“Fucking?”
Well, that wasn’t a word she had ever thought to hear in reference to herself. Much less would she have guessed that such a word on Molly’s lips would somehow resonate deep in her own belly. “Yes, that,” she managed. “And that my screams were— this was the most awkward part of the entire mortifying ordeal—“the result of pleasure.”
“Oh, the shit-eating bastard.”
“Precisely. My father didn’t believe me, and he decided that I had to be sent from home to protect his reputation. My father is a clergyman, you know, and Mr. Tenpenny’s uncle is Lord Malvern, who owns my father’s living and could cast my father out on his ear if trouble got back to him.” That was what had started all the trouble. Mrs. Wraxhall and Mr. Tenpenny had been among the guests at a nearby house party; Alice and her father had been invited to join the party for supper. It was the sort of invitation Alice had been accustomed to. She had worn her least shabby gown and prepared herself for an evening of conversation with another spinster or someone too tiresome for the real guests to endure. Instead she had been cornered by Mr. Tenpenny in a shadowy alcove, then dragged home by her father only to be berated and cast out. Mrs. Wraxhall had somehow gotten wind of what had actually happened, and if it hadn’t been for that, Alice didn’t like to think about what would have become of her.
“And now the fucker’s here?” Molly’s indignation somehow served to tamp down Alice’s own sense of being put upon.
“He’s expected tonight, I gather. I can’t go downstairs.”
Molly tucked one of her feet under her other leg and propped herself up on a hand. This small adjustment only lessened the distance between them by a few inches, but it seemed to Alice that it caused the temperature in the room to go up by several degrees. Suddenly she was very aware of the fact that if she moved her own hand a bit to the side, her own little finger would touch Molly’s.
That little finger felt like a question that needed answering. Alice’s hand was prickling with awareness, her entire being concentrated on one small digit, until the decision to move it or not move it seemed the most fundamental one of her life.
Almost without thinking, she slid her hand that final inch towards Molly’s, and as soon as she felt the warm brush of skin against skin, Molly moved her own hand to cover Alice’s. She could feel Molly’s calluses against the places where her own calluses used to be. She could feel Molly’s pulse beating against her own.
“You don’t need to go downstairs,” Molly said, and her voice did not sound entirely normal to Alice, which was reassuring because Alice felt nothing like normal herself. “But if you don’t, people might talk about why.”
“I’m sure nobody even knows that I’m here.” She had done her best to fade into the wallpaper. It was a skill she had finely honed.
The mattress shifted again, and when Alice opened her eyes she saw Molly lying next to her. Their hands, still clasped, were between them.
“Here’s the problem, though.” Molly’s voice was soft, only loud enough to be heard by someone sharing the same pillow. “This Tenpenny bastard seems just the sort of snake who would find out you were here, and then spread word that you were avoiding him because your heart was broken after he ended your affair.”
Alice groaned, recognizing the truth of this. She turned to bury her face in the pillow once more.
Then came the brush of Molly’s hand against her temple, sweeping a bit of hair back from her face. The gesture caught Alice by surprise. It was so gentle and tender, it felt meant for someone else entirely. Molly’s warm, kind fingers seemed as out of place on Alice’s head as a crown of diamonds would be. Alice didn’t deserve either. She shifted away from Molly’s touch.
“Hey, now,” Molly whispered, evidently mistaking the cause of Alice’s unease. “You’ve survived worse.”
It was true. She had survived far worse than an evening of awkward embarrassment. But that didn’t make encountering Mr. Tenpenny any more appealing. “You’re right. I’ll grit my teeth and get through it.”
“Bugger grit.” Molly smiled her crooked smile, her lips so close to Alice’s they were nearly touching. Nearly, but not quite. “We can do better than that.”
Molly showed Alice exactly which seams to unpick and how they needed to be resewn.
“But—” A line appeared between Alice’s eyebrows.
“Trust me.”
And Alice did as she was told, as if she really did trust Molly, and wasn’t that something. Molly kept expecting Alice to realize that Molly was nothing more than a street urchin with a dishonest past. Sooner or later everyone did.
“I’ll be back as soon as I’ve dressed Mrs. Wraxhall.” Molly left Alice alone, her lap covered in swathes of pale gray silk, and when she came back almost two hours later, Alice was trying on the remade gown before the looking glass.
It wasn’t every woman who could make a colorless frock look like something special, but Alice managed the trick. The rest of her was pale to the point of colorlessness, from the white-blond hair that now hung loose around her shoulders, to the gray-blue eyes that regarded Molly’s reflection in the looking glass. Bright fabric would wash her out, but pastels were what Mrs. Wraxhall called insipid and Molly called boring. This gown was the palest gray, and the great joke was that Alice had likely chosen it because she thought it a safe, dull, unobjectionable choice.
And so it was, if you were blind and had no taste in either gowns or women. Christ, but she looked like one of those marble statues the gentry fussed over. Every other woman would look like gaudy rubbish beside her.
“I look like a harlot.”
Molly took a step closer. “Show me the harlot who wears dove-gray silk.”
“You can see my breasts.”
No, you really couldn’t, more’s the pity. The gown was depressingly modest, but if you were used to being covered chin to wrists, this was a bit of a change. Molly’s alterations had only removed the length of silk gauze that served to dowdily fill in the evening gown’s neckline, and then bring the waist up a crucial half inch to enhance the bustline.
“Only this morning you were telling me you don’t have any, so I can’t see what the fuss is.” Molly came to stand behind Alice at the looking glass and tugged the bodice so it sat where it belonged. She let her hands come to rest on Alice’s rib cage. Damn it if she couldn’t feel Alice’s heart beating, an almost frantic flutter beneath silk and skin. If she had only been looking at Alice, she might not have guessed—her expression was unruffled, her face placid and composed.
