed another three dresses for Lady DeSallowe to choose from, not to mention the matching shoes, accessories, and masks.
The lady despised being told what to do.
Sometimes she disagreed purely out of principle or—more likely, Beatrix suspects—spite.
It is one of the reasons she has grown fond of the girl, despite her best efforts not to.
The other dresses Lady DeSallowe has dragged all the way from London to Venice are equally exquisite.
An ivory gown embroidered with pastel flowers, a russet one that reminds Beatrix of an autumn wood, and an understated black dress with silver accents.
Understated by Lady DeSallowe’s standards, anyway.
They are all strewn across the floor now, discarded in favor of the flamboyant peacock gown.
“Oh, I just love a good masquerade,” the lady gushes as she examines herself in the dressing table’s oval mirror, preening like the bird she is pretending to be.
Beatrix can see the appeal. No one will recognize that the soft-spoken blond woman is the only surviving child of the Earl of Whitehall.
The same child who, five years ago, went missing for a fortnight and whose father, upon her miraculous return, claimed she’d been taken by the faeries.
At a masquerade, Lady Jane DeSallowe can be whoever she pleases.
“It could be anyone under the mask. Isn’t that romantic?” she presses.
“Yes, m’lady,” Beatrix answers automatically, as she always did when Jane brought up matters of the heart.
“I can tell when you’re placating me,” she chides. “You have been doing it for going on five years now.”
A hairpin slips from Beatrix’s hand, tumbles to the lush floral carpet beneath her feet. It can’t be that long, can it? But the proof is sitting right in front of her.
Jane was barely a woman when her father offered Beatrix the position as her maid. She had returned Jane’s lost bracelet and hadn’t asked for a reward. The earl insisted it showed integrity, which might have been true if Beatrix hadn’t been the one who stole it in the first place.
Borrowed. She never intended to keep it, even if it was the most valuable thing she’d ever taken. She just needed to know Jane’s story.
At first Beatrix didn’t think it odd that Jane prized the bracelet, a wide gold cuff enameled with blooming pink roses.
That thought came when she learned the letters carved on the inside spelled out PRUDENCE.
From what little she had heard of Lady DeSallowe at the time, she seemed the type who would rather hurl the bracelet—and its sentiment—into the Thames.
But when she returned the cuff, it was evident by her tears that she really did cherish the thing.
Beatrix was sure she’d have her answers within the month.
Except Jane refused to speak. She refused to eat, refused to bathe, refused to do anything except lie in her grand bed and stare listlessly out her grand window.
It didn’t take Beatrix long to recognize that the earl had lied.
She should have moved on, but the job meant steady money and hot food and a bed, so she stayed.
She brought Jane her meals and took the untouched trays away, opened her drapes each morning and drew them each evening, laid out her dresses and hung them in the wardrobe again, unworn.
Until the morning the earl ordered her to get his ungrateful daughter up and dressed by any means necessary if she wished to remain employed. A suitor was coming to dinner.
Beatrix went into Jane’s room and pulled the covers from her bed. The girl shivered as the chill air settled over her, but she didn’t move. She told Jane her father insisted, but Jane didn’t say a word. She told her a suitor was arriving, and a tear rolled down one cheek, then the other.
Beatrix had enough. She filled the tub with the coldest water she could stand and dragged Jane from her bed.
The girl was slight—grown slighter over those past weeks—but a deadweight in Beatrix’s arms. She dropped her into the tub with a splash that soaked her through.
Jane thrashed and spluttered and called Beatrix all sorts of names unbecoming to a lady.
Beatrix found it endearing. This was Jane—the real Jane—not the polished princess her father and suitors expected her to be, not the heartbroken girl wasting away in her bed.
Beatrix sank into a deep curtsy, her wet dress clinging to her skin, bathwater dripping into her eyes, and said, “Welcome back to the land of the living, m’lady. ”
And Jane laughed.
She returned to her melancholy mood as Beatrix combed out her wet hair at her dressing table.
“Whoever broke your heart, I’m sure he’s not worth all this fuss,” Beatrix said as she untangled Jane’s golden strands, just like she used to do with Isabella’s, sitting together in front of the fire before bed.
Jane’s eyes met hers in the mirror, wide and green and full of sorrow. “I don’t know what you mean. The faeries took me.”
“Yes, m’lady,” Beatrix said. She let the silence settle, then added, “You must have been scared, all alone in a strange land.”
Jane fiddled with her gold cuff. “No, I wasn’t scared,” she said, staring a thousand miles past her reflection. “I was free.”
“What were they like?” Beatrix asked, careful to keep her gaze on the braid in her hands.
“They took care of me. They expected nothing from me but me. They were ever so kind. And beautiful.” Jane sighed, swept away into the ocean of her memory. “The most beautiful soul I have ever known.”
She jerked her head up—pulled her braid from Beatrix’s grasp—suddenly aware she’d said too much. Her eyes met Beatrix’s in the mirror, shining with fear. “Father says I don’t know what I’m saying. I was bewitched.”
“Of course, m’lady,” she replied gently. Wasn’t that what falling in love was? But Jane never mentioned her faerie again.
Beatrix secures a feathered comb in Jane’s hair. She has grown into herself since that day, so slowly Beatrix hasn’t noticed. Now, she can’t unsee it. The lady has become a woman.
She steps aside and lets Jane assess her costume in the mirror.
“Marvelous!” Jane exclaims, clapping her gloved hands together.
Beatrix hands her a fan of real peacock feathers.
“Don’t wait up. I plan on dancing until dawn.”
“Yes, m’lady.” Beatrix drops into a low curtsy, and Lady DeSallowe leaves in a whirlwind of silk.
A heavy silence settles over the room, now empty save for Beatrix and the ridiculous finery strewn over every surface. She leans against the high bed and surveys the catastrophe.
It’s almost enough to send her back to the streets, free to come and go as she pleases.
But she gave up picking pockets the night she watched St. Paul’s burn to ash and ruin.
Most of London burned to ash and ruin with it, and she couldn’t bring herself to take anything from people who already had nothing, even if she was one of them.
She found work where she could get it and went hungry and cold on the streets when she couldn’t, all while a new London grew up around her. Even a new St. Paul’s.
Beatrix picks up the scattered pieces of the ivory gown. She’s glad Jane’s tailor can’t see the dresses now, works of art tossed aside like rags. She runs her fingertips along the finely embroidered flowers.
On any other night, Beatrix is content not to have Jane’s life, with the whispers and the glances and always being a disappointment.
Tonight, she envies her. Hiding behind a porcelain mask and a priceless gown, Jane can be anyone, do whatever she pleases.
It sounds like trouble. It sounds like a good way to forget.
Beatrix discards her black servant’s dress on the high bed.
She pulls Lady DeSallowe’s gown on over her chemise—layers of ivory silk and white lace.
The skirts are huge, the biggest Beatrix has ever seen.
At least they hide her worn leather boots.
She slips her arms through the sheer sleeves, so fine they might be sewn of cobwebs.
Soft ruffles fall around her elbows, edged in pastel flowers that match the roses and forget-me-nots sewn along the length of the bodice.
The tailor didn’t make the dress for Beatrix, but he may as well have. She twirls, and a giggle escapes her as the skirts billow out around her. She feels like one of those fancy French cakes Jane was going on about last week.
Beatrix chooses a plain white porcelain mask and ties the ribbon behind her head. She tucks her hair under the matching tricorn hat adorned with ostrich feathers and trimmed with lace. Even her eyes don’t look like hers, shadowed by the brim of her hat.
Tonight, she won’t be Beatrix. She will be a ghost of Carnevale, just like all the others.
The sounds of revelry float through the cool night air, guiding Beatrix to the Piazza San Marco.
She passes through a grand archway beneath an even grander clock tower, six stories tall, with an elaborate gilded face and terraces adorned with sculptures.
White stone buildings—all arches and columns—surround the square, and a simple brick bell tower rises high above it all, ahead of her.