At least the reason for her father’s ire was now obvious. He had clearly forgotten about the dinner completely, but could not blame her for his forgetfulness without admitting that he had never told her about any such dinner.
“Mrs. Wenham!” he shouted, the housekeeper skidding into view behind him.
“Yes, My Lord?” Margery said, eyes wide with alarm.
“We are attending a dinner party tonight. See to it that my daughter is suitably presentable, for if she is not, the blame shall fall upon you,” he retorted, before whirling around and stomping off in the direction of his study.
Across the distance, Evelyn and Margery exchanged a look, the kind that might have made Evelyn stifle a laugh once upon a time. But they both knew that Josiah was not bluffing, just as they both knew that they would receive equal punishment if they did not obey.
“Shall we try something different with your hair?” Margery asked with a sad smile.
Evelyn smiled back, drawing in a shaky breath. “It cannot hurt.”
A short while later, behind the closed door of Evelyn’s bedchamber, where all was temporarily peaceful, Margery caught the younger woman’s eye in the reflection of the mirror.
Teasing a brush through Evelyn’s long, brown hair, the housekeeper looked like she might cry. “Your mother would be heartbroken. I know I should not say so, but I can’t help it.” She shook her head. “I’ve been silent for long enough. If she were here, Lady Evelyn, she would… oh, she’d be beside herself.”
“She would?” Evelyn’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
Her mother was a banned subject of conversation in this house, but Margery had been her lady’s maid once, many years before she was promoted to the position of housekeeper.
“She adored you,” Margery said, her voice thick. “You were the apple of her eye, Lady Evelyn. There were so many days, even when she was at her weakest, where I’d find the two of you together, as thick as thieves. You’d be crawling all over her, and she’d be laughing at one of your mischiefs or lavishing kisses on your face.”
A lump formed in Evelyn’s throat, for she could not remember anything about her mother. She had been just three years old when her mother had passed from an affliction of the heart, too young to hang onto any clear memories.
“She hadsuchhopes for you, Lady Evelyn,” Margery continued, brushing something from her cheek. “She used to tell you stories and, in them, you always married the handsome prince. You definitely didn’t marry the first gentleman your father could think of.”
As she had done so many times before, Evelyn closed her eyes and tried to imagine her mother. She had never seen a portrait of the woman who had given her life, for her father had removed them all from the walls and put them away, somewhere that Evelyn could not find them. But she had always hoped that a vision of her mother might come to her from some buried place in her mind.
“She’d be furious with him,” Margery added, tutting.
Evelyn opened her eyes. “Did they love each other?”
“Pardon?”
“My mother and father. Did they love each other?”
The housekeeper hesitated and glanced at the door, as if wary of eavesdroppers. “Your father loved your mother,” she replied, after a moment. “He was obsessed with her. Always lavishing her with gifts and compliments, forever declaring that he was the luckiest man in the world, showing her off to his friends, behaving as if he had won the most precious prize.”
“My mother did not love him?” Evelyn asked, puzzled.
“She was… somewhat in your situation,” Margery replied carefully. “Your father approached her father, and that was it. She didn’t know your father well at all, for he had admired her from a distance until then. I think she grew to like him, but love? I believe she only had that for her children.”
Evelyn winced as the brush caught in a tangle. “Is that why he hates me?” She paused. “No, I suppose that would not make sense, for he would have to hate us all for having her love.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Lady Evelyn,” Margery said with a sad sigh. “It’s that you look so much like her. You always have. Yourbrothers, not so much; they resemble your father and his family. You are entirely her.”
Astonished, Evelyn looked at her reflection: the plump cheeks, the rather strong jaw, the dusting of freckles, the blue eyes, the high arch of her eyebrows, the slight asymmetry of her lips, the crescents of her eyelids; all the parts of herself that she had thought to be so very plain were actually beyond precious.
“But… everyone used to say that Mother was a rare beauty,” Evelyn croaked, recalling snippets from guests who had visited the house, wanting to reminisce before her father changed the subject.
“Then what should that tell you?” Margery said, nudging Evelyn gently in the shoulder.
As was her habit, Evelyn was about to argue against the compliment, when the jingle of the bell for the main door made her jump instead. Cold fear frosted her veins as she sat rigid on the vanity stool, her heart pounding.
“It must be the baron,” she whispered, as if he might hear her from all the way upstairs. “He must want to escort me to dinner. Oh, but he is so early!”
Her hair was not even close to being finished, though she was at least dressed for the occasion in the beautiful gown of midnight blue that she had borrowed from Selina, that Selina had insisted on her keeping. The same gown Evelyn had worn to the opera, that Hugo had once remarked upon.
