Page 7 of The Cornish Bride

Martha went to the wardrobe and flung it open. Everything she was doing this morning seemed to be requiring loud noise. Maybe she didn’t like being asked to keep a secret. Maybe she disapproved of Ysella’s choice of beau even though she’d never set eyes on him.

Preparing for visitations by young admirers, something Ysella had never had to do before, took longer than her normal morning ablutions. Once she was dressed in her muslin petticoats, and the gorgeous gold dress Kit had commissioned for her from the Misses Sedgewick dressmakers shop in Marlborough, was hanging on the wardrobe door, Martha had to do Ysella’s hair and makeup. The hair took the longest, as not only was Martha new to the style Ysella demanded, but Ysella had determined to be picky this morning.

“I don’t think you quite have it right,” she complained after Martha’s third effort to get her curls arranged to her mistress’s liking. “Look at the picture again.” She wafted the ladies’ fashion paper in front of her maid for the umpteenth time.

Martha huffed. “I’m doin’ my best, Miss Ysella, workin’ from just a drawing. ’Tisn’t that easy to see how to get the effect you want.” She unpinned Ysella’s curls again. “One more try and that’ll be my last. I’m a maid, not a miracle worker.”

From anyone else Ysella would not have tolerated such a remark, but she and Martha understood one another tolerably well, and Ysella was fond of her. When at last, the fourth attempt had been completed and Ysella, pulling a face of slight dissatisfaction, agreed with Martha that nothing more could be achieved, Martha helped her on with her gown.

Ysella admired herself from all angles in the cheval mirror in the corner. Here and there, rich chestnut curls escaped in artful disarray to her shoulders and clustered around her brow. A sash of the same gold fabric as her gown held the curls in mock control, and the gown itself hung in perfect lines almost to the ground, allowing her gold slippers to peek out. The swell of Ysella’s small breasts, pushed up and enhanced by her stays, emerged daringly at the low neckline of the gown.

Martha handed her a lace fichu. “’Tis morning, still, Miss Ysella. Best cover up a little.”

With a frown, Ysella took the fichu and tucked it around her neckline to cover up her cleavage. Once Mama and Martha were not looking, that could go. Young men liked a girl’s assets to be on display, and with a young man as handsome and popular as the captain, she was going to have to work hard to hold his attention.

She bit her lip. Supposing he didn’t come? He’d been so attentive last night, so full of flattering words that had made her blush, but perhaps he did that with a different pretty young lady at every ball he went to. Perhaps she was no different than countless other young ladies he’d flattered. Perhaps he told each of them they were the belle of the ball and of the season. She crossed her fingers where Martha couldn’t see them as her confidence in his arrival diminished. Last night had been like a fairytale dream, and with daylight, had been swept away.

By the time Ysella’s toilette had been completed, and she descended the wide staircase to the drawing room, the tall clock in the hallway was striking the half hour after midday, and she was more than three quarters sure he wouldn’t come and was off at this very moment trifling with some other young lady.

She found Mama seated on one of the brocade sofas in the drawing room, her sewing in her hands. “Ysella, my dear, you look particularly beautiful this morning. I trust you slept well after last night’s excesses.”

Ysella’s polite curtsey provoked a raised eyebrow. The Dowager Lady Ormonde was probably not at all used to her daughter behaving so decorously. “Perfectly well, thank you, Mama.” Which wasn’t true at all, as she’d lain awake half the night thinking about the captain’s handsome face and his warm touch on her hands and waist. The thought of it now brought heat to her cheeks, so she hastened across the room and looked out of the window while she fought for self-control. Mama mustn’t guess how she felt. Not yet, at any rate.

The drawing room window looked out across the street at the little park opposite the house. Right now, in the middle of the day, the park was full of people taking advantage of the weather for an airing. A few tradesmen and hawkers hung about, and several carriages rattled along the cobbles.

Better not stay here too long, in case the captain arrived and thought she was watching out for him. Which of course she was. She mustn’t look too keen—that would be awful. Her Wiltshire friend, Caroline Fairfield, had counselled her to maintain a discreet distance between herself and any possible suitor for fear of frightening them away. “It’s bad enough having one’s mama at one’s shoulder the whole time,” she’d said, when she visited Ormonde just before Ysella and Mama left for Town. “Indeed, it’s a wonder young men attend any balls at all with the way all the mamas hang about like vultures waiting for their prey.”

This had made Ysella laugh and Caro confide that she was heartily glad that at five and twenty she was no longer expected to parade herself in the marriage mart. “I think I shall much prefer to become an interesting maiden aunt to my four little nephews.”

Ysella took a seat beside Mama, folding her hands in her lap.

An urge to confide all swept over her for a wild moment, and she struggled to keep her mouth closed. Instinct, and Mama’s disapproving expression as she’d watched Ysella dance with the captain, warned her not to reveal the way she felt, despite the temptation. Mama had about her the air of someone who would not approve of a mere militia captain, son of a bishop or not, for her youngest daughter, especially not one as rakishly attractive as the captain.

They sat in silence for a long minute before inspiration seized Ysella. “Shall I play the piano for you?” Anything was better than having to get her own sewing out.

Mama brightened. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Ysella.” She smiled. “I do miss having dear Morvoren read aloud to us. I’ve never heard anyone read with such vigor and expression. But some music would be delightful.”

Ysella took the stool at the grand piano, lifted the lid and set her fingers to the keys. She was not a gifted musician, merely a capable one, so she stuck to the pieces she was best at, her fingers dancing across the ivory.

It was thus occupied that Captain Featherstone found her, when Forbes the butler showed him into the parlor twenty-five minutes later.

Ysella’s fingers stopped mid-bar and color rushed to her cheeks. He’d come! Her heart leapt into her mouth and she rose from the piano stool, her legs suddenly weak at the knees. He was every bit as handsome as she remembered.

“Lady Ormonde,” Featherstone said, taking Mama’s hand and bowing over it as he brought it to his lips. “I must thank you for allowing me to call on you this morning.”

Mama’s eyes narrowed, but her reaction would have been imperceptible to anyone but Ysella, who knew her all too well. That was disapproval in them, for certain. However, Captain Featherstone was here, so it was already a fait accompli and Ysella was determined nothing would spoil his visit.

He turned towards her, a smile curving those eminently kissable lips, just as the heroes in all her books looked, which brought an even warmer glow to Ysella’s cheeks. “Pray don’t desist. I should love to hear you play.”

Ysella wanted to frown, but resisted the impulse. This was not what she wanted to do. She wanted to sit and talk to him, but now she was caught and would have to waste his visit playing the silly piano. And if other young men came to call as well, as she was sure she’d invited them last night, she wouldn’t have him to herself at all. Fingering her music, she scraped for excuses not to have to play.

Mama looked a touch smug. “Of course she’ll play for you. Do sit down, Ysella, you look a little silly just standing there.”

Ysella sat down with a thud on the piano stool. Thwarted. Bugger it. For a gently brought up young lady, she had an interesting vocabulary learnt in the stables at Ormonde Abbey. She’d never have said this forbidden phrase out loud in front of her mother, but inside her head she was wont to use it with alarming frequency. One day she was going to make a mistake and it would come popping out and shock everyone.

She began to play. But this time the proximity of the man who’d come specially to see her made her fingers clumsy and slow, and the music emanating from the piano grew steadily worse.

“Good heavens,” Mama said at last, as Ysella paused to turn the page in her music after having had to restart a piece three times. “I believe you get worse with practice, child. Come and sit down instead, before Captain Featherstone runs away thanks to the assault on his ears.”