Chapter 20 #2
Across the room, Mabel was bent over the great chest under the mirror, arranging necklaces into little velvet-lined boxes.
No one had asked her to do so, but that was how she had always been.
She had simply noticed that they had become tangled and quietly begun putting them right.
She worked with slow, careful fingers, lifting each chain separately until the knot loosened of its own accord.
Rhea watched her in the mirror. “Mabel.” Her sister looked up. “Would you do me a kindness?”
“Of course.”
“Leave some of them tangled.”
Mabel frowned. “Why?”
“So ye have somethin’ to do on the morrow,” Rhea teased.
Mabel seemed to take it as anything but a jest. “I’ll find somethin’ else to do on the morrow.”
Rhea couldn’t help but smile. “I daenae doubt it.”
Mabel returned to her task with the faintest hint of a smile.
It was easy to overlook her if one did not know her well.
She seldom interrupted, rarely volunteered an opinion unless asked, and possessed the unnerving habit of appearing exactly where she was needed without anyone seeing her move there.
Twice while getting ready, she had silently handed Lara the pin she was searching for before Lara herself realized it had gone missing.
Lara, of course, had attributed that to fate, claiming it was a good omen that it had been found so easily.
Now, Lara gathered Rhea’s hair into both hands. “Ye’ve been sleepin’ with it loose.”
“I always sleep with it loose.”
“I ken,” she said. “An unfortunate habit, me Lady.”
She released Rhea’s hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders in heavy blonde waves. It nearly reached her collarbones now. It had already gotten too long, Rhea decided. She would have to cut it shorter again, especially since August was around the corner. The heat would soon be unbearable.
Lara drew the brush carefully through the ends. “Ye ought to braid it before bed.”
“I dislike sleepin’ in braids.”
“Ye dislike brushin’ knots more.”
“I have ye for that,” Rhea reminded her.
Lara didn’t try to argue with her.
The room settled into an easy rhythm. Agnes moved between the bed and the wardrobe, carrying armfuls of linen with the efficiency of someone who had dressed noblewomen for longer than Rhea had been alive.
Every now and then, another maid crossed the room carrying something she had been sent to fetch, weaving gracefully through chairs and baskets without colliding with anyone—a graceful dance.
Only Elsie managed to trip over the edge of the carpet, but she caught herself before falling, though one satin slipper flew from the pile she carried and landed under the dressing table.
“Och.” She stared at it in horror. “I am so sorry. Me Lady. I didnae—“
Rhea twisted in her seat, looking at Elsie, then at the slipper, then back at Elsie with a frown. “Elsie, it’s only a slipper.”
She had barely finished speaking when Lara gasped. “It’s nae only a slipper.”
“What?”
“Ye mustnae throw slippers!” Lara exclaimed.
Rhea knew where this was going. She shook her head inwardly.
“I didnae throw it,” Elsie whispered miserably, wilting right before her eyes. “It… escaped.”
“Escaped?” Lara let out an exasperated sigh. “Be more careful, lass! If a slipper crosses a room before a celebration…”
“What happens?” Sienna prompted from her seat by the window, her lips curling into an amused smile.
Lara hesitated. “I cannae remember.”
The silence lasted a heartbeat before the room burst into laughter.
Rhea shook her head, but when she glanced at Lara’s reflection in the mirror, she found her red-faced, her eyes filled with concern.
“Ye cannae remember?” Sienna echoed.
“I ken it’s somethin’,” Lara insisted.
“Somethin’ terrible?” Rhea asked.
“I think so!”
“Ye only think so?” Sienna arched an eyebrow.
Lara hesitated. “Or it might be very good.”
Sienna leaned back in triumph as the room erupted in laughter once more. “There,” she said. “If ye’ve forgotten what it means, then I’m sure it’s nothin'.”
“I havenae forgotten,” Lara protested.
“Aye, ye have.”
“It’ll come back to me.”
“I'm sure it will, Lara,” Rhea assured her.
Lara looked genuinely troubled for several seconds before brightening all of a sudden. “Och! I remember!”
Everyone looked at her, waiting to hear what she would say with bated breath. Even Sienna, who teased her for her superstitions more often than not, seemed to be hanging on her every word.
“It only applies to left slippers.”
All eyes turned to the slipper as Elsie bent to retrieve it. She held it up, showing it to the room, the relief on her face evident. “It’s the right one.”
Lara visibly relaxed, her shoulders dropping. “Och, thank goodness.”
Even Mabel laughed then, quietly enough that it might have escaped Rhea’s notice had she not been listening for it. She reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand as Mabel passed behind her with a tray of hairpins.
It was nice, hearing her sister laugh again. They had been apart for too long, and Rhea didn’t know how often Mabel laughed at home, if at all.
Lara tapped her gently on the shoulder. “Me Lady.”
“Aye?”
“If ye continue twistin’ about, I will never finish stylin’ yer hair.”
Rhea looked over her shoulder, doing her best to mask her grin. “Am I twistin’?”
“Ye’ve turned around six times,” Lara said, exasperated.
“I was speakin’.” Rhea shrugged.
“Ye may speak facin’ forward.”
“I like seein’ people.”
“Ye’ll see them perfectly well once we’re finished.”
“When will that be?”
Lara looked thoughtfully at the mass of curls spilling over her shoulders, then at the ribbons still waiting beside the mirror, then at the collection of pearl-headed pins yet to be used. “Eventually.”
Rhea sighed with exaggerated resignation. “I fear I shall die here.”
“Ye absolutely shall nae,” Sienna declared. “Lara would never permit it before she’s pinned the last curl in place.”
“Certainly nae,” Lara agreed, and the room dissolved into laughter again, warm and unrestrained, filling every corner until even the walls themselves seemed to join in.