Finding Lady Enderly

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  He held the little volume to his chest and exhaled. Never before had he felt so helpless.

  23

  Mirrors reflect our appearance, but what we create reflects the beauty within us.

  ~Diary of a Substitute Countess

  Do you think it will be chilly by then?” I leaned over the calendar in the morning room and held my finger on the 26th. That would be the evening for the harvest soiree Lady Remington had insisted we host. “We could have a fire and spiced cider.”

  “It’s likely, with the way the winds are turning, but we’ll do our best to make the inside plenty festive either way, my lady.” Shirley Shackley tugged long sashes and table runners from their crates and shook them out.

  “Will there be time enough to have everything cleaned and pressed?”

  “You have a brigade of servants at your command, my lady, and they can accomplish a great deal.” She smiled. “You should be proud of your staff. They are capable and willing, all prepared to trim the house with such spirit and joy.” She heaved a deep sigh of happiness at this last comment, as if the very idea of this festive soiree was to her like a fresh cup of tea in the morning beside a warm fireplace.

  “What does the earl typically do for his soirees?”

  She paused her unpacking and looked at me with an odd mix of pity and surprise.

  Of course, a wife would know this. I ducked my face and hurried to repair the mistake. “I meant before our marriage. What did he do in the past? He rarely speaks of his life before.”

  She continued her work but watched me. “I wouldn’t know much about that, my lady, but I do know Rothburne used to be so full of grand parties in years past, and he came to them often. The earl’s aunt and uncle loved the people here, and they held parties with a great deal of fanfare. Why, I believe they even used to open the house up to the public for an evening and greet their neighbors. It was quite a splendid event.”

  “What a lovely idea.” I could imagine the decorated hall filled with people and gaiety. “We shall do exactly that and bring the tradition back to Rothburne. We’ll serve spiced cider and crepes, maybe a little plum pudding in tiny cups. Then afterward we’ll turn it into a ball of the finest sort and have dancing.”

  Shirley stood with a rosy smile and shifted an armload of ribbon. “It’s good to have you at Rothburne, my lady. This old house had need of you, but so did that earl. Perhaps you can find that long-buried piece of him that used to enjoy these things and bring it to the surface again. Every man needs a good woman to draw out neglected parts of himself and shine them up a bit.” She winked.

  Again my heart melted into pity at the broken man. Had he always been this way? “Did you know him when he was younger?”

  “I did, when he visited his aunt and uncle at Rothburne.”

  “And he was different? Happy?”

  She smiled warmly. “He was bold and courageous, full of passion and ambition. All that’s left is the boldness, I’m afraid. Over time every hardship in his young life, from his father’s death to his brother’s enlistment, hardened that boldness into anger.” Her face took on a wistful cast as she glanced with a half smile toward the distant windows. “There’s a charming gentleman inside that stony government man somewhere, I just know it. And nothing will bring it out like the lady he loves.”

  She smiled kindly at me, but I shrank from her encouragement. I was actually keeping him from his love. The missing woman seemed to float about the house, present but not truly, as if she were a specter. Yet to be a ghost, one had to be . . .

  Simone watched me in the mirror without a smile as she brushed my hair that evening. “The earl must be so happy to be home with you, my lady.”

  I offered a wan smile.

  “He is very different from Mr. Prendergast, is he not?” Her eyes blazed with silent intent, two glowing black orbs in a white face.

  I focused my gaze on her. “What is it you mean to say?”

  “Only that we see much of him, unlike the earl. Your estate must be one of his only clients, for he is here quite often, no?”

  Clenching my jaw against the words the old Spitalfields Ragna would have spat out, I spun on my stool, yanking my hair from the tug of the brush. “That’s more than enough strokes for one head of hair, thank you.”

  Simone stepped back and busied herself with cleaning up the pins and combs scattered across the table’s surface.

  “I believe I’ll retire early. Perhaps we should turn down the bed.”

  When she did not respond, I turned. She stood like a statue, eyebrows arched as she stared at something behind me. There on the mirror beside my bed was the familiar scrawl of Sully’s handwriting, a message left with some black substance upon the glass. SOS:2. The sight of it in the presence of this woman unsettled me.

  I strode before her and flipped my loose hair. “Won’t you help me prepare for bed? The day has worn on me.” My voice sounded high and pinched.

  “Of course.” But even as she plaited my hair and unfastened my gown, her gaze traveled often to that mirror. “Are you unwell, my lady?”

  “I’m perfectly well.”

  “Shall I bring you a tincture? Perhaps a little tea.”

  “I assure you, I’m in excellent health.”

  Her gaze went pointedly to the mirror as she finished unlacing my stays and strode to the drawers for my nightclothes. “It’s as if you were summoning help.”

  “A simple notation.”

  “On a mirror.” She set garments on the end of my bed and smoothed imaginary wrinkles with slow movements. “Often writing on walls is a sign of . . .” Voice drifting, she strode toward me and helped me out of my garments and into my nightclothes. “You may ring for me if you require anything else, my lady.”

  When she left the room, I hurried to the mirror and scrubbed the letters away with a square of linen, then closed the door. Then with a sigh I sank onto the bed and pondered what they meant. SOS. Was he in danger? But from whom—and why? He’d written them there some time ago, and he remained well. Then I remembered the bag slung over his shoulder and wondered if he’d meant this as a farewell message.

  It was only after I’d slipped into my dressing gown and paced around the room that I spotted the intended reference—there on the table below the mirror, the little oil lamp had been pushed aside to make room for a leather-bound Bible with Sully’s stone on top. I ran to it and grasped the stone, sinking onto the bed and running my fingertips over the stone’s smooth surface. My other hand rested on the Bible below it. SOS would be the Song of Solomon. Drawing the large book onto my lap, I leafed through it in chunks.

  When I found the spot, I carried the book over to the window seat to read in the glow of silvery moonlight. One candle burned on the shelf nearby, and I curled toward it, tucking my feet under me. I leafed through each page and found several underlined passages, and I drank them in.

  Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death . . .

  Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it . . .

  On and on they carried. I read them all many times over, soaking in these beautiful words, then I let the open Bible fall onto my lap and laid my head back against the window frame. I remained this way for several peaceful moments as I recalled the lovely words. We’d have a future together, I was sure of it. If only he’d remain long enough for me to safely finish my task and get us out of danger.

  I’d fallen into a drowsy near-slumber when I suddenly sensed a presence in the room. My eyes flew open, and there stood the earl in the doorway again, hanging about like a shadow of one who used to exist. I bolted upright in a second and looked at him.

  “I saw your lady’s maid bring a tea service to the room, and I thought perhaps . . . if you wouldn’t mind the company . . . perhaps we could have tea together.”

  My gaze flew to the tray now lying on the table inside my door—I hadn’t even heard her enter. I looked at him hesitantly, but I thought
of no excuse to turn him away. And the longer I stared, the more this bear of a man simply looked wrung out and hurting. The sight softened me. “I suppose there’s nothing improper in our being alone together, is there?”

  “Forgive my intrusion. I won’t stay long. I wanted to apologize for my behavior the night before. I’m sure I frightened you.”

  I offered a small smile, and he returned it, stepping farther into the room. “You’re forgiven.” Striding over to the tea service, I poured the single cup of tea and carried it to him.

  He lowered himself into the seat, and his tension seemed to sink into the chair as his body did. He released a long sigh and closed his eyes for a moment before accepting the steaming liquid. I curled into my window seat again and waited. We remained silent, and the passing moments seemed to calm him.

  “I feel better being here with you. Perhaps because I can fool myself, for a moment, into thinking you’re her. I have not felt that well in some time.”

  His words toyed with the edges of my fear and dislike, threatening to unravel it. Pity and sorrow colored my vision as I looked at the tortured soul before me. “Do you feel ill often, sir?”

  He fingered the edge of the chair arm. “Old. I feel old. I’m only one and thirty, but you’d never know it to look at my face, would you?”

  “You couldn’t pass for a young man.”

  He gave a humph, then rested again in silence as he pondered. “It is not so much my skin that has been wrinkled by life, but my soul. And it isn’t the sun that’s to blame but the darkness—that is, darkness that’s in me. Every tiny erosion of my integrity is like a fine line, and one by one the wrinkles gather across the surface until I’m suddenly old and ugly—inside and out, for what’s inside eventually wears through to the outside.” He turned to study me then, his gaze caressing my face. “You’re so pure and lovely still. So young. Here you sit, your hair down like a girl’s, a Bible open beside you.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat, for even that image was deceiving. I had not, in fact, peered into the pages of a Bible in quite some time, except to read Sully’s message.

  What had become of me? All these changes wrought in me—were they improvements or perhaps a growing evil? My stomach tightened.

  “You never think a single wrinkle’s of any importance until you have a face full of them—and then they cannot be erased.”

  My breath thinned as I took in his words. How many small nicks had I allowed in my integrity since coming here? How often had I brushed aside my conscience?

  “Keep your innocence. Take yourself away from here.” His face pleaded. “I’ll find another way out of this mess. It’s all of my own making. It’s my trouble to untangle, and I cannot drag—”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “It’s Victor who pulled me into it, and I cannot leave yet.”

  “Why not? You should.” He sat back into the chair again, watching me.

  I thought for a moment. Why not? Why didn’t I simply leave? I looked around the room and tried to remember the reason, until I put my hand on the bench and felt the stone.

  Sully. It was for Sully.

  Yet it was something else too. Sully had been right. I thought about that notepaper that held my handwriting but Lady Enderly’s identity imprinted across the top, and again I felt that odd surge I’d experienced when Mrs. Stockton had appeared in the abbey. I was not Ragna anymore. Whatever had made me that girl was gone, and I was living out a borrowed identity—one I’d eventually have to return. Then what? Who would I be? I inhaled deeply, catching the scent of a sputtering candle stub and I gave the truest answer I knew. “I stay because I have nowhere else to go.”

  He considered me then, seeing only me for the first time instead of her. “You must have had a difficult life. This is not a terrible imposition for you then, is it?”

  “Mr. Prendergast called me little Cinderella when we met. I suppose that’s how it feels. Mostly.” I did not say more, for wasn’t this the man who claimed guilt for the countess’s disappearance? Who knew what he’d done? I couldn’t trust him with the details concerning Sully.

  He gave a single nod.

  I took a breath. “It hasn’t been as pleasant for you, it seems, to have me here.”

  “Pleasant, no. But it has been helpful. Confession is cleansing to the soul, and I thank you wholeheartedly for hearing it.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “You mean it?” He sat forward with eagerness that made me regret my casual response. “I need to tell someone everything. Everything.”

  My heart pounded. “Maybe I—”

  “It started when I met her.”

  I gulped.

  “She looked just as you do, so charming of face and bearing, but she had something more too. Something that glowed from deep within. It was a spirit of pure beauty that changed the air in the room the moment she entered.” He closed his eyes. “I can still smell her soft curls piled on her head that came right to my chin. I’ve never found another woman like her, not even you who looks—”

  His words had begun to strangle me with the reality of my failure. “Please, I don’t need to know. It is not me you’ve wronged.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Some secrets are better taken to the grave.”

  When he took a deep inhale, a knock sounded on the door and Prendergast’s voice shattered the tension. “A word with you, old chap?”

  My companion looked at me, his face grim, and rose. With a look of apology, he crossed the room and exited, leaving me alone with a flickering candle, an unfinished story, and my wild imagination.

  24

  It’s allowable to judge a lady by her dress, for it is how she chose to express herself to strangers before she speaks a word to them.

  ~Diary of a Substitute Countess

  You seem unwell.” On the day of the soiree, I looked at Simone’s stoic face in the mirror beside mine. She had the same inner chaos I imagined the countess might, only hers had leaked through to the surface, hardening her features and shadowing her eyes. How did so dark a person create a display of such beauty and light out of the rag woman?

  “I’m well enough, my lady.”

  “Have you anything festive to wear? You must dress and come down as well, as my guest.” It was the day we would open the doors to the local public, welcoming them to enjoy the abbey with us. Somehow I did not fear this night as I had the reception, but Simone seemed agitated.

  She hesitated, her fingers pausing in my hair. “I did not bring any suitable gowns with me to this position. I was given to understand it would be temporary and limited in scope.”

  I tried to imagine her arrayed in a light-colored gown with her hair loosened in a romantic upsweep with stray tendrils framing her severe face. If gowns could transform Ragna into a countess, what might they do to my austere shadow of a lady’s maid? With her slender figure and strikingly lovely face, perfect complexion and jet-black hair, she could be the most dramatic beauty in the room.

  “You must wear one of my gowns. I insist.” I was growing accustomed to having my desires granted.

  She finally allowed herself to be arrayed by the chambermaid in a stunning garnet-colored frock with a velvet sash. When she swept back into the main room, I gasped at the transformation from a stony maid to an uncertain yet delicately feminine woman. I beckoned her over to the mirrors and had her face them to see how she looked from every angle. All at once the shadows melted away from her face in unabashed surprise at her appearance. She stared with longing and tenderness, as if remembering. After the chambermaid arranged her hair in a looser sweep, I placed a jeweled band on her head to accent its rich darkness, and the overall look was magnificent.

  “You’ll attend me in my grand entrance on the stairs, of course. I cannot wait to see everyone’s reaction to you.”

  Her lashes fluttered over those rose-colored cheeks as her head dipped, and I realized that she, too, couldn’t wait to see the reaction of everyone.

  �
�Who will be there? Everyone in the household?”

  I studied her anxious face. There seemed to be a specific someone she wished to know about. “They will all be waiting to witness our descent.”

  Her eyes glittered with something passionate—fear or excitement, I couldn’t tell which. We glided arm in arm to the head of the stairs and looked down over the small gathering. Servants and members of the household spoke to one another in hushed groups. For the moment she clung to me, seeming to forget her hatred. It was as if she were a nervous debutante coming out into society.

  I tugged at her arm to follow me and glided down the steps, watching my slippers peeping out from the frothy layers of skirt that glittered in the light of countless candelabra. The collective gasp of the watchers below made me smile for Simone.

  At the landing halfway, I released Simone as the earl extended his arm to accompany me for the remainder of the descent, but he hardly looked at me. Immediately I noticed the pinch of his lips and the tremble of his chin. “Are you well?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless you, by some miracle, become her.”

  His words jarred me with negative emotions I couldn’t decipher until I remembered his earlier comparison of me to the countess. A spirit of beauty, he’d said. One that changed the air as she entered the room. Summoning every ounce of courage and spirit I could muster, I straightened my shoulders and walked myself through her attributes. Grace, poise, beauty.

  We reached the bottom and I greeted each member of the household with anxiousness hidden beneath well-practiced poise. A glint of appreciation sparked in Cousin Philip’s face as I bade him good evening, and Lady Remington wore her approval plainly on her face, but the utter fascination in Victor Prendergast’s eyes shocked me. Usually reserved for those moments alone before escorting me into an event, that look was now out in the open for anyone to see, but no one seemed to notice the man or his expression except me. He breathed his words into my ear. “Is that truly little Cinderella? You are absolutely astonishing.” His eyes followed me as I walked past him.