Page 11 of The Siren of Sussex

“It’s me, miss.” Agnes entered. She was wearing a black stuff dress, her mouse-brown hair combed back into a severe knot. “Will you be needing anything before I retire?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be retiring soon myself.” Evelyn glanced up. “How was your visit to your cousin?”

“Oh, she was all right. Only a bit tired, with the new baby and all. She was glad of the company.” Agnes collected Evelyn’s discarded skirts and jacket from the settee at the end of the four-poster bed. She examined the mud-stained hem and cuffs with a frown. “You didn’t visit that tailor’s shop?”

Evelyn tucked her finished letter into an envelope. “I did.”

Agnes gave her a sharp look. “Alone?”

“I often do my shopping alone. Many young women do.”

“Not ladies,” Agnes said. “Not proper ladies, anyway.”

“Possibly not, but it isn’t as if anyone saw me. Doyle and Heppenstall’s was quite empty, and no one on the street paid me any mind. They were too caught up in their own affairs.”

“Yes, miss, but Mrs. Quick said as how I’m supposed to accompany you—”

“Not on your afternoon off, you aren’t. Besides, I was quite safe.” Evelyn sealed her envelope with a wafer. “I’ll have a great deal more shopping to do in the days ahead. You may accompany me then.”

This seemed to satisfy Agnes for the moment. She draped the soiled skirts and jacket over her arm. They’d need to be sponged and pressed before Evelyn could wear them again. “Did you place your order with Mr. Doyle?”

“Mr. Malik.”

“Who?”

“He’s the one who designs the riding habits, not Mr. Doyle or Mr. Heppenstall.” As she put away her writing implements, Evelyn described her visit to the shop, telling the maid everything that had transpired there.

Well, almost everything.

She didn’t mention how handsome Mr. Malik was. And she didn’t say anything about how she’d felt when he’d looked at her, or when he’d touched her hand.

“You really told him you weren’t a bluestocking?” Agnes’s lips quivered in a smile.

It wasn’t the most flattering reaction.

“And why should I admit to a label?” Evelyn demanded, nettled. “First it’s wallflower, then it’s bluestocking, and then it’s old maid or spinster. I don’t wish to be filed away in a neat little category, labeled and dismissed by society as if I weren’t a person full of mysterious complexities. I don’t even know the full depth and breadth of what I am yet—or what I’m capable of. How can a man? How can anyone?”

Agnes looked doubtful.

“And yes,” Evelyn added, “I’m fully aware that it’s those very thoughts that put me squarely in the bluestocking column.”

But that was no one’s business but her own.

She wasn’t in Combe Regis anymore. She was in London—a place where no one knew her from Adam. If she must be put in a column, it would be one of her own choosing. Not wallflower or bluestocking, but horsewoman.

It was Mama who had given her the idea. She’d always said that one must approach a problem from a position of strength.

Evelyn had thought of that advice countless times since first formulating her plan to come to London. She knew she wasn’t likely to win a well-to-do husband in a ballroom or a drawing room. Unlike Fenny, she had no particular talent for dancing, music, or conversation. Her strength lay in riding. And it was on Rotten Row that she intended to wage her campaign.

“Will Mr. Malik do it, then?” Agnes asked. “Will he make you the same kind of habit he made for Miss Walters?”

“As to that . . . I don’t know yet.” Evelyn stood from her desk. “I expect I won’t, not until after he sees me ride in the morning.”

“I don’t like it,” Agnes said. “For him to set a test for you like that. What right has he to—”

“He’s an artist, and a male one, at that. One must excuse his impertinence for the time being.” Evelyn smiled faintly. “He’ll soon learn.”

Three