Chapter 12
Victor
Ernestine read the words, read them again, and then traced her fingertips over the scrawling black ink that looked a bit as if a spider had crawled all over the parchment.
She folded the invitation, put it back into the envelope, stared out the window over the duke’s fine grounds for a long moment, then whipped out the invitation and read it again. Bring her parasol and a fan?
What the devil did he mean by that?
Obviously, it was some sort of reference to the Duke of Lindly’s son and her altercation, but perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps he was going to ask her to go outside and have a walk in the sunshine and feared she would get overheated.
And he did not wish her to get her skin as red as a lobster, which hers had a tendency to do in the strong English sun. Except that there was very little English sun this summer. It was most frustrating, but at least it didn’t make her feel sad for being stuck indoors.
The last two days had been exceedingly hot in the afternoons, and the guests had romped inside to eat ices.
She had relegated herself to the incredibly beautiful bedroom that was hers during this house party. Her aunt and her cousins also had beautiful bedrooms adjacent to her own. The entire house was a stunning collection of rooms.
She wasn’t accustomed to such rich grandeur, but she could certainly appreciate it. The duke and his family clearly had exceptional taste. She was grateful for his kindness.
But she had no wish to engage with the Earl of Seaborough. Truly. She had been feigning various ailments to ensure she did not have to go down, but she was not going to be able to avoid him forever.
“Excuse me, miss. Would you like me to do your hair this morning?”
Ernestine swung her gaze up to the young lady who had bustled in through a side door, clearly a servant’s entrance, with no sound.
She jumped and dropped the invitation on the floor. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Thank you. A simple bun is what I always do.”
“And it is a very nice simple bun,” the lady’s maid said.
“But my name is Nancy and if I may say so, while you have me, you should use me. The Duke of Rivers suggested that it might be nice for you and your cousin and your aunt to have a lady’s maid here with you. As I understand, yours could not come?”
They did not have lady’s maid.
They had maids who were maids of all work in their house, but none of them had the fortune to be able to hire a real and true lady’s maid who could do the sort of French fashions of hair that were so popular.
Ernestine bit her lower lip.
If she sent the lady’s maid away, surely she would be considered rude, and she did not want to be considered ruder than she clearly already was.
“Thank you,” she relented. “I shall take you up on your kind offer.”
“Wonderful,” Nancy said, clapping her hands together, her eyes sparkling. “Will you take a seat before the dressing table?”
Ernestine rushed to it and plunked herself down.
The invitation seemed to indicate that she should meet the Earl of Seaborough in less than an hour.
She had already breakfasted in her chamber, though she knew it was a bit scandalous to do so.
She had chosen delicious breads off of her aunt’s breakfast tray.
Married ladies, of course, could eat in their rooms. Young ladies who were unmarried were supposed to go downstairs, but she?
She was happy to avoid the company. She always had been.
Company was almost painful to her. The annals of history, especially Italian history, had saved her long ago and continued to do so now!
She far preferred reading about that mighty empire and then the great city states that eventually followed than discussing bonnets or New Market.
Nancy gently touched her shoulders and then looked at her in the mirror. “You have wonderful cheekbones,” she declared.
“So have you,” she replied to Nancy.
And Nancy did.
Nancy had the sort of pert face that one might expect to find in a theatrical, where the maid was always saying terribly cheeky things, and she wondered if Nancy was going to do that too.
Nancy pursed her lips, her mob cap twitching atop her pinned red curls. “Thank you. I appreciate your compliment, Miss Foxley,” she said, before assessing her hair. “Now, I do think that this rather austere look isn’t doing you any favors. Do you mind if I take it down?”
Ernestine shook her head, though she felt quite hesitant. She was used to her rather austere look. Who had time for anything else?
But how could she mind and how could she say no?
And so the young lady began to work with nimble fingers, slipping Ernestine’s hair out of its knot and then she took to it with great vigor, and yet surprisingly little pain, with a hairbrush.
Nancy had her hair smoothed out in but a few moments and then was whipping it up in remarkable swirls and curls.
“Your hair is perfectly suited for doing up like this, as is your face.”
And after a few moments, Ernestine was astonished to see that Nancy had put her hair up in the softest folds and coils.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“It’s like magic,” Nancy smiled. “I have a great deal of practice at it, and I study all of the drawings that come over from France so I know exactly what the most popular hairstyles are. And this is one, but it’s not too fussy. I don’t think you’d do with a fussy look.”
Ernestine turned her head side to side. “You’re quite correct,” she said. “I don’t really like fussy things at all.”
“I can tell by the way you dress,” Nancy said goodheartedly, propping a hand on her waist. “And I can see that it’s a choice.”
She smiled.
It was mostly a choice. Her gown was incredibly simple. Now, of course, there was also the fact that she did not have the money for an elaborate gown, but even if she had, she wouldn’t want one that was terribly overdone.
Her cousin Delia did not have excessive funds, but she still decked her gowns with ribbons and flowers.
Ernestine liked her soft blue cotton, and she wished she could go out for a walk.
She bit her lower lip. “Are there any quiet paths that I could go down? And perhaps you could come with me for a walk? I really shouldn’t go by myself. The last time I went somewhere by myself, I was…”
She sucked in a soft breath. “Forgive me. I have no desire to speak about unpleasant things.”
Nancy cocked her head to the side. “Well, miss, I completely understand that, but if you would like to know, generally speaking, I don’t like to go places by myself because I’ve had a few run-ins as well.
Gentlemen are terrible. Sometimes they’re nice, but they will take advantage of a young lady if they can.
I don’t know why they have to make us feel so terribly uncomfortable to feel good about themselves, but it seems like they do. ”
“Yes,” Ernestine said, sitting up straight, relieved that Nancy had validated her concerns and not shunned them.
“That’s it. It’s as if they can’t bear us to be happy or content in ourselves, and so they must crush us down, because then they will at least feel pleased with themselves for having accomplished something even when they have not. ”
The maid’s lips twitched. “Are you speaking about the Duke of Lindly’s son?”
She whipped about. “How do you know?”
“Because he’s that sort of fellow, and I wouldn’t be caught dead on a pathway with him about. I think cook should poison his soup.” Nancy eyed the invitation, then asked, “What’s that?”
“I’m not actually certain.”
“Who’s it from?” Nancy asked.
She realized Nancy was being quite bold, but at the same time, she had no one else to speak to because her aunt and her cousin were making merry with all the lovely things the duke had arranged.
“It is from the Earl of Seaborough, and he has invited me to come downstairs. He’s also told me to bring my parasol. And a fan. It’s a mystery.”
“There you have it,” Nancy all but gushed. “You will get to have a walk with a gentleman who will take very good care of you.”
“And how do you know he shall take very good care of me?” she asked, though she agreed.
“Because all the maids know it to be true. The Earl of Seaborough is a gentleman.”
“He’s a rake,” she countered.
“Yes, he is,” said Nancy. “Everyone knows that to be true as well, but he’s a gentleman and kind and good. And if a man steps out of line, he puts him back in his place.”
“Yes, well, I suppose I must second that,” Ernestine said honestly and with a surprising dose of admiration for the earl.
She already liked him well, but this? This only made him seem all the better, for servants always knew the best and worst about people.
“Does he really have such a wonderful reputation with the servants?”
Nancy nodded. “Not a single complaint amongst us, and actually rather a great deal of approval. He is a champion of ladies and anyone who has less power than he does.”
She sucked in a breath, then folded her hands in her lap, feeling quite strange with the feelings warring inside her. “I suppose I’m being really rather terrible, aren’t I?”
Nancy hesitated. “You mean by staying up in here in your room?”
She swung her gaze up to the maid. “Yes. Is everyone talking about it? Of course they’re not,” she rushed. Then she added, “They don’t even think about me.”
Nancy laughed. A full, bright sound. “Miss Foxley! You underestimate yourself. The kitchen is full of it. They wonder if you’re ill somehow or if you’ve been offended. May I share something with you?”
She nodded, hating the idea she’d given offense to the servants but realizing it was altogether possible. “Of course. Please do.”
Nancy drew in a breath. “The duke did send me here to do your hair and help you, to take care of you and your cousin and your aunt. But he also gave me a rather pointed question to ask you, and I hope you won’t mind that I have executed some level of subterfuge in keeping this from you until this moment. ”
She swallowed, her stomach tightening. “I suppose I must not keep you from it. He is the Duke of Rivers after all.”
“The Duke of Rivers is a very good man,” Nancy said, “much like the Earl of Seaborough, so I suppose it’s no surprise that they are friends.
But he worries that someone has offended you or that he has offended you, since you do not wish to partake in any of the things that he has arranged, and he specifically invited you. ”
She let out a shuddering breath. “Of course he has not. And I beg of you to apologize to all of the staff on my behalf. I am mortified that they should even think it possible that I have been offended. And the duke? He’s a generous and kind host. It was very nice of him to invite me, but—”
“Yes?” Nancy said.
“Well, I am very concerned, you see?”
“Concerned about what?” Nancy said.
“The Earl of Seaborough.”
“What?” Nancy gasped, her eyes rounding. “Has he done something? Has he—”
“No, not like that,” she protested. “It is that I am very afraid that if I’m not careful, he will run away with my heart.” And then she clapped a hand over her mouth.
The maid’s jaw dropped into an O of delight. “Are you falling in love with him, miss?”
Ernestine looked to the window and let out a groan, then looked back to the mirror and plunked her head down on her arms atop the dressing table.
“I don’t know,” she lamented, “but I’ve never felt like this in all my life, and I find it to be deeply unpleasant.”
Nancy tsked. “It is love then.”
“No, it can’t be,” she groaned. “Love can’t feel like this, and I have no desire to be in love,” she countered. “I’m supposed to be going abroad.”
Nancy let out a small laugh. “Can’t you do both? Go abroad and fall in love.”
“Not with someone like the Earl of Seaborough,” she said. “It will make my life far too complicated, and I don’t want my life to be complicated. I want my life to be simple.”
“That will never happen,” Nancy said without pause.
“What?” she asked, daring to lift her gaze from her folded arms and blinking quickly.
“Life is never simple, miss.” Nancy nodded, her curls dancing.
“Anyone who told you that was lying to you. Or whatever book you may have read suggesting that was full of fabrication. Life is one complicated situation after the next. You can’t avoid that, unless, of course, you’re dead.
And you seem actually in quite good health, so I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. ”
She sucked in a shuddering breath before a dry laugh slipped past her lips at the maid’s humor. “Oh, Nancy, I don’t want it to be true. I want life to feel comfortable and good and easy and—”
“Then I am afraid that you shall not like life at all, and that is very sad indeed. But if you grow accustomed to the fact that life is never really comfortable and that it’s really just one trouble after the next, you might find that you have a good time.”
“I don’t know if I want to have a good time,” she said.
“Oh, miss, of course you do,” Nancy assured, before she dared to gently touch her shoulder.
“So you must take the invitation and you must go downstairs with your parasol and fan and go for that walk, which you so clearly want, because you’re becoming quite pale up here and that can do no good for your health. Mind or body.”
She sighed. “You’re quite right about that. The indoors is doing me in. But what if—”
“What?” Nancy asked kindly.
She shook her head. “No what-ifs. You’re absolutely right. I’m made of sterner stuff than this, and I’m quite ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t be ashamed, miss.”
“Nancy,” she said firmly, “I have been hiding away like a coward, and I promise you one thing. I will not let anyone think I am a coward.”
Even if she secretly feared she was.