“The good Lord has mercy upon me that you are here and in a presentable state, Miss Caroline,” she puffed. “A visitor has arrived. You are to put on your finest dress and take dinner in the formal dining room immediately.”
Mrs. Gray’s eyes scanned the two older girls quickly with a flicker of disapproval gathering in the corner of her mouth.
“This is my finest frock,” Lina sang cheerily, returning her gaze to the mirror to finish arranging her hair.
Mrs. Gray sighed heavily. “This will never do. This will not do.” She looked at Evangeline scathingly, up and down, then shook her head. “This is lovely, but much too large,” she said, approaching to pull out Evangeline’s skirts. With her eyes on the fabric accusingly, she muttered. “Have you got anything else, Evangeline, perhaps something that fits you a bit”—the housekeeper paused to search for a word and settled on—”more snugly?”
Evangeline puffed with pride, having evidently taken all of Mrs. Gray’s comments to be directed at her. “I have,” she said, rushing to her own, overstuffed wardrobe, while Lina met Anna’s eyes in the mirror and the two exchanged a smile.
Evangeline retrieved a glorious yellow dress, which indeed fit her snugly enough that she had squeezed from the top and strained the hems in such a way that, as only Mrs. Gray knew, the dress had been let out and then reinforced, and likely should never be worn by Evangeline again.
Mrs. Gray, curiously, looked at the dress, then at Lina, then back at the dress, with a shake of her head. “‘Tis still too large, I suspect,” she murmured. Pushing past a bewildered Evangeline, whose optimistic assessment of her own figure did not extend to the utterly ridiculous, Mrs. Gray began to rifle through the wardrobe.
“Ah,” she said, pulling a dress from the drawers, which had been tucked away in layers of tissue by Evangeline herself, who maintained the furtive hope that she would one day retrieve it to wear when her figure returned to its once glorious state by means of a miracle she expected with all of her heart. It was a Christmas dress, of shiny red damask with a dark green velvet overlay, and by far her finest garment.
“This will do quite nicely,” Mrs. Gray said, removing the dress and walking toward the door. “I will press it and return in no time.”
“But,” Evangeline objected weakly, sensing that something was going quite wrong, though what it might have been, she could not say. “That dress is much too small for me...”
Her voice trailed off, as a cloud of realization overtook the features of her face, even before Mrs. Gray spoke.
The housekeeper’s voice was kindly, which almost made her comment sting even more. “Darling Miss Evangeline,” she cooed. “I apologize. ‘Tis only Miss Caroline whose presence is requested at dinner. Now, I must be off. Caroline, make haste to disguise your wet hair, however it may be that you accomplish such a task, and be ready when I return to don this garment and be off.”
Lina’s hand dropped slowly to the dresser, and she watched Evangeline with a mixture of horror and pity, her mouth slightly slack.
Evangeline glared at Lina in the reflection. “Well,” she snapped. “Don’t sit there with your mouth open like the uneducated... well, I shan’t even say it.” Evangeline pursed her lips, folded her arms, spun about, and stomped from the room. “Clearly,” she hissed, “there has been a grave error.”
Lina waited until the sound of Evangeline’s footsteps receded before meeting Anna’s astonished gaze in the mirror.
Anna was bursting with excitement.
“Will you paint your lips?” she asked excitedly. “Oh, do let me do it.”
Chapter Three
Evangeline’s dress was a bit too large, but Mrs. Gray had evidently foreseen the problem and devised an elaborate belt to cinch up the loose fabric. She pinned the bodice with an almost magical method that could not be seen, but issued a warning in a hushed voice. “Walk and sit properly, lest the pins be disturbed and prick your skin.”
“Mrs. Gray, why not just let it out—”
“You must look your best, dearie,” Mrs. Gray said sharply. Then tenderly, brushing the velvet to smooth it all in the same direction: “This could be the very fortunate event this family has prayed for.” Her eyes returned to Lina’s. “Now. Be a proper lady.”
This final command was issued with a force very atypical of Mrs. Gray, and it caused a stab of fear to pierce Lina’s heart.
“Off you go,” she said, pushing Lina toward the door. “Mind you, use your Christian name and say as little as possible.”
Evangeline, who had returned to throw herself dramatically on her bed, crying that she felt quite ill and could not have dinner anyway, sniffed and did not look up at Lina as she left the room. Anna grinned nervously, but nothing occurred to her to say.
* * *
The dining room was gleaming and smelled of fresh polish, and Lina noted with some amusement as well as trepidation that the finest rug in the home, an antique oriental rug that remained carefully stored and was to eventually be sold, had been retrieved and placed in the room, along with the fine china that was similarly boxed away with the intention of selling it.
The room was barely and unevenly lit, with the candelabra placed at the end of the table where Mrs. Gray indicated that she should sit. Lina gave her a strange look, which Mrs. Gray cut short with a searing glare issued at precisely the same time that the semi-hysterical Lilla Harlowe, wife of Lina’s guardian, stiffened noticeably.
Lina allowed her chair to be pulled out by Mr. Gray, who was playing the role of butler in a rarely-used suit with tails that, like the rug and the china, had been mysteriously recuperated from storage.
Rushing to the dining room, Mrs. Gray had pulled Lina aside at an alcove and whispered sharply.
“The visitor is a very wealthy gentleman. He is a foreigner and a reclusive man with eccentric habits. He will attend dinner at a private table, and you are not to make a fuss about it. It is in the interest of all concerned but especially you, Miss Caroline, that you say very little and mind your manners.” Then she had squeezed Caroline’s hand and implored, tears in her eyes, “Please.”
Lina had followed, bewildered, with a cold stone of fear settling in her gut. Desperately, she wanted to ask Mrs. Gray why she even needed to be at this dinner if all she was to do was remain silent, and who this gentleman was, and why, if he was so very eccentric and reclusive, was he dining with anyone at all? Most importantly—and the question lingered in her mind, bringing with it a peculiar dread—why was he here at all? Wealthy gentlemen generally stayed far away from the Harlowe household, as the Harlowes’ fall from wealth had been accompanied by a commensurate fall from society. And since the depths of the Harlowes’ financial ruin were known in detail only to the Harlowes, and covered up as best as could be done, wealthy men were not invited to the Manor, lest they discover for themselves the elaborate ruse.
Lina sat, and her heart raced as she struggled to remember her “manners.” The glare of the candles made it hard to see even the Harlowes, seated at the opposite end of the table, much less the supposed guest, who she assumed was seated by the great window, where a table could be placed if one wished.
But why would anyone do such a thing?
Lina had gathered from snippets of conversations she had eavesdropped on, or outright spied upon, that the Harlowes were quite anxious to unburden themselves of her. Evangeline had been more than helpful in bestowing upon Lina additional information to that effect: Lina was a financial burden on their already strained household, and the simplest resolution of such a burden was marriage, but since Lina was—as Evangeline had hastened to remind her several times—a bastard with no name and no inheritance, she was essentially without prospects.
The Harlowes, while impoverished, still held peer titles, and aristocratic bearing amounted to something. Evangeline also seemed fairly certain that a dowry of some kind had been salvaged for her.
Evangeline also clung to the belief that she was still as pretty as she once was
. Lina, who had become accustomed to her role as plain, bastard child given a home only by the grace of fortune and because of Mr. Harlowe’s honorable word for a comrade-in-arms, had not been entirely disabused of this notion herself.
A wealthy male visitor, therefore, might rightfully make sense, if he were a suitor.
But a suitor for Evangeline.
“The best you can hope for,” Evangeline had told Lina, “is to marry a commoner, like a stable boy or a butler or such.” And then, because Evangeline was simply spoiled and insecure, and not truly mean, she had pressed her hand to Lina’s shoulder to reassure her. “At least you stand a chance of marrying for love. While I,” she had sighed with the sort of practiced sorrow that sent her to bed for days, and could have been very real or very imagined, “must sacrifice myself at the altar of wealth for the good of the family.”
Anna, who was a blonde angel and looked like a doll, had clasped her hands together in wonderment. “And what will I do?”
To which her sister had snapped, “You will get off the floor and behave like a lady, and not speak of such things at such a young age. It is positively improper.”
Anna was eighteen as of the previous week, but Evangeline would always think of her and treat her like a small girl.
A stillness pervaded the dining room once Lina was seated and basic introductions had been made, and it lasted through to the first course.
“Mr. Blackstone has traveled all the way from London in a single day,” Mrs. Harlowe said, to break the uncomfortable silence.
Lina did her best to contain herself, and failed spectacularly. A glow overtook her complexion and she nearly dropped her fork. “Oh, London,” she said breathlessly toward the dark figure, further obscured by the glow of the candles placed so near to her. “Is that where you live? Is it as exciting and glorious as they say it is?”
Mrs. Harlowe’s face had already become quite rigid by the time Lina finished her sentence.
There was a terrible beat of silence, and Lina pressed her lips together and cast her eyes upon her plate. She knew she was frequently “over-exuberant,” which was unladylike, but now she wondered if perhaps calling a city “exciting” was not also “wanton” in some way, which was something she was never, ever to be.
“I am not particularly fond of London,” said a voice from the small table. It was a deep, authoritative voice, strong and clear, but in its contours Lina detected the inflection of a middle-class accent, one which, like her own mild French accent, had been scrubbed as clean as possible, but lingered stubbornly.
For the first time ever in her young life, Lina felt an inexplicable shiver travel through her torso. The flush of her cheeks deepened when the shiver pooled lower in her abdomen than was proper to even think about.
“I prefer Paris,” the voice said.
Lina’s exuberance reared its head again, as she lifted her eyes and smiled broadly. “But I am from Paris!” she said loudly, and to her regret, in a most unladylike way. “I am, that is, rather, I don’t have very many memories for I left when I was young, but the memories I do have—”
“Caroline,” Mrs. Harlowe said sharply, but not soon enough to stop Lina from rambling on to say:
“... are of such gaiety and liberal spirit...”
This final sentence caused Mrs. Harlowe’s features to pinch up into a display of mortification the likes of which Lina had not seen for some time. Lina was instantly overcome by emotion, which rushed to her cheeks and made her eyes sting.
“Caroline, I am certain that Mr. Blackstone has no interest in such impressions.”
Mr. Blackstone did not respond to this comment either to affirm nor deny it, and Lina took in a deep breath and lowered her eyes, hoping that her frustration did not well up in her eyes, as it sometimes did, as tears. Extravagances such as the goings-on of the Parisians were held in very low esteem by Mrs. Harlowe.
“Yes, of course,” Lina managed to say. She smoothed her napkin and took a small bite of pork, which Mr. Gray had prepared most extravagantly, in the only extravagant way he knew how—a French cooking method which Lina herself had instructed him in. She suddenly found the whole thing very funny and had to suppress a smile.
Mr. Harlowe took it upon himself to talk about the weather, and Mr. Blackstone’s journey, and inquire about various London businesses that he frequented when he traveled there. The meal continued on this way, and quite awkwardly, with Mr. Blackstone’s low, rumbling voice only occasionally issuing from the shadows. The sound tickled Lina from the inside, and more than once she felt desperate to speak to the mysterious man, but she held her tongue as instructed.
She was grateful that she managed to finish the meal without any mishaps and without speaking.
“Caroline, if you are finished with your meal, you may retire. I am certain Mr. Blackstone is quite exhausted and the men wish to take their liquor in the drawing room at a sensible hour.”
Mr. Gray was already there to pull out her chair.
“Mr. Blackstone, I suppose I will be taking my leave then, if you would excuse me. It was ever so lovely... dining with you, and...” Lina, at moments like this, always struggled with the proper words. “I do so hope that you enjoy your stay here at our lovely home.”
Mr. Harlowe cleared his throat, and Mrs. Harlowe’s eyes were nailed to her plate. So, she must have said something wrong, but there was nothing new in that. She left, relieved that she had not taken the tablecloth with her as she once had, and covered her mouth in the hallway to stifle a laugh.
For laughter had a tendency to overcome Lina when situations were preposterous, which is what this one seemed to be.
As she walked through the corridors, and upstairs to her bedroom, however, she placed her hand on her stomach, for something there felt funny, though it was not an illness, and when she recalled the sound of the stranger’s voice, it fluttered wildly inside of her.
Chapter Four
Anna met her at the door with her finger to her lips. “Shh,” she hissed. “I believe she really has gone to sleep.”
The two girls looked at Evangeline, who was lying in her bed, frock and all, but indeed appeared to be asleep. Evangeline often feigned sleep, but her attempts were so silly that no one ever believed her. Lina closed the door behind her carefully and turned her back to Anna to have the clasps undone.
“Did you really dine in the dining room?” Anna whispered, unhooking the buttons.
“Yes, but there is something stranger still,” Lina said, smiling, turning to divulge the secret in a whisper. “The man is from London, and his name is Mr. Blackstone, and he dined alone at a table by himself.”
Anna furrowed her brow. “That’s very unusual, is it not?”
Lina faced the wall again. “I think so,” she said, her own brow furrowed. She had, after all, been to very few formal dinners herself, and they had been parties, so there was no room for a table to the side.
Anna giggled. “I hear the Americans put their children at a private table,” she said. “Was he a child? What did he look like? Why is he here?”
The low, firm voice of the stranger echoed in Lina’s mind again, and gooseflesh rippled over her shoulders. “He’s not a child,” she practically snapped. “But neither did I see him, he was... in the shadows.”
“Maybe you are to marry him,” Anna said cheerfully.
The strange sensation in her stomach returned, cooler and more forcefully than before. “Don’t be foolish,” she said sharply, and then felt instantly unkind. “He’s a wealthy man,” she said more gently, though even as she said this, she did begin to wonder if Anna might be on to something. “If he were here for marriage he would...” her voice trailed off as the brief hope that had fluttered, inexplicably inside of her, receded, and she felt the sting of disappointment.
A wealthy man, after all—a man with the traces of a middle-class accent—would marry one of the Harlowe sisters for a title and social status. That was plausible.
Lina frowned. N
ot because she had arrived, yet again, at the undeniable truth of her life and her fate, for she had long ago accepted it. She frowned because she had experienced such an unfamiliar, momentary feeling of hope.
“How silly,” she said aloud, to herself, and Anna made a noise behind her.
Lina turned quickly to console her. “Oh, no, not you, dear. No, no. Me. I was speaking to myself. I promise.”
Anna still looked dejected.
Lina slipped out of the dress shamelessly and hung it up. Her hand rested on her night shift momentarily, and then she took out a frock and slipped it over her head.
“Men like Mr. Blackstone would never be here to court someone like me,” she explained to Anna, smiling. “So we can be sure that is not the reason he is here. Do you know what that means?”
Anna’s sour features changed instantly. She cast a furtive look back at Evangeline, who still appeared to be sleeping.
Anna looked back at Lina, and the excitement in her voice almost turned her whisper to a shout.
“Time for an investigation!” she cried. She started for her wardrobe, but Lina held her back.
“Anna,” she said, crouching down to look her in the eye as she took both of Anna’s hands. “This is a most dangerous mission, and I cannot allow you to go with me...”
Theirs to Train: A Victorian Menage Romance Page 2
