Chapter Three
Dessie threw another gown onto the growing pile on her bed. Ophelia thought they were all exquisite, but all very “Dessie.” Like her bedchamber, where everything was claret red and royal blue, fluffy, ruffled, and smelling of lavender.
“Try this one.”
“Not red,” Ophelia pleaded. “It doesn’t suit me.”
“There isn’t a color in the rainbow that doesn’t suit you. Just try it on.”
“It’s too conspicuous.” She lifted the gown listlessly. The bodice was modest enough in the front, but dipped precipitously in the back. She dropped it. “Haven’t you anything—”
“No. And we’ve had this discussion. You promised to stop hiding.”
“I am not hiding! I never hide. I simply don’t wish to display myself. I’m not an—”
“Ornament,” Dessie finished for her. “Honestly, Ophelia. You have to forget what that old geezer said. He was just an idiot trying to bootlick Daddy.”
But Ophelia couldn’t forget. The whole scene was seared in her memory: the large gold-framed mirror behind the Pleyel piano; the glowing chandelier above her head; the crackling fire in the fireplace.
She’d been thirteen and too often mistaken for sixteen.
She’d been practicing scales in the music room when her father wandered in with a business acquaintance.
A stranger to her. It had bothered her to have her favorite room and her privacy invaded.
Plumes of scented smoke hovered above the intruders’ heads as they puffed their cigars.
Both men sipped from glasses of whiskey.
Daddy gave her a half wave that meant she could continue, so long as she did so quietly, while he talked business.
The man kept glancing her way. She felt him looking.
It made her fingers clumsy. She remembered the man as old, but he was probably younger than her father, who was trying to convince him of something, some investment.
The man burst out with: “By Jove! That one would be a fine ornament in someone’s collection.
” Her father’s glass shattered on the floor.
She still remembered the depth of his voice, telling her to leave the room.
She didn’t know what happened next, but Daddy did not make that deal.
When she’d finally confided the event to Dessie, years later, her reaction had been, “Did he really say, ‘By Jove’? How ridiculous!” Then she’d laughed, and it all felt a little less traumatic.
Still, Ophelia had no intention of ever being an ornament in someone’s collection.
“I’m not even sure I should go tonight,” she said. “I made such a fool of myself. Plus, I’m rusty from no practice, and Eli said—”
“Mr. Cameron.”
“Mr. Cameron said he’d want me to join him for a duet.” The mere thought gave her butterflies in her stomach. No, not butterflies. Bees.
“You are not rusty. I swear you nearly had Robin weeping.”
“Robin?”
“Trentham.”
“Oh!” Ophelia frowned even though she wanted to laugh. “He isn’t that bird-faced.”
“What-faced?”
“You know.” She drew her lip down, crunched her nose, crossed her eyes, and made pecking motions.
“Jesu, don’t do that!” Dessie swore, gulping a laugh. “His name is Robert Wormsley. Duke of Trentham. His friends call him ‘Robin’. Some do.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I think.”
“If they are friends, they shouldn’t. He’s just bird-faced enough for it to be mean.” Ophelia thought a moment, then bit back her own giggle. “Robin Wormsley? How did he ever live that down?”
Dessie shrugged. “He’s a duke. They don’t have to live things down.”
“Hmph.” Ophelia stepped closer to her sister’s closet, a whole roomful of clothes, yet nothing familiar.
Nothing from their New York dressmaker. Not even a New York bonnet.
How easily Dessie had shed her past. Daddy would come to London in two or three months for a short visit, then he and she would go home.
And Dessie, the Countess of Lynchford, would remain here.
Here.
The Lynchford townhome was more compact than Trentham’s, but located in a tonier part of the city, according to Dessie.
Ophelia still hadn’t figured London out.
However, toney though it might be, Ophelia couldn’t help noticing that the building was in need of repair.
Lynch had only taken the lease on the house for the past two years, and part of that time he’d been in New York.
The furnishings were fairly new. Good quality, if rather sparse.
The family heirlooms had been moved to the country estate, those that hadn’t been sold.
Lynch was not, had never been, impoverished, merely trending that way.
Daddy’s money reversed that trend. Still, there was no doubt in Ophelia’s mind that her sister had made a love match.
If only it had been a love match made closer to home. How readily Dessie had shed her.
She put a false buoyancy into her voice. “What do you have that’s green? I feel like wearing green. Something cut fuller so I’m not bursting out of it.”
“Oh! I know just the thing.”
Dessie dove into the recesses of her closet and emerged with a washed silk gown in emerald-green with tiny rows of darker green gauzy ruffles across the neckline.
There were laces across the bust that could be loosened.
The skirt was full, the bustle small. It would be a comfortable dress to perform in, if Eli asked her to.
Which he would. He already had. It would be hard to say no again if he pressed her in front of an audience.
“This will be perfect!” Dessie pronounced.
It would have to do. According to Dessie and her London modiste, Ophelia’s New York gowns were hopelessly out of fashion.
“Or you could wear your mauve, if you want to finish off poor Trentham.”
Ophelia’s cheeks heated. “Don’t tease me.
I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.
I should have asked Milly to help me rifle through your closet last night, but it didn’t occur to me.
” Milly was Dessie’s new lady’s maid, and Ophelia was still getting used to her.
At home, they’d had Daisy, whom they both adored, but Daisy refused to come abroad.
She said she was scared of the boat. After her own horrific bout of seasickness, Ophelia couldn’t blame her.
“I must have seemed horribly left-footed, but I was so anxious to hear Eli play.”
“Mr. Cameron.”
“I wouldn’t have expected them to both be so kind to someone as stupid as I was.”
“Both?”
“Trentham and Eli.”
“Say ‘Mr. Cameron,’ Ophelia. You can do it.”
Right. The men and Foster had called him “Eli” all night, and the name was stuck in her brain. She had better unstick it. British etiquette was even stuffier than that in New York.
“Mr. Cameron looked skeptical when I asked if I could play with him—”
“If you worded it like that, I think you misinterpreted his facial expression.”
Ophelia stuck out her tongue. “Interpret that.” Then she smiled, a little wistfully. “But he was so kind. He just took the music from me and sat back down to play.”
“Sat back down? What was he doing standing up?”
Ophelia paused. “Well, it was a little awkward. At first.”
Dessie brushed aside a pile of gowns and dropped onto her bed, sighing like a disappointed governess. “You’d better tell me.”
“It was my fault. I’m sure Trentham left strict orders for El—Mr. Cameron. But after he finished the first piece, I had this face.” She gazed ahead, moonstruck, mouth slightly open, eyes moist. She even panted a little.
“You didn’t!”
“I couldn’t help it. He stood up and walked toward me.
His smile was rather louche. But that sweet little Foster stood up too, planting his feet and crossing his arms. He looked like a gnome with his lower lip all jutted out.
Then Mr. Cameron said—” She made her voice a little British and husky.
“‘Foster, be a good lad and run and fetch my brandy. I left it upstairs.’” She dropped the accent. “And Foster just said, ‘No.’”
“Well, thank goodness!”
“I don’t know. There are worse fates, certainly, than—”
“Please, don’t finish that sentence. Mr. Cameron is a piano player!”
“He’s a concert pianist. Not some saloon tinkler.”
“Well, so Foster saved your brother-in-law from shooting a pianist. What happened next?”
“I asked him, begged him really, to play a duet with me. He looked skeptical, as I said, but when I put the score in his hand, he gave it a glance and nodded, and was not too disagreeable about trying. Interesting, that music. It was a few loose sheets on the stool by the harp. I didn’t recognize the composer, but the music was lovely. It took a few tries, naturally.”
“You were sight-reading?”
“I was at first, yes, but it was something he’d played before. We had just about gotten it right when you all walked in the door.”
“I’d say more than ‘just about right.’ It was gorgeous. Is that what you hope to play tonight?”
“I hope to not play anything. You know I don’t like performing before strangers. In any case, we’d have to play something we’ve both practiced more.” And she needed to be wearing something tweedy and dowdy.
“So what are you hoping for? Tonight?”
“Just to listen to Mr. Cameron.” She stroked the silk of the dress. “Maybe an invitation to practice together sometime.”
“Hmmm. He’s leaving in a week. You do know that.”
“Yes. Yes, of course, I know. But—”
“But nothing. A musician? Daddy will have both our heads.”
“I don’t want to marry a title, Dess. Or a fortune hunter.” She held up her hand. “I know that’s not you and Lynch. You’d only play Daddy’s game to a point. You would have fallen for Lynch if he was a stevedore. And he wouldn’t have cared if you were penniless. But lightning doesn’t strike twice.”
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice?”
Ophelia plucked up a pillow and tossed it at her sister. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” she laughed, batting it aside. “I got my fairy tale ending. So, what is yours? What is your wildest dream? Your reach for the stars? Is it really to marry Mr. Cameron? I mean, even now, having met him?”