by Olivia Drake
“Oh, no!” Beatrice said quickly. “I should rather speak to a real person than bury my nose in dusty old pages.”
“I must overrule you in this matter, my dear,” their grandmother said. “For once, Eloise is correct. A young lady ought not associate with unknown characters. Do tell her to consult the book, Basil.”
The earl gave a crisp nod. “I’m sure she’ll be good enough to mind your wishes, Mother.” He glanced at Beatrice with her pouty lower lip, and his ruddy face softened. “Now, don’t mope, sweetcakes. If it makes you happy, I shall allow you the funds to decorate the ballroom in whatever manner suits you. Even if it is this Egyptian claptrap.”
“Thank you, Papa.” Beatrice gave him a sunny smile, but the look she flashed at Ellie held a hint of spite. She dabbed her mouth with a white linen serviette. “By the by, speaking of associating with unknowns, Ellie and I paid a visit to Lady Milford today.”
The perky announcement cast a pall of surprise over the dining table. The earl tossed down his fork, Walt arched a reddish eyebrow, and Lady Anne drew an audible breath. The quiet clink of china filled the silence as the footmen removed the plates in preparation for the dessert course.
“Lady Milford?” the countess asked, a frown making her wrinkles more pronounced. “But my dear, you’ve never been introduced to the woman. It is an extraordinary blunder for a young lady not yet out of the schoolroom to make such a call.”
“Oh, Ellie thought it was a wise notion. After all, Lady Milford is a pillar of society and her approval would be a great boon to my debut.”
Everyone turned to stare at Ellie. A flush traveled up her neck and into her face, making her feel overheated. It was clear from the reproachful looks that they blamed her for the social faux pas. It was also plain that it would be useless to protest her innocence. They would never heed her word over that of her cousin.
What a scheming little liar Beatrice was!
The countess scowled at Ellie. “I trust you’ve an explanation for this shocking lack of judgment. Encouraging Beatrice to impose upon a lady of such influence! I pray no irreparable damage has been done.”
“I assure you, it was an uneventful visit,” Ellie hastened to say. “In truth, her ladyship could not have been more gracious—”
“Yes, she even gave Ellie a handout,” Beatrice broke in. “A pair of old, cast-off shoes that my dear cousin was quite happy to accept.”
Beneath the tablecloth, Ellie fisted her fingers around her gray serge skirt. She wanted to slap the innocent smile off Beatrice’s mouth. At the same time, she longed to slide under the table and escape the disapproval on the faces of her uncle and grandmother. Even Walt’s expression held a smirking interest.
The countess huffed out a breath. “You took charity from such a personage as Lady Milford? Good heavens! What must she think of us?”
“This is indeed an outrage,” the earl said grimly. His cheeks red, he leaned forward to pin Ellie with a glare. “The Strathams are not beggars! Did you give no thought as to how this would reflect upon your family? And after I’ve settled your father’s substantial debts, taken you under my roof, and allowed you to live here on my sufferance!”
Ellie gritted her teeth. Now was not the time to point out that her free labor had more than compensated for the cost of food and shelter. “I’m sorry, Uncle. It won’t happen again.”
“I’m sure Ellie meant no harm,” Lady Anne ventured in a quavering voice. “Why, it would have been rude for her to refuse such a gift.”
Ellie gave her a quick smile of thanks. Lady Anne was no blood relation, being from the other side of the family tree, yet at times it seemed the frail woman was her sole ally in the household. She was the only one who gave Ellie a bit of money on her birthday, the only one who expressed gratitude for the errands Ellie did for her, the only one who didn’t treat her as a lowly servant.
The earl turned his ire on his sister-in-law. “This is no small matter, Anne. My niece is to accept aid only from myself. Otherwise, the gossips will whisper that I’m too tightfisted to provide for her.”
Lady Anne flushed, her gaze dropping to the dish of raspberry sponge cake that a footman placed before her.
Ellie found it ironic that her uncle would fear to be branded according to his true nature. “Lady Milford won’t spread gossip,” she said to draw his attention away from Lady Anne. “I assure you, she merely thought that I might like to have the shoes since I’ll be chaperoning Beatrice at various events.”
Beatrice, who clearly had been enjoying the controversy she’d stirred, said, “That reminds me. We can’t allow dear Ellie to go about society in dreary rags. I would donate some of my old gowns, but I fear they are too youthful for a woman of her years. Grandmamma, is there anything you can do to help out?”
“What a sweet girl to think of your cousin.” The countess gave Beatrice a fond smile that vanished when she turned her attention to her eldest granddaughter. “Eloise, you’re quick with a needle. You may have some of my old gowns to make over.”
Ellie eyed the countess’s doughy form encased in a vast swath of burnt-orange satin. Nothing could be less welcome than a donation from a wardrobe that contained the most nauseating hues Ellie had ever had the misfortune to see. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’m sure that I can manage to purchase a bolt or two of cloth.”
“Nonsense. You can’t possibly afford the finest materials. I will not have you looking ragtag, especially in light of your taking charity from Lady Milford.”
Then why do you or my uncle not offer to purchase a few new gowns for me?
Ellie knew better than to voice that question. It had been established long ago that since her father’s debts had been so excessive, she should expect no further outlay of funds from the family. She reminded herself that her escape from this household would come soon enough. Until then, she’d wear sackcloth and ashes if necessary. “Thank you, then. It is most generous of you, Grandmamma.”
Her grandmother arched an eyebrow, shifting a myriad of facial wrinkles. “I trust you are sincere in your gratitude, Eloise. I do not care to think you a bad seed like your father.”
Ellie’s anger flared. She could tolerate being treated like a poor relation for the remainder of her time here. She could not, however, endure the countess’s biting scorn for her second son. “Papa may have had his faults, but he loved me very much. He was an excellent father.”
“Do not confer sainthood on such a wicked man,” the countess retorted. “Theo left you alone while he went off to gamble, sometimes for days on end. That is hardly the mark of a devoted father.”
“I was never alone,” Ellie said defensively. “There was always a servant with me. I didn’t mind Papa’s absence so very much.”
Her mother having died when Ellie was six, she had learned at a young age to keep herself occupied with solitary pursuits. There were always books to read and stories to imagine, fictional worlds in which to lose herself for hours on end …
“I say,” Walt drawled, “perhaps we should leave Ellie her illusions. Surely there can be no harm in them.”
Ellie turned to see her cousin swirling the dregs of wine in his goblet. He was staring at her in a way that made her skin crawl. At times, Walt made her uneasy, especially when he’d been drinking. On several occasions he’d caught her on the upper stairs or in a dark corridor, cornering her on some pretext while patting her hand or touching her waist in a too familiar fashion.
Was he taking her side now merely as a means of currying favor? So that she would allow his advances? She quailed at the thought.
“No harm?” Lord Pennington echoed on a note of disdain. “My brother squandered his inheritance, and Eloise mustn’t pretend otherwise. I would never behave so irresponsibly, nor would you, Walter. It is unforgivable for a Stratham to gamble.”
During his father’s speech, Walt’s smile went stiff. He cast a quick sidelong look at his father, then stared moodily into his wine goblet. The curio
us reaction caught Ellie’s attention. She wondered if, unbeknownst to the earl, Walt had dabbled in the vice of wagering.
It wouldn’t surprise her. Like many idle young gentlemen, Walt spent an inordinate amount of time at various clubs and entertainments. He surely would have been tempted into playing cards or dice.
No one else appeared to notice. Beatrice piped up with a question to the earl about which gentlemen engaged in wicked behaviors so that she might take care to avoid them. That sparked a lively conversation about the girl’s marital prospects, and Ellie was relieved to have the attention turned away from herself while the family ate their dessert.
She barely tasted her raspberry sponge cake. Tonight had been one of those times when she didn’t know if she could bear one more hour under her uncle’s roof. Only a few more months, she reminded herself.
A few more months, and then she would be free.
* * *
The hall clock was chiming ten when Ellie finally escaped upstairs to the nursery. When she’d come to Pennington House at the age of fourteen, grief-stricken from her father’s sudden death, she had been assigned a tiny bedchamber near the earl’s two younger children so that she could comfort them during the night and assist in teaching them by day. Eventually, she had become their governess. She’d remained here even when Cedric had gone off to Eton and Beatrice had moved downstairs to a spacious bedroom near the other family members.
No such honor had been offered to Ellie.
The darkened schoolroom and the adjacent bedchambers were empty now. She was the only one left in the nursery wing, and the solitary arrangement suited her just fine. Here, she had the privacy to attend to her own project without interruption.
She settled down on her cot, her back against a thin pillow and the coverlet pulled up to the bosom of her cotton night rail. Her knees raised, she propped a sketchpad against her thighs as a makeshift desk. By the wavering light of a candle on the bedside table, she drew preliminary renditions of two new characters for her children’s book.
The first was a grand personage that Ellie had decided would be named the Furry Godmother. She was a tabby, sleek and elegant, clad in a long flowing gown. Standing upright, the cat wore on her hind paws a pair of sparkly dancing slippers that eventually would be painted a rich garnet hue when Ellie did her final version in watercolors.
She wondered if anyone would recognize those wise eyes and feminine features as belonging to Lady Milford.
Ellie smiled, using a few deft pencil strokes to add a pair of dainty whiskers to the portrait. The air was chilly, the mattress lumpy, the light dim. But nothing could mar her enjoyment of creating another episode in her storybook.
In the scene that occupied her at present, the Furry Godmother held a magic wand in one paw and waved it at a large, man-sized rat that had crept into the bedchamber of the sleeping princess. The hulking rodent wore a black greatcoat and a hat with a curled brim.
For this second new character, Ellie had taken her inspiration from the stranger in the phaeton outside Lady Milford’s house. There had been something vaguely sinister about the man—or at least her fancy had fixed upon that illusion. How much more fascinating it was to think him a scoundrel than to acknowledge the probable truth, that he was merely a gentleman who’d wanted to view the much anticipated beauty of Lady Beatrice Stratham ahead of her debut.
Nevertheless, Ellie had decided to transform him into this villainous rat. Her muse worked in mysterious ways, she reflected. The day had been exasperating, the family dinner tiresome, and she should have been too weary for anything but sleep. Yet her hand flew over the paper, her imagination energized by this new twist in the plot.
A thick stack of finished watercolors was concealed inside a chest at the foot of her narrow bed. She had been working on the manuscript for several years, whenever she could escape her endless household duties. Having set autumn as her goal to complete the project, Ellie had been laboring far into the night until her eyelids drooped and her cramped fingers could no longer grasp the pencil.
Now, if only she could find a publisher for her finished book.
A twinge of anxiety crept down her spine. She would have to persuade a man in a publishing office to typeset her story, print the pages, and bind them into a finished volume. What if he refused to pay her until it had been sold in bookstores? Worse, what if no one purchased it and all of her work was for naught?
She would never be able to afford a cozy cottage in the country where she could live free of obligations while creating her stories. Instead, she’d be stuck here at Pennington House as an unpaid servant for the rest of her life. The very thought made her shudder.
Ellie buried her doubts. She refused to let herself dwell on the possibility of failure. When Cedric and Beatrice had been younger, she had read many bedtime stories to them. There had been morality tales, nursery rhymes, the fables of Aesop. But none of those published books had been quite like her own secret illustrated adventure of a brave lost princess on a quest to find her way home, who befriends talking animals and fights fierce creatures like dragons and ogres and sea monsters.
And now, in the present chapter, a menacing rodent.
Ellie paused, tapping the end of her pencil on the sketchpad. What should she name him? Was Mr. Rat too banal?
A sudden knocking made her jump. Frowning, she looked toward the door of her tiny bedchamber. Having been immersed in her imaginary world, it took a moment to collect her thoughts.
Seldom did anyone venture up to the nursery after hours. Perhaps it was her grandmother’s maid, delivering the heap of old ball gowns.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s me. May I have a word?”
Ellie froze with her fingers clamped around the sketchpad. She knew that muffled, raspy voice. Walt.
She’d assumed her cousin had departed after dinner for his entertainments, as was his custom. Why on earth would he come up to the nursery so late? It had to be approaching midnight. She could only think he had some nefarious purpose in mind. And here she was, curled up in bed wearing only her nightclothes.
With her precious drawings scattered around her on the coverlet.
She raised her voice. “I’m sorry, Walt. I was sleeping. Go away and we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Nonsense, you’re awake. I can see your candle shining under the door.” Another imperious rapping rattled the hinges. “Come out at once. Or I’ll enter without your permission.”
Blast! Ellie knew he meant it. Three years her senior, the favored son and heir, Walt had always done exactly as he’d pleased.
“Oh, give me a moment, then,” she said.
Ellie jumped out of bed and cringed as her bare feet met the icy planks of the floor. Swiftly she gathered up the papers and the sketchpad, ran to the chest, and stuffed her art paraphernalia beneath a black serge gown. On top lay the precious garnet slippers, the crystal beads sparkling in the candlelight. She closed the lid again and then grabbed a shabby green dressing gown from a hook on the wall, thrusting her arms into the sleeves and tying it securely at her waist.
Glancing around, she saw nothing that might be used as a weapon save for the pewter candlestick. She picked it up and opened the door a crack to peer out.
Her cousin lounged against the wall of the corridor, an oil lamp in his hand. The freckles across his cheeks and nose gave him the look of an overgrown choirboy, but Ellie knew that to be deceptive. The rest of him fit the description of a dissipated gentleman in his cups. The top button of his waistcoat was undone over a belly already going to stoutness. His ginger hair was tousled, his cravat slightly askew, his hazel eyes more glazed than they’d been at dinner.
“What did you want?” she asked frigidly.
It was an unfortunate choice of words, for his gaze dipped straight to her bosom. Frowning, Ellie reached up to clutch her lapels together.
“I need t’ talk t’ you,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “In your chamber.”
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He took a step forward and Ellie thrust up the lighted candle to hold him at bay. “No, Walt. Whatever you have to say can be spoken right here. It’s ill-mannered of you to disturb me so late, anyway.”
“You’re such a scold, Ellie.” He lifted a hand as if to caress her, but the chilly look on her face must have registered in his pickled brain, for he stopped short and ran his fingers through his own hair instead. “I’ve something t’ tell you, that’s all.”
“Then speak and be done. I must be awake at dawn.”
Walt’s brow puckered as if he struggled to remember his purpose. A slurry of words rushed out of him. “I need you t’ promise you’ll watch Bea at all times. D’you hear me? Keep her at home, out of sight … at least for now till I tell you it’s safe.”
Ellie was taken aback. What would prompt Walt to issue such a peculiar warning? She could smell the liquor on his breath, and she was tempted to think he was confused in his intoxicated state. Yet he looked unusually serious. “I don’t understand. Is this because we visited Lady Milford today? Did the earl instruct you to speak to me?”
“No … yes. Yes, my father said Bea’s t’ be punished for … for behaving badly. Going t’ see someone she don’t know. It’s bad form.”
Walt was lying. Ellie could see it in his manner. He’d first shaken his head in denial before nodding, a clue that he had amended his story in mid-thought and seized upon a handy explanation. So why would he want to confine Beatrice to home?
Perhaps excessive drink had turned him maudlin. Perhaps it had awakened a dormant chivalrous instinct in him to keep his sister from making any more foolish mistakes.
Or perhaps he had made it all up on the spot to give him an excuse to come up here and pester Ellie with his amorous advances.
As if to validate that last possibility, Walt crowded closer, a leer on his face. “Why’re you scowling?” he said cajolingly. “I could make you happy, y’ know. Just lemme show you…”
