A Heart Revealed (28 page)

The cottage was comfortable and she felt secure within its walls, but if Suzanne made a match with Mr. Larsen, Amber would be alone. At least at Hampton Grove she would have . . . what
would
she have? She did not expect acceptance from her parents, nor did she expect to renew childhood acquaintances or pursue a marriage. Amber was a pariah, an embarrassment, a complication, and should she return to her family they would be forced to endure it. She wanted to be loved, not endured.

For the first time since arriving at Step Cottage, Amber wondered if perhaps she would find more comfort and happiness here than anywhere else. Perhaps it was best for everyone if she did not return. Could she live the rest of her life in isolation? Without Suzanne for company, she felt sure she would go quite mad.

There was a light knock on the door. “Come in.”

“There was something else I wanted to speak to you about,” Suzanne said as she came into the room.

“Of course,” Amber said, forcing a smile to hide her discouragement.

“While I was in town, I purchased some fabric and wondered if you might sew me a gown for the Winter Ball in two weeks’ time.”

Amber blinked. “Sew you a gown?”

“You are an excellent seamstress, Miss, and—”

“I embroider well, is what you mean,” Amber said.

“And make aprons and shifts and caps, to say nothing of the dress you picked out and redid with side panels,” Suzanne said. “I should very much like a nice gown for the dance. Would you please help me?”

Amber leaned back in the chair. “I have never sewn clothing except for a few shirts for my brothers. I cannot imagine you would be happy with the result. Could we not contact the woman in town who outfitted us for winter?”

“I have seen the care you take with other things you’ve created, and I feel sure you will do right by this,” Suzanne assured her. “I cannot think to pay someone else when I am sure you will do well.”

“I could ask Mr. Peters if he might extend the funds to—”

“I do not want you to ask Mr. Peters,” Suzanne said with directness. “I am asking you to sew me a gown. You have an eye for fashion and drape that I feel will do my figure as much credit as I can expect at my age. Please say yes.”

Amber felt backed into a corner by the request; she could not refuse Suzanne anything. “If you are certain,” she said, oddly humbled by the request while also invigorated by the challenge. “I should be most happy to give it my very best effort.”

Chapter 33

“Are you ready?” Suzanne asked from the doorway of the library.

“I don’t know that I shall ever be ready,” Amber said, her hands over her eyes. “But there is no point in delaying it.”

She heard Suzanne’s footsteps and could scarcely breathe as she waited.

“All right, then,” Suzanne said.

Rather than move her hands, Amber spread her fingers so she could look between them. Seeing that the dress was not atrocious, she lowered her hands. If she’d had eyebrows they would have risen as she looked upon Suzanne, who put out her arms and turned around slowly enough for Amber to inspect the rose-colored dress she had spent the last two weeks creating. After Suzanne completed her turn, Amber smiled. “You look beautiful,” she said in a breathy voice.

“The
dress
looks beautiful,” Suzanne corrected, looking at the skirt as she swished the fabric back and forth.

“You look beautiful in the beautiful dress,” Amber further amended. She stood up from the settee and came closer. “I had so feared the bodice would be puckered there in front where I did not get the gather quite right.”

“It is exactly as I had known it would turn out,” Suzanne said, fairly beaming. “And look—” She twirled, causing the skirt to bell out with perfect symmetry. “It is just the right length for dancing but will not drag upon the floor when I walk.” She demonstrated by taking a few steps toward the door—while a train was fashionable in London, it was impractical in the country.

“The color is perfect for your features,” Amber noted. In London it had never occurred to her to consider whether or not Suzanne was a handsome woman, but she had taken note of Suzanne’s solid beauty here in Yorkshire. She had dark hair, always gathered into a braided knot at the back of her head, and wide brown eyes that danced when she was in a good humor. Her teeth were well set, and her complexion was quite smooth for a woman of thirty-two years. The rose color enhanced every good thing about her.

Amber inspected the dress again, amazed at how lovely it looked. She had used one of her own dresses as a pattern, adjusting it for Suzanne’s larger frame and the formality of the event by adding puff sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. Certainly she knew it was not nearly as fine as one an actual dressmaker could create, but she felt proud of the result. She had feared it would be hideous.

Every cut of the shears and stitch of the needle had filled Amber with dread, but having been fitted for dresses all her life, and learning the “accomplishment” of embroidery considered suitable for women of the
ton
had created more ability than she had expected.

Suzanne had tried on the different pieces a dozen times as Amber attempted to fit them to her just right, but tonight was the first time Suzanne had put on the completed dress.

“I have something else for you,” Amber said, then hurried behind one of the heavy bookshelves and returned with a reticule and a hat, both sewn from scraps of the fabric. She’d taken the Swedish lace from one of her morning dresses unsuitable for cottage life and made an edge on the hat that set it off to even further distinction. Amber had embroidered an elaborate design on the bag, working late at night in her room so as to hide it from Suzanne’s notice.

Suzanne’s eyes went wide as she took the items and turned them in her hand. “They are beautiful.” She smiled like a schoolgirl and ran upstairs to look at her reflection in the looking glass. “I shall be the belle of the ball in this,” Suzanne called from the top of the stairs, quite improperly.

It felt good to make something useful, but even better, Amber felt as though she had in some way begun to repay a debt to her friend. She wondered how Mr. Larsen would react to Suzanne in that dress and smiled at the expectation that he would be well pleased with it. For an instant she imagined that she were wearing such a dress and attending a ball. Perhaps Mr. Richards would ask her to dance. She entertained the idea for only a moment before brushing it away. Dances and balls were a lifetime ago. Mr. Richards was simply a kind man—one of the few she’d met since relocating to Step Cottage—and his kindness had given him the status of the hero in all her girlish fantasies.

“I shall serve supper while you change,” Amber called. It was only four o’clock, but as they tended to rise with the sun and sleep by the moon, it was sensible to prepare dinner when it was still full light outside. Today was storming, however, and they had been forced to burn candles during the day.

Suzanne returned a few minutes later, dressed in a gray working dress that further emphasized the advantage the rose-colored dress gave to her. “I folded the dress and packed it along with the reticule, stays, and hat in the small trunk. You’re sure you don’t mind my taking it with me?”

“What use have I for it?” Amber said without feeling the level of regret she once had. The finer things in her possession were quite useless in her present circumstance, and she was glad they would benefit Suzanne. She glanced to the window, streaked with rain. “I do hope the storm lifts before tomorrow, though. Even the hood of the gig won’t protect you from such elements as this.”

“I shall go rain or shine,” Suzanne said and smiled again, which, as always, made Amber smile too. For two women so opposed to their situation in the beginning, they had come to find a level of joy that surprised them both.

Amber served roasted potatoes with a bit of mustard powder and dried thyme, some ham from the smokehouse, and yesterday’s leftover soda bread. In the beginning, Amber had been unable to entertain the idea of a meal without meat, and they had gone through their winter stores faster than they should have. She was now accustomed to vegetable stews and meatless pies, but as Suzanne was going to town, Amber wanted to serve a fancier meal than usual. Mrs. Haribow had only come three times since November due to the condition of the roads. They missed her cooking, but it had challenged Amber to better hone her own skills.

All things considered, life had become quite comfortable at Step Cottage. Amber was less inclined to pine for the life she had had; in fact it seemed like a story in a book when she thought back to it. Had she truly stayed out until three or four o’clock in the morning simply to gossip and flirt? In Yorkshire she never went outside after dark and, according to the clock in the library, no longer stayed up past ten o’clock.

Had she worn very fine dresses only once before refusing to be seen in them again? At Step Cottage she had three dresses for winter—all of them plain, comfortable, and practical—that she interchanged from day to day. No one saw her in them but Suzanne.

Had she sat at her dressing table for hours in order to have her long, thick hair perfectly arranged? That was perhaps the memory that felt most like fantasy. Her head was so smooth she could scarcely remember what it looked like before. She’d moved the looking glass from her room to Suzanne’s and in its absence she become all but unaware of her appearance. Quite a change from the girl she had been before.

“Shall we play loo before bed?” Suzanne asked after they scraped their bowls clean and wrapped up the remaining soda bread.

Amber had begun teaching Suzanne how to play cards when they’d run out of other evening entertainments and Suzanne was not in the mood to read. Teaching her loo had reminded Amber of an evening in London when she had pretended not to know the game so as to beg help from the gentlemen at the table. It was embarrassing to recall the ways in which she manipulated the people around her.

What a fool she’d been to ignore the chance to truly get to know someone. What she wouldn’t give for the chance to try again. This time, she would try to learn about the inner workings of a man rather than weighing and measuring him against her expectations. Perhaps if she had done so the first time, she
could
have found a kind man willing to overlook her condition. Until the end, however, kindness had not been a consideration. And now, when she wished for another chance, it was not to be.

She thought of the coat hanging in her wardrobe at the London house. Surely the man who had helped her that night would have been worthwhile to know, and yet Amber did not think she had bothered to even meet him. How shallow she had been to have ignored someone of quality. She wondered what had become of him. And Lord Norwin too—had he married the girl of his fancy?

“Amber? Shall we play loo?”

Amber shook herself out of her thoughts and smiled. “If you don’t mind, I think I should like to read for a bit. I have almost finished another volume of the Roman history. They were far more advanced than I ever realized before. When I finish, I believe I shall go to Shakespeare’s histories. I’ve always avoided them, you know, but now that we have read some of his other works I wonder what I might have missed.”

Suzanne tsked her tongue and shook her head while giving Amber a playful look. “You have turned into quite a bluestocking. I hope you shall not spout off about the barbaric nature of Ancient Rome again. I can assure you it is lost on me.”

“As it was on me when I was first taught it as a girl,” Amber said, shaking her head. There was so much she had relearned now that she cared enough to be attentive to the information. “To think they threw men together in a ring and had them fight to the death, often tearing one another limb by limb to the delight of the crowd. Deplorable.” She looked sideways at her friend. “I daresay our current society is not so different in some respects of class and distinction.”

How often had she been one of the observers, watching someone’s reputation be stripped through an oversight of etiquette or dismissing someone due to poor connections. She had never once considered that she would one day find herself in the arena.

Chapter 34

Suzanne left for town the next morning, the rain falling steadily but the road not too muddy yet. Amber had wanted to talk her out of taking the trip in such weather, but knew how excited Suzanne was for the Winter Ball and so she held her tongue and offered a dozen prayers that her friend would make it to town and return tomorrow, safely. As always, she hated to be alone at the cottage and began counting the hours before she could expect Suzanne’s return.

It was a quiet evening which allowed Amber time to finish the Roman history and begin reading
Richard II
. She was in bed early and awake with the winter sun. That the sky was clear enough to show the sun improved her mood, and she quickly moved through the morning chores before putting on a stew to cook for supper. She kept an ear for the road and the wheels of the gig, but the afternoon dragged on and Suzanne still had not come home.

Bored and feeling anxious, Amber tried to read, but put the book aside when she could not focus on it.
Richard II
was rather tedious, but she was determined to give it her best effort.

She went out to the front porch, frowning at the sun that would set in two hours’ time. Where was Suzanne? The weather would not have prevented her return. Had Mr. Larsen declared his intentions? Could Suzanne even now be trying to craft an explanation to Amber about her changing future? The thought seized Amber’s chest in a cold grip. If Suzanne left and her parents did not allow her to return to Hampton Grove, what would become of her?

More eager than ever for a distraction, Amber began walking through the cottage, sweeping out this corner, oiling that windowsill until it gleamed. She arranged the foyer area with the hat tree on the left, then on the right, then back on the left again before centering it in front of the small window on the east wall. She rearranged some of the books in the library, moving Shakespeare higher so as to accommodate the entire collection in the center portion of the bookshelf where it was more of a focal point. It was when she turned away from that task that her eyes landed on the limp curtains hanging on either side of the window above the desk.