The footman's disdain didn't alter Juliette's dignified pose.
"You are coarse and vile, Mr. Drake, and no decent woman would have you-not if you were the only man in all England. Now, if you'll excuse me ..:"
Juliette started past him, but quickly he grabbed her shoulder and pressed it painfully with his fingers. This was too much! Long ago Juliette had learned to take care of herself, and now she flew at him with doubled fists, striking him soundly on the chest before she was thrust back against the wall shelves so jars clanged one against the other before tumbling to the floor and shattering. Then the candle was abruptly out.
In the dark there were curses before Drake said, "Now you can just stay in here and think about what I said. And when the cook gets back, you can explain this mess that you've made." Then the door opened and slammed shut and the click of a key in the latch told her she was locked in.
Running to the door, Juliette fell hard against it, though it didn't budge, and she withheld from beating on it with her fists. That's just what he wants me to do, she told herself. How it would delight him to hear me screaming for help when the staff isn't even expected back till afternoon.
Fumbling about in the dark, Juliette found the candle and relit it from a match in her apron. An orange glow revealed the broken jars and fallen supplies spilled on the pantry floor. Indeed, how was she going to explain this? And retrieving her cap, she stuffed her thick hair back under it before sitting on a large tin and resting her chin in her hands.
Damn the man! He isn't satisfied that he has all the other serving women helpless before his lusts-he expects to intimidate me, too, Juliette thought. But worst of all, most of what he had said was true. She was a student here though still a maid. And while she did have to scrub floors and serve meals to the other girls and sleep in the attic, it wasn't this that she minded so much as being an outcast among her classmates and knowing that after graduation it would be just the same. Instead of leading the kind of life the others would, she would be condemned to the mundane existence of a governess or working in a shop, never having a chance to live.
No, it was impossible even to hope she might somehow regain the happiness she had once felt before her father had died. While he was still alive, her life had been so different. She had been sad, of course, when he had to leave their stone cottage in the country for his duties in various parts of the world. But always she could look forward to his return, and the times they shared, the light in his eyes when he held her on his knee, and the small gifts he inevitably brought in his large pockets. But then, when she was only eleven he had returned one final time after being wounded by an Arab he had taken prisoner during a raid on his fort in the Sahara.
He had seen a series of doctors then but the injury done to his lungs couldn't be repaired, and she watched him grow weaker and weaker, until he had to stay in bed all the time, and finally one morning, she wasn't allowed to see him, and instead, numbers of people came who talked in hushed voices, and the housekeeper, Matilda, cried.
The next day there was a funeral where everyone cried more. She remembered them carrying her father out of the house in a long wooden box with a flag over it, and she knew he was never coming back again.
After that she had been sent to Miss Fayton's, where her father had specifically written in his will that she should be educated as a lady, and to this end, he had also willed all his assets.
When Juliette had first come to Miss Fayton's, she had thought this renovated castle the loveliest place on earth. But she soon discovered she was considered quite different by the other girls there who rejected her with thinly veiled contempt.
Sometimes the girls were admonished by the teachers for not treating their "inferiors" kindly as all "true" ladies were expected. But this became more embarrassing than if nothing had been said. And in the classes which lasted most of the day, Juliette learned about a world she knew she would never be a part of, and cultivated tastes that she would never afford, and manners she would never use. And afterward, she would work until late into the night in the kitchen before doing her class assignments by a single candle in her attic room, often until the early morning hours.
If only Papa hadn't said in his will that I be educated here, I would take the little money left and run away, Juliette thought. And it was exactly this she told Millie when, nearly an hour later, her friend discovered her locked in the pantry and let her out.
"I hate this place," she said vehemently. "I hate its gray walls and those old portraits in the hall with their dour faces. You can't do anything that's fun without being reprimanded. And what good is it for me to attend a school like this when I'll just have to get a position as a governess or a lady's companion anyway? These girls get meaner every day, and lately they've been worse than ever!" Juliette finished, her hands resting on slender hips, her eyes flashing rebelliously.
Millie was another student and Juliette's only friend at Miss Fayton's besides her favorite teacher, Mrs. Welwright. She was tall, slightly gangly, had a head of glorious red hair, and was also considered an outcast by the other girls, not because she was poor, but because she was an American, and therefore considered somewhat "crude" by definition
.
"It has gotten worse, hasn't it?" Millie said, shaking her red curls that were cropped stylishly short in the front. "It's simply that you are far too pretty and so much smarter than they are. I'm sure they are all secretly grateful that they won't have to compete with you for husbands now that we're all eighteen and expected to spend at least our first `season' in London."
"Well, I won't be competing," Juliette stated flatly.
"Precisely," Millie said. "If you were they would be much worse. Then you would be a real threat. But don't consider yourself too unlucky for that. At least you don't have parents who'll give you away to some potbellied old man simply because he's the highest bidder. The rest of us will be expected to go to London and march around at lots of stupid receptions where we'll be ogled by numbers of lecherous men twice our age who, if enticed by our youth and virginity, will press their suit with our parents. Then, if they are properly titled and wealthy enough, we will be given away into their beds like so much property. Count your blessings, Juliette," she finished. "At least you can marry the man you want and there'll be love between you instead of simply sharing a butler."
In spite of Millie's light tone, Juliette could hear the pain in her voice and grew pale imagining her friend sacrificed in marriage to such a man. "Oh, Millie," Juliette began suddenly full of sympathy. "I never thought of it that way. I had no idea that you ... that all the girls . . . that what was expected-not really, although I suppose I should have."
"Never mind," Millie said with a wave of her hand meant to dismiss the matter. "It's never put in such blunt terms as that, I don't want to upset you. I just didn't want you to be too unhappy down here." She smiled. "What are you wearing to the Easter Ball?" she asked changing the subject:
Juliette colored suddenly, her eyes dropping. "I ... I'm not going."
Millie reared back, her expression faltering. "Not going? Don't be a goose. Of course you're going! It will be a chance for some fun after all this drudgery."
Juliette's eyes remained downcast. No one else had ever asked her for an excuse-they all knew that she was much too poor to afford a proper gown. She had hoped simply to be absent from this ball as usual, but now. ..."You see I . . . well, I don't have anything suitable to wear. Everything is unpreventable except for the skirts and blouses I wear to class, and even they are nearly out of fashion. I never have attended a ball before and if you'd been at Miss Fayton's last year you would already know that. I can't go, Millie, I simply can't."
"Oh, but you must! This ball won't be any fun for me if you're not there, too. You simply must come. I know! You'll wear one of my gowns. It's true I'm bigger. But clothes are easy to alter. I've watched my maid do it lots of times. Please!"
Millie's face was eager and sincere and Juliette paused, torn b
etween her desire to at last actually attend a ball, and the humiliation of having to borrow clothes. Then she smiled and hugged her friend before saying, "I think you are the most generous person in the world, Millie."
"It's not that I'm so generous," Millie replied. "It's that the other girls are so jealous, and after this ball, they're going to have more of a right to be, because you're going to be the most beautiful girl there. I'll see to that." And putting her long arm around Juliette's neck, Millie hugged her in return.
Chapter 16
True to her word, that night Millie gave Juliette a gown, in fact, her choice of many lovely gowns which she arrayed on the bed and around the room in a dream of colorful silks and velvets and ribbons.
Dazzled by the display, Juliette tried on several, turning round and round in front of the long mirror until her choice came down to three. One was a princess gown of white satin trimmed by black velvet ribbon, with sleeves of black lace over white satin, and white embroidery on the skirt. There was a second gown of brocade with a silver lace stand-up collar and satin folds of deep shade of blue.
But as last Juliette chose a simple satin gown in a deep violet blue that heightened that shading in her eyes-a Worth's design of elegant simplicity, its wide neck line dipping low with large puffed sleeves, edged with ribbon, dropping just slightly off her shoulders. She tried it on a final time and, whirled before the mirror, noticing just how enticing she looked with the tops of her creamy breasts peeping above the neckline to fill out the upper part of the hourglass ideal, while a petticoat with ruffling filled out her girlish hips to fashionable fullness.
Yes, she really was prettier than she had thought. Two weeks later, when Juliette entered the ballroom, her costume completed by long suede gloves and heeled slippers, she knew she was truly beautiful for the first time in her life and felt a little like a princess in one of the romantic fairy tales she had read as a child.
"My word! Look over there," said a portly distinguished looking man with a gray-flecked beard and a monocle pinched between brow and cheek. "I thought I had seen all the Fayton girls. But I've never seen her before."
"It would be difficult to overlook that one," the other replied. "Such a rare loveliness in her face and graceful as a willow. Striking I'd say. No doubt she'll be snapped up before the end of the season."
The other man raised his eyebrows in agreement. "Yes. She seems quite different from the rest actually human. The others seem cold fish beside a girl like that."
Across the shiny circular floor, other eyes observed Juliette's entrance. "Who is she?"
Rodney Keiths's voice was hardly above a whisper as he inquired to the majordomo.
"Her name is Juliette Clayton, sir. One of the Fayton girls, though, unfortunately, she is an orphan and without connections beyond her attendance at Miss Fayton's."
Rodney Keiths's clear gray eyes had not moved off her. "She's beautiful!" he said.
"Yes, sir. A lovely child. Such a pity she had no dowry."
The young man looked startled and slightly insulted. "But she is beautiful. And what difference would a dowry make to me?" He adjusted his cravat and pulled straight the lapels of his jacket. "Champagne, Stephens."
"As you say, sir," Stephens said.
It would have been above his station to make further comment. Anyway, the chit was of the nobility on her mother's side, at least. So, rolling back and forth on the soles of his mirror-polished boots, he signaled the footman for champagne, noticing that Drake wore a particularly sour expression tonight. Still, the footman came at once, holding a full tray of champagne glasses poised chest high.
The young Lord Keiths was quick to take one in each hand then, and in a moment had moved to Miss Clayton's side. Juliette jumped as his voice came from behind her, and turning round, she lifted her eyes to a face she had never seen before, a well-scrubbed, friendly face.
"Sir?"
"I asked you if you would care for some champagne," Rodney repeated.
Juliette felt her cheeks suddenly burn. "Well, no, I don't . . . I mean . . . I don't drink champagne, or never have at least."
Rodney smiled. She had blushed and seemed genuinely Austere. Was she really so unsophisticated? It was not a trait for which the polished Fayton girls were noted. Most of them were more experienced than their years, and in spite of their white dresses and smooth hair, not altogether innocent.
By now he thought he had met all of them at some time or another when his sister brought her classmates home during the holidays. Most had a brisk, haughty way about them that offended him. No, he had never met this girl before, yet here she was, looking up at him as bright as an angel, her neck and shoulders glowing smooth in the candlelight, and those eyes. Certainly she would be this season's sensation.
Rodney held the champagne glass toward her. "You really can't decide firmly against anything until you've given it a fair chance. Why don't you have a bit and see. You might find you like it."
Juliette watched him, trying not to fidget with her hands or to say anything that would be boring or would reveal her for exactly what she was--a girl "out of her element." And suddenly confronted by this smartly dressed fellow with such curious gray eyes and carefully kept blond hair, Juliette felt like one of the servants all dressed up and making a fool of herself. Stewart Drake had been staring at her all evening with that awful look on his face. And then, to make matters worse, this man was offering her champagne.
Juliette smiled then, her Miss Fayton's training coming to the rescue. And she managed to say, "Thank you. How kind. I suppose it would be only fair to give it a chance," as she took the glass and brought it to her lips.
She sipped carefully to cover the tightness in her throat which refused to relax as the champagne bubbled on her tongue. Then, raising her eyes to look again into the young man's face, she noticed it contained none of the insincerity she had grown accustomed to seeing in the' expressions of the people of his level of society. "Well, it is quite good," she said finally. "Really wonderful, in fact. I had no idea. But then that was silly of me. Everyone always told me champagne was divine."
"You don't attend many parties, then?"
‘No.’
"Really? But let me introduce myself. I am Rodney Keiths," he said bowing easily. And in a gesture that was smooth as it was impossible to refuse, he offered his arm.
"And I am Juliette-Juliette Clayton," she said, curtsying and taking his arm.
Immediately they were promenading around the edge of the dance floor. Juliette took another, longer, sip of champagne that was easier to swallow than the first, though everything became complicated when Rodney Keiths asked, "Have you been a Fayton girl long? I haven't ever met you before."
"Well, no-or rather, yes. . . . That is, I don't attend many parties. Anyway, you wouldn't have remembered me."
Rodney's eyes sparkled. "I would have remembered. I'm certain. You have-well, unusual color hair, don't you think? I've never seen any quite so pale."
Remembering not to fidget, Juliette kept her hands from reaching to her hair, which was not elegantly dressed in combs or with aigrettes like the other girls, but was one length and fell down to the middle of her back.
"Well, I suppose so. Though many of the other girls are blond, too. Mostly, my hair is overly long. But I like it this way.”
"Yes, it is lovely. Long hair seems fitting for you. Wearing it loose is so much more attractive than stuck to your bead in that formal way most girls do their hair."
Juliette smiled. He really seems to like me, she thought, and he's so easy to talk to. Suddenly the whole ordeal became easier, so that she didn't even think of refusing when I be took her hand and asked, "Would you care to dance?"
It was a waltz. And, as in a dream, Juliette felt herself being twirled round and round under the glittering candles poised high over the large ballroom in hanging crystal chandeliers that reflected pale rainbows around the room.
Occasionally Rodney asked her questions about herself, an
d when she was evasive he didn't pry, but continued to gaze at her appreciatively. Under the glow of his attention, Juliette blossomed, finding herself amazingly vivacious and with suddenly more to say than usual. It became easy to laugh, and she found herself thinking, but this is not so difficult, after all.
It was only during their seventh waltz, when the ball was nearly over, that Juliette touched earth enough to notice Lady Pottersbee and Lady Boroughs deep in conversation, their scrutinizing glances flickering up at her before their heads dipped together again as they commented further. Juliette's lips compressed and her legs felt suddenly stiff as the dreamlike quality of the evening evaporated.
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