Bride of a Distant Isle (12 page)

“Mrs. Everedge must have thought you'd do a fine job,” I said. “And so do I.”

She grinned. “Yes, miss, and thank you. Look what I found for you.” She shook a few drops of something from a small bottle in her hands and then ran it through my hair. “Neroli oil,” she said. “Chef said you'd asked after it from the stillroom.”

“I had. I have never had the resources for cologne.”

“This is better.” She smoothed it over my hair until it shone. “I know a few tricks, you see, having served ladies over many years. For example, when I was young, we learned to help the young ladies hide what they did not want to be made public.”

I tilted my head. “How interesting. What sorts of things did you hide?”

Maud smiled at the memory. “Love letters, notes, trinkets given by young men of whom they did not want their fathers to learn. We women wear many layers, have many layers within and without, and there is much we can keep hidden.”

“That is a most wonderful insight,” I said, and it was. Rich, and multifaceted. I would view her with new eyes. It was not only
others
prejudging
me
without knowledge of my character; it seemed I had also fallen into like habit.

She began to roll my hair into an elegant knot at the back, with two coils at the sides, just over my ears. I'd placed the ruby combs on the porcelain dressing table top, as they would match the silver gown I'd chosen to accent my black hair. The dress was off the shoulder but held up by thin straps that ran near the collarbone, to either side of my neck, and a fine bodice that conformed to my figure. After being cinched in at the waist, the silver silk cascaded over my corset like a waterfall, in wavy ruffles, to the floor.

It was delightful and would most certainly do.

She left me to help Clementine with her considerably more demanding toilette, and soon we all met in the foyer and Watts had the carriage brought round. Within thirty minutes we arrived at Pennington, which was ablaze with garden torches outside though the night was not yet dim. The grand entrance hall proclaimed generation after generation of Lord Somerford's family with stoic, richly painted portraits. All were centered around a commanding likeness of James II, last Catholic monarch of England.

The decor softened as we made our way toward the large but warm dining room, which was enriched with vases overflowing with summer roses. Lady Somerford was a perfect hostess, though she looked, I thought, a little wan. I was seated next to the Maltese first lieutenant, Bosco.

“So how does a man who is named ‘from the woods' become the lieutenant of a ship?” I teased as we finished spooning our lemon ice from frozen silver lemon cups.

“Lieutenant of
many
ships!” he said. “The Dell'Acquas—better named for the venture, I might add—have a large fleet. Which is why”—he pointed to the captain, who was in animated conversation with one of the Somerfords' acquaintances—“he is in such demand.”

I thought back to his comment about Dell'Acqua being a flirt. In demand on nearly every front, it seemed.

“Tell me of Malta,” I said, and he regaled me with stories of the calmest, the purest sea.

“If the water is so calm, how is it that Saint Paul became shipwrecked off of its shores?” I teased.

He shrugged. “He was not Maltese, of course, and therefore not a good sailor!” I laughed, which caught the captain's attention. Did he look the tiniest bit envious?

The lieutenant continued to amuse me with tales of their most beautiful women and, by far, the most gallant men in the world. “Our art is second to none,” he promised.

“I shall have to judge that for myself.”

“Come, come. There are many who would take you in, embrace you as their own. My family, even.” He slipped into Maltese with that last phrase, and I caught myself just before answering it.

“I hope to visit,” I said as Lord Somerford rose, indicating that we would withdraw to the ballroom for music and dancing. “I truly hope to.”
Unlikely
, I thought sadly,
on a governess's stipend.

I danced several times with men of our area, and with Edward, who seemed to enjoy himself; I even awkwardly partnered with the young Somerford lad, who faltered rather charmingly, like a new calf. It was a delight.

At the end of one dance, I sat in a chair next to a large silver urn that held long-stemmed red roses in it. Their fragrance was heady, exhilarating. Or perhaps it was just that Captain Dell'Acqua decided to join me. He sat down in the adjoining chair.

“You're the most beautiful woman here,” he said, and the bold simplicity of his audacious admission, not prefaced in any way, took my breath away. “When I said that the Maltese were artisans of silver, I never imagined something like you”—he waved his hand toward my silver gown—“in this.”

A thrill ran through me. “Thank you, Captain Dell'Acqua. I believe you to be mistaken, but I appreciate your sentiment.”

“We shall have to work on freeing the Maltese woman dormant inside you,” he teased. “My youngest sister would have responded, ‘Yes, but of course, and if you hadn't pointed it out I would have been required to question your vision!' ”

I laughed. “She sounds delightful.”

“She is,” he said. His blond hair was roughly pulled back but one strand had escaped, and I resisted the urge to reach up and tuck it back in. His casual grooming was in direct contrast to the fine quality of his clothing. I noted, as I had before, that he had an embroidered red rooster on his waistcoat.

“Would you care to dance?” he asked.

I toyed with the idea of letting my Maltese half answer,
I have been waiting an hour or more for you to propose this very thing
, but my English heritage won. “I would be delighted.” I touched the velvety roses in the vase as we stood. “Red roses are my favorite flower.”

He led me to the dance floor as the orchestra began to play. “Why red roses?”

I smirked. Some playfulness must be allowed, after all. “A lady must keep some things secret.”

“A challenge, Miss Ashcroft, and one I gladly accept!” One hand reached round my back and the other led the dance. I'd enjoyed dancing with some of the other men, even young Somerford, but each had seemed, in some way, an effort. Not this time. I wanted to close my eyes and hoped for the music never to end. He brought his head close to mine, closer, perhaps, than was necessarily required for the dance, and as he did I could smell a trace of salt—due to the sea or to the heat?—as well as a light suggestion of musky, Arabian oil.

It intoxicated me as even the roses had not, nor ever could.

As the dance wound to a close, he said, “You are at ease nearly everywhere. Teacher, country house, London, Winchester, kitchens, dancing, with the Maltese and with the English.”

He drew back as the music stopped, and I answered softly, honestly.

“If I fit everywhere, Captain Dell'Acqua, it's because I truly belong nowhere.”

He kissed the back of my hand, and the impression lingered long after he made his way back to the associates who had been looking eagerly in his direction. I watched, with an unjustified pang of envy, as he danced, so comfortably, so charmingly, with another young woman. She, too, seemed smitten. And why not?

We returned to Highcliffe some hours later, just after Edward promised all in attendance that they were welcome for an afternoon's sport, playing a game lately from Ireland called croquet, the following week to celebrate St. James's Day. Clementine had not mentioned this event; that meant she had been taken by surprise. She'd have fewer than seven days and a minimal staff to entertain two dozen or more people in high style. It would be followed by a night's entertainment, sponsored by Mr. Morgan.

As I walked up the stairs to my room, I heard Albert whimper and Lillian soothe him. 'Twould be a shame when she left; he would miss her. I commended her desire to be a shopgirl and mistress of her destiny.

I slipped into my bedroom and locked it fast.
Could I be mistress of my destiny?
The thought thrilled me. It had been expected that I would teach at a school, or become a governess, or marry whomever Edward chose.

But maybe I did not have to walk the path someone—Edward—set before me. Perhaps I could choose my way after all. My mother had.

To horrible consequence, perhaps. But she'd given life to me. And as I was learning, I did not know the entire truth of the matter.

In the stone silence, I could admit to myself, and to God, that I did not truly want to be a governess instead of a wife. And that I wanted to know what had happened to my mother and set her honor to right, if possible.

The memory of a dance floated through my mind, and I captured it and played it over and again.

I was also growing quite certain I did not want to take the solemn vows of a nun.

T
he next morning Maud did not arrive to assist me, which did not trouble me at all. Clementine most probably needed additional attention after the late evening, and I was well prepared to take care of myself, as always. I opened my wardrobe to look for a dress for the day, which was to be at home with the family.

What was this? I liberated something small and white, pressed between two cotton dresses.

A white lace bonnet, a cap. I held it. I'd not seen it before, and I had carefully gone through my dresses just one morning earlier after they'd been returned from being laundered. Mrs. Watts had hired an additional laundress for the summer, someone new and unknown, to assist with the number of guests come to stay. My clothing had been freshly tended to.

Who was the new laundress? Could she have placed it here?

I sat before the mirror and slipped the lace bonnet, almost more like a veil, on my head. It was finely wrought, thousands of tiny stitches, the cap beautiful, and different and . . . foreign-looking somehow.

I sat down at my dressing table, where my ruby combs rested from the night before. I pulled the mysterious fish necklace from under my dressing gown. And now, the odd cap. A third clandestine gift, an unexpected appearance.

I pulled on my cotton stockings and attached them with the usual garters, and then, using the same clips, I also fastened the light lace cap with the clasp.

Maud's trick, recently shared, was very welcome indeed.

I should not mention the cap just yet. But I would seek to find out what it meant, if anything.

That night at dinner, it was just Clementine, me, and Edward. We sat close to one another at one end of the extended table, and Watts had placed a small bowl of gilt fruit nearby, for decoration.

Edward grinned. “Do you recall, Annabel, when you and I bit into gilt pears as children, home on holiday, thinking them to be edible?”

I laughed. “Yes. We had gold lips and teeth for days after that and your parents were most displeased. We looked like Roman statues.”

“We did!” He laughed, and we shared a genuine smile along with the memory. It was that occasional happy memory, I suppose, that kept me hoping that a kind of family relationship might be resurrected, or perhaps, truly constructed for the first time.

Clementine smiled pleasantly but had little to add. I asked about the croquet picnic, knowing she was a good hostess, drawing her in, and then they nattered on about the plans for the celebration of St. James's Day and what gain Edward and Mr. Morgan—who would soon return from London—could be expected to acquire from the event. I took by the drift of the conversation that Captain Dell'Acqua still favored Edward and that the captain had, somehow, invited an associate of Lord Somerford's to consider joining with them.

“What do you hope can be arranged?” Clementine asked as the saddle of veal was served in pools of muddy brown gravy. I was very glad she'd asked, as I had been wondering that very thing myself.

“Dell'Acqua's thinking of the ropewalks,” Edward said.

“The factories in which the ropes are made?” Clementine asked.

Edward nodded. “Everything is in place here—they would not need to be built, just reconditioned and re-roofed, as Lymington had active structures some time ago. Materials are cheap and plenty, as is labor.”

I noticed one of the footmen serving us bristle at that remark.

“Is rope still in high demand?” I asked. “I thought with the commencement of steamships . . .”

Edward smiled benevolently at me as if he were my father and not my one-year-younger cousin. “Coal-powered steam costs money, my dear Annabel. Wind costs nothing. It will be some time before ships that sail on Mother Nature's boundless,
gratis
energy are done away with. Rope is in high demand. Many ships require twenty miles or more of it to operate. Much potential for investment in a world covered by seas.”

Yes. Much potential. “The ropewalks being local,” I continued. “Would that mean we could save Highcliffe?” Perhaps we could make enough legally to maintain the family home, and the enterprise would need to be overseen from nearby.