Chapter 30
Ellie could hardly keep two thoughts together over the next few days.
Mairi had reached out to one of the women from her League, with the result that Ellie was able to have a private consultation with a doctor and a midwife, both of whom confirmed Ellie’s suspicion.
The midwife, seeing her reaction, calmly asked if Ellie wished to do anything about her condition, explaining that she still had options.
“I have to think about it,” Ellie said.
“Don’t take longer than a fortnight, dear. Earlier is safer. But no matter what you choose or when, come to us if you have questions.”
Ellie thanked her, and left with Mairi.
“I know you won’t end the pregnancy. So when will you tell him?” Mairi asked.
“I should probably do it before it’s obvious.”
“Probably,” Mairi said dryly.
“I’m terrified.”
“Of his reaction?”
“Of my state. I don’t know what to do, Mairi. I’m about to be a mother…soonish anyway. And I don’t have a mother to speak to.”
“I know.” Mairi embraced her. “It’s not fair. For what it’s worth, you do have a sister.”
“Thank you. It’s worth a lot.”
“You could speak to Aunt Rosalind?” Mairi offered tentatively.
“I thought about that, but I would hate to trouble her with my…trouble.”
“She’s a mother herself. She’d understand.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to speak to her at the next party.”
“Ugh. Another party. I wish Averill would just elope. Run off to London again.”
“Darling London,” Ellie cooed, mimicking something Averill had said the day before. “The sound of the bells at sunset!”
Mairi snickered.
The sisters were again confronted with Averill the moment they came home. “Where have you been?” she demanded.
“Out,” Mairi snapped. Ellie said nothing, not wishing to explain anything about their errand. “Why do you suddenly care about what we’re doing?”
“I don’t. I just wanted to know what you’re wearing for the party.”
“What does it matter?” Mairi replied with a shrug.
“Not tonight’s party,” she said scornfully. “I mean for the masquerade.”
Of course Averill had insisted on a masquerade for her final party. It was the most potentially dramatic, and afforded her the best opportunity to overawe the attendees with some spectacular costume, and then the most astonishing reveal of her identity at midnight, when all masks came off.
Elspeth and Mairi understood that to even think of competing with Averill was a sin in the their stepsister’s eyes. Mairi didn’t have much interest in the idea of a masquerade anyway, and thus announced that she intended to dress as Hypatia of Alexandria.
“Who?” Averill asked blankly.
“Exactly,” Mairi told her. “It will be easy to fashion a costume in the style of an ancient lady and I can wear a crown—”
“What!” Averill cried.
“A crown of laurel,” Mairi said, “to signify my role as a scholar. A simple mask of white linen will do. And I shall carry a scroll.”
“How dull.” Averill was clearly delighted with this decision. She looked at Elspeth. “And you?”
“I’m not sure. I thought I might try to be some figure from a fairy tale. Cap o’ Rushes, perhaps.” Elspeth always identified strongly with that particular tale.
“Who?”
“Cap o’ Rushes is a girl who works in the prince’s scullery.” Elspeth neglected to add that Cap o’ Rushes was also a princess in hiding from her own king. Wasn’t Ellie sort of in hiding herself?
“What does she look like?” Averill demanded.
“She has dirty skin and tangled hair and she wears a cloak and cap woven of rushes—” Ellie began to explain.
“Excellent,” Averill approved, cutting her off. “I’m sure that both your costumes will create…comment.” By which she meant mockery from the other partygoers.
“What are you going to be, then?” Mairi asked.
“I shall be Aphrodite, clad in the purest white silk, with gold adornments!”
“I can’t wait,” Mairi muttered, rolling her eyes so only Ellie could see.
* * * *
Not long after, Ellie was in the long, narrow room in the family home that served as a sort of shared library-parlor-sitting room.
Bookshelves lined one wall. The books on those shelves were a mix of pristine and unread (the pages on many hadn’t even been cut), less pristine because they had been read (mostly novels, travel guides, and reference books that appealed to Averill and her mother), and completely fake (wooden panels carved to resemble a row of book spines).
The fake ones were placed on the high shelves where no one was likely to try to pull them off.
Her father felt that a gentleman ought to appear well read, even when he never read.
She confined her attention to the lower shelves of real books.
The travel guides and memoirs were the most interesting.
After all, she wanted to be anywhere but here.
She spotted Walton’s New Traveller’s Guide to London and Environs.
How funny that both Struan’s and her family’s libraries contained the exact same guide!
As she scanned the book, especially the few engraved plates illustrating famous sites, she saw the description about Covent Garden again: This remarkable space is truly magical at night, when the glow from the lanterns among the trees is nothing less than otherworldly.
She heard the words in Averill’s voice. She’d said those very words, multiple times during the endless morning visits of social acquaintances. Had she simply not come up with her own way of describing the sight?
Ellie quickly flipped to the part of the guide covering shopping: The exquisite shops of Bond Street, lined up like so many cakes, contain delectable wares.
Another too-familiar phrase. That was strange. Averill was no creative spirit, but why would she be pulling lines from a travel guide when she could have simply shared her own memories of London?
Mairi walked in. “What are you doing? Trying to decide where to flee from scandal?” she asked jokingly.
But Ellie’s eyes dropped to her torso, and she inhaled as an idea overtook her. “Mairi! Read this.”
She showed her sister the lines in question, then asked, “Why does Averill never say anything original about London? Why does she never talk about what the family did or who she saw? Why is it only this patter?”
“Because she wasn’t there,” Mairi said, looking up as the idea clicked in her own head too. “But if she wasn’t in London, where was she? And why lie about it?”
Ellie tapped her belly meaningfully. “She’s always been a flirt. What if she did more than flirt, and got into trouble, but left it too late to bring it off that way the midwife suggested I could do?”
“She’d have to hide it. And her mother must have helped.”
“I’d bet Father is the one who decided everything,” Ellie said. “Susan and Averill both know to not get in the way of his plans. And his plans depend on Averill marrying well. And that means not a breath of scandal.”
Mairi snatched the book out of Ellie’s hands. “I’m going to find out the truth.”
“How?”
“Leave it to me, Pest. We all excel at something.”
* * * *
The weather had turned, unsurprisingly. Scottish weather was dependable only in the sense that one could depend on it to change, usually for the worse.
Rain pelted down at a sharp angle, obscuring the details of the buildings on the other side of the street.
The trees planted at the corner might as well not exist. Elspeth peered out the window, the glass smudged with her fingerprints and the spot where she’d leaned her forehead against the cool glass.
She needed the cool, since every fireplace and grate within the large house was roaring at full blast in an attempt to drive out the dampness that had come in with the storm.
Averill threw a tantrum the moment her hair started to frizz, crying that she would be ruined if people saw her hair in such a state.
Nothing less than mirror-smooth locks would do, and Averill blamed the sky itself for trying to thwart her future happiness.
Mairi had left the house in protest, saying that the League met regardless of weather and that she’d rather brave twelve thunderstorms than another one of Averill’s childish tantrums. (This statement, perhaps by design, set Averill off again.)
Elspeth had felt too queasy to dare the out-of-doors, so she retreated to her room, hoping that everyone would simply ignore her until she had to emerge this evening.
The party that evening was straightforward, in that it merely required guests to sparkle and shine in the usual way. Ellie was surprised that so many people came to each party—she hadn’t realized Averill was so well-known in society. Or perhaps they all just liked an excuse to be seen.
Elspeth wore a burnished silk gown, one that looked like a sunset at sea.
It was fashionably cut with a high waist and a low neckline, so Ellie was happy to cover the expanse of her chest with a necklace that consisted of several chains of gold links punctuated with topaz stones so that it looked rather like a halo of sunlight.
She got a hard look from her father when he saw her ensemble, and she was glad that she’d listened to Mairi when her sister suggested hiding the jewels Ellie had unwittingly brought with her.
They’d removed all the pieces from the beautiful mahogany case and wrapped them carefully in some old fabric that was destined for the rag pile.
They then concealed each small bundle in various places in Mairi’s room, while the case itself remained in Ellie’s room, locked up to conceal the fact that the jewels had been replaced with pebbles from the garden.
Ellie hadn’t dared bring up the matter of Struan’s presence in town with the servants, who’d normally be intersected to keep unwanted people out.
What could she say? Only Mairi knew that they’d had a fight, and she had her reasons for not wanting to spread that knowledge further.
But she could hardly tell the footmen to bar Struan from entering the house.
It would raise even more questions if he showed up at the door and was denied entry.