Finding Lady Enderly Read online

  A ghost. I clutched the seatback. I had to get on with the business of living at some point, or I’d go mad, seeing blue caps and fiddles everywhere.

  His voice tugged at my attention. “Try it for one day. If you cannot bear the beauty and gracious lifestyle, if Rothburne does not sweep you up in its charming spell, you may return tomorrow—with a few farthings in your pocket for the trouble.”

  I shifted back into my seat—for now. Conceding a battle didn’t mean losing the war, and I always won when it counted.

  “I can only help you if you let me.”

  “You don’t know me from a rock in the road. Why, I could be anybody. I’ll have you know I’ve been to prison.”

  He merely cast a tolerant smile in my direction, as if we were playing cards and he could see through the back of every one in my hand. “And what happened? It must not have lasted long.”

  I hung my head. “Just the night. My fines were paid by morning.”

  “Let me guess. A misunderstanding in which no one believed the rag woman, and she was arrested. Someone who knew better came to get you, and you haven’t been back since.”

  I blinked as he so coolly put my past before me with casual indifference. It had been a moment of foolishness, as so many of my mishaps were, and I hadn’t even set out to steal. Unless one counts pilfering trash. What I’d mistaken for piles of castoffs left just inside the woman’s laundry cellar for me to collect had been her maid’s laundry set there while the woman returned for some forgotten thing.

  He winked and settled back. “Come now, where’s that contagious sense of adventure? If you must leave, I’ll pay for you to return and replace that cart of rags you were forced to leave behind. I’ll even give you a beautiful dress of your choice. You’ll have spent a day or so away from that sordid slum and come back the richer for it.”

  A new dress. I could return in style, and if that blue-capped man did turn out to be Sully . . .

  Ah, how my imagination ran away with me. Reality twisted my insides again. “Why in heaven’s name would you do all this for me?”

  He lowered the newspaper and studied my face in a probing way. “Because I see more in you, Raina of Spitalfields, even if no one else—including you—does. I earnestly hope to change your mind.”

  I leveled my gaze to evaluate his sincerity, but his smile pleasantly veiled everything he didn’t wish me to read. I crossed my arms. “I suppose I have no choice.”

  I turned away then, and for hours I stared out the window in bitter silence, refusing to give him the satisfaction of having a willing companion. His punishment went unnoticed, however, as he’d given himself over fully to his newspaper. Even when we reached the neat little brick station called Havard Joint, he merely tucked his paper under his arm and extended a hand to help me disembark. Again the swirl of tension rose as I touched his hand, and I wondered if this was romance . . . or imminent danger.

  I primly settled my fingertips on his hand as if I were a lady and allowed my tired self to be led down the steps and over to a sleek carriage that stood amid the dust and steam from the puffing train.

  “Here awaits the carriage that will carry you into the grandest adventure of your life.”

  After the first few tense moments in the conveyance, a powerful exhaustion overwhelmed me, temporarily banking the fires of curiosity and excitement. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep until my companion poked me awake with the same jolting insistence with which he’d disrupted my life.

  “I didn’t want you to miss your first glimpse of it. Quite breathtaking, except when viewed through your eyelids.” His charming smile was the first thing to come into focus, then the entire satin-lined coach around him. Tassels hanging from velvet curtains bounced and swayed as we traveled, and I pushed up, wiping away a trace of drool from the corner of my mouth. Certainly, I was proving myself fit for fine life.

  How long had I slept? I glanced out the window. Orange glowed across the sky as the setting sun gave up its grand finale of light and sank into the green fields spread out before us. I tipped my face out the window to cool it with fresh breeze, taking in an earthy, rich smell of clean air, and the colorful scenery burst upon my vision with all the enchantment of my grandest dreams.

  A line of trees passed as we traveled at a leisurely trot up a long lane. Slightly wild gardens spilled across an expanse of green grass dotted with bright red poppies, together seeming more like art than outdoor growth. They were so much more thoroughly red than I’d ever imagined. Perhaps a brief holiday here would not be entirely miserable. I would take a handful of poppies home to liven the flat. My face grew warm when I noticed Victor Prendergast watching my childish delight with amusement.

  I sat back and frowned at him. “Poppies don’t grow in the autumn.” As if challenging him to prove that this was not a dream.

  “They’re a fall breed. The gardener takes care to have a full range of color for as much of the year as possible. Quite wonderful, isn’t it?”

  I was searching for things to be amiss, that’s all. It was foolish, really. The place was as real as my rags and this was no dream.

  When I shifted my gaze farther up the lane, it fell upon our destination—an enormous stone palace of a house that inspired all the awe an abbey was meant to instill in its deeply religious inhabitants. Endless stone buildings rose triumphantly to latticed tops that gave it the look of a castle that had emerged from the earth and rocks around it.

  The carriage delivered us around to the west side of the building before a long wing with rows of unimaginative square windows set in immaculate brown stone. The setting sun bathed the windows in a golden glow that gave a bit of splendor to the otherwise practical things. Mr. Prendergast tossed me a heavy hooded cloak, but I shook my head. “It’s a fine night to run about. I want to feel the fresh air on my skin.”

  “Put it on to conceal yourself. You deserve a grand entrance when you are refreshed—and relieved of the dust of poverty that covers your true beauty.”

  I turned in the shadows to hide my heated face and looked down at the drab garments that draped me in the reality of who I was. I peddled rags, dealt purely in castoffs, and his compliments felt foreign. Misplaced.

  False.

  Yet I did not dwell on it. Draped in the borrowed cloak, I stepped from the carriage with his assistance. The driver was already walking toward the stables for someone to attend the horses, while my new employer hustled me toward an ancient wood door with his arm about me, as if shielding me from rain even though the evening was clear. Once inside, I peeked from under the hood into my adventure—a long whitewashed hall in which everything was arched, from the windows and doorframes to the ceiling itself. No adornments interrupted its gleaming purity.

  “This was the monks’ dormitory. It used to be the servants’ quarters until the previous owner created a separate wing for them in the main part of the house.” Prendergast guided me into the second doorway and shut the door behind us, cutting off the richness of life and freedom that stood just outside. He slid a long wooden arm across the door to secure it and turned to me with a contented smile. “There. Now we shan’t be disturbed.”

  I pulled the cloak tighter about me as he approached, and the familiar fear stole over me. I wasn’t about to be another Jane Clousen if I could help it, even if this was a wealthy estate rather than a print factory and a gentleman stood before me instead of a stuffed-shirt printer from Greenwich. No matter how it felt when we’d arrived, this place was no different than Spitalfields, because the entire world was the same. No, men were. I searched for that dull glow of hunger in his eyes as he neared, and a slender blade of fear sliced through my sense of adventure, leaving me longing for a homebound train. For Sully.

  I backed until I found myself against a textured white wall with nowhere to go as he bent to light a lamp. It occurred to me then that there were fates worse than Spitalfields and fortresses more dangerous than the open streets. If escape became necessary, and I feared it m
ight, I’d have to accomplish it on my own. “I do hope you were sincere in your offer to return me tomorrow.”

  He glanced my direction with a smile after replacing the glass over the lamp. “Only if I cannot change your mind before then.” He stepped back, folding his arms across his chest to look at me. “I’m certain I won’t have to do much convincing to keep you here, because you will find this beautiful place suits you. There’s something naturally charming about your bearing, your very face.”

  “I am Ragna the rag woman.” I forced out the words claiming the identity that, for once, felt like a protection.

  A quick smile twitched his mouth to the side. “On the outside, perhaps. I believe you’re something else entirely past that ragged exterior. Give me but a day and I shall change the outside to match, and you’ll be the most splendid beauty in all of England.” With a wink, he turned toward a partition closing off part of the room. “There’s a bath readied for you behind the screen, although I imagine it’s cold now. You’ll find something clean to wear on that bed, and a dinner tray will be sent.”

  “What’ll my duties be, if you please, sir? Do I start tomorrow?”

  He watched me with his now-familiar smile of warm amusement. “Absolutely. At first light, you shall begin a whole new chapter in your life.” He moved toward the door. “In the meantime, content yourself with your bath and dinner. Only, keep to this room, if you will. Parts of the abbey renovations are not complete, and I wouldn’t want you coming into danger just as you’re about to step off into this grand new life.” With a charming wink, he slipped from the room.

  After a few moments of staring at the door, I began to peel off the layers of rags until there was only me. When I went to stand over the still water, that new nameless person looked back at me, for I looked nothing like the rag woman now. Without the many layers of rags overwhelming my frame, my eyes were what stood out the most. Blue with dark edges and a lash-fringed upward slant, they sparkled in a feminine manner that pleased me.

  I washed as requested, scrubbing in the tepid water with eager delight as it refreshed my skin. I dressed in the fresh chemise and fawn-colored muslin laid on the bed and eagerly consumed the food that had arrived while I was in the bath, but a powerful curiosity drowned out the second command—that of remaining in the room. Forbidding me to leave nearly ensured I would.

  As I stood in that quiet little room with the borrowed garments hanging against my freshly scrubbed skin, my uncontrollable sense of adventure returned, and I felt like a shiny new girl on the cusp of experiencing something wonderful. I snuck out and looked about.

  My uncertain footsteps echoed in the empty space, nerves as skittish as an alley rat as I slipped down a narrow wooden stairway at the end. I felt my way along the curving wall in the dark until I reached the bottom and walked into a hall glowing with a silvery blue moonlight that streamed through a wall of greenhouse windows.

  “Mercy gracious,” I mumbled to myself. It was an entire garden right in the house!

  The long hall was lush and alive with plants and flowers that climbed up from all sides, and I could imagine the queen walking down this red-carpeted passageway for her coronation.

  Driven forward with a sense of expectancy for what lay in the rooms beyond, I passed through the door at the other end and down another hall into a large, domed space heavy with an air of moisture and neglect. My heart caught in my throat at the sight of an old, decrepit chapel left to rot, with dust wrapped thick and gray over the dark wood pews and rails, and a massive organ that hadn’t been touched in decades. Its tall gold pipes hung at odd angles like broken teeth.

  How terrible the former inhabitants would feel if they could see what had become of so sacred a space. One could sense the presence of a thousand prayers lifting into this room, and though the men uttering them had departed, there remained an air of sacredness here as if their pleas had lingered, the atmosphere still charged with God’s presence.

  Standing in the center and looking up into the great dome, I felt a breathless wonder that was at once delightful and frightening fill my chest. I hurried through the hushed space to the next room and found myself in the dark. Crossing to the tall windows and inching back heavy drapes to let in the moonlight, I turned and gasped at the chaos and ruin of what was once a great library. Heavy books lay open in dusty piles about the fringes of the neglected room where they’d fallen out of the crumbling old shelves lining the walls. Three crooked sliding ladders hung listlessly from metal brackets.

  Was this the same house to which I’d arrived with the tree-lined drive and stately towers? The eeriness of the space in which I now found myself deeply bothered me and drew me, like a disaster from which one could not turn away. I walked several paces into a narrow, arched hall also lined with debris and aching of neglect but paused when distant voices floated toward me. The arresting voice of Victor Prendergast pricked my ears.

  “You needn’t worry over me, Bradford. I’ve only been out fetching a little surprise for our dear countess. I have it on good authority she’ll be arriving on tomorrow’s train, and she does expect her little amusements.”

  So, I was to be an amusement for her. Perhaps he intended me as her companion. But even that made little sense.

  Another deep voice responded. “If you please, sir, what might her favorite flower be? I’ll have my staff fill the house with cut arrangements in her honor.”

  “Red poppies,” I breathed to myself, closing my eyes and swooning with delight as I recalled the bursts of petals that had so captivated my soul on the drive up the lane. They would most certainly be my choice.

  “I believe red poppies are her special favorite, Bradford. She’d be pleased to see fresh vases of them when she arrives.”

  I sucked in my breath, touching my fingertips to my smiling lips. To think I had something in common with a countess.

  “It shall be done, sir. I’ll have them arranged all over the house. Lady Enderly’s arrival is a day worth celebrating.”

  I turned and walked back into that forgotten relic of a library, away from the voices so I would not be discovered. Perhaps the lady of the house would recognize in me a shared love for beauty and ask me to help with the garden’s design. What a delightful position that would be.

  Yet there was a chance I’d decide to leave on the morning train if I took my would-be employer at his word. Or perhaps the afternoon train would be more suitable, for I would surely be awake long into this night, even after I’d convinced myself to return to that dim little room and attempt sleep. It would also allow me a chance to glimpse the great countess herself—from a distance, most likely, but close enough to see her lovely gown. What would such a woman wear? Silk or organza? Perhaps an enchanting combination of both. Something in red like her poppies?

  Turning about to take in the room still grand even in its disrepair, I caught sight of a rich wood frame with ornate carvings and a portrait mostly covered by a dust sheet. Was it her? Would I have a glimpse of the great countess? Golden waves of hair twisted down over a rich red sleeve in the exposed edge of the painting, the sight of which enchanted me. She stood in the midst of a garden, a parasol swung low to the ground behind her. I strode across the room, drawn by an invisible force toward this woman with a gown lovelier than the flower we both favored. Would her face be as splendid?

  I reached up and tugged free the coarse material draped across her portrait. With a puff of dust, the cloth fell to reveal an image so shocking it left me breathless. I stumbled back, unable to take my eyes off those of the woman looking back at me. They were the same eyes I’d glimpsed in the still waters of my bath, the eyes I’d seen in hazy mirrors all my life.

  There on the wall hung a portrait of someone so startlingly familiar I felt as though I was staring at my own face.

  3

  Even the most luscious gowns were once raw threads on the floor of the spinning room.

  ~Diary of a Substitute Countess

  When I awoke in the st
ale little room of the monks’ dormitory the next morning, every one of my belongings had vanished. My pile of rags, the carpetbag I’d abandoned by the chair, even my shoes had all disappeared as if they’d never existed in this new world, and it unsettled my sleep-clouded mind. I sat up and looked around the dawn-soaked room. What was reality, Rothburne or Spitalfields? Had my ragged belongings and the old carpetbag even existed at all?

  In the place I could have vowed I’d left my bag stood a smallish stateroom trunk with metal rivets and leather straps. Panic curled through me as I rose and plodded in bare feet over to this foreign case. Had I been caught in a strange dream? I triggered the latches and lifted the lid to reveal the most lovely wine-colored serge traveling garment. I lifted the bodice and held it up to myself, fingering the luscious velvet trim.

  A knock on the door startled me. I dropped the garment and slammed the lid shut.

  “I’m wondering if Cinderella is at home. Might I come in?”

  Victor Prendergast. I yanked a worn cotton gown from the wardrobe and tugged it on over the borrowed chemise I’d slept in, taking the time to fasten it in front before hastening across the room. Trembling, I inched open the door. “What’s happening? Where are my things?”

  “Why, they’re in your trunk, my lady.” He gestured toward the steamer, watching me with gentle amusement, arms folded over his chest. “No rescue would be complete without giving you the items you needed for your new life.”

  I stepped back to look over my rescuer, eyes wide as images of that portrait loomed in my mind. “What exactly have I been brought here to do?”

  His steady gaze remained on my face. “You must know by now that I didn’t just happen upon you in Spitalfields last night. I’d seen you before, more than once.” He stepped into the room and shut the door, leaning back on it. “I also saw the way those men jeered at you from the docks and the carriage that nearly ran you over in the street. Not stopping, not recognizing anything of value from the one so wonderfully different from them. Forgive me, but I could not erase you from my mind. It grew into a fabulous idea, and I couldn’t dismiss how perfectly suited you were to Rothburne, to a very specific role.” He seated me on the cot as he sank into the chair before it. His earnest eyes bore into me. “I’ve rescued you from the terrible squalor of London’s East End to give you an opportunity, a most fitting position—the Countess of Enderly.”