Page 157 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Stacia couldn’t help laughing. “I’m afraid you will have to do without the delectable Lionel.”

“Surely you can all slip away for an hour?”

“I shall see,” she said, knowing it would never happen. Even if Lady Kathryn managed to divert her employer’s attention for long enough—doubtful, as the countess had told Ackers to deny her youngest daughter access to her chambers—Stacia’s only ballgown, a grim gray thing suitable for a companion, was hardly the sort of drab garment she wanted to be seen in. It was fine for Bath functions, but she already knew she would look pitiful in any other company, even a ball for servants.

You danced well enough with his lordship in only a plain brown day dress…

Stacia wanted to slap the voice in her head, which had done nothing but chide and nag her since she’d left the priest hole. And before, too, now that she thought about it.

Shut up, she snapped viciously in her mind.

“Miss Martin?”

She looked at Dora. “Hmm?”

“If you don’t have a gown there are ballgowns aplenty in the suite adjacent to Mrs. Ellen Kettering’s rooms.”

“Mrs. Kettering?” Stacia asked.

“Lord Needham’s former mistress,” Dora whispered.

“Ah, yes.” Stacia had forgotten the woman’s name, if not the shocking fact of her presence at Wych House. She frowned. “Why are there ballgowns?”

“Some are Mrs. Kettering’s. She was a debutant in Edinburgh. Or mayhap Leeds.” Dora shrugged, as if to say that all obscure northern cities were much of a muchness. “Wherever it was, she has dozens of fine gowns—a bit old-fashioned, but I found a lovely blue silk with a silver spangled over gown. And she says that we may keep them!” Dora did a quick dance step and flourish, as if imagining the dash she would cut.

“But that’s not all,” Dora went on. “Lady Needham found trunks in the attics—gowns from long ago—that we are all welcome to wear, although not keep as her ladyship says they are—er, I don’t recall the words she used.”

“Historical importance?”

Dora nodded. “Aye, something like that.” She raised her hand to cover her mouth and shield her next words. “Oh, Miss! You should see the gown Cook found to wear!” Dora was too overcome with mirth to describe Mrs. Barton’s dress.

“Perhaps I will go and look at the gowns later,” she said again. Time was wasting and Lady Addiscombe would be displeased. “But right now I need to speak to Mrs. Nutter about a posset. Do you know where I might find her?”

Before Dora could answer her a footman—a towering man with sleepy blue eyes and shoulders so broad he could scarcely fit though the kitchen door—grabbed Dora by the waist and led her into a very boisterous facsimile of a waltz.

It took Stacia ten minutes to locate Mrs. Nutter and another fifteen before she was carrying the tightly corked jar of poultice and hurrying toward her mistress’s chambers. She was imagining the raking she would get when an arm shot out from a recessed doorway and snagged her wrist.

She gave a squawk of surprise.

“Here you are,” Andrew said, pulling her close. “I have been hunting for you for days and days!” he said, his tone accusatory.

“It has scarcely been two days,” she couldn’t help saying.

“It felt like weeks. Months.”

Stacia couldn’t help laughing. “The duchess thought it might be best if I spent the first day in my room—overcoming the last of my cold.”

He grunted. “I fail to see the reason for that.”

“I could scarcely go from death’s door to playing spillikins in the drawing room.”

He still did not look convinced, but dropped the matter, instead saying, “You were not at breakfast this morning.”

“I always have a tray in my room.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Why does it matter?”