by Eva Shepherd
‘But, Nellie...’
‘Miss Regan,’ she forced herself to say to him. ‘I’m not your servant, you can call me Miss Regan. You may have wanted to do what countless other men in your position have done with servants, but that doesn’t mean we’re on equal terms.’
Nellie knew her harsh words and tone had hit home. Shock and pain seemed to wage a war on his face, until it finally set into that stern, arrogant expression he had worn when she first saw him. As cruel as her words were, they were right. They could never be on equal terms. They came from different classes and nothing could ever change that.
‘As you wish, Miss Regan. Then this is goodbye.’ He remained standing in front of her.
Nellie leaned forward and looked along the empty track as if more concerned about when the train would arrive than what had just happened between herself and the man she loved.
‘Yes, goodbye, Mr Lockhart.’
He turned and strode off down the station, his back rigid. Nellie watched him walk away. She took a few steps towards him. Should she chase after him? Should she tell him that she didn’t mean the harsh things she had just said? Should she go to him and tell him she was sorry, that she didn’t think he was like countless other men who had tried to take advantage of a servant?
But then what would she say? She halted. Would she tell him she loved him, that she didn’t care if she ruined his life as long as she could be with him?
She took another, hesitant step in his direction, just as the train puffed its way into the station. The train that would take her away from the man she loved. Despite her firm resolution she cried out to him to come back. The hissing engine stopped in front of her, releasing a billowing wall of steam that engulfed the station and drowned out her cries.
He disappeared around the corner of the station and, with tears coursing down her cheeks, Nellie entered the train that would take her away from Dominic Lockhart.
Chapter Seventeen
It was over. Nellie was determined to put the past where it belonged, firmly behind her, and get on with her life. But that would be so much easier if she wasn’t constantly thinking about Dominic Lockhart, if she wasn’t forever remembering the way he looked, the sound of his voice, the heady masculine scent of him and, worst of all, the touch of his lips, the caressing stroke of his hands.
Fight it as much as she could, those memories kept invading her thoughts. Not for the first time, she shook her head as if she could physically drive out those memories. She should not be thinking of him now, not when she was working. She had to concentrate on what she was doing.
Forcing herself to focus, she continued to curl and clip her client’s hair into place. The customer had been chatting while Nellie had styled her hair, but Nellie had heard hardly a word, too preoccupied with her own whirling thoughts. Fortunately, the client had been content with the occasional nod of encouragement from Nellie and seemed oblivious to the fact she had not been listened to, but this would not do.
She stood back to inspect her work, hoping her distraction was not too evident in the woman’s hairstyle. She could not afford to let her high standards drop, no matter how distracted her mind was becoming. It was vital that she think about her work and not that man.
Her client turned her head from side to side and smiled. ‘Oh, Miss Regan, you are a wonder. I can’t thank you enough.’
With relief, Nellie smiled her thanks and escorted the young woman out to the front room, where Harriet took her money and, like the good saleswoman Harriet was, pointed out some interesting hair adornments and cosmetics the lady might like to purchase as well. Nellie smiled at Harriet and pushed aside the silk curtains to return to the parlour. As soon as the curtains fell back into place her smile died, her shoulders slumped in dejection.
She had intended to tidy up before the next customer. Instead she collapsed into an armchair, exhausted from all this pretence. It was hard to maintain a façade of happiness when your heart was breaking, hard to act as if all was right with the world, when your world had been turned upside down and you no longer knew what to think or feel.
She put her head in her hands. Free of the strain of pretending to be happy in front of her client, the full extent of her misery overtook her. It had only been a week since she had left Dominic at the train station, so it wasn’t surprising that she still felt distraught. But how long was she going to have to suffer this torment before she got that man out of her system? How long before Dominic ceased to be permanently in her thoughts? How long before he stopped invading her dreams? How long until she could do what she was determined to do: put this unfortunate episode behind her, forget all about it, pretend it never happened and just get on with her life?
Nellie knew that wasn’t going to happen until he stopped possessing her thoughts. But he was always there in her mind, no matter how she tried to divert herself. He was there when she made polite conversation with her clients. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing when she was taking a drink after work at the local public house. But, worst of all, she couldn’t stop herself from obsessing over him when she was back in her rooms. Then all she could think of was the memory of him in her bed, with his muscular chest naked except for the bandages. And once she had thought of that there was no way she could stop her mind from straying to the memory of that kiss, the way he had taken control, had lifted her on to the table, had kissed and caressed her.
She ran her tongue along her lips, remembering that kiss, remembering the masculine taste of him, remembering his intoxicating scent, all musk, leather and sandalwood.
How could she have not reacted the way she had? How could she not have become consumed by passion and desire by such a kiss? Once again, she became completely lost in the memory. Her body reacted as if he was kissing her again, caressing her again. Like the foolish girl she was, her lips throbbed with the memory, her heart pounded faster, her skin tingled, craving his touch.
A touch that would never come.
Nellie wiped away her tears, shook her head to drive away those tormenting memories and stood up straight. This would not do at all. She needed to get her thoughts under control. She placed the combs into a solution to be washed, determined to try to act as if she was a professional businesswoman, not some silly shop girl who had fallen for the wrong man.
Harriet entered the parlour and handed Nellie a white calling card with embossed gold lettering. When Nellie saw the name on the card her legs went weak beneath her and she grabbed the back of the nearest armchair to stop herself from falling. She had to fight to remain upright. It was essential to remain calm and at least pretend a whirlwind of emotions hadn’t been released within her at the sight of that name.
‘There’s a lady outside who says she’d like to have a word with you,’ Harriet said.
Nellie gripped the card tightly and drew in a few breaths to steady her rampaging heartbeat. ‘Thank you, Harriet. Ask her to come through here, will you, please?’
Harriet disappeared behind the curtain. Nellie stared at her startled reflection and forced herself to breathe in and out, slowly and deeply. Whatever Lady Cecily had come to say to her she would just take it. For once in her life she would accept every remonstration that was thrown her way. She would say nothing in her defence. After all, how could you ever justify behaviour that was indefensible?
Lady Cecily pushed past the curtain and smiled at Nellie. It was not the expression Nellie expected to see. It was the first time she had seen Lady Cecily smile and it transformed her usually dour countenance, both softening and lighting up her face. But why she should be smiling now, of all times, was a mystery. And why should she be smiling at Nellie, of all people? That was even more mysterious. She should be consumed with anger, snarling at Nellie, not smiling.
‘Nellie, I am so pleased to see you again,’ she said, still smiling.
Nellie knew she should curtsy and attempt a polite smile
back, but instead she stood in the middle of the room, too surprised and wary to move. They stood staring at each other, one smiling, the other frozen to the spot. Then Nellie remembered her manners. She bobbed a quick curtsy and gestured towards an armchair.
Lady Cecily sat down, tucking her skirt underneath her. Nellie remained standing until Lady Cecily gestured for her to also sit. Slowly Nellie lowered herself into the chair, still holding her breath, her stomach clenching, her shoulders tense.
She was desperate to hear what Lady Cecily had to say, to get it over and done with, but also dreading what was to come. All Nellie knew for certain was that for probably the first time in her life she was going to have to remember her place and not speak until asked to.
‘Oh, Nellie, I’ve come to thank you,’ Lady Cecily said, her smile growing even bigger.
Nellie nearly fell off her chair but managed to stop herself by gripping the arms. But she wasn’t able to stop her mouth from falling open.
Slowly, she closed her gaping mouth and swallowed. ‘Thank me?’ she asked, her voice strangely high pitched.
‘Yes. My life has changed completely and I couldn’t be happier. And it’s all thanks to you, Nellie.’
‘Oh?’ Nellie said, as much a question as a statement. Presumably she had given Dominic his marching orders and quite right to. Nellie would have done exactly the same if she had seen her fiancé kissing another woman. But why should she be so happy about her engagement coming to an end and in such scandalous circumstances? And why should she be thanking Nellie, of all people?
‘Well, I...’ Lady Cecily paused, her face serious as she looked at Nellie.
Nellie braced herself and gripped the crumpled calling card in her hand more tightly. Now she was going to get the reprimand she so rightly deserved.
‘You don’t mind if I call you Nellie, do you?’
A strange buzzing sound erupted in Nellie’s head as she tried to order her confused thoughts. ‘No. No, I don’t mind at all,’ she said. She deserved to be called much worse names than her own given name.
‘Good, thank you.’ Lady Cecily’s smile returned. ‘Yes, I took your advice and it’s changed my life. I’m a free woman now and I’m so happy.’
Nellie swallowed. ‘Advice?’ She had given no advice to Lady Cecily, had barely spoken to her. And even if she had given her advice, she doubted it would have been anything sensible and certainly should not be followed. After all, who in their right mind would listen to advice from a woman like Nellie, a woman whose own behaviour was beneath contempt? A woman who couldn’t stop herself from falling for a man she could never have.
‘Yes. I was so intrigued about what you said about America being a place where people can reinvent themselves, become who they want to be. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to go and live in America and reinvent myself as the woman I really want to be.’
Nellie closed her eyes and rubbed her hand across her forehead. This was a disaster. How much more destruction could her behaviour bring to these people’s lives? She had caused Dominic to be beaten black and blue. She had ruined his chances of making a suitable marriage to Lady Cecily. She had destroyed Dominic’s sisters’ chances of marrying well. And now a few foolish words, words she could hardly remember saying, had caused Dominic’s fiancée to flee from him across the ocean. She had said a few stupid words, kissed the wrong man and that had caused this lovely young woman to take drastic actions that would change her life for ever. All because Nellie couldn’t keep her passions under control.
‘I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea,’ Nellie said quietly.
She wasn’t sure whether she should be trying to give Lady Cecily any more advice, not when her last, which she couldn’t even remember giving, had caused such problems. And not when her own behaviour was so despicable, but she had to try to undo some of the damage she had done.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t end your engagement to Mr Lockhart until you’ve had some time to think about it. After all, until I came along you were looking forward to marrying him. And I know what I did was unforgivable, but it was just one...just one kiss. What happened between Dominic and me meant nothing to either of us.’
Well, it meant a lot to me, but it shouldn’t have.
‘You shouldn’t call off your marriage just because of one kiss. And I promise you, it will never happen again. I will never see Mr Lockhart again. And even if you don’t want to stay engaged to him, you certainly shouldn’t give up everything you have here in England and go all the way to America, where you know no one, where you’ll have nothing.’
Lady Cecily continued to smile throughout Nellie’s speech. Even when she had mentioned that kiss her expression hadn’t faltered.
‘Oh, I won’t be on my own. I will have someone with me. I’ll have Charlie.’
This was getting more and more confusing. ‘Charlie—who’s Charlie?’
‘Charlie Armstrong. He is... I mean he was the head footman at Hardgrave Estate.’
Nellie stared at her, momentarily dumbstruck. Charlie Armstrong the footman, the man who was the only servant who hadn’t laughed when Nellie had done her rather rude impersonation of Dominic and Lady Cecily’s wedding night. Colour rushed to Nellie’s face at the memory of that other piece of bad behaviour on her part. Charlie Armstrong was obviously very loyal to his mistress, but even a loyal servant would not be enough in a country where Lady Cecily knew no one.
‘But, Lady Cecily, even with your own footman I still think going to America is an unwise decision. I urge you to reconsider.’ Nellie sounded as if she was talking to a rather dim-witted child. She knew she was being rude. Lady Cecily was not dim-witted, nor was she a child, but she was certainly behaving like one. Perhaps this was how she expressed anger and grief, by making rash decisions, by doing things that would cause her further harm. Instead, she should be yelling at Nellie, trying to ruin Nellie’s life, not ruining her own.
‘Please, Lady Cecily, I beg you to reconsider.’
‘Oh, Nellie, you don’t understand, do you? Isn’t it obvious?’ She continued to smile at Nellie and waited for a response.
Nellie slowly shook her head. Nothing about this woman’s behaviour was obvious.
‘I’m going to marry Charlie. I’m in love with him.’ She was beaming. ‘I didn’t think we could ever be together, so I agreed with Father when he said I should marry Mr Lockhart.’ She stopped smiling and her brow furrowed. ‘Dominic is such a good man and I thought perhaps one day I’d come to love him. I thought when I married him and moved to his estate, away from Charlie, I’d be able to forget the man I really loved. But when I saw you in Dominic’s arms, when I saw the two of you kissing, I knew how wrong I was.’
Nellie swallowed, her cheeks burning in shame at the memory of what Lady Cecily had seen. ‘I’m sorry I...’
Lady Cecily smiled at her and held up her hands. ‘Don’t worry, Nellie. You have nothing to apologise for—quite the contrary. It was seeing the two of you together that made me realise I would never love Dominic the way I love Charlie. The two of you were kissing with such passion, such abandonment. I could never feel that way for any other man but Charlie.’
Lady Cecily shook her head, her smile fading. ‘I stood at the door watching the two of you and I felt nothing, absolutely nothing.’ She looked at Nellie, her eyes wide as if appealing to her for understanding. ‘I was watching another woman kissing my fiancé with such fervent passion and I didn’t care. I realised that if you had been kissing Charlie I wouldn’t be just standing there, watching and feeling nothing. I would have been furious, heartbroken, desolate. Even the thought of it is making me feel angry.’
She closed her eyes, shook her head slightly, as if trying to drive out the emotions surrounding that imagined scenario, and her smile returned. ‘That’s when I realised I couldn’t give up Charlie. I immediately rushed back down to the ser
vants’ hall to find him and tell him what I felt.’
Nellie stared at her, trying to absorb what she was saying.
Lady Cecily blushed slightly. ‘That’s where I had been coming from when I saw the two of you in the library. I’d made up an excuse to talk to him. When I’d become engaged, we’d agreed to have as little to do with each other as possible, but I was always making up silly excuses to see him. I couldn’t keep away from him. It was because of me that he was at the Lockhart Estate that night. I had insisted to Father that the head footman needed to accompany us to the ball. I just had to keep seeing him, despite our agreement to try to avoid each other.’
She smiled coyly. ‘Anyway, when I saw you and Dominic together, I knew that I couldn’t give up on Charlie, that I had to find a way for us to be together. It was then that I remembered what you said to me about America, here in this very room.’
She looked around as if the parlour held some marvellous qualities that could transform people’s lives. ‘So, I rushed back down to the servants’ hall and asked Charlie to run away with me and start a new life in America. He didn’t need much persuading. Especially after I told him how much I loved him, how I couldn’t live without him.’
She smiled at the happy memory. ‘Charlie gave in his notice immediately. We crept away that night. Charlie took our carriage and we drove through the night down to London where we found somewhere to stay and booked our passage to America. We’ve been hiding out in London ever since, pretending to be a newly married couple.’ Her cheeks reddened slightly and she gave a little laugh. ‘It’s been such fun, I can tell you.’
Lady Cecily tried to pull her face into a more serious expression, failed and went back to smiling. ‘Anyway, we leave today for our new life together. We plan to marry as soon as we arrive in America, then we can start our new life as man and wife. But I couldn’t leave before coming to see you and thanking you. If you hadn’t kissed Dominic, I would never have come to my senses. So, thank you, Nellie.’