A Lady in Disguise Read online

  “Well, if you want,” Addy said, hardly graciously. Nevertheless, Lillian thanked her with great seriousness.

  “Does that meet with your approval, Lady Genevieve?”

  “I think you are a very clever girl, Miss Cole. Addy and I will show you to your room. Come, child.” She released her grasp on the child’s thin shoulders to take hold of her hand. Lillian caught the merest flash of a look between them, and knew she had not fooled the child any more than she had the old lady. But she was being permitted to remain, if on sufferance.

  It was only as she followed the two up the stairs that she wondered why staying was so important to her. Being thrust out would have meant a speedy return to Lady Pritchard with a tale not even Paulina could fault. Her spying days would have been over before begun.

  Her room was on the third floor, with two small windows peering out from beneath the eaves. It was hot and rather stuffy from the sun’s rays beating through the sharply-pitched roof. Her valise lay closed on the narrow iron bed.

  “When you are done with your unpacking,” Lady Genevieve said, “come down to my chamber and we’ll discuss what is to be done with Addy.”

  “Very well.” She was left alone to put her few things onto the warped wardrobe shelf. It had been a long time since she’d been called upon to unpack her own clothing instead of having a maid to do it for her.

  Before anything else, however, she removed her sad bonnet. The black single feather with which it was decorated fell limply over a crepe-lined brim. Lillian cringed at the mental image of herself in this weary headdress. She, who had half a dozen modistes begging for her business. She, who had cut such a dashing figure in the Row. She, whose personal maid carried herself always with such hauteur as to make determining who was maid and who mistress nearly impossible. She could not help but laugh as she tossed her bonnet on the bed, in defiance of superstition. A moment later, her reticule flew across the room to join it.

  A glittering string bounced out of the bag to lie on the rough blanket, as though wondering how it came to be there. Guiltily, Lillian snatched up the bright sapphire necklace. Each stone held the clear radiance of true Burmese blue, often likened to the color of fast-falling twilight. A single glance around told her that hiding places were scarce in the tiny room.

  Lillian slipped it beneath her chemise and bounced on her toes to see if it would shake through. The stones were cool against her skin. There would have been no explanation possible if one of the maids had found the expensive bauble among the clothing of a governess. She would find a better hiding place for it later.

  Wearing only stays and petticoat, Lillian poured tepid water into the basin. Dressing could wait but she must instantly wash her face, as it felt as if it were encased in a sticky mask. Once her face was clean and dried, she released her dark brunette hair from its tight knot and shook the waves free. As she began to brush it out, someone knocked at the door.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “I, Mr. Everard. May I come in?” The handle turned and he was there, filling the door frame. His glance flashed down over her white-swathed figure. His eyes hesitated an instant on the lustrous curl lying against the fullness of her bosom before they snapped shut. “I beg your pardon,” he said, but did not back up to leave.

  The small towel was entirely inadequate for shielding any part of her person other than her face. “What do you want?” she asked, holding it instead to the area he seemed to have found most intriguing.

  “When Becksnaff told me you were up here, I couldn’t countenance it. You’ll come with me, at once. That is, as soon as you are dressed.” His eyes were still closed, and Lillian knew, with a pang of something akin to disappointment, that he would not peek.

  ‘This is the room Lady Genevieve said—”

  “I understand. Actually, this is a trunk room. Not even the servants live up here. The room you’ll sleep... you are to be nearer the nursery, one flight down. I apologize for the confusion.”

  They both knew it was no confusion but a deliberate slight. “I shall move my valise in a moment, Mr. Everard. First, I must resume my attire.”

  “Of course.” He still did not move, nor open his eyes. The silence lengthened as she waited for him to go. “I beg your pardon,” he said as though he’d only just remembered to. Spinning sharply about, he struck his head on the sloped roof with a crack audible even to Lillian. As he raised his hand to the spot, he turned back to her, grimacing.

  “Are you all right?”

  His eyes flew open and dropped without thought to the top of her stays, inadequately covered by her hands and the towel. The effort required to lift them again to her face was almost palpable. “I... yes, quite all right.”

  Lillian had worn far more revealing clothing at any London rout. Yet, she was embarrassed. Because of him. He filled the tiny room with his presence, with his scent of open air and clean perspiration. She felt a flush of heat rise up, coloring her face and chest, as she realized that the small iron bed would accommodate two people if they co-operated.

  “I’ll speak to my grandmother about this.” He looked about the dingy room. Anywhere but at her. A darker tinge had come into his already tanned cheeks.

  “Please, let us just treat it as a simple error. I do not wish her to think you are against her. Give her another chance. You did surprise them.”

  “I’ll have a servant bring your valise down.” He left, without allowing his eyes to fall upon her again.

  Lillian put her shaking hands over her face. She groped after her psalm in her mind, but all she could think of was Thorpe’s eyes searching her body. She could not understand the direction in which her thoughts had flown. Obviously the psalm which helped keep her from losing her temper was not going to work when she’d lost her mind.

  Almost hoping she was ill, Lillian leapt up and soaked the towel in the water and applied it to the nape of her neck. Never before had she put “bed” and “man” together in the same thought. Even when a wedding had seemed an inevitable part of her future, she had striven against the temptation to think ahead to a wedding night. There was safety in innocence, although no one who had visited India could be entirely ignorant of the congress between a man and a woman. There had been the most remarkable friezes on some of the temples....

  When Lillian came down the stairs, she flattered herself that she appeared neat, wearing a clean dress of plain Irish poplin and with her hair once more properly arranged. As she paused on the second flight of stairs, Lillian heard Thorpe giving orders to the maids. “Get the schoolroom dusted, and I want fresh sheets in her room. Tell Garvey to send up some cut flowers. And this rug won’t do at all.”

  Lillian successfully mastered the urge to see what he was about. She must call at once upon the lady of the house for her instructions. But it was difficult to turn aside, and more difficult still to remind herself that Thorpe Everard was nothing to do with her. Firstly, she was, however briefly, in the position of governess. Secondly, he was all but promised to Paulina Pritchard. Thirdly ... well, at the moment she could not think of a third reason to resist his devastating good looks, his charm, or the warmth that flowered inside her whenever she met his eyes of clouded jade. She was certain there was a reason, indeed many reasons, but those two would have to do for now.

  Lady Genevieve received Lillian in her private salon. The gold and white painted furniture and the pale muslin curtains took Lillian back to the time when absolute classical purity still ruled the fashionable world. Lady Genevieve fitted into this era perfectly, with the merest suggestion of panniers beneath her skirts and a fichu of exquisite lace about her neck. She was not an antique figure in the slightest, however. Her sharply pointed face was too vivid to be relegated to a fluffy portrait by Fragonard.

  “If you are to remain at the castle,” the lady began without preamble, “there are certain facts you should know about us.”

  “Facts, my lady?”

  “I’d not say it was Thorpe’s fault, any more
than it was his father’s fault or his grandfather’s. They are all the same, these men of Everard stock. They suffer from it, but not as much as their women suffer.”

  Because it seemed to be expected of her, Lillian asked, “What is ‘it,’ my lady?”

  ‘The Curse of the Everards!” Lady Genevieve paused as though expecting a thunderbolt to sound with awful portent outside, perhaps splitting a mighty oak in twain. The day remained clear, however, with the fragrance of a thousand flowers wafting in through the opened windows.

  “Indeed? And what form does this curse take?”

  The clear blue eyes under wrinkled lids fixed inexorably upon the younger woman’s face. “Why, my dear, you’ve felt it yourself. Working upon every woman who comes within sight of an Everard man. Can you deny you are powerfully attracted to my grandson?”

  “Certainly not.” But how could she hide the telltale color rising in her cheeks? “Now, about Addy’s lessons—”

  “There is more to the curse than just the Everard men’s obvious physical qualities. It is very sad. Each man is doomed to love truly but one woman. Only one. If that love is sundered by death or by betrayal, he will never love again. Therefore, each man breaks at least a hundred hearts for the one he wins. This is our tragedy. What do you know of Emily, Adrienne’s mother and Thorpe’s child wife?”

  “Why, nothing whatever. I only just arrived.”

  “Hers was a rare beauty. Look...” Lady Genevieve fumbled at the fichu over her bosom and brought out a tiny ivory oval set with brilliants. She held it out to Lillian. Coming closer, Lillian gazed upon an unusual face indeed. The artist, inspired by his subject, had painted a face which, in delicacy and rosy hue, might have been the issue of a dream and not of human kind. Her pale blond hair and the dark gray ring about her irises had been passed on to her daughter, but the fragile charm had not yet appeared in the mutinous child Lillian had met earlier. Lillian almost felt it was a sacrilege to note that the girl in the painting had scanty brows and lashes.

  ‘They met at a ball and, by the end of the evening, Thorpe knew he was infatuated beyond what words can tell. They were married shortly thereafter and lived a life of perfect bliss until Addy. Emily was certain she’d never survive the birth of her child. Emily always ...”

  For a moment. Lady Genevieve’s lips thinned as she hesitated. “Of course,” she said, continuing, ‘Thorpe never recovered. He all but left the child to my care. Emily was his one great love.” She sighed and shook her head, a fluttering lace square pinned upon her dark gray hair.

  “Very sad,” Lillian said.

  “I tell you all this, my dear,” Lady Genevieve went on, tucking away the miniature, “not to alarm you or to drive you off, but merely that you should be warned. Do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of believing you have a tendre for my grandson. You must not give in to the curse of the Everards. It will be a useless exercise if you do. Thorpe’s heart is forever lost to another. No living woman can compete with that memory.”

  “I will be on my guard, my lady.”

  If not for her being out of patience with Paulina for pitchforking her into this situation, Lillian would have delighted in sharing Lady Genevieve’s rigmarole with her friend. It had been quite the fashion at school to be frightened into foolish fits by tales of “Gothick” excesses, read late at night without permission. Lillian had learned more about mad monks, suicide pacts, and curses than she was ever taught about French, history, or the principal exports of the British Isles.

  “Now, about Addy’s lessons ...” Lillian said, shifting from foot to foot. She’d still not been asked to seat herself and, though Lillian Canfield would not have hesitated, Miss Cole did not quite dare to sit down uninvited.

  “Addy’s lessons? Have you no sensibilities, Miss Cole?”

  “Sensibilities? If you mean do I cry while reading an affecting passage in some novel, certainly I do. But I have never been frightened of anything in my life. Now, my lady, does Addy know or does she not know her letters?”

  “I have taught her how to form them. And she knows that an A is an A. As for the rest...”

  “Then she does not know how to read? My—my father always said a child should not learn to read until it was eight, but he did not know I peeked into books at six years old. I will begin by teaching Addy to read. Which do you prefer her to be called, my lady? Adrienne, or will Addy do?”

  “Addy!” said a firm yet childish voice from the window. An exceedingly muddy child, possibly female, balanced stomach-down on the low sill.

  “Addy it is then. And you may call me Miss Cole.”

  The child merely giggled and slid off the sill. The two women in the room could hear thudding footsteps running off, and the laughter of more than one child.

  Turning back to Lady Genevieve, Lillian said, “I understood from the landlady at the inn that there’d been little rain here. How, then, did that child contrive to get so grimy?”

  Dryly, Lady Genevieve said, “There is a lake, Miss Cole. And the gamekeeper’s children.”

  “Ah! Well, a trifle of dirt never hurt anyone as my—my father used to say.” That was two slips of tongue. The daughter of a poor clergyman would have neither governess nor nanny. Curtsying, Lillian smiled at what her father would think if he knew someone thought he was impoverished.

  Chapter Three

  “Enjoying a walk, Miss Cole? A good walk before dinner will give you an appetite.” Thorpe bestrode the path like a colossus in Hessian boots.

  “I hope so. I’m not used to being confined in a coach all day.”

  The view of the grounds from Lady Genevieve’s window had tempted Lillian to find her way into them. She’d strolled about the winding path for a few minutes, unable to see very far ahead, her view blocked by a healthy hedge on her right. Thorpe had quite startled her when he’d appeared, but she had just sense enough not to show it.

  “Every time I’ve had to ride in a coach, I’ve gotten a beast of a headache,” he confessed. “Especially if you must share with someone who won’t put the window down.”

  ‘There was a gentleman who complained of the breeze and refused to open the window for me.”

  “I guessed as much. I saw him get out. Fussy old woman. Lives in fear of catching cold. The last time I rode with him, I bribed the driver to let me take the reins.”

  “I wish that solution had occurred to me.” She smiled at him and was forced to drop her eyes when he grinned back, his dimple appearing. It really wasn’t fair. Lillian changed the subject. “I thought I heard Addy’s voice not too long ago. Have you seen her?”

  “No, but she’s around somewhere. I’m afraid my grandmother and I have let her run a trifle wild this summer. She was rather ill in the spring and Doctor Blandon would not hear of her going out of doors until April.”

  “What was her illness?”

  A frown crossed his face. “He could never tell me, exactly. Sometimes it was one thing, and sometimes another. She seemed so pale and listless. And she hardly ate, which, as you will learn, is a rare thing for my girl.”

  “You must have been frantic with worry.”

  “I was.” He walked toward her, making her feel quite small beside his length. “Let’s go and see if we can find her.”

  As Lillian walked along beside him, she was thinking busily. If the child had been sick this spring, had her illness begun while her father was away? Was that why Paulina had not received a proposal while visiting the Duke of Grantor’s home in a company that included Thorpe Everard? If this was the case, why would Thorpe hesitate to invite Paulina down once Addy was recovered? Lillian sternly reminded herself that she was not interested.

  Thorpe touched her sleeve. “Hush, listen,” he said softly.

  “I... I don’t hear anything.”

  “I do. Our quarry is near.”

  Listening hard, Lillian heard a soft rustle in the hedge. And then someone giggled, quickly followed by a splash. “Has she fallen in?” Her voice rose in alarm.


  In a whisper, close to her ear, Thorpe said, “Frog hunting.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  His breath stirred the tendrils of hair on her temple, and his voice caused a strange constriction of her own breathing. ‘The shallow end of the lake makes an admirable residence for frogs. Didn’t you ever catch them when you were a child?”

  “No, not that I remember.” Her governess turned pale at the sight of a dead spider. Fainting dead away would have been her mildest reaction to a live frog. Lillian wondered at herself for never having presented one. Another opportunity lost.

  “What pleasure you have missed.” His chuckle, still low, caused an unusual tremor to shake her midriff. “But I suppose clergymen and their families are obligated to frown on such innocent pleasures. Come along.”

  The hedge they’d been paralleling for some time came to an end. Coming around it, Lillian saw three children, mud-mired and slime-streaked. In the hands of the smallest there struggled an extremely large and irritated amphibian. The little girl shot a look over her shoulder. “Papa, look!”

  “What a strapper!” Thorpe exclaimed in admiration.

  The gleaming brown frog kicked his strong back legs against Addy’s dress. Thrusting free through slippery hands, he sprang into the water. The splash was considerable.

  “Too bad,” said a boy in rough trousers and no shirt. He was daubed like a wild Indian with mud. The second girl, somewhat taller than either of the others, shook her head in mute sympathy.

  Addy turned to her father. “Frank said I couldn’t catch him, but I did ... I did! Did you see him, Papa?”

  Thorpe stepped off into the squishing mud, heedless of the gloss on his boots. The scenic lake had dug its way underneath the bank to make a shallow, leaving the earth to overhang the spot so that the ground never really dried. “I didn’t know we had frogs that big, Addy. He’s a monster. I’m almost glad he got away. I don’t think there’s a tank big enough for him outside of Broadbent’s Aquaria in London. And imagine how much he must eat!”