Chloe felt a draft coming from behind. “We didn’t spend much time—talking.”
Grace snapped the telescope closed and picked up a book from a large table draped in an Oriental rug, thumping it with her long, slender fingers.
A housemaid, on her hands and knees at Chloe’s walking boots, was wiping up the wet trail of mud and grass she’d left behind her on the wooden floor. Without thinking, Chloe stooped to the floor. “Let me help you.” She took a rag from the bucket.
A portrait of some eighteenth-century Wrightman women above the fireplace seemed to be looking down their English noses at Chloe, their silver gowns glistening, their faces and hair powdered white, each of them forcing an ever-so-slight painted smile.
Mrs. Crescent yanked Chloe up and the rag went splat on the floor. “A lady doesn’t—that’s servant work.” She bobbed her head toward the camera. “Against the rules,” she whispered.
“But I’m responsible for this—” Heat rose up Chloe’s neck, her head throbbed, and she wiped her dirty hand on the back of her gown, leaving fingerprints.
Grace laughed, covering her pouty mouth with her glove. “I’m glad to see that she at least knows her place. She should’ve been cast as a scullery maid.”
Scullery maid happened to be the lowest ranking of the maid hierarchy. Chloe knew this now, after working in Cook’s kitchen.
“Carriage is ready,” Jones announced.
Mrs. Crescent tucked Fifi under her arm.
“The storm’s passed!” Henry announced as he trounced in with his medical bag. Chloe noticed that something salty was dripping into her mouth and realized that her nose was running. She knew better than to wipe it with her cap sleeve. Before she could do anything, however, Henry pulled a handkerchief with HW embroidered on it out of his pocket and, without a word, wiped her runny nose then put the thing right back into his pocket. Just like her grandpa used to do when she was little.
“Thank you.” Her eyes followed him even as she stepped away from him.
“Ugh,” Lady Grace groaned, tossing a book that she hadn’t even cracked onto the table. She plopped down at the pianoforte and shuffled the sheet music like cards.
“Miss Parker, whatever happened to your leg?” Henry asked.
Mrs. Crescent gasped. “I had no idea! Dear Lord!”
Grace pounded on the pianoforte, sending Beethoven resounding throughout the room.
“I’m fine. It’s just a little cut.” Grace was banging the pianoforte so loud that Chloe had to practically yell. She wanted as little interaction with Henry as possible, so she looked into the fire in the fireplace and fidgeted with her gown.
“May I take a look at the cut?”
Grace moved on to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.”
Chloe decided that she had to stop giving Henry mixed messages. “I said I’m fine, Mr. Wrightman!”
Fifi whimpered.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Mrs. Crescent singsonged forlornly.
Henry persisted. “I recommend you bathe and replace the bandage in the next twenty-four hours. I also recommend a dram or two of spirits.”
That got her to smile, although she had sworn off that sewing-cabinet vodka . . . and off Henry as well.
“And, of course, I’ll need to check on your progress tomorrow.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Just then Sebastian walked in to see Henry and Chloe together—again.
This was exactly what she didn’t want to happen! She turned to Sebastian. “And thank you, Mr. Wrightman, for rescuing me in the hedge maze.”
Sebastian merely nodded.
Henry had ruined her progress with Sebastian again!
Grace and Julia chose that moment to swoop in on Sebastian, each vying for his attention, each beautiful, glittering, and—dry.
Chloe decided that Mrs. Crescent was right, she looked a mess and was in no state to compete with Grace and Julia, certainly not physically, and maybe not mentally either! She should listen to her chaperone more often, really.
“Well, Mrs. Crescent and I must go.” Chloe curtsied, the men bowed, and she shuffled toward the foyer, Mrs. Crescent following.
In the marble-tiled foyer, Chloe caught a glimpse of herself in a full-length gold-leaf mirror, and thought she looked more like a madwoman locked in the attic than an Elizabeth Bennet who had just muddied her petticoats running all the way to Netherfield. Regardless, petticoats were hopelessly out of fashion in 1812. She pulled a twig out of her tangled hair.
What had made her think she was worthy of an Oxford-educated aristocratic hottie anyway? She used to think she belonged here in England, and now, it seemed, Grace might be right. She didn’t belong here, or anywhere else.
She hesitated before stepping into the carriage, a hard-topped black chaise with a gold W emblazoned on the door. The four black horses tossed their manes and stamped their hooves.
“To Bridgesbridge Place,” Mrs. Crescent told the driver.
Fifi tugged at his bandage by Chloe’s side and nuzzled his head under her hand. Chloe petted him, he licked her arm, and this time she didn’t wince. The carriage lurched forward, the back of her head hit the leather tufts of the carriage seat, and the next time she looked out the carriage window she saw the vine-covered walls of Bridesbridge Place. She must’ve fallen asleep.
Mrs. Crescent put her hand on Chloe’s knee and smiled. “Well, we missed the opportunity to score Accomplishment Points in the hedge-maze competition, but you will gain the bath you’ve been wanting. And I’m pleased to hear that things are going so well with Mr. Wrightman.”
They had been going well . . . until Henry intervened.
Later that afternoon, Fiona summoned Chloe to the bath, and Chloe was more than happy to leave her embroidered screen behind.
“Let’s put on your bath gown.” Fiona reached into Chloe’s Chippendale wardrobe and pulled out a thin sleeveless white cheesecloth type of thing.
“There’s even a gown to wear to the bath?” Chloe asked. The gown brushed against her ankles as Fiona led her into a stone-tiled room.
“You’ll see, miss,” Fiona assured her. She rolled up her sleeves and Chloe spotted the Celtic tattoo she had noticed more than a week ago.
Linens the size of sheets hung from pegs and a large copper tub full of water gleamed in the sunset that was streaming in through the window. The skies had cleared. Candles flickered in the sconces on the wall, and a silver pitcher full of fresh lavender stood on a wooden table near the tub. The only thing missing? A glass of wine. Chloe could almost hear a choir of angels singing “Hallelujah” in her head. A bath! After more than a week now? In a gorgeous copper tub! What joy, what bliss—“What’s this?” Chloe picked up what looked to be a brush with a handle that was used to scrub floors.
“That’s the brush I’m going to clean you off with,” Fiona said.
A camerawoman stood in the corner, on an upturned wooden bucket, filming.
“You will stop filming now, right?” Chloe asked the camerawoman, who didn’t respond. No matter how desperately she wanted a bath, she refused to be filmed naked and have such compromising images of herself blasted all over the Internet. She wouldn’t be naive about this!
“Get in the tub, please, Miss Parker.” Fiona hovered over Chloe with the scrub brush. “We haven’t all day, other people in the house are waiting their turn.”
Chloe lifted the bath gown up to her thighs to take it off, but couldn’t go any higher. How could they do this to her? Show her a tub full of water after seven days without a shower or bath and then expect her to be filmed naked? “You know what? I can’t do this. Any of this. Anymore.” She turned on her barefoot heel, but Fiona was blocking the door, scrub brush in hand.