by Erica Ridley
Her time was spent being a lady. Morning calls, a promenade in Hyde Park, then a supper party, followed by the opera or a ball… Perhaps she’d sneak away for a moment to paint. Or if her mother saw her, she was doomed to dedicate half an hour of the day’s best light to studious embroidery in the front parlor, to increase their already inexhaustible supply of delicate whitework handkerchiefs.
It was busy, but it was not busy. It was fifteen hours of eating, drinking, and changing clothes, followed by a good night’s sleep. It was neither meaningful nor particularly exhausting, and Belle would not have interrupted this easy meal with Mr. McAlistair to hurry back to any part of her very important normal life.
She tried not to let it sting that he did not feel the same. If he’d known she was Lady Isabelle... but of course she did not wish to trap him here with her title. She’d hoped he’d want to linger for her.
Foolishness. Every man who had ever sought her presence did so due to proximity to a title, a desire for her dowry, or because he was a paid servant obliged to dote on her every whim. She was Mrs. Lépine now. What had she expected?
“I understand,” she said smoothly, rising to her feet before he had a chance to. “I am very busy as well. I must return to my routine.”
The latter, at least, was true enough. Although she had the mantle of Independent Widow to hide behind, maintaining her respectability was paramount no matter what one’s marital status. Pie and ale had been diverting, but it was time to quit Mr. McAlistair’s fine company and have a maid or a footman escort her to room number eighteen.
She glanced about for a maid or footman.
She found neither.
The dining room was not as crowded as before, although still only staffed by the same sole serving girl.
Belle cleared her throat the next time the girl dashed by.
The serving girl did not slow or in any way indicate she had discerned any special meaning from the loud sounds coming from Belle’s throat.
Instead, she made six more trips between the bar, the kitchen, and the tables, delivering ten pies and twenty ales faster than Belle could produce a serviceable chain stitch with needle and cloth.
Food and drink delivered, the serving girl materialized before Belle without the need of a second discreet throat-clearing.
“Yes’m?” Her tone and restless gaze implied Belle had approximately ten seconds to make her requests known.
“Is there a maid?” she asked quickly. “Or a footman?”
The serving girl made a slow blink. “Oh, your trunks, of course. Yes, they’re up in your guest chamber. The kitchen opens at half past six every morning. Anything else?”
“Is a maid or footman here now?” Belle tilted her head toward the exit. “To help me to my room?”
The serving girl darted a glance over her shoulder at the window to the kitchen before answering. “What is the number of your chamber?”
Belle lowered her voice so no one else would overhear. “Eighteen.”
“Ah, eighteen.” The girl repeated the number without altering her volume. “Third floor, left-hand side, second-to-last door. Is that all?”
“Another ale,” shouted a male voice.
“Make it a round for the table,” called another.
“I just...” Belle plucked at her fingers. “When might someone be available to escort me?”
The serving girl stared at her as if she’d never before heard that series of words strung together like that.
“I’ll do it,” Mr. McAlistair assured the girl. “Go on. You’re busy.”
Belle pressed her lips together tight to keep from pointing out that the reason an unaccompanied woman required an escort to her rented chambers was so it did not look as though she were slinking off to spend a torrid evening with a man she’d met an hour earlier. Independent Widows had reputations to mind, too.
But there was no maid, no footman, and the serving girl was already off filling new jugs of ale. She was just as busy as Mr. McAlistair professed to be.
“Never mind me,” she told him. “I can find room eighteen on my own.”
“I’ve no doubt. But you might as well follow me.” He held up a brass key. “I’m in nineteen.”
Of course he was.
She did not take his elbow—not that he’d proffered it—and fell into step in as respectable a distance as possible, given two people climbing the same set of narrow stairs side by side. In other words, the twilled skirt of her silk traveling dress kept brushing against his muscled calves, while his light scent of bergamot and sandalwood seeped into her very bones, like a luxurious steamy bath in the springtime.
That was what she needed. A nice, long, solitary soak, to wash the day’s highs and lows from her hair and remind herself just who and where she was.
When they reached the third-floor landing, she gave a crisp, “Good night, Mr. McAlistair,” as if she had not spent the past ten minutes deeply inhaling his intoxicating scent, and set about opening her door.
His room was next door. The furthest guest chamber on their side of the corridor. He would be right on the other side of their shared wall.
She wished she did not know that.
“Good night, Mrs. Lépine,” came his delicious, low, gravelly voice.
Belle flung herself into her room, shut the door, and collapsed against it until her pulse returned to a sedate pace.
She was being silly. Father would say of course she was being silly; all females were silly. Mother’s eyes would go a little hard, and she would counter that their daughter was not silly, just... peculiar. Belle had been an odd fish since birth. They should know what one could expect of her by now.
None of which was helpful. Their lack of faith that she could be anything other than a pretty ornament only made her wish to prove them wrong all the more.
She straightened her spine. Although she would never confess that she’d spent a day or two disguised as a widow of means, Belle could take this opportunity to prove to herself that she could absolutely be capable and independent.
Mrs. Lépine could do anything.
Beginning with calling a bath.
Belle glanced about the chamber in dismay. Mrs. Price had not exaggerated when she’d warned the last room was the smallest one. It contained a narrow bed, a slender table just wide enough for a bowl and pitcher, one lackluster window...
And all four of Belle’s traveling trunks.
“There’s always room for a bath,” she muttered to herself, and tugged the worn bell pull hanging between the cramped bed and the small table.
What there wasn’t room for was Ursula. Belle hoped her maid was comfortable in the sickroom. Even if she gave Ursula the bed and Belle slept on the worn floor between the trunks, there was little she could offer Ursula in the way of comfort in this tiny room. At first light, Belle would visit the sickroom to check on Ursula and ensure she was fed properly and had books and magazines or anything else she desired.
In the meantime, Belle simply had to survive the night. Alone.
Whilst she awaited a servant to heed her call, she set about pushing her heavy trunks against the walls to create more space. A lady would have waited for a footman to do such a task. Mrs. Lépine was not so helpless.
Trunks thus arranged, Belle pressed her ear to her door to listen for footsteps. How long had it been since she’d rung the bell pull? Ten minutes? Fifteen? This wasn’t like at home, she reminded herself. Nor was it anything like Marlowe Castle, where most travelers to Cressmouth spent their holiday. Perhaps all the staff were busy assisting other guests. It was a full house, was it not? Mrs. Lépine would be patient.
And Belle would use the unexpected time to paint. She pulled her traveling easel from her trunk of art supplies and locked it in its upright position. Instead of canvases, she’d brought thick sheets of Arches gelatin-sealed paper—perfect for dashing off a quick watercolor of a lively outdoor scene.
She peeked through the curtains to see what delights awaited her
artist’s eye.
Bricks. Bricks awaited. Her window was six feet from the building next door. She could reach out and join hands with the neighbor opposite, if the windows had lined up. Instead, she had a view of absolutely nothing, blurred slightly by the falling snow, and the growing accumulation of frost creeping from the perimeter of the window.
She dropped the curtain and turned back to her easel. Just because she always painted outdoor scenes did not mean she literally had to be looking at one while she painted. She had an imagination, didn’t she? Mrs. Lépine would not allow a lack of sweeping views to suppress her art.
Neither would Belle. She glanced about for a stool or chair before remembering there was none, then dragged her easel over to the bed and perched on the edge of the mattress.
It squeaked.
She froze. Had Mr. McAlistair heard the squeak of her mattress? Well, what if he did? These were bedchambers full of people sleeping in beds. Mr. McAlistair might be slipping into his just on the other side of the wall.
“Do not think about that,” Belle told herself sternly. “It is of no interest to you what sort of nightclothes Mr. McAlistair might be donning at this very moment.”
In fact, she would do well not to have any further contact with him. What would be the point? It could lead nowhere, and besides, he was a very busy man. She would put him right out of her mind for the rest of her short stay in Houville.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, followed by a soft knock. Finally, she could order a hot bath! Belle hurried to the door and threw it open wide.
No one was there.
Had she imagined the footsteps? Frowning, she stepped into the corridor.
Mr. McAlistair stood two yards away, accepting a large parcel from a maid.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the maid was saying. “This arrived hours ago, but it got set aside during the supper rush and I only just now remembered.”
“Thank you.” Mr. McAlistair dropped a coin into the woman’s hand. “I’ve only just arrived back to my chamber myself.”
He glanced over the maid’s shoulder and trapped Belle in his dark gaze.
Her cheeks flushed with heat.
“Er,” she said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. Well, not on purpose. I had rung my bell pull some time ago, and...”
Her words trailed off. There was no chance of her mentioning taking a bath in Mr. McAlistair’s hearing.
“How can I help you, ma’am?” asked the maid.
Now that she stepped closer, Belle could see the girl was much younger than she’d first seemed. Exhaustion lined her face and cast purple shadows beneath her eyes.
She waited until Mr. McAlistair carried his parcel into his chamber before responding to the maid’s question.
“Can you please have someone bring up a hot bath?”
The maid squinted at her. “Tonight?”
Belle nodded. “I would have called for one sooner, but I was famished when I arrived, and I...”
The girl made a pained expression. “I’ll tell the footmen at once, but we’re down two maids and a hall boy, thanks to the influenza—”
“Two maids?” Belle repeated. “I thought it was only one, other than my own.”
“It was one, until just past twilight, and we’ll be lucky to survive the night without adding one more to the list. Your bath will be up as soon as possible, but you might have to wait a few hours.”
A lady would demand a bath at the earliest convenience, and wait up all night for it if she had to—likely because she’d be up all night dancing.
Mrs. Lépine, however, would not seek to add to a problem.
“Do you know what?” Belle rooted in her reticule for a coin and pressed it into the maid’s hand. “Forget about tonight. Can you please see that a hot bath is brought up in the morning? Anytime after eight will do.”
The girl’s eyes widened at the sight of the gold crown in her palm. “Yes, madam. I’ll see to it myself, madam. Have a very good night indeed!”
Belle watched in pleased amusement as the maid dashed off down the corridor and clattered down the stairs as if afraid Belle might change her mind about the vail and switch the crown for a penny.
Only when the girl was out of sight did Belle realize there was no chance of undoing the rear closure of her expensive traveling dress without an extra pair of hands.
“Wait!” She sprinted toward the stairwell in panic, but it was too late.
The maid was gone.
Belle clenched the wooden banister until her knuckles paled white. There she went again, thinking. She’d thought to be considerate of the servants in general, and kind to this maid in specific, but she hadn’t thought about the four layers of clothing she couldn’t undo by herself.
Could she do anything by herself? It was so hard not to get discouraged. She’d been Mrs. Lépine for all of two hours, without a maid for the first time in her life, and already she was blundering and helpless. Just when she’d promised herself she could prove how capable and independent she could be if given half a chance.
Throat pricking with frustration, she turned from the stairs—
To find Mr. McAlistair standing just outside his bedroom door.
The parcel was gone. He was still in his evening dress, looking every inch the perfectly groomed Town rake on the cusp of taking a ballroom by storm.
Belle, no doubt, looked like a ragged mop in a fancy gown.
“May I be of service, Mrs. Lépine?”
It was his kindness that made her throat swell and her eyes sting. She’d humiliated herself enough in the past few moments. She would not compound the mortification by admitting her failings to him.
“No, thank you,” she said as pertly as she could, though she could not make herself look him in the eyes. “I’m exhausted, Mr. McAlistair. I’ll bid you a good night.”
She made her way as far as the threshold to her rented chamber before she heard his voice again.
“Would you like some help with those fastenings?”
“No!” She spun to face him in horror, her heart clanging in embarrassment. How had he known? “All is well, thank you. I’ll deal with my fastenings myself.”
“You’ll deal with a thin row of buttons down your spine yourself,” he said in the same disbelieving tone her father might have used for, You think you can do sums in your head?
Father was wrong. Belle could absolutely do sums in her head.
Mr. McAlistair was right. The only way out of this gown was with the help of a lady’s maid or a pair of shears.
“I’m not inviting myself into your bedchamber,” he said quickly.
The thought hadn’t crossed Belle’s mind, but now that he’d put it there, she was fairly certain the catching of her breath had less to do with alarm at the idea of him touching her and more with the wonder of what his hands might feel like, brushing against her skin.
“N-no,” she croaked. Definitely not an avenue she wished to pursue.
“We could stand out here in the corridor,” he offered. “I could loosen it enough for you to manage the rest yourself.”
That would be infinitely helpful... and unforgivably embarrassing. Even under a pseudonym, there was no possibility of Belle allowing a man to partially undress her in public.
Or in private, she reminded herself hastily. Mr. McAlistair’s strong hands weren’t coming anywhere near the fastenings of her dress.
“I enjoy sleeping in my gown,” she blurted out. “A maid will help me in the morning.”
He lifted a handsome shoulder. “As you wish.”
But as Belle laid stiffly atop her unfamiliar bed with her stays’ strips of whalebone digging into her flesh, what she wished for most was not her maid or a bath or even the feel of Mr. McAlistair’s fingers grazing her spine.
She wished he could think of her as independent and capable.
Chapter 4
Belle did not bounce out of bed in the morning. She couldn’t bounce anywhere.
The whalebo
ne stays dug into her skin and she’d been both too uncomfortable and too nervous to move, lest she ruin her gown. The traveling dress had been designed for a sedate carriage ride, not the nocturnal flailing of a restless sleeper. She could not risk rending the fabric. Possessing enough coin to commission a new wardrobe was no help when she couldn’t even rid herself of the dress she had on.
Should she have accepted her handsome new acquaintance’s offer of help? No, definitely not. She could manage on her own. Or rather, with the maid who had promised to send up a hot bath in the morning. Belle’s muscles ached at the thought of a nice long soak.
“Soon,” she mumbled to herself.
What time was it? She glanced about for a clock, but there was none. Blearily, she stumbled to her reticule and fished out her pocket watch. A quarter to seven. No wonder it was still dark. The sun would not fully rise for another hour.
She tugged the bellpull to alert the maid that she had awoken early and was ready for her bath, then pushed open the curtain covering her small window. Most of the glass was etched with frost, but enough light filtered through to recognize falling snow.
Perhaps children would be playing in the square. Did Houville have a square? Belle knew little to nothing about this small village. If Ursula was feeling better, perhaps they could have a stroll after breakfast before heading on to Cressmouth. She and Ursula both enjoyed exploring the parks and gardens of London. It would be heaven to stretch their legs before piling back into the carriage.
Oh, how Ursula would laugh when Belle told her of her troubles! Ursula would say, Now you see how indispensable I am! but of course Belle had always known. They had been inseparable since long before Belle’s come-out. Not just with the arranging of hair and the constant changing of gowns. Ursula was her companion, her chaperone, her friend. Today was the first time Belle woke up all alone. At home, Ursula slept in the adjoining chamber, but here, the only person on the other side of the wall was...
Mr. McAlistair. Whom Belle definitely was not still thinking about.
“I’ll prove it,” she said to the empty room.
No—not to the empty room. She would proceed as if Ursula were here and could hear her, and perhaps then Belle wouldn’t feel so alone and lonely.