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Chapter One
A few days earlier . . .
L
ady Cecilia Bates's bedchamber was tucked away in the quieter East Wing of Danby Hall, far from the grander suites of her parents but with the best views of the rose garden, the lawn, and the trees of the ancient park beyond. Even though it was on the smallish side, Cecilia had decorated it to her own taste, in sky blue, cloud white, and sunny yellow, the bed, chairs, and dressing table carved out of a pale, light wood. Satin-upholstered chairs were grouped around the white marble fireplace, with her books and sketch pads piled around them, and blue-and-white-striped draperies hid the morning light at the windows.
Cecilia loved her room. It was her quiet sanctuary, away from the rest of the busy, bustling house. Best of all, it was away from her mother, and Lady Avebury's constant exhortations to find a "good husband" and marry soon. Her first Season was behind her now, after all, and she was not getting any younger.
Usually, when she swam up from a cozy night's sleep and snuggled deeper under her satin blankets for a minute, she was excited to face the day. A ride, breakfast, and she would be free for a few hours until she had to help her mother pay calls on the tenants and neighbors and write letters. But this morning, as soon as she opened her eyes, she growled and pulled the bedclothes all the way over her head. Today was going to be different.
Today, they had to prepare for the Heiress's arrival tomorrow. And the long house party would begin.
Cecilia sighed and rolled over to bury her face in the pillow. Nothing could block out the party. It was bearing down on Danby no matter what she did. Only days away, and the preparations felt like they had been going on forever.
The door clicked open, and she drew away from the pillow to see Rose, the young housemaid, tiptoeing into the room. A cup of tea was balanced carefully in her hands. She placed it ever-so-gently on the dressing table before she crept to the window and reached for the taffeta draperies.
"It's all right, Rose," Cecilia said. "I've been awake for ages."
"Oh, good morning, my lady," Rose said with a grateful glance. The curtains opened with a swoosh, and pale morning light swept over the floral needlepoint carpet. "I do try ever so hard to stay quiet."
"I know you do." Rose wasn't meant to be a proper lady's maid. She'd only been an upstairs maid at Danby for a few months and was still young and uncertain. But Cecilia's maid had left, and her mother's maid, the dour, intimidating Sumter, had declared she couldn't keep looking after two ladies. So Rose was sent to deputize.
Cecilia's mother declared that she would only hire just the "right" lady's maid, and none was available at the moment. Cecilia was afraid she knew the truth. She had seen the paintings and ornaments missing from the corridors, the increasing shabbiness of the upholstery and carpets, her father's worried frowns. The bustle and consternation over the arrival of the Heiress. Danby was not what it once was. The estate had never quite recovered from the great agricultural depression.
But no one talked to Cecilia about such things, nor would they. She was left to worry in restless silence and to try to help a maid who really only wanted to go back to her regular duties.
"It looks like a fine day outside, my lady," Rose said, handing Cecilia the cup of tea. "No rain yet. Will you want to ride after breakfast? I think your boots are still being cleaned."
Cecilia sighed and drained the cup. Thankfully, it was nice and strong. "I want to, but I imagine my mother will need my help."
"Oh yes. Mrs. Sumter says Lady Avebury was up before dawn."
"I can imagine." Cecilia had seldom seen her mother quite so excited as when she learned an American heiress was coming to stay. At least it turned her matchmaking attentions from Cecilia to her poor brother, Patrick, for a while.
Rose opened the wardrobe, sorting through the gowns and shawls and hats. "What will you wear for the morning, then, my lady?"
"The blue tweed skirt, I think, and one of the plainer shirtwaists. I can put on a jacket after, if I'm needed on an errand."
Cecilia reluctantly climbed out of bed and let Rose help her wash and dress. She sat down at the dressing table and watched in the mirror as Rose brushed and braided her thick, red-blond hair. The girl wasn't really very good with hair, a little clumsy, but she was kind and quiet, and Cecilia liked her easy presence. It gave her a peaceful moment before she had to go downstairs and face the day.
"You really are so kind to help me, Rose," Cecilia said, fiddling with the silver boxes and combs on her lace-draped table. "I'm sure we'll have you back to your regular job in no time." Once the Heiress arrived and saved them with her American gold.
"I don't mind at all, my lady," Rose said. "I like a bit of a change sometimes. But you'll want someone more experienced to help you with your party clothes this week!"
Cecilia thought of the new dresses that had just arrived from the dressmaker in Leeds, all pale silks and chiffons, with fashionable high waists and narrow skirts. She didn't know how they were all paid for, but her mother had insisted. Only the best, or the best to be found in Yorkshire, anyway. Danby was the seat of an ancient earldom, after all, and they had to look like it.
"I daresay that between us we will muddle along," Cecilia said. "I'm sure it makes extra work for everyone."
"We're all happy for a bit of excitement downstairs, my lady, to tell you the truth! There hasn't been a proper party in ever so long. Mrs. Frazer is beside herself with the new menus."
Cecilia laughed. "I'm sure she is." Mrs. Frazer had been head cook at Danby for as long as Cecilia could remember. When she and her brother were small, they would sneak down to the kitchens and Mrs. Frazer would give them iced buns. She was an excellent cook who did like a challenge, even as she moaned about it, and Cecilia feared the Bates family hadn't given her one in some time. Mama had even expressed worry that Mrs. Frazer might go elsewhere, since everyone in the neighborhood had longed to lure her away for years.
Especially their nearest neighbors and old rivals, Lord and Lady Byswater at Emberley Court. They would love to steal away Mama's prized cook and her lovely Lamb Devaux, her very own creation, and raspberry tarts.
Cecilia watched in the mirror as Rose pinned up her braided hair in a tidy coil at the nape of her neck. Rose might not know the latest coiffures, but she was careful and neat. "You're sure you don't mind the extra work, then?"
"I heard the guests might bring lots of tips, my lady," Rose answered with a cheeky smile and a blush. "A few coins for my hope chest!"
"Rose!" Cecilia cried. "Are you engaged?"
"Not as such, my lady, not yet. But there is someone who-well, he's ever so nice."
"How lovely." Cecilia sighed, a little envious. All the young men she had met during her Season had not been "ever so nice" but completely dull. "I do enjoy a good romance."
"You won't tell Mrs. Caffey, will you, my lady?" Rose asked nervously. "Not until it's all settled?"
"Of course not." Mrs. Caffey, who like Mrs. Frazer had been at Danby for ages, was an excellent housekeeper and most efficient, but she was also rather old-fashioned. She wouldn't approve of the maids marrying. She was one of those who didn't realize it was the twentieth century now. "It will be our little secret."
All too soon, her toilette was finished, and Cecilia had to leave the sanctuary of her chamber and go downstairs. She left Rose tidying up and made her way down the corridor, along the old Elizabethan gallery to the stairs.
The gallery connected the older part of the house to the Palladian mansion her several-times-removed great-grandfather had built when the Bates fortune started to catch up to its ancient name. Cecilia loved it, as it felt like moving from one time to another, a bridge between eras. It was also a splendid place to hide away and read on rainy days. She and Patrick had even raced their bicycles there when they were children, once they managed to obtain the precious and long-forbidden wheeled items.
One wall was all windows, curtained in heavy tapestry fabric, looking out to the ornamental lake, the marble folly made to look like a Grecian temple that had replaced an older watchtower, and the park beyond. The other wall was paneled in dark wood, with three grand fireplaces carved with fruit and grinning theater masks so overexpressive they had frightened her when she was a child. Hardly less frightening were the family portraits hung between them, along with old weapons and battle flags. Only the most ancient visages were kept there, Bateses who had served Queen Elizabeth and James I, solemn and fierce in their starched ruffs and pearl-edged farthingales.
Cecilia saluted them today as she made her way along the inlaid parquet floor, which echoed the old-gold coffered ceiling overhead. She paused to peek out the window and was glad to see that last night's rain clouds had indeed scuttled away, leaving a hesitant, watery-pale sunlight peeking into a blue sky. The weather would be one less thing for her mother to fuss about.
"Hello, Ralph, old man," she said to the rusting suit of armor just at the end of the gallery. She patted him on his creaking shoulder. "Still keeping watch on things, I'm glad to see."
Outside the gallery, she turned and found herself at the main staircase. Slightly newer than the gallery, but not as new as the main house, all the local history books called it "the best open-well staircase in the neighborhood." Cecilia had always thought it didn't quite look real, as if it belonged in a fairy-tale castle like Sleeping Beauty's; its dark wood was so thickly carved with cherubs and flowers and feathers, and Bs circled with wreaths. There were niches for sculptures and paintings, and at the landing her grandmother's portrait by Winterhalter when she was a young woman visiting the French royal court. Even with dark, lustrous hair and the wide, swooping pink satin skirts of her youth, she was formidable.
Cecilia wondered if maybe that was why Danby never felt like a comfortable home to her, except for her bedroom. Someone like her grandmother or the Elizabethan courtiers was always watching. And her grandmama hadn't looked any less intimidating when she sat in a summertime garden for Mr. Winterhalter than she did now in her dower house, and she was certainly no less farseeing.
Cecilia hurried past her grandmother's blue-eyed stare and turned again at the staircase hall. She could have gone through the monumental foyer into the staterooms, the White Drawing Room, the dining room, the Gothic library or chapel, but she chose a narrower hallway toward the smaller, octagonal breakfast room at the back of the house.
She had heard that in her grandparents' day, breakfasts were taken in the overwhelming grandeur of the main dining room, until Cecilia's mother insisted a smaller, more intimate chamber be constructed. Only one of the many lovely things her mother had accomplished as a young Lady Avebury.
Cecilia sighed. She wished her mother had such a distraction now, instead of bending all her formidable energy onto her children's marital prospects. At least this house party was focused on poor Patrick and not her.
The breakfast room was a lovely, serene space, papered in a blue-and-white floral pattern, the chairs cushioned in a yellow chintz, the needlepoint carpet a riot of yellow and pink roses and blue violets. The matching chintz curtains were back, letting the daylight shine on the silver warming dishes lined up on the mahogany buffet. A still life of fruit and roses hung above it, echoing the view of the terrace and rose garden outside the windows.
Usually, Cecilia breakfasted alone with her father, and sometimes Patrick, if he could be torn away from his botany experiments in the laboratory shed beyond the garden. Her mother took the morning meal on a tray in her room. It was a peaceful, quiet hour, her father usually buried in his newspapers. But today her mother was actually there, as if the countess's suite could no longer contain her energy.
She sat across from her husband at the round, yellow-draped table, a meager repast of toast on her plate, a stack of papers beside her. Lord Avebury tried to hide behind the Times, pretending it was a normal morning, but Cecilia saw him cringe with every furious rustle of her mother's famous lists.
Patrick was nowhere to be seen. Lucky chap.
"Good morning, Mama. Papa," Cecilia said, as cheerfully as she could. She kissed her father's cheek and hurried over to fill her plate.
Redvers, the butler who had served at Danby since long before Cecilia was born, lifted the silver cover from the dish of buttered eggs for her. "Good morning, Lady Cecilia. Would you care for a cup of tea? Or perhaps some chocolate is called for today." He raised his shaggy gray brow at her, making her smile.
He and Mrs. Frazer did know her sweet tooth too well. "Oh, chocolate, please, Redvers."
"Right away, my lady."
Cecilia added a dollop of kedgeree and some toast to her plate before she joined her parents at the table. A cup of lovely, frothy, dark chocolate soon appeared at her elbow. She had a feeling she was going to need it.
Her mother glanced up and speared Cecilia with a sharp glance from her sea-green eyes. Emmaline, Lady Avebury, had been a wondrous beauty in her youth, and everyone agreed she was still very lovely, with her tall, slim figure in fashionable gowns, clear roses-and-ivory complexion, and mounds of dark hair barely touched with silver. It was whispered that her great beauty was why the very eligible young Lord Avebury married her back then. So many young ladies clamored to be the Countess of Avebury, and Emmaline was from an old but poor family, mostly populated now by colonial civil servants in India and Africa.
Cecilia had often wished she had inherited some of her mother's dramatic looks, instead of the Bates reddish hair and freckles. She was sure her mother often wished that, too.
