I blinked as his revelation dangled in the air between us, and nearly laughed in his passionate face. Me, a countess! Was the man sane? “I believe that position is taken, sir.”
“Hear me out.” He moved the chair closer. “Lady Enderly is of a delicate disposition, and she wishes to rest after sailing to the continent and to India, but a woman such as she can hardly just disappear. Which is where you come in.” He took my hands and lifted his wide, glittering smile, as one who feels the brilliance of his plan. “You have the privilege of borrowing her remarkable life for a time and living as fully and richly as you’ve always wanted. Lavish gowns, grand estate, fine food . . .”
I looked away, cheeks burning. Did he truly think me so easily tempted by finery simply because I was poor? “The woman ought to take her rest, then. A holiday by the sea. No need for a replacement.”
“But her life is somewhat public, you see, and she desires that no one know of this. Everyone is entitled to a little privacy, especially when it comes to one’s health. Consider what this would do for her, what it would mean.”
I rolled my eyes. “The world won’t miss one noble lady for a short time.” I felt little pity over a countess drowning in her social duties. Had anyone stepped in to ease my own maman’s burden of true work before it killed her? And she, only seven and thirty at the time. She could have had so much life if poverty had not wrung it out of her.
A knock at the door cut into the conversation, and Mr. Prendergast spun to beckon in a short woman in a hooded cloak, who bustled in with two large baskets. “Thank you for coming, Esmerelda. She’s over here.”
“I haven’t decided to stay yet. You did promise to take me back today if I wished it.”
He smiled at me with amusement. “That I did, my lady, but I never said when today.” He leaned close. “Allow me a chance to change your mind. Meet Esmerelda, a brilliant woman from the next shire who will be touching up your appearance with a few aids.”
“I’m not vulgar enough for cosmetics.”
“Most ladies wear them.” His dark eyes gleamed. “It’s only vulgar if they admit to it.”
“I doubt I’ll see the position any differently from behind a few cosmetics.”
“Not the role, but you. Under all those rags, there’s a radiant woman who burns too brightly for the world of Spitalfields. And I’m anxious to let her come out and live.”
Emily Brontë. He’d quoted Emily Brontë to me . . . and well I knew that quote. What other rag woman did?
“Come now, won’t you humor me?”
I sighed. I could say no in a beat to forceful or angry insistence, but this gent’s agreeable charm, his engaging nature that filled the air, warmed right through my defenses. I glanced at the basket of bottles and brushes, intensely curious what she’d make of me with them.
I grew stiff from sitting on the stool.
“What wretched-smelling water.” I coughed as the stench of the clear liquid being swept over my face by the squatty little woman spiked up my nostrils and made me woozy. I already had an unnerving wooden instrument strapped to my back to straighten my posture, and this noxious aroma was too much.
Victor Prendergast smiled from his shadowed corner of the little room where he’d witnessed this torture session for at least three quarters of an hour. “It’s ammonia. Clears the skin and lightens imperfections.”
I coughed again as the woman stoppered the little bottle and turned to rummage in the nearby basket full of jars and tins. “So when you told me I was perfect for the position, what you meant was nearly perfect.”
“You do bear certain traces of . . . privation. But those are easily concealed.” He moved away from his wall and strode closer, circling me on my little stool in the middle of the room.
“It is uncanny, though, how little we must do to change your appearance. Never before have I seen a working-class woman with such a fair, unblemished complexion. How have you managed to remain so pure and white?”
“Sickly and sallow, you mean? A severe lack of sunshine and leisure will do it every time. You’d be white as a ghost too if you spent all the daylight hours in a dark little flat, piecing together other people’s rags.” I grimaced as the gruff woman dipped two fingers into a jar of cream and smeared the stuff on my face. The surprising coolness made a pleasant contrast to the sting of the ammonia and calmed my irritability for the moment.
The man’s eyes sparkled in the dim room. “You’re as amusing as you are lovely. What a creature.”
Heat crept up my neck. How did he always do that? Somehow his words, his direct gaze, filled the millions of little cracks chipped into my heart in my two and twenty years as the rag woman. I hardly noticed them anymore, until I felt them being filled so thoroughly now.
“No smile.” These were the woman’s first words to me, and instantly my face melted into a neutral expression.
Prendergast’s smile only widened. “Don’t take it to heart, love. She knows what she’s about.”
“Smiles make creases.” Her hoarse voice continued. “Powder settles in creases and makes them worse.” The woman’s thick eyebrows nearly met in the middle, her frown deep and constant as she hovered mere inches from my face, smoothing cream over every surface.
“Is all of this necessary?”
“Well, we haven’t time to give you consumption. That’d be the best way to achieve the right complexion, but we’ll settle for this.”
“How decent of you.”
Soon the little woman stretched the screen across the room to shield me from Mr. Prendergast as she helped me dress. Unceremoniously stripping me of the cotton gown, she smoothed the chemise and covered it with crinolette, petticoats, and a snug corset that gave my figure a surprising strength and elegance. Far from the restrictive discomfort I’d expected, the support and natural poise offered by the stays felt wonderful.
She hoisted the skirt over my head, letting it float down like flower petals around my frame, then wrapped the bodice around my torso, crossing it in the front and securing it in back. As she twisted and pinned my newly smoothed curls into place, lifting them off my warm neck, I gasped in pain with a few tugs and twists, but soon she had everything resting comfortably on my scalp with only a slight throb from my poor head that was unused to such treatment. The oils she’d used on my hair gave it a healthy sheen.
When she had finished, she shoved the room divider back into its folded position behind me with a few grunts. There I stood, staring at the woman in the mirror before me, and it seemed the cosmetics had seeped through my skin and into my heart that had never expected to possess such beauty. I turned to face Mr. Prendergast where he lounged in a chair, rolling a pocket watch across his knuckles. The watch clattered to the floor. His look of boredom melted into pleasure, and he rose as if the sight of me compelled the gallant gesture.
I focused on breathing, in and out. In the continued silence, my skin warmed under the layers of tight clothing as dust sparkled in the sun pouring through the high window.
“Now,” he whispered, taking my hands with a gentle touch. My pulse thrummed against his fingers. “Do you see what I see?”
He turned me to face the mirror, his hands gently bracing my shoulders. His words, his low voice, stirred something deep inside, for I had seen. I’d expected the change to be drastic, my face unrecognizable, but instead the woman’s efforts seemed to merely uncover the woman who had been buried, drawing hidden loveliness to the surface and swathing it in silk and scented oils. She’d brushed and polished me into a far better version of myself.
“Perhaps now you will believe me, Raina Bretton, when I tell you that you were created for something more, something far bigger than piecing scraps together and selling rags in alleys.”
My stomach knotted. “It feels so odd. All of this. It can’t be right if it makes me feel this way.”
His soft chuckle smoothed over my nerves. “Is it truly so foreign to have what you desire? Don’t worry, you’ll grow accustomed to
happiness if you give it half a chance.”
I spun toward the window, raising my chin. “I know my Bible, sir, and it tells me a lot of other things I should be before ‘happy.’”
“One of those, are you? Perhaps I can speak your language. Do you recall the story of Esther? How brave she was, taking on the role of queen even though she was naught but a poor Jewish woman. She used her beauty to great advantage—not for herself, but for her people. She saved them, and you can do the same.”
“What, rescue a silly noble woman?”
“You’re thinking too small, love. In this new position, what might you change in that little flat you left behind? Maybe all of London’s East End. And you can afford to think of your own too. How many brothers and sisters did you say you had?”
“I didn’t, but there are seven.”
“Seven. You can change their lives for the better, or entire districts for that matter, by merely becoming ‘queen’ for a time. Think what you could do with that sort of influence, the resources at your command. What would you change first? Whose life might you better?” He stepped closer, his minty breath fanning over my face. “What a waste it would be, that adventurous spirit tucked inside a beautiful woman, all rotting away under a pile of rags and poverty. You could be so much more if you only had the courage, recognized what was inside you.”
This stopped me cold. His impassioned words had burrowed through an unseen crevice in my high wall of defenses and reached my heart—my heart that had ever swelled to pour into something bigger than myself, for my life to have a far-reaching impact and deep meaning. Only then would I be more than Ragna the burdensome rag woman with the empty life and empty coin jar.
“You could have such a remarkable influence. And all you need to do is—”
“Lie.” My breath came hard and fast.
His face looked pained. “I’d never ask you to do such a vulgar thing. Have I asked you to tell one single person you were someone you were not, to say one untrue thing? Even Esther changed her name when she entered the palace. All I’ve asked you to do is waltz into the abbey dressed this way and allow everyone to draw their own conclusions.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. His words dulled the edges of my conscience, and that felt dangerous. It seemed wrong, or maybe just too good to believe. He alone had seen in me what I wanted to be and tempted me by breathing life into that far-fetched dream.
“Come now, be reasonable. Are not actors paid to do such a thing? All those men and women of the opera stand up on that stage in costume and let their audience pretend they are someone else. For pity’s sake, everyone you meet is acting—as Shakespeare said, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ Only, this acting position will also be more than fantasy—it will change lives. Imagine what you could do with the influence of a countess.”
I already was.
He massaged his jaw with one hand. “Look, I’ll offer you this. Try it for a time. You’re already committed for the day. If your conscience still troubles you, I shall return you to Spitalfields with a gown as promised and allow you to waste your life away there.”
I looked directly into his clean-shaven face. “You’ll take me back as soon as I request it?”
His lips spread into a grin, as if he’d known all along I’d agree. “That very hour. Come now, it’s time to go.”
“Where?”
“You must make a grand entrance, coming from the train station. A lady would never arrive home unannounced.”
More deception. “I’m not sure I can be convinced to stay.”
He cast a knowing smile my way. “We shall see.”
4
When amongst strangers, one can either fear the unknown or be exceedingly grateful for a blank slate of possibilities.
~Diary of a Substitute Countess
Sullivan McKenna whipped his fiddle and bow up above his head after his song and took a deep bow inside the straw-covered stables. A smattering of applause met his ears, followed by a bit of laughter that warmed his merry soul. It was a fine day when his playing could liven the hearts of strangers, and he’d always believed it had a nearly magic ability to do so. Even without words, music was contagious.
He smiled at the little crowd of amiable servants who looked on, hanging off the hayloft and standing amid the straw, and breathed in the raw, earthy aroma of a farm that matched the people. What a jolly place this seemed to be.
As the servants turned back to their work with chatter and laughter, Sully addressed the man who was clearly in charge. “I’m hoping you can help me. Looking for a lass who might be about these parts.”
“Irish, are you, boy?” The weathered old stable master stepped forward and shoved his rake into a pile of straw.
Sully shrugged with a lopsided grin. “I’m a patchwork sort of fellow, with scraps of this and that all sewed together. Me mother was Irish, but me father’s a good old Brit.”
“I thought I recognized a bit of the brogue. So who can we help you find, good man?”
“A Miss Raina Bretton. She’s a friend of mine from back home. She’d have come to work here as a scullery maid or maybe a seamstress.”
“It sounds familiar, but I can’t say I’ve met anyone by that name. I’ll be sure to pass her a message if I do, though. Care to leave a word for her?”
He hesitated, kicking at the straw on the stable floor. A deep breath filled his senses with the scent of livestock and moisture. “Would there be someone else I could ask, maybe up at the house?”
“Lucy,” he called over his shoulder. “Is there a new girl up at the abbey?”
“No sir, not for some time now. Heaven knows we could use another one or two in the kitchen with the mistress coming, though.”
The man shrugged. “If anyone knows, she would. She’s the daughter of the housekeeper and her ears are the sharpest in the place. No one so much as eats a tart below stairs without her knowing it.”
“You’re certain?” Sully met the frank and gentle gaze of the stable master. “She’s gone from home, and I heard she was headed to this very place. This here’s Rothburne Abbey, isn’t it?”
“That it is, son.” Pity softened his features. “Perhaps your girl changed her mind. Women often blow hot, then cold, you know, changing their intentions without a word. Perhaps it’s best to move on.”
“Aye, that they do.” Not his Raina, though. When she set about to do something, she saw it through, even if it nearly killed her—or more likely, him. “Thank you kindly.” His mind hummed with ideas even as he turned and exited the barn with a wave, swishing straw under his boots. Hesitation weighted his steps, making him less than anxious to depart. Once he left, he had no leads. Old Widow McCall had been certain about the name too, and she’d remembered clearly that it had been an abbey.
But what could he do, stand about hoping for a glimpse of her? Slinging his worn sack over one shoulder and dangling his fiddle in the other hand, Sully traipsed across the yard, staring toward the sun burning orange and yellow above. All that was left to do was return to Spitalfields and hope she came back, but he knew in his gut that she wouldn’t, sure as he knew the grass was green and the ocean deep. An odd fear crept deep into his bones the longer he pondered it all.
He could still picture the little waif of about ten years whom he’d rescued from the bell tower of his father’s church. It was his first glimpse of her. Such an eager little thing she’d been, breaking into the building at night and dragging a heartsick old widow up into the tower just to get her as close as she could to the stars. It was weeks after the funeral service for the woman’s husband, and everyone else in the neighborhood had moved on from the distraught widow’s grief. Despondent and unkempt, the woman had become nearly as dead as her husband, but little Raina was not ready to give up on her.
“She’s simply got to see them,” she said about the stars as he’d gripped her arm to keep her from plunging into the Thames below. “All at once, to take in their
full beauty.” She claimed there was something healing in immense loveliness, because when they took their eyes off the ugly, chipped old buildings hemming them into Spitalfields, there was a great, wonderful world out there that offered many a reason for living. Man’s feeble work was destined for decay, but God’s starry skies reminded them of the eternity they had before them, just beyond the reach of this earth.
He tried to persuade them to come down, but instead she convinced him to delight in the stars with her, and it had burst his world wide open. She helped him look up from the daily grind and see the beauty in anything, from a star-studded sky in the slums to a lovely soul buried within a forgotten widow, and it had formed the basis for the longest, deepest camaraderie he’d ever known.
Yet perhaps she wanted it to stay that way. He should have told her the way he felt in person so many years ago when they ran about together. He nearly had, more times than he could count, but when he’d looked up into those storm-blue eyes, her ready smile had knocked the words clean down to his toes and back to his brain in a muddled mess of nonsense. The risk of this enchanting, full-of-life friendship becoming marred forever by his declarations of love stopped him from voicing them to her, even though they shared most everything else.
“Hey there, lad.” The stable master called out to him, and he spun to see the man jogging toward him, one hand held high.
Sully paced a few steps backward, then stopped, waiting for the man to catch up.
The older man huffed to a stop before him and dug through the pocket of his oversized coat. “You Sullivan McKenna, by chance?”
Finding Lady Enderly Page 4
