Wrapped

by Jennifer Bradbury

  “I don’t know that I’d say that,” I protested.

  “Of course you wouldn’t, but you don’t have to,” she said, adding, “He did. And he’s so young—”

  “He’s twenty-six, Julia, near ten years older than the both of us.”

  “I’ll be fortunate to land one only twenty years my senior. And not half so handsome in the bargain.”

  Handsome? Showalter was tall and lean, no hint of a belly beneath his waistcoat. He had all his hair, and everyone spoke highly of his fine teeth and easy smile.

  But did I find him handsome?

  He wasn’t awful. But he certainly wasn’t a Mr. Darcy. There was nothing brooding or mysterious about Showalter. Still, perhaps a Darcy in fiction was better than one in reality. Because life with such a man as that could be hard, despite its pleasures. Maybe Mother and Rupert were right: A Lady had poisoned me. Perhaps what I really needed was a kind, simple fellow—a Bingley—rather than one who incensed me to passion or anger by turns like Mr. Darcy had Elizabeth.

  I didn’t want to think of it any longer. “Have you been here all evening? I didn’t see you arrive.”

  She nodded. “Yes, well, my chaperone put us a bit late arriving because she couldn’t find her shawl, but I’ve been here. Was it awful, by the way?”

  “I’ve not seen your chaperone or her shawl,” I offered lamely.

  “The mummy, Agnes. It looks ghastly.”

  “Not as ghastly as using it for entertainment,” I said under my breath, eliciting a snort from Julia.

  “Well, when you’re mistress of this place, you can insist on croquet or lawn bowling—something less sinister.”

  I didn’t want to insist on anything as mistress of this house. I tried to wrest the subject away once more.

  “Where is your chaperone now?” I asked.

  She glanced round. “Talking to your father.”

  I looked and saw Emmaline Perkins, a stylish widow, bending Father’s ear. He listened politely, but I could tell by his expression that his mind was elsewhere.

  “And yours?” Julia asked me.

  “Napping inside, perhaps,” I said.

  Father abhorred the practice of hiring chaperones to arrange matches and generally keep girls like Julia and me in check. But Mother—and custom—dictated I have one. Father managed to persuade her that his ancient aunt Rachel would be just the person. Aunt Rachel wouldn’t do much to secure a match, but she also hadn’t gotten in the way of my studies. Mother had worried that a less vivacious chaperone might place me at some disadvantage, but Father teased that his money and title were enough to draw interest.

  I just hadn’t counted on them drawing interest so quickly.

  “Lucky,” Julia said, shaking her head lightly. “Oh, Agnes, I envy you.”

  “Well, she’s still a chaperone,” I said. “I’m supposed to drag her around with me during the day. And by God she moves slowly.”

  “It isn’t only that your chaperone is so easy to evade,” Julia interrupted. “You belong here. I feel utterly out of place in all this.” She cast her eyes on her own new dress—a perfectly nice frock of pink silk—and waved her glass of sherry toward the crowd.

  “I assure you I don’t fit at all,” I said. “And you look ravishing, by the way.”

  She smiled. “As ravishing as I can when I weigh a stone under what I ought. Mother swears she’ll have me eating nothing but honey and goose fat if I don’t have my court dress filled out by next week’s fitting.”

  “She’s mad,” I said. “You’re perfect.”

  “I’m far from that, but I’ll do fine. Still, I’m glad you’ll be clearing off so soon. The rest of us will have a hard time finding husbands until the men are all convinced you’re spoken for.”

  “Really, Julia—”

  “Stop being modest. It merely adds to your already lengthy list of things I wish I were.” She shook her head gently, the smile on her face shifting a little.

  “I feel about as natural here as a pig in church.”

  “Well it doesn’t show. And I’ve never seen so many men staring at a pig.” She nodded to the guests.

  I was having difficulty breathing.

  “At least there’s one eligible young man who doesn’t fancy you,” she added, nodding toward the mummy, where Rupert presided over the extraction of a small figurine from the body, something looking like actual flesh now peeking from the wrappings at the feet.

  “Quite right about that,” I said. “Though I can’t imagine anyone fancying him.” I huddled close to Julia to share Rupert’s latest misadventure, one involving a goat and a statue in Covent Garden. “Did you hear—,” I began, but stopped when I saw her expression.

  She was looking at me wide-eyed, expectant, but more than that, a little caught out. “Oh,” was all I managed.

  Julia nodded, this time her cheeks growing pink. “Mother’s convinced he’s a good match for me. Lady Perkins is working toward it already.”

  “Oh,” I repeated. Julia was a lovely girl. Smart and genuine and kind.

  Everything Rupert wasn’t. I couldn’t make myself imagine them together.

  But I knew the rules, and imagination rarely entered into things. Julia’s father was a successful merchant and manufacturer, and though they had money, they had no title. Father had lands and a title and a seat in the House of Lords, all making Rupert something of the best-case scenario for someone like Julia.

  “He’s a decent sort of man,” she said, though I could tell she was fishing for reassurance.

  I hesitated. “He is,” I said carefully. “Mother always says he possesses enough of my father’s good attributes to make her hopeful. She seems to think he needs only the right sort of woman to refine those qualities.”

  Mrs. Perkins appeared suddenly at our sides. “Miss Wilkins, always stealing the show, aren’t we?”

  “I’ve done nothing like,” I said to the woman, whose husband’s death had left her with just enough to be independent, but not enough to live in style.

  “Come along, Julia,” she ordered. “I’ve arranged for you to take a turn next at the body.”

  “Mrs. Perkins is only nervous because next to you, I make a poor comparison,” Julia said with mock sincerity. “She knows that next to a corpse I shall fare much better.”

  “Stop it, Julia!” I pleaded, but Mrs. Perkins whisked her away, her shawl a storm cloud of gray silk.

  Before anyone else could waylay me with gossip or questions about my dress, I headed into the gardens.

  A waiter—not one I recognized—intercepted me as I sought refuge in the cooler region of the shrubbery, far from the party.

  “Champagne, miss?” he asked me, eyeing my chest and bodice in a manner I’d have thought bold in one above his station, much less a servant borrowed from another household to cover the party. They must have scrambled to find him, as his coat sleeves were shamefully short, even for a servant. I waved him off and continued walking.

  A few minutes’ stroll brought me to the center of the gardens. I leaned against another of Showalter’s acquisitions. In the moonlight, it looked like little more than the stump of a large, squarish tree. But the granite surface was dimpled with carvings, all radiating the remains of the sun’s heat. More hieroglyphics, as unintelligible as the scroll they’d pored over back at the party. The granite pedestal now sported a mirrored gazing ball.

  In the borrowed light, I studied my own reflection. I saw a version of my mother, the arched brow vaulting over each green eye, the nose I thought too sharp on me, but elegant on her. Even my mouth was hers, the upper lip somehow off balance with the lower, a perpetual pout. Only my hair was different: Mother’s was fine and blond, mine halfway between David’s brown and Father’s red, a handful of my curls already springing free from the small golden circlet Clarisse had pinned there a few hours ago.

  I did look the part. And in a sense Julia was right. It was my birthright to marry well and fall easily into the life my mother had liv
ed before me, that she’d been planning for me since the cradle.

  Would it be with Showalter?

  Was the unrest stirring in my belly now a product of my nerves at so imminent and likely a match? Or was it the first fluttering of something more like affection?

  Did it matter?

  I traced the reflection of an oak behind me in the orb’s shining surface. Its limbs were elongated and distorted by the curve of the ball. I ran my finger down the straight trunk as it sank into the ground.

  Finding no answer to my question, or fearing the answer I might settle on, I resolved to return to the party and hoped Mother hadn’t noticed my absence. But as I pushed off the pedestal, I caught movement.

  Before I had a chance to decide it was just a bird or a squirrel skulking in the brush, I caught the unmistakable reflection of someone in a red frock coat stepping quietly from the oak’s shadow to crouch behind an overgrown hydrangea in full blossom.

  I froze. Terror born of the realization that I was not alone, had not been for some time, overrode every thought.

  And then my mind began to race, keeping time with my pounding heart. That coat was the uniform of the serving staff. I realized that it was likely the very waiter who’d eyed me so lasciviously as I fled the party.

  Why had I wandered so far?

  The music from the party would surely drown my scream. I’d only succeed in signaling to this man that I was aware of his presence, possibly forcing him to act more rashly and quickly than he already intended.

  And if I turned around and ran back to the party, he would easily intercept me.

  Which left me only one option.

  Chapter Four

  Long before Showalter had come to London and made the Park his home, I’d spent hours straying from my own gardens through gaps in the hedgerows to those of our neighbors. I’d explored the wilds of these gardens, dodging the torments of a governess or my brothers. If I could get far enough away from my pursuer, I was sure I could disappear into the tangle nearer the river.

  But I’d have no chance to hide if I couldn’t convince my pursuer that I wasn’t fleeing from him. So instead of sprinting away, I let my hand linger on the warm glass of the ball, then walked past it, farther into the garden.

  I placed each footfall deliberately, slowly, my beaded slippers crunching politely on the groomed pathway as I fought the urge to look behind me. Around the first bend in the path, I stepped casually onto the mossy shoulder. Faintly behind me, I heard the careful placement of boots as their wearer tried vainly to step without dislodging the loose gravel.

  As I rounded another twist in the path, I sidestepped from the shoulder, picked my way over a bed of ferns, and ducked behind a boulder so massive that the gardeners had been forced to landscape around it.

  Moments later I saw the waiter slipping from tree to tree on the opposite side of the path. He was indeed the man who’d eyed me so boldly.

  I let thirty feet or so unspool between us before even allowing myself to breathe. When he disappeared around a bend in the path, heading for the river, I realized I was shaking.

  I began to move again, angling back toward the path and the pillar where I’d first discovered him, trying to slow the racing of my heart. Once within sight of the party, and back on the main pathway, I allowed myself a glance back. The moonlight shone full on the groomed landscape, no trace of the man anywhere.

  I paused at the hedge and peered through the lattice of leaves. The other guests were still clustered around the mummy. I patted my hair, winced as I flicked away a thorn embedded in my arm, and smoothed the front of my dress.

  The greater problem of what and whom to tell of my misadventure in the garden remained. Mother would be embarrassed enough that I’d slipped away unchaperoned, and the notion of a strange man following me in the bargain might be more than she could bear. And Father would certainly gather men to find the waiter, to make him explain himself. I imagined the scene that might result, the shadow that would descend over the party, and it would be all my fault. Even worse, I’d once again be the center of attention when all I’d wanted was a moment to go unnoticed.

  On top of it all, it was possible that the man in the red coat wasn’t even following me, had meant me no ill. Maybe he was simply going into the garden to meet a serving girl. Rupert would certainly chastise me for my vivid imagination. And if Showalter caught wind of one of his staff shirking duty, then he’d have even more reason to speak to me.

  But for all the good reasons I gave myself not to tell someone, my nerves would not quiet themselves. I would tell Father, but in the morning.

  As I drew closer to the fire-lit circle, I realized that people were gathered not around the mummy, but rather Showalter.

  Mother intercepted me as she saw me approach. The edge of her gown bore a silk brocade featuring—of all things—the silhouettes of tiny Egyptian figures, their angular bodies perched on straight-backed thrones, pointing flattened hands from the ends of arms bent in impossible directions. Her hair, shot through at the temples with the faintest ribbons of silver, remained as expertly arranged as Clarisse had left it, her matching golden circlet like a halo. I brushed my skirts and pretended to see the wrinkle or spot my mother had surely already observed.

  “We’ve discussed this behavior,” she whispered as she eyed my dress before taking my arm. “Skulking away . . . where is the book?”

  “Book? I wasn’t reading, Mother! I just went for a short walk—”

  “Whatever you’re doing, you’re neglecting your duty.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked, noticing that the music had ceased.

  “Something is wrong,” she said. “Showalter has just returned. Come!” She dragged me by the hand toward the crowd.

  “I’m sorry I cannot tell you more,” Showalter was saying as he tugged at his cravat. “But I’ve just received word that this particular mummy is in fact a very important find.”

  Thrilled gasps rippled out from the partygoers as they surged closer to the body. The leathery skin of the mummy’s stomach now peeked through the linen wrappings, and one eye peered out emptily at the sky. Despite the warm summer air, the flesh of my bare arms prickled.

  “The specimen my colleagues at the British Museum received this afternoon was the one that was to have been delivered here. There has been a terrible confusion.”

  I searched the crowd for the waiter from the garden. He was not among the faces gathered around the table.

  Showalter allowed us all a moment to enjoy our proximity to so valuable an artifact. “As you all are no doubt aware, I take my patronage of the British Museum as both a patriotic and a scientific duty, and it grieves me that we may have disturbed a mummy that bears so much”—he paused here, to scan our faces and smile weakly—“significance.”

  I looked around at the crowd of friends and neighbors, some of whom were speculating that a pharaoh could be in their midst. What could be more significant than that? But still they stared in amazement at our host, and I wondered if they might look to me with the same eager fascination that they bestowed on Showalter if he indeed offered for me. But the thought was cut short when I caught sight of a flash of red and the profile of the very waiter who’d been following me. My heart quickened anew as I watched him slip around to the front of the house. I turned back quickly and willed Showalter to finish so that I might convince Father to take us home.

  But Showalter loved little more than an audience. As he went on, I noticed his valet, Tanner, staring toward the corner of the house where my pursuer had just disappeared. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot as he stepped quietly from his master’s side and stalked away.

  “So if you will all be so kind as to return any discoveries you may have found in the wrappings to the table, I’ll have them delivered to the museum with haste. I’m terribly sorry, and I assure you we will have a second gathering with a more appropriate specimen later this summer.”

  Sir Joseph Cargill—who was reliably drunk
hours before anyone ever caught up to him at parties—applauded awkwardly at Showalter’s speech. But Lord Showalter didn’t look the part he usually played. He glanced around nervously, then asked with absolute agitation in his voice, “Where on earth is that whelp who was meant to be cataloging these things?”

  “I’m here, sir,” came a voice from below the table on the opposite side. He rose, a pile of linen folded as carefully as he could manage in his hands. “The linen, sir,” he began, “we use it to verify locations and cond—”

  “I know what you use it for,” Showalter snapped. “Make yourself useful and scurry on back to the museum to prepare—”

  “But Lord Showalter, procedure . . . you see . . . science even . . . dictates that—”

  “I’ve given you instructions simple enough for even you to follow,” Showalter said. “Do not embarrass yourself further in front of your betters.”

  The boy’s face fell as the linen spilled from his hands. He turned, retrieved his ledger, and began his retreat from the garden.

  I was shocked at this manifestation of Showalter’s temper. Without thinking, I whispered under my breath, “Il est un brute.”

  Showalter looked up and fixed a bemused smile on me. “He is a rough beast of a thing, is he not?”

  Now I found myself surprised at both the strength of his hearing and his facility with French. The young man paused, turned, and looked even more humiliated than he had before. I was desperate to explain myself, eager to make sure the kind-faced young man understood that my insult had been directed at Showalter’s treatment of him.

  But he disappeared before I had a chance to speak.

  Showalter had already forgotten him as he addressed us once again. “I’m most disappointed that our evening must end prematurely. I’ve sent my footman round to gather your coachmen and ready the carriages.” He sounded once again like himself, but there was something else there behind the swagger.