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He smiled. “I’m afraid that would be a tale too long to tell in the few minutes I plan on spending here with you. Furthermore, it is a tale that still has no end, so I would not know exactly what to tell you. Bottom line, it is best that you do not tell anyone of what you’ve witnessed here.”
“I might do that,” she told him, “but my curiosity needs to be satiated.”
She said it with such sweet determination that he could not help but chuckle out loud. He took one last puff of his cigar then threw it on the ground carelessly, stepping on it with his shoe. Yet another thing that was not exactly according to the rules of theton,but he stopped caring about those a long time ago — somewhere around the time when his sister disappeared, and he realized that he had no one to rely on for help, no one but himself.
“You are a tough negotiator,” he had to give her that. She seemed to like that unusual compliment. “All I can tell you is that I spoke to this man demanding information regarding the disappearance of my sister.”
Upon hearing that, her facial expression changed immediately. There was no more defiance, no more confidence, just pure human sympathy. He had not seen such an expression of true compassion in a long time. It surprised him to see it from a complete stranger.
“I am truly sorry to hear that,” she said softly.
Against his better judgment, he continued talking about Rachel. “Everyone thinks she is dead,” he admitted, and the potential truth of those words weighed heavily upon his heart, like the stab of a thousand daggers all piercing through him at the same time in one swift puncture. “Or that she ran away of her own accord,” he added the other, softer version of events, the one which he still wholeheartedly believed in. “I am certain that she is still out there, waiting for me to find her, and that is what I intend to do, no matter what.”
She smiled. It was a smile unlike any other he had ever seen. In it, he could see the glow of innocent cherubs, and he could hear the music of an angelic chorus, all voices singing in unison as one.
“I would have done the same for my sisters,” she admitted. In that admission, he felt he just gained an ally.
There were so many other questions inside his mind. He suddenly wanted to know all there was to know about her. He wanted to hear her thoughts, her wishes, her dreams. But the silence was overpowering. A comfortable silence. The sort of silence that enshrouded one in a cozy embrace, promising only good things to come.
He had no idea how long they were standing like that, occasionally catching each other’s gaze only to look away again. He could not have imagined that this woman would understand him more than those who knew him for ages. She took one look at him and understood why he refused to give up searching for his sister. It was simply how older siblings were. At some point, they become parents, protectors, guides. It was a role one would never outgrow. It lasted forever.
Then, the spell seemed to be broken. It made Edwin sad, but he knew that this moment could not last forever. It came suddenly, and it caught him by surprise. He welcomed its appearance nonetheless, despite the knowledge that it was all too fleeting.
“Well, I’d best head back inside,” she said, still with that flicker of a smile on her face.
“Of course,” he nodded. He regretted putting her in this risky situation of being unchaperoned with a gentleman, but at the same time, he relished the precious time they had together. He was certain that she was a lady unlike any other he had met. A part of him wished to see her again, but he was caught up in the momentum of things occupying his life right now. He had no time for courting. It would be unfair to her.
“Good night,” she told him, her lips widening into a proper smile this time. Her eyes sparkled even more now as if filled with some inner light she had revealed only to him right now.
“Good night,” he smiled back.
She turned to go then stopped. When their eyes locked, she made him a promise. “Your secret is safe with me, Edwin.”
With those words, she tiptoed back into the house, disappearing from sight. The sound of his name on her lips inflamed him. It awakened passions he thought were long buried and forgotten under the burden of finding his sister. But they were there. They had awakened. And he feared it would be a difficult task to put them back to sleep again.
CHAPTER3
“Susannah?” Lydia called out to her lady’s maid that evening as Susannah was combing her hair, preparing her mistress for bed. She gave her one ofthoselooks. Lydia knew that Susannah would recognize exactly what was expected of her. No words of explanation were necessary. The plan for that evening was more than obvious.
“You can braid my hair in the back,” Lydia instructed. “I want to be as simple as possible. Nothing convoluted. Also, if you would be so kind as to bring me your blue dress from last time, the one with the roses. I really liked that one. It is so comfortable for dancing!”
Susannah smiled. Lydia smiled in return, taking her friend’s hand into her own. “You have no idea how much I appreciate your willingness to cooperate with me in my shenanigans,” she chuckled. That was what Susannah and she always called their adventures.
“You know, in all the years of me working as a servant girl, which I’m counting now more than ten, I never had such a strange request,” Susannah expressed her surprise as many times before. “Not that I mind, My Lady. It is, in fact, nice to see someone wanting to be an ordinary woman instead of it being the other way around.”
“This is all sometimes suffocating,” Lydia admitted, looking around at nothing in particular, “but I am grateful for it all, nonetheless. I simply like to live outside the confines of this house.”
The rest of the house was sound asleep. Lydia had started sleeping in her own chamber years ago, leaving Anna and Selina in another to keep each other company while she herself got some respite from everyday obligations. That privacy was also rather beneficial when it came to Lydia’s nightly wanderings as she liked to refer to them.
“You know,” Lydia remembered, “I will never forget the first time I explained what was required of you.” They both chuckled. “You could not understand why I wanted to dress as a commoner, make my hair in that same manner, and go out to a tavern where I would be treated as any other commoner.”
“I honestly could not, My Lady.,” Susannah admitted, amused by this reminiscence.
“You see, for someone like me, it made perfect sense. Every single hour of every single day requires of me to be prim and proper. My own behavior always needed to be a guide for the behavior of my sisters. That means if I were to make any mistakes in behavior and decorum, my sisters would follow suit, and I could not have that.” She paused to sigh heavily then she continued, “It is very difficult to appear constantly proper, to perpetually speak and act in the right manner.”
“And when you are a commoner, you do not need to be any of these things,” Susannah added.
“I could be someone else,” Lydia agreed. “During these outings, Lady Lydia Lambert does not exist any longer. She is asleep in her chamber. The Lydia that is out there is someone else entirely, someone who does not need to think about manners and decorum, someone who could watch people live completely differently from her, simply and without the restraints of polite society that I feel are strangling me like a noose.”
