Carola Dunn (4 page)

 “I’m sure you can.” Martha’s faith in him was by now unbounded.

 While he was busy multiplying the basic gown, she had sorted through the contents of the cupboard and the chest. She had found samples of almost every colour, every fabric Lady Elizabeth wanted. On each unadorned dress as he created it, she had embroidered a small area, or sewn on a few inches of lace, ruffles, ribbons, or flounces.

 Now, taking a dress from the heap, she spread it out on the table and consulted the
Ladies’ Magazine
. Beside it she set a length of primrose yellow embroidery silk, a fragment of delicate jaconet muslin that happened to be blue, and an illustration of a much beruffled morning gown.

 He whistled. “This is going to be complicated.”

 “Change the fabric first, without worrying about the colour,” she suggested.

 Picking up the scrap of jaconet muslin, he closed his eyes and rubbed it between his fingers. Then he felt the hem of the gown.

 “They are very similar,” he said uncertainly.

 “So it should be easy.”

 “That’s what you think!” He flashed her a quizzical smile. “I have not your fine discrimination and I’m not at all sure I can tell the difference. Oh well, needs must when the devil drives.”

 The now familiar expression of fierce concentration on his face, Lord Tarnholm touched the gown with the scrap of fine, blue jaconet. The piece in his hand promptly turned into plain, cheap, white muslin.

 Without a word, Martha took it from him and gave him another sample of jaconet, pink this time. He pondered for a moment, closed his eyes, then tried again. The gown did not change visibly, but when she felt it, Martha could tell it was now finer, softer.

 She smiled at him. “That’s it. You have done it.”

 “It was a matter of focussing on touch instead of sight, but also of direction. I can’t explain any better than that. Now let me try the colour.” He studied the strand of primrose yellow embroidery silk, holding it up to the light of a branch of candles.

 Outside the windows, a myriad frosty stars glittered in the black night sky, like incongruous spangles on a mourning gown. Martha shivered at the thought.

 At least the penny-pinching duke had not quibbled at Mrs. Girdle’s provision of plenty of lamps and candles. Their light was adequate, and they helped to warm the room. The bread and cheese his Grace had supplied would have been enough for her alone, though shared between two it had made a skimpy dinner, even with the biscuits.

 Martha was hungry and sleepy, but no longer frightened. She trusted Lord Tarnholm to save both her and her family from disaster.

 An odd chap, he was, not a bit high in the instep. Sort of unsure of himself even though he was a nobleman and half faerie. He could not have had it easy, being on the small side, plain as a pickled onion, and lame into the bargain, while his cousin was so tall and handsome and dashing.

 He was rubbing his shoulder now as if it hurt, and shifting on his stool to ease his bad leg.

 She didn’t believe any more that he was a changeling, a faerie child left in the cradle when a human babe was stolen away. All the old stories said changelings were mischievous beings, always causing upsets, and vanishing away before they grew up. No, Edward was half and half, the last Baron Tarnholm his pa, and his mam a water-faerie, a nixie. No wonder her ladyship kept herself to herself.

 His mam was a faerie. “Can’t Lady Tarnholm cure your leg with a spell?” she blurted out.

 Flushing fiery red, he muttered, “My mother has done what she can. There is a powerful magic against her.”

 Her well-meant question had turned out to be both rude and unkind. Her tiredness and his friendliness had made her forget her place. Wishing she had not spoken, Martha bowed her head.

 He touched her hand, pointed at the gown spread out on the table.

 “Look!”

 From the hem towards the neckline oozed a yellowish hue. It was a warm, pretty shade with a hint of blush pink—peach, in fact—as if the pale primrose had absorbed a touch of colour from his lordship’s cheeks.

 Not for the world would Martha have mentioned the glaring difference from what Lady Elizabeth had instructed, but Lord Tarnholm saw it for himself.

 “It’s wrong, isn’t it?”

 “It’s lovely, and it’ll suit Lady Elizabeth much better than what she asked for.”

 “Yes, I believe you are right.” He cheered up. “Now for the ruffles.”

 He studied the short piece of wide, full ruffle Martha had made and pinned onto the skirt to act as a model, then he turned to examine the fashion plate in the magazine. Meanwhile, Martha swiftly pinned strips of ungathered muslin to the skirt and bodice to “feed” the five ruffles.

 Glancing back and forth from picture to gown, Lord Tarnholm made his magical gestures. The strips quivered and bulged, but failed to gather into ruffles. He frowned with the intensity of his efforts.

 Then Martha noticed that the pattern piece of presewn ruffle had narrowed and flattened.

 “Wait, Edward. Just a minute.”

 She unpinned the strips. Beneath were rows of tiny, dainty ruffles. Martha began to laugh, and then she found she could not stop.

 His puzzled stare changed to a grin, and then to alarm. Standing up, he shook her gently.

 “Hush, Martha. What is it?”

 “It’s just...” she gasped, gazing up into anxious, sympathetic, silver-grey eyes. “It is just that your magic seems to know what will become Lady Elizabeth much better than she does herself. The trouble is, if she is not satisfied with what I...we have made.... If she complains to his Grace, he will say I have not....”

 A lump in her throat, her eyes filling with tears, she dropped her head on his chest.

 One arm about her shoulders, he awkwardly patted her back. “You need not worry about Lizzie. I may not be able to persuade the duke to abandon his folly once he has a bee in his bonnet, but Lizzie will believe me when I say she has never looked so well. Come, my dear, dry those tears.”

 She took the handkerchief he pressed into her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

 “And worried about your family.”

 “You know?”

 “Yes, Reggie told me of his threat to turn you all out of the mill. That is why I came to help you.” He pulled a rueful face. “Come now, I am tired, too, but we have a great deal of work still before us.”

 The gowns that emerged from their white muslin chrysalises over the next several hours bore scant resemblance to the magazine plates.

 However hard he tried, elaborate trimmings failed to materialize, replaced by elegant simplicity. The colour green might as well not have existed for all Lord Tarnholm could do to produce it. He had a struggle with even amber and apricot, the warmer shades of yellow. The rack in the corner filled with pink, from the palest possible to deep rose, and with amethyst, lilac, and lavender-blue.

 They were beautiful. Martha gave up fretting and eagerly awaited each new creation as she pressed the previous one with the smoothing iron.

 She still could not imagine how anyone could possibly need two dozen gowns. That did not stop her wishing wistfully that she owned more than three, two of which, including the one she had on, were made of practical brown stuff.

 “Twenty-three,” she counted.

 There was no response.

 Looking up from ironing a lace edging, she saw that his lordship was fast asleep, his head pillowed on his arms on top of the last gown. A wave of fatigue crashed down on her. That one could wait; she wasn’t going to disturb him to get at it.

 With leaden arms, she hung up the one she had just finished. When she blew out the candles and glanced at the window, she saw a faint paling of the eastern sky. Dawn was not far off, but the duke surely had not referred to dawn when he spoke of morning. The gentry were late risers.

 Martha curled up on the chest and fell asleep.

Chapter IV

 A harsh, grating noise roused Edward.

 Bewildered, his bad shoulder aching like the very devil, he stared around the room. What the deuce was he doing up in the tower?

 His gaze fell on tousled yellow curls, rosy cheeks, a delectable figure somehow enhanced by its awkward huddle on the chest. Martha Miller. Of course! Memory returning, he smiled tenderly.

 What a dear she was! He had often seen her before, and thought her pretty. Though he had never had occasion to speak to her, he had known her reputation as a first-rate seamstress and an honest young woman. How could he have guessed she was also kindhearted, compassionate, merry, intelligent, well-spoken, and with a voice like a song-thrush in springtime....

 Screeech...click.

 A key turning in the lock!

 In one swift—though far from smooth—motion, Edward rose from the stool and stumblingly darted to hide behind the opening door. If anyone discovered that he had spent the night here, Martha would be ruined.

  His leg throbbing, once again he scanned the room: a crumpled dress on the table, twenty-three more hanging in the corner, a seamstress’s paraphernalia strewn here and there, stubs of candles. Nothing there to give away his presence if he was not seen.

 Pale sunbeams shone in through the east window. The sun rose late at this season: mid morning, then. Was Reggie so impatient as to rise before noon?

 “Martha?” That was Lizzie’s tentative voice. She stepped into the room, caught sight of the rack of dresses, and ran to inspect them. “Martha!”

 She was furious now. Crossing to the chest, her back to Edward, she shook the girl roughly.

 He moved out from behind the door, then to the side, so that the doorway was at his back, as if he had just stepped through.

 “They are all the wrong colours!” Lizzie cried angrily as Martha sat up, rubbing drowsy blue eyes.

 “My doing.” Edward smiled at his young cousin as she swung round, incensed.

 “Cousin Edward! You mean you told Martha to ignore my instructions?”

 At least she appeared to believe he had followed her up the spiral stairs, unlikely though it was that she would not have overtaken him on the way.

 “I could not bear to see such a pretty young lady impair her looks with ill-advised choices,” he said pacifically. “Yellow and green really do not suit you in the slightest, my dear Lizzie.”

 She pouted. “Then why have you never said anything before?” she asked, her tone disbelieving.

 “It hardly signified while you were still in the schoolroom and hidden away in the country,” he pointed out. “A London Season is another matter. For that, it is imperative to make the best of yourself.”

 “Yes, but—”

 “Try them on, Lizzie,” he urged. “I wager you will like the result.”

 Lizzie yielded. “Oh very well. You will have to wait outside, though, Cousin Edward. Hurry up, Martha, do. I must be gone before my brother wakes up. He will be cross as crabs if he finds I have disturbed you when he strictly ordered that you must not be distracted from your work, but I simply could not wait to see what you have made.”

 “Where did you get the key?” Edward asked as Martha stumbled sleepily to the clothes rack.

 “From Mrs. Girdle, of course.”

 The housekeeper, of course! And he had fought his way through the keyhole, making an utter cake of himself, having assumed that Reggie had the only key. As he left the room, Edward surreptitiously pocketed the key which Lizzie had left in the lock.

 Waiting on the tiny landing, he leant uncomfortably, sore in every joint, against the chilly stone wall. Though he fixed his gaze on the narrow, unglazed window, he was blind to the panorama of roofs, turrets, chimneys, and towers, for his mind’s eye was filled with Martha’s image.

 Weeping, smiling, laughing, singing, intent over her needle, sleepily yawning, blushing in confusion, concerned for his discomfort, cheering his success—it would be all too easy to persuade himself he had won her regard.

 All too easy to fall in love.

 Bitterly aware of his disabilities, Edward had always avoided the company of females other than his family. Small wonder, then, that he should find himself attracted to the first pretty girl who welcomed his presence.

 He reminded himself sternly that her welcome stemmed from desperation. Even if he had not started out by humiliating himself before her with that caperwitted keyhole business, she could not possibly love a cripple. Her gratitude must satisfy him.

 He was glad to have been able to help her, to prevent the eviction of her family. Tom was a good miller, a good husband and father, even though he was the biggest braggart in Norfolk. Only a gullible sapskull like the Duke of Diss would believe his tall tales and expect the impossible of his daughter. Only a selfish coxcomb like the noble Duke of Diss would threaten to beggar her family if she failed.

 “Cousin Edward? Come and see.”

 Returning to the tower room, he watched Lizzie preen before the looking glass on the wall. She turned to him and curtsied low.

 She had put on a dress the pale pink of wild roses, a shade produced by Edward’s magic quite against his intentions. It suited her, reinforcing what little natural colour she had in her cheeks. The style suited her, too, transforming incipient embonpoint into a pleasing plumpness.

 Recalling his struggle with the mother-of-pearl buttons circling the skirt between the rows of narrow lace, Edward grinned at Martha. She did not notice, for her eyes were downcast in the submissive stance of a servant.

 Such meekness was all wrong for her, he thought, suddenly angry. He hated to see it. Why should so bright and lively a girl defer to his cousin—insipid, Mama had called her, not without justice—because of a mere accident of birth?

 “You have worked magic, Miss Miller,” he said, glad to see her soft lips quirk in amusement as she bobbed a deferential curtsy. “I have never seen Lady Elizabeth look so well. You will take the Ton by storm, Lizzie.”

 “Do you really think so, Cousin Edward?” Pleased, she turned back to the looking glass. “I own it is a charming gown, though rather plain.”

 “Surely you cannot want an excess of ornament to distract attention from your face?”