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Madame Robillard lifted a hand toward Molly’s hair, pulled into a meticulous and joyless bun.“Do you permit me?”
Nodding, she watched in the glass as the woman worked. All it took to finish the look and transform her appearance had been the loosening of a few tresses that now trailed onto her shoulders. No longer brutally confined, the shiny hair waved onto her creamy shoulders.
Is that truly me?
Laughter bubbled up even as tears glazed her eyes. Perhaps she should refuse to wear such a gown—so costly and so above her station—but she couldn’t muster enough fortitude to turn it down. “Thank you,” she breathed.
“It’s my pleasure, lovely mouse,” replied the modiste, her dark eyes radiating approval.
When Molly returned to the residence, she tried to carry the wrapped gown with the same dignified but matter-of-fact posture as when she transported her ladyship’s, but she suspected it was evident that she carried not a gown but a dream in her arms.
She couldn’t prevent her glowing smile when the housekeeper inquired about the fitting.
“The gown will do.”
Mrs. Taylor looked around before allowing her laughter to spill past the wrinkled hand that covered her mouth. When she recovered, she pulled herself to full height again, nose slightly in the air, but her blue eyes twinkled. “Emily will dress your hair. I will assist you in dressing. When is that concert again?”
“In three days!”
The woman’s lips twitched again at her enthusiasm a few times before she successfully flattened them. “This piano tuner. Is he a kind man?”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Taylor.”
“Put the gown away at once, Molly, then meet me in the storeroom.”
Molly looked worried until the housekeeper winked. She returned downstairs, breathless, a few minutes later, finding the woman awaiting her…with an envelope in her hand. She recognized the elaborate seal.
A missive from Lady Clara!
“Another already?”
“Not from Anterleigh. This was handed to me by her ladyship herself,” Mrs. Taylor announced in low, dramatic tones, her silver hair glinting. “Before she left, she asked me to present it to you at the right time.”
Molly couldn’t accept the letter in the older woman’s outstretched hands, not yet. What if it carried bad news? “What is it?”
“I don’t know. But her ladyship was smiling mightily when she gave it to me. Go. Take some time to read this.”
She took the letter but shook her head. “I’ll leave it in my chamber for tonight. I have my work, Mrs. Taylor.”
“So you have. As you wish.”
The parchment felt unduly heavy in Molly’s hands, and she couldn’t help but pause on the stairway going up to the top floor. Frowning, she ran her fingertips over the weighty object within its folds.A key? She pressed from both sides, fingering it.
All afternoon, off and on, she wondered which lock in the world that piece of iron opened and why her ladyship wanted her to have it.
Thomas’s worried voice pierced her ruminations. “I swept the floor once, miss. That’s the third time yer’ve swept it!”
Hands clenched around the besom handle, she looked down at it with surprise. He’d perched it against a tree pot so precariously that she remembered picking it up, but only to fix it. How had she ended up going around the orangery multiple times?
She sighed. “I have much on my mind.”
Bewilderment crumpled his face. “Then why would yer do more work than yer need to?”
On the tip of her tongue was the lecture she’d delivered many times to her siblings about idle hands, but this time, she laughed. “Oh, Thomas. I believe I could use a spoonful of you, and you could use a spoonful of me.”
“What?”
“Imean, I could stand a dash of leaning against a column and resting instead of working. And what could you stand a dash of?”
