“No.” She glanced at the book on her bed. “I was reading.”
“Business kept me in Lodnouth all day. I’ve only just returned. May I speak with you?” When she did nothing but nod, he inched two steps forward.
She didn’t back away.
He lowered the candlestick to the stand and, with unsteady hands, unfolded the pink silk. A dress, one more lovely than she’d seen in her life, with a net overlay and pink flowers embroidered on the hem. “Your mother’s. She wore it on the last ball we ever attended together…just days before we lost our little Thomas.”
A sensation worked through her as he laid the soft dress into her hands. Something of her mother’s. Something that wasn’t red or bloody or broken, but beautiful. Why did it make her want to cry?
Only Lord Gillingham was crying too. The tears clung to his lashes, flooded his cheeks, as he helped her hold the dress against her. “She felt healthy that day. For weeks after my son was born, she was weak. That did not matter to her, though. She was happy just the same, and every time I came home, I found the two of you nestled on each side of her in my bed.”
A faint memory stirred—a lovely woman, swallowed in soft coverlets, with a new baby in one arm and an eager little girl at the other. The woman was smiling. Whispering. Pressing soft kisses onto Eliza’s cheek or stroking the baby’s head or laughing at the bird who tried to get in the window.
“Two days after the ball, our little Thomas…he …” Lord Gillingham pulled the dress back and pressed it against himself, as if the touch of it brought him comfort. “My Letitia, she was just holding him like she always did. They were sleeping on the lounge downstairs. Just sleeping. When she woke up, the baby was dead in her arms, for no reason at all…just dead in her arms.” A sob broke loose. He turned his back to her, as if in shame she should see, as if frightened he could no longer keep control of himself.
She wanted to turn her back too. Everything he said hurt. The baby dead. Her little baby Thomas, who the lovely woman had taught her to kiss, who she’d knelt at his trundle bed and prayed for.
The loss settled in the room as if it were still new, as if the pain would never go away. Why must he say these things to her?
She didn’t want to remember the baby. She didn’t want to remember her mother. She didn’t want to touch the pretty dress or imagine the loving creature who’d worn it or see the damage her death had done to the man who loved her.
Sucking in air, Lord Gillingham turned back around. “Forgive me. I do not know what is wrong with me. I should never have come up here and …” His gaze dropped back to the dress. “I do not suppose you would wish to wear it now. It must mean as little to you as I do.”
Maybe that was true. The dress bothered her as terribly as the man who held it. But she nodded anyway and whispered, “I will wear it for the ball.”
The smile came again, as he nodded and handed it over once more. “Goodnight, Eliza.”
Her throat ached. “Goodnight.”Father.
The morning came faster than she’d wanted it to. For the first night in so many, there had been no nightmares—and if there were dreams, it was only of a family, many years ago, who had loved her and whom she had loved.
’Twas a lovely dream, one she didn’t want to wake up from. Why had Captain never told her these things? Why had he hidden where she’d come from, pretended she was his own when she’d had her own family?
But no, she must not question him. Captain loved her too, loved her most. Just because Lord Gillingham had shed tears before her, made her remember things she’d forgotten, did not mean she would allow Felton’s doubts to creep into her mind.
She was still Captain’s daughter. The cottage was still her home.
The day passed in a half-painful, half-glorious blur. How could she have known so much was involved in preparing the ladies she always admired in the magazines? First she soaked in a hot tub. Then the seamstress altered her dress. Then the humming maid used a papillote iron and papers to style her hair, as another maid brought in lotion and powders and rosewater perfume.
By the time the prominent hour of ten o’ clock had arrived, she sat before the looking glass in her chamber and stared at a woman she’d have never believed could have been herself. She touched the earbobs dangling from her ears, then fingered the rhinestone necklace at her neck.“There are people in the world, love, who are rich and only want to be richer. They don’t care none for people like us. Not unless we can make them more money.”
Now, she looked just like the people she’d always thought so ill of. What would Captain think to see her this way? Would he tell her it was wrong—to go down there to a ball, to mingle with people who had no feeling for the human heart?
“Well.”
Eliza hurried to her feet, just as Mrs. Eustace swept into her chamber. “You may go now, girls. Your end result is quite the thing.”
The two maids curtsied and left the room.
“Turn around.”
Slowly, she turned a full circle. Heat sprang to her cheeks. Would everyone look at her this way?
“Your father has something to be proud of in your appearance, if nothing else. Do you think you can act the lady you look?”
Indignation replaced the embarrassment. “I shall certainly try to act better than you do.”
Mrs. Eustace raised both brows and a small flush dotted her cheeks. Instead of a scowl, the corners of her lips worked upward. “You have not changed a bit, Miss Gillingham. You are as impertinent now as you were as a child.” She took a step back and motioned out the door. “Come in now, Minney, and do hurry up.”
