Her Ladyship's Curse

Page 15

“Two and six,” I told her, rattling my coins. “Had three when I left the house this morning, but I bought a sticky bun for my breakfast.”
“Then you will please not to touch anything.” Madam Duluc glanced at her assistant. “I will deal with this one, Sarah. Go and assist Madam Nancy.”
After the maid bobbed and left, Madam Duluc came to stand over me. “So? Did you enjoy my tea?”
“It’s lovely.” I smiled. “In fact, I may start coming here instead of the bakery. The crumpets practically floated into my mouth.”
“They’re croissants, not crumpets, you greedy goose,” she said, this time in the broad, musical accent of the Rumsen working class as she abandoned her pretense and dropped down on the settee beside me. “Now, what brings you here? Lady Walsh’s maid, is it? What does the gel think, my gowns are bespelled to prevent her mistress from conceiving? Does she suspect I’ve cast the evil eye over the lady’s corset strings?” Her expression brightened. “Can you cast an evil eye on corset strings?”
“No, no, and of course not.” I poured her a cup and handed it to her. “I’ve personal business with the lady herself, Bridge.”
“What? Personal?” She frowned at me. “I thought you quit working the Hill, you silly cow. Never say this is about that bloody great mage wanting to bed you. Isn’t he the reason you quit?”
“It’s not about Dredmore, and I did quit. I have quit. I will quit. After this.” I wiped my fingers on a napkin before I touched a fold of her ball gown. “Grand fine stuff. Green’s your color.”
“Oh, shut up.” She slapped my hand away. “We’ve been so busy with the mayor’s ball next week, I ran out of forms. This is going to be worn by the mayor’s wife. Then I have to create something even costlier for his mistress to wear when she makes an appearance with the poor sod she’s cuckolding.” She knocked back half her tea before borrowing my napkin to wipe her lips. “My Nancy would have genteelly tossed you out the door if I hadn’t spotted you from the workroom.” She eyed my gown again. “God blind me. Don’t you have anything decent to wear?”
“Decent by my standards, yes.” I smiled. “How are Charles and the children?”
“Charlie’s getting fat, the kids are sprouting like beans, and you are terribly missed.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Why don’t you come round the castle more often, Kit? It’s been months.”
“Madam Duluc must keep up appearances,” I reminded her. “I’ll drop in before Christmas, I promise.”
Charles Duluc, peerless textile importer and youngest son of an immensely wealthy, extremely titled French family, had come over to Toriana to look after his father’s business interests and buy up more land to add to the family coffers. He was scheduled to return to France after a month, and four days before his ship was set to sail, he’d gone for a walk in the park. There he’d sat down on a bench next to two gels taking a break from work to sit in the sunshine and gossip while they ate their sack lunches.
The lass from the loomworks had offered Charles half of her sandwich, which he’d accepted with astonished pleasure, and they’d begun talking. Three hours later the Honorable Charles Duluc and Bridget Mary Sullivan had been married by special license.
It had been the stuff of every working gel’s fantasies. Charles had bought the loomworks where his new bride had worked twelve hours every day since her tenth birthday, and had transferred the title and property over to her family as her bride price. Old Sully, Bridget’s da, had taken over the managing and running of it while his daughter and new son-in-law had gone to the mountains for their honeymoon. By the time they’d returned, Old Sully had fired the rest of the mill managers, had cut the workers’ hours in half and doubled their pay. Within two months the loomworks had increased quality and production so much that Old Sully had begun looking at expanding.
There had been some tense moments when the widowed Madam Duluc and her daughters sailed over from France to meet Charles’s commoner Torian bride (even the French themselves admitted to being terrible snobs). Charles’s love for Bridget, however, had been absolute and unshakable. Since his father’s death had given him full control over the family fortunes, the ladies of the family had had to accept the marriage. (The fact that Charles and Bridget intended to remain in Toriana also weighed heavily in their favor.)
Charles hadn’t wanted his wife to work another moment in her life, but after giving him two sons and a daughter, Bridget had grown bored with the life of a titled lady and asked her husband if she might open a shop of her own. Weaving since childhood had given Bridget an extensive understanding of fine cloth, and growing up in the shadow of the Hill had taught her that gowning the wives of the rich was the most lucrative way to use that knowledge.
I knew all this because I’d been the other lass sitting on the bench that day, and I’d gone with them to the magistrate to stand witness to their marriage. Charles and Bridget were the reason I didn’t trifle with men: if I couldn’t have what they’d found in each other, I’d go without.
Bridget filled me in on how the children were getting on with their tutors and how Charles had taken an undignified dunking at the beach trying to rescue their youngest’s new bonnet when the wind had snatched it away. I listened and laughed, but my thoughts kept straying to Lady Diana.
“That’s what he got for not tying her ribbons before setting off from the house, I told him,” Bridget said, and then she abruptly changed the subject. “Now, what’s this business with you and the Walshes? Come on, out with it. You look like you did when you were renting that closet at the boardinghouse.”
“My good intentions got the better of me,” I admitted. “This time I might have to pay dearly for them.”
“Oh, Kit.” Bridget’s smile faded. “If you need Charlie to step in, you’ve only to say—”
“No, Bridge. This is something not even Charles could make vanish.” Next to Rina, Bridget was my oldest mate, and I wanted to confide in her, but something held me back. I didn’t have that many friends that I could risk losing one. Bridget would keep my secrets, but she’d never abandoned her working-class ideals. Knowing I was the granddaughter of an agent to the Crown would forever change her opinion of me. “I’ll conclude my business with the lady, and then hopefully it’ll be done with.”
Bridget glanced up at a soft knock on the door. “Do come in,” she said in her beautifully fake French accent.
Sarah stepped in and bobbed. “If you please, Madam, Lady Walsh has arrived.”
“Show her to the Rose Room, if you would, Sarah.” When the gel left, Bridget turned to me. “I can start her fitting while you talk with her. They always treat me like I’m invisible when they’re standing in their drawers.”
I shook my head. “She won’t talk if you’re there.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know what you’re taking on with this one, Kit?”
“Absolutely.” After today I intended to steer clear of all the Walshes.
“Well, then I’ll let you get on with it.” Bridget stood and brushed some crumbs from the emerald satin. “Rose Room’s at the end of the hall on the left. Take as long as you like, but Kit”—she caught my arm as I went past her, and tugged me close for a careful hug so neither of us would be stuck by the pinned bodice—“whatever this personal business is between you and the lady, finish it now. You don’t want the Hill coming down on your heels or your head. That deathmage, either.”
I walked down to the Rose Room, where Betsy stood on guard outside the door. She ignored me entirely, so I did the same and stepped inside, where I found Lady Walsh pacing back and forth, her gait rapid and jerky.
“Milady,” I said, closing the door but not moving too far from it. “You asked to meet with me?”
She came to an abrupt halt, moved toward me, and stopped again to take a deep breath. I could almost hear her governess talking inside her head: A lady does not rush. A lady does not lunge. A lady does not throttle.
“Miss Kittredge, your advice to me has resulted in the unhappiest of situations.” She spoke as if she couldn’t unclench her teeth. “I followed your suggestion to entice my husband to discover the panel under my bed.”
“You dropped your ring, and he found it.”
She nodded tightly. “When Nolan discovered the panel, he became quite furious. In truth, I have never seen my husband so angry.”
She had called me here to tell me that it had worked? “I’m sure he’ll see to your protection, Lady Walsh.”
“Indeed he will not.” Her stiff expression began to waver. “He accused me of being disloyal to him.”
“Disloyal?” I echoed. “For getting cut up in your sleep by some intruder? Has he gone off, then?”
“Nolan believes I am responsible for the passage,” she snapped. “That I am using it to commit adultery. He even accused me of drugging him each night to prevent him from discovering my infidelity.” She straightened her spine and looked down her nose. “Because I took your advice, he is now threatening to divorce me.”
“But when you showed him the cuts on your hands, didn’t he . . .” As she shook her head, I groaned. “For the love of Jesu, milady, you have to show him your wounds.”
“I can’t.”
I wanted to shake her until her pearly teeth rattled. “They’re the only proof you’ve got of what’s being done to you.”
“There is no more proof.” She stripped off her gloves and thrust both hands at me.
Lady Diana didn’t have a mark on her. The ugly words had vanished, as if they’d never been cut into her skin. I took hold of her hands, checking them to see if she’d somehow disguised them with face paint, but all I felt was smooth skin. She didn’t even have scars. “This is not possible.”