by Laura London
This splendor was not wasted on Katie, who was silhouetted against the faint morning sunlight filtering into the bedroom through the tasselled velvet curtains. Lord Linden might say that the room resembled something from a sixpenny bawdyhouse, but to Katie, it looked like a queen’s chambers.
La Steele, engulfed in multiple layers of an orchid negligee, was glaring at Katie. “When Lesley said he was sending your clothes, I had no idea your trousseau consisted of a few rags in a cloth bag. Is that—garment—the best you have to offer?”
Katie looked defensively at the shapeless expanse of gray that fell in untidy folds around her ankles. “Yes. It looked nicer when it was blue, but I put too much soap in the washtub once. I have another one, but it has an inkstain on the bodice. I’ve always dressed like this. Papa says ‘fine whiskers cannot take the place of brains.’”
“I’m not interested in what you’ve always done. I’m interested in right now. And I never want to hear you mention your wastrel of a father in my house again! Any man who would thrust his only daughter into a Rookery gin shop ought to be clapped into Bedlam. I detest eccentrics! It’s obvious that you’re sickeningly beautiful, but I won’t, won’t have you skipping around my house looking like something from the circus. I’ve seen better looking coverings on a peck of potatoes. Even those breeches you wore at Linden’s were more attractive. Look at you, your hair looks like unsheared lamb’s wool and I have not the slightest doubt that you’ve got dirt beneath your fingernails. Antoinette! Have a tub of hot water fetched immediately!”
Katie might have bloodlines that stretched back to William the Conqueror, but her upbringing had been haphazardly plebian. Sponge baths were the rule in her life, and she had a peasant’s conviction that those individuals so imprudent as to immerse themselves into a hip bath might soon expect their demise from an inflammation of the lung. Thus it took the unified and, at times, violent efforts of Laurel and her maid to bathe her. Katie suffered under their vigorously applied ablutions and tingled with frustration and embarrassment as they rubbed her dry with hard towelling.
“Now, observe, ‘Toinette,” said Laurel, circling about Katie where she stood forlornly in the middle of the room, tiny rivers of water coursing down her back from her wet head. “Observe how the charms of youth are wasted on the young.”
Antoinette giggled. Katie fairly shriveled, her arms crossed modestly in front of her pink, blushing body. She gazed longingly at the gray frock crumpled in the corner. Laurel caught the direction of Katie’s gaze and snatched the dress from the floor, holding it by thumb and forefinger.
“‘Toinette. Remove this thing and have it burned.”
Katie groaned.
“Be silent!” snapped Laurel, and slapped Katie sharply on the cheek. “And I’ll smack the other side, too, if you don’t begin conducting yourself with a little dignity. Wrap the towel about you and come into my dressing room so we can do something about that pony’s mane. And stop that choking; no one ever died from a bath.”
The next hour, Laurel and Antoinette spent rectifying the grooming neglects of Katie’s short lifetime. They brushed her hair until her scalp felt like a raked hayfield, rubbed her with scented skin creams, attacked her freckles with a concoction that Antoinette rather alarmingly referred to as virgin’s milk, and recut, curled, coiled, and confined Katie’s hair with topaz ribbon.
“Now,” stated Laurel, “the dress. Oh, no, not that one. I’ve worn it at least twice. Do you think I want it said that I dress the chit in my castoffs because I’m afraid of the competition? Intolerable! Bring the new figured silk—ah, yes, the sea green. Now, raise your arms, girl. Oh, you don’t obey me. All right then, how do you like this?”
“Ow!” said Katie, rubbing the spot Miss Steele had just pinched. “I’m sorry I seem disobliging.”
“Oh, pray hush, and hold still. If there is anything I detest, it’s someone who apologizes for being disobliging. If you were really sorry for it, then you wouldn’t do it, would you? Stand straight! She’s too slender, ‘Toinette, you will have to take a tuck here. Yes, and here. Fine.”
Laurel and Antoinette stood back to observe the fruits of their labors. Miss Steele, it appeared, did not find the fruit at all to her taste.
“I knew it,” fumed Laurel, “the wench is stunning! Ah, Lesley, if you only knew how your bill is mounting. Before I might have settled for a diamond or two, but now, I’ll have no less than a tiara and three pairs of earbobs.”
“Poor Madame,” said Antoinette. “But perhaps it is not so bad. That little nose, faugh! It is too short for the classic. And the freckles, mon Dieu, they are everywhere!”
“What of it?” Laurel waved her hand in angry dismissal of these handicaps. “Men don’t want classical perfection. They want, oh, I don’t know what the stupid creatures want but it’s obvious that this chit has it. In abundance. Well, at least I shall be spared the mortification of having to introduce her into company; Lesley was adamant that he didn’t want her to meet anyone here. Oh, but Antoinette, will the servants tittle-tattle? If this should get out, people will say that I’m aiding Lesley in the corruption of a daughter of a peer, or some such nonsense.”
“No, no, Madame,” reassured Antoinette. “Leave me to deal with the servants. Mademoiselle will be your little cousin from the country, nest-ce pas? And she is not to be introduced into company because… because…”
“Because she is too damn beautiful and she shines me down,” snapped la Steele, furiously.
“Now, Madame, you fret yourself without cause, enfin. We will say that she doesn’t go among strangers because there has been a bereavement in her famille, oui? And in a few days, m’lord will take her away so you must not worry yourself. Perhaps Madame would like to return to bed maintenant?”
“Indeed I should. For one day I have already borne,” said Laurel as she swept back to her fabulous tent bed, “enough!”
Katie watched as Antoinette tucked the sheets about her mistress, who rolled onto her side and nestled deeper into the pillows. “There,” murmured Laurel comfortably. “Oh, and don’t forget to feed the child sometime today, Toinette, or we will have Lesley saying I am mistreating her. Au revoir.” Laurel closed her eyes and Katie followed the beckoning Antoinette from the room.
The next hours were long ones for Katie. A dainty luncheon was brought to her room on a silver tray with cut crystal plates, but Katie was too afraid of breaking a plate or spilling lemonade on the expensive fabric of her gown to enjoy it. Katie spent some time staring blindly out the window, worrying about her father, wondering about the man who had tried to attack her last night, and having wistful daydreams about her onyx-haired protector. Lord Linden, England’s favorite son and enfant terrible, who had already ensnared so many feminine hearts, could add another pelt to his trappings. Katie put her hand to her cheek where his lips had been, then to the curls that he had ruffled, so careless of his effect on her. She wondered what his eyes saw when they looked at her. Probably a shabby, not-very-smart nuisance, inarticulate, undereducated, and adoring. Katie cringed inwardly and felt depressed. She walked over to stand square in front of her bedroom’s full-length mirror and regarded herself curiously. It was as though she were looking at a painting of someone else—a tall, showy beauty to whom the artist had capriciously added freckles, red hair and then, as a final joke, her tiny, tilted nose. Whatever Miss Steele might say, she couldn’t view these features as anything but an unfortunate disfigurement. And her body, whew! In the past, her clothes had been concerned with covering her body. This gown seemed to have been designed to reveal it. She was not used to seeing the graceful curves of her body so exposed, and to her, there was something almost obscene in their sudden disclosure. She decided that she looked like what Zack had wanted her to become, and this accorded so ill with her self-image that she began to feel like the sparrow who tied a daisy to her tail and tried to impersonate a peacock.
These unhappy thoughts were interrupted by Antoinette, who came to anno
unce that Lord Linden was below and requested the pleasure of a few words with Mademoiselle. Would Mademoiselle care to accompany her downstairs? The last thing Katie wanted was to have Lord Linden see her in a get-up that she considered patently dedecorous, so she followed Antoinette reluctantly, stopping first to grab an eiderdown comforter from her bed and wrap it tightly about her shoulders. Antoinette shook her head and muttered something under her breath but forbore to do more than admonish Katie not to disarrange her coiffure.
Lord Linden was waiting in Laurel’s small, walled garden, leaning back against a columnar pedestal supporting an antique stone urn. Beside the rather angular symmetry of the formal garden, he appeared somehow even more raffish than usual. He turned at the sound of Katie’s footsteps and the hushed whiff of the comforter dragging the ground. Slowly, Lord Linden absorbed the splendid, artless arrangement of her soft hair, the tightly clutched covering, and the woebegone distress on her exquisite features.
“Poor Katie. Did they misuse you then, child?” asked Linden, his eyes so filled with sympathetic understanding that Katie’s heart lurched sideways. She nodded, biting her lip.
“How unhappy you look. But it had to be, my infant. It’s a censorious world, and wearing the clothing of the opposite sex is rather frowned upon.” He patted her cheek gently. “Now, sweetheart, this is after all a Christian nation so there is no need for you to affect purdah just because you’ve readopted woman’s clothing. You’ll boil in that comforter, darling, so let me take it away and set it inside while we talk.”
“To own the truth, my lord, I don’t like to be without it, because you see, underneath…”
“I don’t see underneath, my little fawn, but I should very much like to. Are you shy with me, child?”
“No. Well, perhaps. Laurel burned my own dresses. She said they looked like rags; then she made me wear one of hers and it makes me look hatefully… lumpy. And it shows most of my chest,” said Katie, her brow knit. “Lord Linden, would you like it if someone made you wear a dress like that?”
Linden couldn’t help the appreciative smile that sparkled in his eyes. “It would be disconcerting, I’ll admit. But then, my dainty Kate,” he said lightly, “I’m not a woman.” He took one of Katie’s pretty hands and raised it carefully to his lips. “And you are.”
Katie gazed innocently into his eyes. “But I don’t feel like a woman.”
It would have been very much to Lord Linden’s taste to assist Katie toward her realization of that goal, so it was not without a severe struggle with himself that he released Katie’s hand and said, with studied nonchalance, “Never fear, you’ll get in the way of it soon. Hand me that thing, that’s a good girl. Now see, was that so… my God!” The Bad Baron’s daughter had been a pretty boy, but the stylish gown transformed her into a marvel of nature. Laurel had certainly been correct in her observation that Katie had whatever it was that men liked. Lord Linden controlled himself with difficulty. Dragging his sight away from Katie, he went through the opened veranda doors, dropped the comforter over the arm of a settee, and tossed off a quick glass of cognac before returning to his too tempting protegee.
Taking her bare arm, Linden led Katie down the narrow walk of crushed white stone that terminated in a trimly painted arbor. Pink climbing roses had been trained up the Chinese lattice sides and the sunlight flickered through to cast dappled shadows on Katie’s fine-boned cheeks as she sat on the cool marble bench beneath. A small box elder tenanted one corner of the garden and among its glossy, dark green leaves, Katie saw a goldfinch entertaining the garden with its golden song. Lord Linden joined her on the bench.
“Laurel made me take a bath this morning,” said Katie, to break the silence. “I’m afraid that I wasn’t very good.”
“Dear me,” said Linden, smiling with lazy good humor. “I hope you struggled like an unbroken filly.”
“I did. But Laurel didn’t like that much. She said that I looked like something from the circus and that you’ll have to buy her a tiara. Oh, and Antoinette’s told Laurel’s servants that I am Laurel’s cousin from the country. Do you think they’ll believe that?”
“Not for a minute, but don’t let that trouble you; they’ll pretend to. Do you like Laurel?”
“Not really,” said Katie honestly. “She pinches. Hits, too!” she added, remembering her slapped cheek.
“Hit her back,” he recommended without hesitation. “That’s what I did.”
Katie regarded Linden with awe. “Did it work?”
“She’s never raised a finger to me since.” Linden grinned engagingly. “You see what a black-hearted wretch I am, petite. And speaking of wretches, I visited our friend from the cock pit this morning to see if he was the gentleman trying to renew his acquaintance with you last night.”
“Nasty Ned? Oh, you went into the Rookery? Do you think it was him?”
Linden observed his companion pensively. How much to tell her? Nasty Ned had been deferential, cowed by Linden’s presence, and seemingly eager to please but not ultimately forthcoming with much information. As Linden had begun to suspect, Ned’s attacks on Katie had not been accidents of an unfriendly fate. Ned had been retained to seek Katie out at The Merry Maidenhead and cause a fracas that should end with Katie’s closing her eyes for the last time. But as for trying to break into his lordship’s house, that was something he’d never do, he wasn’t no bloody cracksman, beggin’ his lordship’s pardon, he hadn’t no quarrel with no one no more, being easy to get along with. Who had paid him? “A cove,” said Ned. “Jest a bloke. Oi niver seed ‘im before, nor since either, for that matter.”
The bluish-gray back of a nuthatch flashed in the sun as it hopped through a golden bed of dwarf chrysanthemums. Linden studied the high, fragile cheekbones of the lovely girl beside him and decided to keep the full truth from her. The load on her young shoulders was already heavy enough.
“No, it wasn’t him.”
“I’ve thought about it this morning and I haven’t even a grain of insight into it,” said Katie seriously. “I’m a deal of trouble to you. You can’t like that.”
“I don’t,” he said frankly. “All the same, I’ll feel guilty as hell if I don’t make a push to protect you. Your defenses are about as developed as those of a newborn chick.”
The blue eyes widened in protest. “Oh, no, my lord. You’ve gotten a bad impression because I’ve been in this trouble with Nasty Ned. In general I can take care of myself very well. I’ve always taken care of myself. I think it’s only that I’m country bred and not used to the way of things in London yet. I daresay I’ll find my feet soon, don’t you?”
“No,” said Linden bluntly. “I think that if I put you back on the streets you wouldn’t last the hour. Who ever told you that you were qualified to take care of yourself?”
“Papa.”
“I might have known,” said Linden, with some bitterness. “Papa. I’d like to put that man on a slow boat to Babylon. If I ever find him.”
Chapter Eight
Of all the hazards surrounding the sojourn of a virtuous young lady at the establishment of an infamous Cyprian, probably the least expected would be boredom. Yet it was boredom that had driven Katie into Laurel’s library by the evening of her third day there.
Of Laurel, she had seen little. Her hostess went out constantly: to parties, to the opera, to ride in the park. Sometimes visitors came. Peeking between the draperies, Katie could see coaches arriving, filled with dazzlingly gowned ladies escorted by well-tailored gentlemen. Antoinette would whisk Katie into her bedroom, and the ground floor of Laurel’s townhouse would be filled with malicious chatter and laughter, then the visitors would leave to flutter away like a flock of aggressive, restless starlings, leaving the house quiet except for the barely heard rattle of crockery from the kitchens.
Katie began to feel the confines of the city. In the country, she had walked and dreamed for hours, following tracks that travelled from shallow wooded valleys to meadow hilltops, carpeted
in lacy veins of nodding oxlip and butterfly orchids.
Or there had been chores to do at the cottage. They had owned horses when her father’s luck was good. These had to be curried and fed and their stalls cleaned. She had done the housework, too, and the cooking, with an untrained, incompetent enthusiasm, like a child playing house. In the heat of the afternoon, Katie would cover her feet to the ankles in a swift stream and then lie under a dripping willow and read novelettes from the circulating library. It had been an isolated life, at times acutely lonely, but there had been occupation. And without occupation the hours seemed to spin out dizzily before her, to be filled with worry and longing.
Katie liked Laurel’s library; it was decorated in a style la Steele fondly called Egyptian and Lord Linden unfondly called garbage. There was a marble table with crocodile feet, gilt sphinx-shaped stools and several large statues of scantily clad women playing harps. Katie had pulled a slender, leather-bound volume from the shelves; the gold lettering on the binding read, tantalizingly, “The delightful Aspect of the Male Form.” Katie was about to open to the title page when Laurel passed by the library, glanced in at Katie, and gasped.
“Oh, no you don’t, Little Miss Scandal Broth!” Laurel took the book abruptly from Katie and slid it back in place. “That’s no book for a baron’s daughter, no matter how bad he might be.”
“Is it improper?” asked Katie.
“Grossly!”
“Oh.” Katie sank to a sphinx stool and ran her fingers over the lion’s mane armrest. “Do you have anything I could read that’s not improper?”
Laurel gave a thrill of laughter. “What? Cookery books? Bedtime tales? Gardening hints? Of course not. Can’t you sew a sampler or something?”