The Dowager's Daughter (4 page)

Althea remained pensive during dinner, responding to her mother’s efforts to be sociable with little more than a “yes” or a “no.” She was too preoccupied with thoughts of her encounter with the young man that afternoon. She smiled briefly, recalling the compliment he paid her, then was quick to remind herself that he had also mistaken her for a governess.

On being asked by her mother if the dress lengths she had chosen were to her liking, Althea had replied, “They are all very beautiful. It was kind of you to take the trouble, Mama.”

Althea could not summon the energy to inform her that she had no intention of having dresses made up in any of her choices. Tomorrow would be soon enough. She expected to be forgiven when her mother learned that not only would she be making her a gift of the lovely materials, but also intended to pay Madame Zizette to make them up for her.

While the thought was still fresh in her mind, she sent a rider to London to inform the dressmaker that her services were required at Camberly Hall.

Later, not wishing to engage in the exchange of after-dinner
on dits
or the playing of cards, Althea decided to forgo the ritual of retiring to the withdrawing room. She intended to use a headache as the reason for depriving her mother of their nightly game of cards. To her surprise, it was her mother who brought up the subject.

With catlike grace, the older Lady Camberly arched her back and gave Althea a rueful smile. “Please forgive me if I do not keep you company,
ma petite,
but this has been a most exhausting day. I can scarcely keep my eyes open.”

Althea nodded. “I have to agree, Mama. I should not have taken that walk on the pier—the strong breeze made it very difficult I, for one, am only too ready to retire.”

Once in her room, Althea endured the ministrations of her efficient abigail, even meekly submitting to laying her head on her pillow a full hour before her normal bedtime. Once Lizzie had departed her chamber, Althea bolted out of her bed and proceeded to pace the floor.

When the fire in the hearth turned to embers, the resulting chill convinced her to return to the comfort of her bedcovers. She tried to think of cheerful things: lambs gamboling in the meadows in the early spring; the carp gliding beneath the lily pads in the garden pond. But the more unsettling thoughts would not be held at bay, and sleep eluded her.

She constantly rehashed her encounter with the young man who had come to her aid on the pier that afternoon. She vividly recalled how the sunlight had imbued his crisp, brown curls with a fiery nimbus, rather like some paintings she had seen of celestial visitors.

The mere fact that she was even capable of such thoughts caused Althea deep distress. She was angry with herself for giving in to what she considered to be a ridiculous fancy. There had been nothing angelic in the feelings his smile had stirred within her.

Then there was the matter of his voice. It had been soft yet deep, and as disturbing as a caress. What was it he had said to her? Ah, yes. His words resonated in her head. Words that sent her heart soaring. Words that spoke of her beauty transcending time and fashion. Words she would carry in her heart to hold the hurt at bay.

Beauty I did not go out of my way to bring attention to. How does one go about bringing attention to a beauty that is so well hidden? I swear I cannot find a trace of it. In any case, it is a very odd thing to say. How can one choose to be beautiful? Either one is, or one is not. That is that, cut and dried. The man is definitely a rascal.

Althea sat up.
But do not his words echo those which Mama had to say on the subject? “If you had the courage to be beautiful, a handsome gentleman would fall in love with you.” I am thinking that Mama and the young man are both mad, each in their own way.

The words thundered over and over in her head.
If you had the courage,
became interchangeable with,
I suspect you do not go out of your way.

Althea clutched her ears. “Go away. I am not a coward. And neither would primping and preening make of me a heroine.”

In spite of her protest, Althea decided that her mother would not be receiving the gift of extra dress lengths after all. Althea did not think for a moment that improving her sense of style would miraculously turn her into a diamond of the first water, but saw no reason why a countess of great fortune should give anyone reason to mistake her for a lowly governess.

With this resolve, Althea lay down once more and in the hope of getting a good night’s sleep, pulled the covers over her head. Five minutes later, she sat up once more, positive that sleep eluded her because she had omitted to take her evening constitutional around the grounds before dinner.

It took another five minutes to decide that there was no earthly reason not to take her walk there and then. After all, the garden was illuminated by the brilliance of a full moon.

Holding on to this thought, she abandoned her bed and put on some stockings and shoes, and not wishing to struggle with the fastenings of a dress, put on a fur-lined cloak over her nightrail. Then, bracing her shoulders, she opened her chamber door and went downstairs to her sewing room whence she gained entry to the garden through a French door.

She walked across the lawn, her thoughts quieting as she beheld the splendor of the night sky. Myriad stars sprinkling the dark vault of the sky bespoke a celestial grandeur.

Althea’s own problems paled to insignificance when held up to a larger scheme and gradually melted away like snow in a spring thaw. Lifted of their burden, she felt an incredible lightness of being that filled her with a joyous urge to rip off her clothes and dance in the moonlight.

She immediately dismissed this notion as sheer madness, probably brought on by the fullness of the moon. Besides, she reasoned, shocked by her indelicate thoughts, the nip of frost in the air would guarantee such impropriety would be met with a well-deserved demise by lung fever.

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of footsteps crunching along a gravel path. Not wishing to risk discovery in such a scandalous state of undress, especially by one of the servants, she moved into the shadows of the shrubbery.

To her surprise, the intruder proved to be her own mother, her face as pale as alabaster in the moonlight. Althea’s first instinct was to join her, but there was something in the determination of her step and resolution of her expression which caused Althea to doubt that her company would be welcomed.

Althea watched her mother’s progress, fully expecting her to turn at the fork leading to the lily pond; instead, she continued to walk straight ahead in the direction of the riverbank.

“What can possess Mama?” Althea mused under her breath. “The riverbank is overgrown with nettles and brambles. It is not at all the sort of place I would expect her to choose for a stroll, by day or night.”

She stood shivering in the shadows for about half an hour before her mother reentered the hall. She went through the same French door that Althea had used. Althea followed soon after, glad to get back to the warmth of her bed. However, the walk in the garden notwithstanding, it was dawn before she finally drifted off to sleep, and she did not rise until noon.

Upon going down to breakfast, she was relieved to find that her mother had yet to put in an appearance. She felt guilty for having spied on her and did not wish to look her in the eye.

When she was a little girl, her mother always seemed to know when she had done something wrong and Althea did not want to take the chance that she still had that power. She ate her porridge and stewed apples, thankful to be alone.

After breakfast she exchanged the muslin dress she had worn down to breakfast for a costume fashioned of warm merino wool in a dark green to wear for her morning walk. Following the military style, an influence of the war against Napoleon, it was embellished with epaulettes of black cording and was the most stylish ensemble Althea owned. Unfortunately, the outfit did nothing to enhance her delicate coloring.

As Althea stared into her mirror, watching Lizzy fasten the black frogging, she realized this.

“Lizzie, I look absolutely ghastly in these clothes. Look how awful this green looks on me and how grotesque these exaggerated epaulettes are. I look deformed.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Yes, madam
? Is that all you have to say? Lizzie, why did you not say something? I could not look more hideous if I tried.”

“It was not my place to say anything, now was it?”

Althea patted her shoulder. “No, Lizzie, I suppose not”

She went downstairs, her head spinning with turmoil, just as her mother was leaving her room. Althea presumed she was on her way to partake of a belated breakfast She noted that her mother’s eyes were free of the shadows that hers had acquired from too little sleep.

Life seems not to touch Mama in any way. Perhaps she is impervious to the vicissitudes that beset the rest of us.

She took a deep breath, deciding to broach her mother about her midnight stroll. “Good morning, Mama. I see you look well in spite of an interrupted sleep.”

In response, the older Lady Camberly merely raised a brow.

This came as no surprise to Althea, who was familiar with her mother’s habit of skirting unpleasant subjects rather than facing them head-on.

Althea took another deep breath. “I saw you roaming about the gardens last evening. It was late, and quite chilly, so naturally I was concerned about your well-being.”

“Were you?” Her words crackled with frost.

The dowager stiffened her back and seeming to grow another inch, towered over her daughter. Althea’s first instinct was to back away, but she steeled her resolve and took up the gauntlet.

“Naturally. Especially since you were so tired earlier on. I hope I did nothing to upset you.”

Her mother patted her shoulder. “Please do not fuss over me, darling. I am not a child, answerable for my every action.” She broke off for a moment, then added, “How did you come to see me? As I recall, you also claimed to be tired and could not wait to get to bed.”

Althea nodded.’ ‘I was, but for some reason could not settle down, so I decided to take a walk and that is when I happened to see you.”

Celeste responded with a tight little smile. “It would have become you better to have joined me in my walk, rather than to take it upon yourself to subject me to this distasteful interrogation.”

Althea bowed slightly. “You are quite right, of course. I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy—I worry too much, I suppose. It really would set my mind at rest if you were to confine such walks to the grounds rather than venture by the river. What if you were to trip over a tree root and fall into the estuary? You could be swept out to sea.

“I rather expect you would.”

“Hmm?”

“Prefer that I confine my walks to the grounds.”

Althea heaved a sigh of relief.’ ‘Then you agree?”

“Of course not, darling.” Her tone was incredulous. “Why should I become a prisoner of your morbid fancies?”

Althea pursued the subject no further. How could she? Her clever mother had seen to it that she would be made to feel both unreasonable and foolish.

After that skirmish, both women descended the broad staircase in silence and, on reaching the front hall, exchanged self-conscious smiles before going their separate ways.

Althea returned to the garden to inspect the path her mother had taken the previous night, hoping to find a clue, however slight, that would explain the reason for her midnight jaunt She did not believe for a moment that her frivolous parent would subject herself to the rigors of a frosty night for the sheer pleasure of the doing.

She found her answer on the bridle path, a narrow lane of mud threading along the riverbank through a jumble of brambles and nettles. There, dainty footprints mingled with those of decidedly masculine proportions.

Further inspection revealed that the man had arrived for their tryst—Althea could think of no other name for such a clandestine meeting—in a small boat. The evidence was all too painfully clear by the scorings on the riverbank where its prow had been pulled out of the water. A wooden peg driven into the weeds and evidently used as a mooring device made Althea think it was not a one-time meeting. She felt her heart lurch.

“Oh, no,” she groaned. “For Mama to subject herself to all this inconvenience could only signify that she has fallen in love with an irresistible bounder. One she is ashamed to acknowledge, or even worse, one whose social inferiority precludes her from doing so.”

Althea did not wish to believe such a thing of her mother, but it would certainly explain why she had so readily acquiesced to returning to Camberly Hall before the London Season was over.

Feeling thoroughly ignoble at entertaining such suspicions regarding her mother, Althea discarded this supposition and instead grasped at the idea that in the ever-eager quest for ribbons and laces, her mother could be trafficking with a smuggler.

“Yes!” Althea exclaimed. “That must be it Mama would do so in the blink of an eye for even the tiniest scrap of Alençon lace.”

Her relief was fleeting. “What am I thinking? If such were the case, she would be risking far more than a broken heart. She could get her throat cut.”

Althea decided she was duty bound to keep a close watch over her.

“It is for Mama’s own good.”

She doubted such a sentiment on her part would evoke any gratitude in her mother’s bosom. By and large, the lady was a lighthearted creature, but cold shivers went down Althea’s spine at the possibility of her finding out she was being spied upon.

The general assumption is that a person with ginger hair is inclined to be a trifle hot-tempered. The elder Lady Camberly did not fit into this category. If provoked,
her
ire reached heights of Olympic proportions, giving the very gods good reason to run and hide.

A month passed by, during which Madame Zizette and two of her seamstresses diligently applied themselves to the task of transforming the lengths of material purchased at Hansford’s into attractive wearing apparel for her clients.