Masquerade (5 page)

“Do calm yourself, daughter,” her father said. “We shan’t talk to you when you’re in such a state.”

“I’m in such a state because of you.”

“Watch yourself …”

It was good advice. Lottie knew her parents and knew the way to handle them was through gentle persuasion, not outright confrontation. While moving to a chair, she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the fireplace. She looked like a crazed hag escaped from some asylum. She patted her hair for hairpins, but finding only one intact, secured just one hank of hair. It was a single bandage on a gaping wound.

She let the hair be and sat down. With great effort she calmed her breathing and the beating of her heart. “No one came to my party.”

Her mother raised a finger. “Didn’t Suzanna—?”

“Oh yes. Suzanna came—for a moment. I understand there were other regrets? Notes received?”

Her mother pulled at the lace on her handkerchief. “A few.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you continue with the preparations and let me anticipate and wait?”

“I …”

Her father took over. “Check your tone, daughter. Your mother meant well.”

Mother nodded. “I hoped some would still come and—”

“And you didn’t want to face the reason why they weren’t coming,” Lottie said.

“Fickle rumors,” her father said.

A sliver of hope split open the rock of her worry. “So the rumors are false? My friends are mistaken?” she asked.

He walked to the fireplace and hit the bowl of his pipe against its stones, emptying it. “It’s true we
have
suffered a series of financial setbacks.”

“Ralph implied there was some …” How could she say it?
Should
she say it? “Some impropriety?”

Lottie watched her father’s face redden. “I assure you I meant no harm. The deal seemed legitimate and …” He fiddled with his pipe, then retreated to his favorite chair.

He focused only on the financial. Was he choosing this lesser evil over the other, more lurid, sin? Yet Lottie couldn’t bring it up in a blatant manner—for her mother’s sake. “Ralph mentioned something else, another more personal issue.”

Her father avoided her gaze—and that of his wife. “I don’t know what to say. I—”

Her mother moved to her usual place behind her husband’s chair. “Do you see why it’s so important you marry well—marry Conrad Tremaine?”

How could Mother be so forgiving? Her husband’s infidelity had been revealed for all the world to gawk at and whisper over. Where was her pride? Her dignity?

And yet, seeing her parents united in spite of everything … Suddenly the world fell into place and one plus one equaled two. If her parents could marry Lottie off to a rich American, it would give the appearance that the Gleasons were still a well-respected family. It would also help hide their financial difficulties.

“We didn’t seek this arrangement for you, daughter,” Father said. “But when this current downturn began, and then the murmurings of this other situation began to brew, it coincided with your uncle George’s return from New York City after meeting the Tremaines. He was the one who brought forward the idea of uniting our two families. We appreciate the financial stability of the Tremaines’ rising fortunes, and they are enamored with the thought of their son marrying the daughter of a knighted Englishman with a vast estate. It’s quite puzzling, really. Even though the Americans are proud of their independence from the motherland, they still yearn for many of its accoutrements.” He suffered a sigh. “All that being said, the timing is right. We need … we want you to find stability, for if things go badly, in the future there might not be the usual inher—”

Lottie finished the sentence for him. “The usual inheritance?”

Father slipped the pipe into the pocket of his tweed jacket, and Mother coughed into her handkerchief. “We currently have a dowry set aside for you, but circumstances may force us to dip into that income in order to …”

Survive? Fight a lawsuit? Pay your way out of the scandal?

Another notion came to her. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“You had no wish to know, dear,” her mother said.

“Of course I wished to know. I am not a child.”

“Perhaps not,” Father said. “But you see the world as a child. As far as the financial issues, didn’t you notice the closure of the north wing? Or how we’ve been forced to let half the staff go?”

Oh. That. “Of course I noticed.”

“Didn’t you ever once wonder why?”

Lottie felt the fool. How stupid to have the signs set before her, yet pass them off as inconsequential.

Lottie’s mother relinquished her place, sat beside Lottie, and cupped her daughter’s chin in her hand. “Now is not the time for delay, Charlotte. The Tremaines wish to meet you and me. We must accept their invitation in order to cement the match. For your sake. And our own.”

Lottie had a realization. “The Tremaines are unaware of our troubles?”

Father cleared his throat. “What the Tremaines don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Mother shook her head slightly. “The Tremaines are unaware—as yet. But again, dear, time …”

Time would wait for no man.

Or woman.

The clock was ticking.

J Dora paced the floor in Lottie’s bedroom from bed to window and back again. What was happening downstairs? What was taking so long? What had transpired between Lottie and Ralph?

Without warning the door opened and Lottie stormed into the room. Dora ran to her. “What happened? What did they say?”

Lottie flung herself on the bed. “It’s over. My life is over.”

Dora had witnessed other tantrums for reasons as inconsequential as not getting a new dress or Lottie having to finish her lessons before going riding. Yet she knew that this time, on this day, there was the potential for true torment.

She climbed upon the bed beside Lottie and moved the hair from her face. “Tell me. Perhaps I can help.”

Lottie shook her head. “No one can help. Father is ruined; our family has no money. Ralph has shunned me for Edith Whitcomb, and I
have
to go to America and marry Conrad Tremaine before they find out I’m not an English heiress but a pauper—with a father who’s being named in a divorce.”

“What?” Dora knew about the financial situation, and Lottie had told her about Mrs. Lancashire, but she hadn’t heard anything about a lawsuit. This was bad. Horrible.

Lottie stared at the ceiling. “Apparently a man can be unfaithful as much as he wants and society looks the other way. But when the woman’s husband asks for a divorce and cites the guilty man by name, it’s unacceptable and grounds for scandal.”

The list of crises was nearly too much for Dora to grasp. Each one deserved its own tantrum, much less the swell of them together. “I don’t know what to say.”

Lottie attempted to sit up, but her bustle and the drapery of her birthday dress worked against her. Fully frustrated, she clambered to the floor, where the layers of her dress fell into place. “Help me out of this thing.”

Between the two of them, Lottie’s dress was relinquished and a dressing gown put on. Lottie sat at her vanity and, with a sigh that moved shoulders from up to down, gazed upon her reflection. “Just look at me.

I fully look the part of a pauper. No wonder Ralph wants nothing more to do with me. I’ll be fortunate if Conrad doesn’t run from the pier at the first sight of me. If only I could run from
him
.”

Dora smiled. “Hand me the brush and I’ll change you from windswept to breathtaking again.”

Lottie succumbed to the pull of the brush and closed her eyes.

Dora could feel her tension dissolve. Lottie had always loved to have her hair brushed, and Dora was glad to oblige. It was such a little thing and brought Lottie such pleasure.

“How can my entire world change in a single day? And on my birthday too.”

“Perhaps all at once is better than a little at a time,” Dora said.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Doesn’t it? For surely tomorrow can’t bring worse.”

Lottie nodded. “Surely …” She retrieved a pair of sapphire earbobs she’d recently removed and played with them in her lap.

If Lottie’s world had changed, so had Dora’s. “So you and your mother are going to America, then?” Unasked was whether they planned on letting Dora go along.

“It’s not America I object to,” Lottie said. “I’ve always wanted to see it. But marrying a man I’ve never met, that I may find disagreeable, a man who doesn’t excite me one whit through the few tidbits I’ve gathered in our courtship by the post …”

“You don’t have to marry him,” Dora said. “Do you?”

“My parents are depending on it. They imply it’s my duty as a means of untarnishing the family name. And perhaps it will be my only chance to marry well at all.” She paused, then began again. “But I suppose if we were not at all suited …”

Yet maybe that would
not
be a consideration. If the parents of Lottie and Conrad agreed to the match, there would be a match. Sometimes Dora was glad she belonged to a lower class.
She
could marry for love.

Or could she?

Barney Dougan. The butcher’s deliveryman.

She was not in love with him. Not really. But she’d heard from Cook that it was a fine thing to have Barney’s interest, because it saved Cook a trip in to Lacock to the butcher’s. Barney would linger when he came to the Gleasons’ with a side of lamb or a brace of pheasants, and made Cook call Dora down from her upstairs duties. Barney was a nice enough chap, and nice enough in looks too—burly and strong, with dimples that magically appeared when he smiled.

At her. Smiled at her. Dora knew Barney would propose. Soon, if she had any understanding of the current gist of his affection. And barring another man miraculously dropping into her life, she would probably say yes. She wanted children. She wanted her own home. And like Lottie, she too wanted love.

The trouble was, other than Barney there were few chances to find a mate. Dora worked sixteen hours a day and rarely left the house. Once there’d been a footman who’d caught her eye. He’d even shown interest in return, but Dora had called an end to it. Romance between servants was forbidden, and if they had been able to manage it—and had been caught—it would have been Dora who would have been dismissed. More proof that female servants were on the lowest rung of life’s ladder.

And so, even though she bragged that she could marry for love, it was not totally true. She could choose someone to love with a little more freedom than Lottie had, but mere choosing did not ensure the emotion would follow.

Yet whether Lottie loved Conrad or not, Dora didn’t think such an arrangement would be the end of the world. Being rich was the key. At least a rich woman could spend her days wearing lovely clothes and jewels, and go to balls where she could dance until the orchestra put away their instruments.

“I’m so confused,” Lottie said. “I’m sure Mother will accept the Tremaines’ invitation. And perhaps Conrad isn’t as dreadful as I suspect.

But not being dreadful is hardly what I look for in a husband.”

Dora had been privy to Conrad Tremaine’s letters when Lottie had read them aloud. She didn’t find them nearly as mundane as her mistress did. And if his photo showed him to be a bit plump … wasn’t plumpness a sign of wealth? Dora took no offense to it as long as the man was not overly so and was not slovenly about it. “If you don’t want him, I’ll take him,” she said.

Lottie dropped the earrings on the dressing table and looked at Dora’s reflection.

Dora felt embarrassed. “I was just joking.”

Lottie rose and swept the train of her dressing gown to its proper place. “You joke about my life being ruined? You think it’s funny?”

“No, of course not.”

Lottie fell upon the bed a second time. “What’s happening to me should not be the subject of a joke. All is lost. My family expects me to marry Conrad and so I’ll be forced to marry Conrad.”

Dora didn’t know what to say. “I—”

“Oh, leave me be.” Lottie turned on her side, showing Dora her back.

Dora quietly pulled Lottie’s door shut, needing to escape to her own room. So much had happened. But not two steps down the hall she was intercepted by Lottie’s Aunt Agatha. “Connors. I was looking for you.”

She offered a slight curtsy. “Yes, Miss Agatha?” She noticed the woman was carrying an evening gown. Dora knew what would come next.

“This old dress needs some adjustment to make it more … usable. Take off the lace here and here.”

There was no request for alterations; it was assumed. “I’ll take care of it, miss.”

At the end of the hallway Dora opened a door, lifted her skirt along with the heavy burden of the evening dress, and climbed the steps to the attic rooms. All the rooms were empty now but for her own bedroom and that belonging to Jean, the housemaid. Dora entered her small chamber amid the eaves and moved its chair toward the window to utilize the best light. But before she settled in to work, she sidestepped to her bureau and held Miss Agatha’s lavender dress against herself, enjoying her reflection. It was amazing how a dress could change everything.