Refuge for Masterminds

by Kathleen Baldwin

  “Presentable?” Georgie laughs.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” I stand and head for the mirror.

  “Wait.” Maya pulls my hand. “First let us help you dress. So you can see the full effect.” She selects a sprigged muslin morning dress from my closet. I pull it on, noting that the bandages on my leg look dry and clean, which means the wound is knitting properly. There’s even a bandage around my arm where Daneska nicked it with her knife.

  “Now, close your eyes,” Georgie orders and I limp blindly beside her to the mirror. “All right. Look!”

  It takes me a minute to recognize the girl in the mirror. She looks younger somehow, sweeter, less austere, far more innocent. When the exact opposite is true. I changed last night. Aged beyond my years. I feel centuries older and far more knowing. I have been knifed, shot at, and thoroughly kissed.

  Yet the girl in the mirror really is me. Even with that ugly bruise, there’s something there I like. “Pretty.” I say it without thinking. It isn’t quite the right word, so I turn away from the new Lady Jane, to my friends. My friends, who have the uncanny ability to find something in me that I would never have found on my own.

  More than passable. “Thank you.”

  Tess and Miss Stranje come in the room talking in hushed tones. Miss Stranje looks up and stops. Her mouth opens for a moment before she speaks. “What’s this?”

  “I think you mean who is this,” Tess says, with a broad grin. I think she might have even laughed, except a loud disturbance downstairs sends all of us hurrying out into the hall.

  Twenty-five

  INTRUDERS

  We peer over the railing and see Mr. Peterson down below. “Keep your socks on. I’m coming.” Someone is pounding on the door as if they are striking it with a battering ram. Mr. Peterson opens and gruffly says, “State your business.” Two gentlemen push their way into the hall. “Sirs! Step back.” Mr. Peterson scolds and tries to push the interlopers out. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Intruders.” Tess draws her knife.

  “No.” I whirl away from the railing and press up against the wall. “I know those gentlemen.” I hesitate to call the intruders gentlemen. I know better. From the look of them anyone might mistake them for scoundrels or dandies. It’s worse, far worse. “They’re my brothers.” I peek around the wall and cringe.

  My eldest sibling flips a card in our poor butler’s face. “That’s Lord Camberly to you.”

  “Stay here,” Miss Stranje hisses to me. “Don’t come down till I send for you.” She marches down the stairs. “Lord Camberly, you will mind your manners when in my home. Or I shall personally take you by the ear and toss you out.” She could do it, too. “You have no right to barge in and bully my servants.”

  Francis, the slightly less than honorable Earl of Camberly, is sufficiently cowed by her tone and takes a step back, remembering to remove his hat when speaking to a lady indoors. His chin lifts proudly, and I know he is remembering he is a tough fellow and a rebel to boot. I can almost hear him thinking; I am an earl, by George, and I answer to no one except the king and debt collectors.

  “We are here to see our sister,” he states flatly. “We’ve a perfect right to do that.”

  It isn’t a question.

  Miss Stranje doesn’t seem moved by his plea. “I’m pleased to see you are finally taking a familial interest. However, I’m afraid that due to your lack of payment, your dear sister must first attend to her duties as lady’s maid before she is at liberty to visit with you. Perhaps you would care to wait for her in the drawing room. Mr. Peterson will show you the way.”

  Miss Stranje flounces back up the stairs leaving my brothers gaping in the foyer. She bustles the lot of us into our bedroom and shuts the door. “We will make them wait a good long time, and then I shall go down with you.”

  “They’ll want money,” I confess with a dismal sigh. “I don’t know how they suppose they will get it from me, but they will have some scheme wherein they think they can pick whatever I have in my pockets. Or perhaps even yours.”

  She does not seem troubled by this in the least. “You may rest easy on that score. They shan’t be picking anyone’s pockets today.”

  I feel bad for them. I shouldn’t, because they are the ones who abandoned me to my fate with Miss Stranje. Granted, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, but had she been another sort of woman it might have been a perfectly horrid situation.

  “Are you listening?” Miss Stranje taps me on the shoulder. “Put on your worst frock, something you might wear working in the garden. Your hair is so lovely and it grieves me to ask it of you, but muss up your hair.

  Georgie groans. “But it looks so perfect.”

  “It’s charming.” Miss Stranje smiles at Sera and Maya, guessing whose handiwork it is. “Too charming for this situation. Smudge your unbruised cheek. A little coal dust here and there ought to do.”

  “Why?” Sera frowns. “She’s not supposed to be a charwoman. Ladies’ maids don’t look like that. They’re usually quite tidy.”

  “Yes, but her brothers don’t know that, do they?” Miss Stranje’s eyebrows arch. She doesn’t like to be questioned. “Lady Jane must appear as downtrodden as possible.”

  “I’ll change into the frock I wore the night I chased Alice through the woods. The hem is still frayed and I haven’t been able to entirely remove the stains.”

  “Perfect.” She checks a small watch she keeps in her pocket. “We will make them wait forty minutes before going down.”

  As soon as our headmistress leaves the room, Georgie starts teasing. “If you’re to be a lady’s maid, you ought to have some practice. I need help unlacing my walking boots.”

  “Oh, very funny.” I smirk back at her.

  Sera grins. “You must wait your turn, Miss Fitzwilliam. I need our maid to plait my hair first.” It is not like Sera to tease, but I’m happy to see her give it a try.

  I sit down on the bed. “What about you, Maya. How may I serve you?”

  “You appear to be quite loaded down with tasks. I shan’t trouble you. But when you get a chance you might tell me what you know about Lord Harston—”

  “Oh, him. You don’t want to know him.” His comment about “those girls” rings in my ears. I wave my hands through the air banishing him. “Lord Harston is a first-rate rascal.”

  Maya’s bright expression dims.

  Daneska is right, I am a cabbage head. “His nephew, though, seems to be cut from an entirely different cloth. What did you think of Lord Kinsworth? He seemed quite taken with you.”

  She edges back toward me hiding a shy smile. “I found him … intriguing. Except I cannot find his, his, oh what is the English word for this? The vibrations around a person, the sounds from someone’s soul?”

  Sera perks up and leans forward intently. “Do you mean his aura? Light? Colors?”

  “Not colors…” Maya holds out her hands trying to describe a moving shape. “I don’t know what you English call it. It means something like a voice, but it is more than that. Essence, perhaps? No.” She shakes her head and gives up. “Whatever it is called, his hides from me. Just when I think I am on the verge of finding it—poof! It runs ahead of me, just out of reach. Elusive.”

  Baffled, I struggle to comprehend what she is saying. I don’t see or feel vibrations around my friends. Maya must have some mysterious skill I don’t possess. “Did you keep trying?”

  “I did. That part of him seems to laugh at me and dash away.”

  I squint, struggling to see anything surrounding her, or Sera, or Georgie. Nothing. I’m perplexed. We live in the very same world and yet obviously Maya sees things in it that I cannot. “When he sang with you—”

  “Yes.” Her attention snaps in my direction, afire with delight. “You heard it, too?”

  Now I feel even more lost, but I don’t want her to know. I want to learn more about what she’s saying. “I heard an astonishing duet. The music, the sound
of your voices together, it was magical. Divine.”

  Her shoulders slump. “You did not hear it, then? The notes.”

  I puzzle out what she’s trying to say. “What do you mean? Did you sing notes I didn’t hear?”

  She catches her lip for a minute, and I know she must be struggling with the language differences again. “The notes in between. His voice touched them when he sang.”

  I sit back astonished, wondering what our world must sound like to Maya. I turn to Sera. “Did you hear notes in between?”

  She shakes her head, as mystified as I am.

  Maya laughs softly, easing away our confusion. She backs away, no longer willing to speak of her world. “It’s nothing. Think no more about it. I’m sure I will never see Lord Kinsworth again.”

  There’s grief in her voice and it makes me sad. Maybe I can persuade Lord Harston to be more accepting of her. Suddenly I need them to smile, to laugh. After my nightmarish ordeal the night before, I cannot bear any more heaviness. “I declare, this ladies’ maid business is exhausting. You are working me to the bone.”

  They laugh and I pick up a hairbrush. “Sera, if you would like, I’ll be happy to braid your hair for you.”

  “I wasn’t serious, but if you are truly offering.” She hands me a ribbon. Sera has the softest, most silken hair imaginable. It is as if the strands are spun from gleaming white pearl dust. I take my time brushing it and weaving it into a thick plait, finishing the braid off with a blue ribbon. “I wish I had hair like yours.” I sigh, and hand back the brush.

  “You only say that because it isn’t yours. Mine is straight and unmanageable, it never stays in the pins. Even the hot iron can’t coax it into behaving. Whereas your hair curls simply because you coil it around your finger.”

  “Yes, but mine is plain brown.”

  “Be grateful.” Georgie sits by our window reading. She looks up from the book she has her nose in. “Brown is exactly the color every debutante in London wishes she had.”

  “Not me. I’d rather have something exotic, red like yours, gleaming black like Maya’s, or white like Sera’s.”

  She scoffs at me and goes back to reading.

  I check the clock. It’s time for me to dampen and flatten out my curls, and smear coal dust on my face.

  * * *

  I limp down the stairs with Miss Stranje, and we enter the drawing room to find Francis pacing in front of the fireplace, and Bernard milling about the room investigating the decorations, probably looking for something small enough to slip into his pocket.

  Francis whirls toward us. “About bloody time.”

  Miss Stranje huffs up in her best impression of a raven about to peck out his eyes. “Lord Camberly, I will thank you to watch your language. You may talk like that when you are gadding about with dandies, but there are ladies present here, and you will conduct yourself accordingly.”

  Francis has the good grace to look at least somewhat chastised. “Here now. Mustn’t start out on the wrong foot. Not my intention.” He approaches me, gives my shoulders a quick pat, and greets me with a Judas kiss on the cheek. Bernard does exactly the same thing because that’s what Bernard always does, whatever Francis does.

  My elder brother appraises me, while elegantly propping up his chin with his finger, even though his enormous collar should’ve done the trick. “Must say, Jane, you look a fright.”

  “Lovely to see you, too, Francis.”

  He is wearing an exquisitely tailored coat, a shiny gold brocade vest, and a pair of buckskin trousers that must have cost him more than my first year’s tuition.

  “Do be seated, gentlemen.” Miss Stranje takes the largest most comfortable chair.

  “Yes, do be seated,” I say, intentionally taking the other armchair so that they are forced to sit together on the divan or else pull chairs from the wall. They brush their tails aside and plop on the divan together, sitting there like a pair of schoolboys called in to see the headmaster.

  “What brings you to Mayfair?” Miss Stranje comes straight to the point.

  “Wanted to see how our sister is getting along. What else? Imagine our surprise to read via the newspaper that you were in town. You were seen at Carlton. They reported it in The Times, Jane. For shame. You didn’t have a moment to pen a letter to your own brothers? And here we are, ever so worried about you. Aren’t we, Bernard.”

  “Oh yes, ever so,” Bernard pipes, but at least his grin is genuine. “Think about you now and again, Janey. How’ve you been?”

  Miss Stranje answers for me. “She is an outstanding lady’s maid. Thank you for asking. We are quite satisfied with her service.”

  “Thank you, miss,” I say earnestly, and all but pull on my nonexistent forelock to emphasize the pretense that I have been forced into servitude by my brothers’ neglect.

  “I say, Miss Stranje, I rather thought you’d let her earn her keep as a tutor.” The Earl of Camberly looks down his thrice-broken nose at her. “You know, put her in a more respectable position, a teacher, or some such.”

  “Yes, I see your point.” Miss Stranje turns her wrist indicating me on her left. “You wished me to put her to work doing something suitable for the daughter of an earl. Or in this case, the sister of an earl.” Miss Stranje clucks her tongue. “Unfortunately, I have no need for a teacher or a tutor, and you did mention lady’s maid in your letter.”

  I press my hand over my heart. “Yes, Francis. I will admit I was wounded when you decided to put me into service. I supposed you had fallen on hard times. But, bless my soul, isn’t that coat you’re wearing tailored by Mr. Weston himself? It is very fine.”

  His nose juts into the air. “You don’t understand these matters, Jane. After you left, I’m sorry to say, Mr. Applegate, the steward—you remember him don’t you?—the dastardly fellow ran our estate into the ground.” Francis makes a fist and thumps it on the arm of the divan. “Into the ruddy ground.”

  Bernard cocks his head sideways, as if he’s trying to sort the lies from the facts. He combs his fingers through his side-whiskers trying to figure out exactly what Francis is saying. But I know how to get the truth out of my sneaky older brother. “Didn’t Mr. Applegate keep to the schedules I left? I was very clear about when the sheep ought to be sheared and—”

  Francis waves away my question. “No, no, we sold off all the sheep ages ago. Too expensive to feed them in the winter, you see.” He taps his temple. “Have to economize, you know. We men understand these things.”

  “That’s right.” Bernard nods sagely. “Haven’t had any sheep for two years.”

  “Hmm.” I purse my lips and clamp my jaw tight to keep from screaming at the dunderheads. If my leg weren’t throbbing like the very devil, I’d like to run over there and kick him in the shins. “How very odd. There should’ve been plenty of fodder and hay if the fields were tended properly.”

  Francis doesn’t look at me. He draws circles with his forefinger on the arm of the sofa, and I get a sinking sick feeling in my belly. He finally answers, “I’m afraid the fields had to go, too. Sold ’em off.”

  Bernard pipes up. “Had to, Janey. Otherwise, how would we pay—”

  “Your gambling debts,” I all but growl. “Yes, I can guess how that went. So, you’ve nothing left except the house and the grounds, then?”

  Bernard shakes his head. “We let the house. We get a tidy sum from the rents each quarter day, too.”

  Francis gives Bernard a stern shut your big mouth warning.

  “Let me see if I understand this clearly. You’ve lost everything. Does that about sum it up?”

  “Not everything,” Francis says defensively. “Still have our horses, and the house is let not sold.”

  “No, but only because the house is entailed and you can’t sell it.”

  Francis sits forward, and I remember how he would try to bully me when we were younger. “I can sell it. I’ll find a way,” he says. “We’re going to see our man of business about that tomorrow.” He clamp
s his mouth as if he has said too much. My brother takes a breath and lowers his voice. “But now that you mention it, we’ve had an idea. An idea that will remove you from this awful school. You should be happy about that.”

  “Fascinating.” I stifle a groan. “This should be a rare treat. Tell me about this brilliant plan you’ve concocted.”

  “Just this. If we were to put a pretty enough dress on you, you might do for some merchant fellow, or a banker.”

  Bernard nods eagerly, as if this is a splendid solution to all our problems. “Oh, yes, a banker, that would be a fine match.”

  Francis waves him to silence. “That is not to say a duke might not take an interest.” He looks me over and wrinkles his nose. “Maybe if he’s old enough. Or a marquis. Well, really, anyone will do, so long as they have enough money.”

  A duke.

  Or a marquis.

  No, an old duke. A doddering old rich marquis. Marvelous plan. My brothers have truly run mad. It’s a lucky thing they don’t know about Mum and Dad’s agreement with Lord Harston.

  I am speechless.

  Miss Stranje is not, she manages to bristle even while sitting. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, your proposal is completely out of the question. As you know, Lady Jane is deeply indebted to me for her board and tuition. Consequently, she is obliged to continue serving as a lady’s maid. Unless you can afford to pay for her past two years with me, she must remain in service to me for the foreseeable future.”

  The Earl of Camberly leaps to his feet. “You can’t do that.”

  She remains calmly seated. “Oh, but I can.”

  “Take heart, Francis,” I say in my most calming voice. “I do believe you have stumbled upon a solution to all your money troubles.”

  He turns to me, his face screwed up tighter than an old lady with a bad case of the vapors. “And what is that, pray tell?”

  “My dear Francis, you still have a title. And while you may not have a feather to fly with, titles are still very much in demand.” I pause and scratch at my mussed-up hair. “So, you see, rather than marrying me off, which sadly seems to be out of your reach, I suggest you find a wealthy young lady who would like to pay for the privilege of being an earl’s wife.”