“The word ‘extraordinary’ may be taken in two ways, Eugenia. One implies awe. The other implies you have crossed the bounds of decent society into realms best unexplored.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Eugenia Huxley in reply to said lady’s assertion that turbans should never have fewer than three feathers.
May 7, 1825
Mrs. Pritchard’s Millinery Shop, London
“What possessed you? Mrs. Pritchard hates red flowers.” The words wafted toward Eugenia Huxley on a low hiss. “She’ll give you the sack this time, for certain. And none too soon, you ask me.” Along with the odor of poorly cleaned teeth, the woman’s loathing formed an unpleasant fog in the cramped workroom.
Genie stabbed her long needle through her newest leghorn straw creation and spared a glare for her fellow millinery assistant, Nancy Knox—or, as Genie had dubbed her, Fancy Nancy.
A keen bit of sarcasm, of course. Weathered fence posts had more imagination than Miss Knox.
Plucking a purple ostrich plume from the basket beside her chair, Genie glanced toward three finished hats resting upon a shelf at the rear of the room. One was dyed indigo and adorned with the forbidden red silk roses. Another was swathed in emerald damask, accented with pleated ivory lining, and topped by five majestic peacock feathers.
The third was brown.
Plain. Dull. Brown. With darker brown binding around a modest brim and black velvet ribbons to tie beneath the wearer’s chin.
If a lady had a sudden need for half-mourning, Fancy Nancy’s handiwork was the answer.
Genie raised her chin and tucked the purple plume inside a brocade band. Turning the bonnet this way and that, she tsked. “More color, I think. Ah, yes. I know just the thing.” She stood to fetch a length of red silk. Slanting a grin at Miss Knox, she returned to her chair and began folding ribbon into petals. Briefly, her eyes landed on the other woman’s piteous attempt at a yellow cap.
“Lace?” she gasped. “Your boldness shocks my very senses, Miss Knox. Why, next thing you know, you’ll be dabbling in witchcraft.”
Miss Knox’s glare flashed with anger. At least, Genie thought it was anger. Fancy Nancy’s eyes were both brown and dead—like mud, but with added spite.
Another foul-smelling hiss floated her way. “The sack. Mark my words, you insolent—”
Mrs. Pritchard entered with a swish of the striped curtain that separated workroom from storefront. “Mrs. Herbert requested five turbans by tomorrow morning,” she said, her smile at odds with her tight expression and tighter hair. “I suggest you retrieve the white plumes, Miss Huxley.”
Long before Genie had arrived to plague her employer with rebellious red flowers, Mrs. Pritchard had been defeated by her own mediocrity. The wheat-haired milliner often smiled and tittered like a silly girl at Almack’s, but her pleasantness poorly compensated for what she lacked—talent and intelligence. To Genie’s eye, tight lips, scraped-back hair, and careworn creases bespoke two decades of disguised ineptitude. Mrs. Pritchard might smile like a society miss making her debut, but she was a dreadful milliner.
Genie had no intention of suffering the same fate.
“Scarlet, this time?” she quipped under her breath. “Or will it be jonquil?”
Mrs. Pritchard’s smile flattened and pursed as though she’d swallowed a spoonful of vinegar. “You will make them precisely how she prefers.” A new smile emerged, bright and false. “Precisely.”
Genie held the woman’s gaze for a moment then dropped her eyes to the red ribbon in her hands. “Of course. Gold with white plumes.”
“Plume, Miss Huxley,” The response was low and vexed. “I shall not repeat it again. Add two as you did last time, and that will be that.”
That will be that.
Her stomach filled with cold lead.
Fancy Nancy had been right. Genie was about to be dismissed. Given the sack from an east Oxford Street milliner. One who catered to miserly, middle-class matrons. One who had hired Fancy Nancy, of all the talentless wretches in London. One who, last week, had insisted the three of them take tea while fourteen orders remained unfinished.
Because Mrs. Pritchard preferred things pleasant. Nothing was more pleasant than tea in the midst of a hectic workday, apparently, when one departed at six rather than ten. No, working into the wee hours was for assistants—junior assistants, to be precise.
Genie examined Mrs. Pritchard’s expression, gauging her seriousness. Her coif was so severe, her brows arched in permanent surprise. Or alarm. Or wakefulness. Genie had never quite decided, but it forced the creases from her forehead, which was likely the point.
Genie’s stomach grew heavier as an unlikely furrow formed between the woman’s brows. “Gold satin. One white plume,” Genie murmured, setting her red rose aside and plucking a white feather from the bottom of the basket. “Straight away, Mrs. Pritchard.”
Acquiescence was not surrender, she assured herself, but tactical retreat. She needed this position. She needed to learn how to run a shop—or how not to run one, more to the point. She needed to know she could do this work and that her life was not over.
The curtain swished as Mrs. Pritchard disappeared into the front of the shop, where she would wait for the barest trickle of customers to woo with Fancy Nancy’s plain, dull creations.
“Told you, didn’t I?”
Genie answered Miss Knox’s utterance with a taunt she knew would fall on uncomprehending ears—which only made it sweeter. “Ah, yes. A prophecy worthy of Macbeth. Witchcraft suits you, Miss Knox.”
Two hours later, after the other two women had departed and the light through the tiny window had dimmed to a yellow haze, Genie fastened a single white plume into place on her fourth turban. All she could see when she blinked was gold satin, white feathers, and tiny stitches. Her fingers ached. Her back burned. Her stomach growled.
And she had run out of gold satin.
Rising, she groaned, rubbed her lower spine, and examined her work.
Identical to the last three, it was an elegantly arranged series of silken folds. It begged for a band of pearls, perhaps a plaited cord, and at least two more plumes. But, because Genie wanted Fancy Nancy’s prophecy to be wrong, it was precisely as Mrs. Herbert preferred. She sighed and removed the turban from the hat block before placing it gently on a shelf alongside three others.
Returning to the table, she sifted through tiny scraps of gold satin. She needed more. She didn’t have it.
But Mrs. Pritchard’s husband did.
Drat.
A hat-maker far more skilled and far less pleasant than his wife, Mr. Pritchard ran the adjacent shop, Pritchard’s Fine Hats. The place served strictly male customers, of course, but men’s hats required lining. And she happened to know Pritchard favored the same gold silk Mrs. Herbert fancied.
Genie tapped one fingertip against the table and another against her lip. She eyed the door connecting the two workrooms.
She shouldn’t, of course. Mrs. Pritchard had forbidden her assistants from borrowing Mr. Pritchard’s supplies. But she had also declared, “That will be that.”
Genie took such a threat as permission to do what was necessary.
Before she could think better of it, she inched the door open and peeked inside. Then she rolled her eyes and cleared her throat.
The portly young man currently hunched over a book jerked. Booted feet dropped from the table to the floor with a thud.
“What have you there, Mr. Moody?” she teased.
Rounded cheeks reddened and a sheepish smile came her way over Lewis Moody’s shoulder. “Only one of me stories, Miss Huxley.” He set the book beside his hat block. One freckled, pudgy hand stroked the cover before he stood and gave her a bashful nod. “What brings ye visitin’?”
Mr. Moody was Pritchard’s assistant, and the hatter allowed him to manage the shop in the late afternoons when business slowed.
She shot him her best grin, which made his color deepen, and pointed toward the bolt of gold silk on the table behind him.
He swiveled. “Right. Mrs. Herbert again, is it?”
“Fully five turbans this time.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue.
“Identical to the last lot?”
She nodded.
“Puzzlin’.”
She chuckled. “Heaven knows what she does with them.”
“Some do favor things of a single kind.”
Yes. Some did. Those who lacked vision. “Might you spare a bit of the gold silk? Mrs. Herbert requires her identical headdresses to be delivered promptly.”
Mr. Moody laughed and nodded. “Certainly. I’m glad to give ye whatever ye require, Miss Huxley. More than glad.”
The glint in his eyes spoke of a double meaning, but she ignored it, patting his elbow as she squeezed past him. “That is why you are my favorite of all Mr. Pritchard’s assistants,” she teased. The two other assistants were sourer than Fancy Nancy. By comparison, Lewis Moody was positively dashing.
As she bent over to cut the silk, she thought she heard him squeak, but concluded it was the front door of Pritchard’s shop. Bells chimed. Boots rapped.
“M-Miss Huxley, I must tell ye,” Mr. Moody began, “how much I admire your … that is, I been meanin’ to … “
Hearing his tone—low and earnest—Genie’s hands slowed. Her heart sank.
Drat. She hoped he was not about to—
“Do ye suppose one day soon—not today, o’ course, but one day—that ye might … with me, I mean … perhaps we could—”
A distinct rap from a boot heel striking plank floors echoed through the curtained doorway.
Pretending nonchalance, Genie resettled the silk and smoothed it for cutting. “Sounds as though you are needed, Mr. Moody. Mustn’t tarry on my account.”
A sigh. “Right.” The squeak of boots and the swish of a curtain signaled his departure.
Genie straightened and bit her lip. Her eyes drifted to Mr. Moody’s abandoned book. Ivanhoe.
Her second-oldest sister, Jane, was a reader, constantly nattering on about this novel and that. Genie rarely paid much mind, but even she had heard of Sir Walter Scott’s tale of medieval adventure. Given Lewis Moody’s lot in life, she imagined escaping into the past, picturing oneself as the hero of the piece, was a welcome diversion.
Drat again. She liked Mr. Moody. He reminded her a bit of Jane, actually. Shy. Good-natured. Hoarding every spare farthing to spend at the circulating library.
He’d likely object to the comparison. Jane was female, after all—a mother of five and wife to the formidable Duke of Blackmore. But apart from that, they might as well be twins. Cousins, at least.
Genie must dissuade Lewis Moody from developing a tendre for her. She liked him entirely too much.
With a sigh, she resumed cutting Mrs. Herbert’s silk, hoping to finish before he returned.
“… did it take on such damage, m’lord? If ye don’t mind me askin’.”
“Does it matter?”
Genie froze, the shears half-open in her hand. That voice. Clipped. Patrician. Low and flinty.
“Suppose not. I shall have it for yer lordship first thing tomorrow morn—”
“Why can it not be repaired now?”
Oh, yes. She recognized that voice. It had been years, but she knew it instantly.
“The damage is … well, there is quite a lot of it, isn’t there? Nothin’ beyond repair, mind. But it might take an hour or more.”
“I shall wait.”
“Beg your pardon?”
Silence.
Genie remembered those, too. Long, curious silences between brief, clipped sentences.
Lewis Moody cleared his throat. She could almost hear the young man turning red. “As you like, sir. I mean, m’lord.”
The curtain swished. As she’d surmised, Mr. Moody’s cheeks were crimson and his hands shook. He frantically gestured toward the doorway with a misshapen hat. It appeared to have teeth marks in the brim. “You’ll never believe it,” he whispered, eyes wide. “It’s—”
The Earl of Holstoke. Yes, she would believe it. He’d almost been her brother-in-law.
“—an earl, Miss Huxley. Never spoke to one of the quality before. Not more’n a ‘yes, sir’ or ‘pardon me, sir,’ at any rate.”
In truth, he had spoken to one of the quality on numerous occasions. An earl’s daughter, in fact. But he didn’t know that, and she preferred to keep matters as they were.
“Well,” he said, tilting the wrecked hat toward his worktable. “Best get to it.”
She nodded, folding Mrs. Herbert’s gold silk and squeezing past Mr. Moody. On her way to the connecting door, she glanced at the curtained entrance, a curl of curiosity wending up her nape.
“He elected to wait, I take it,” she said.
“Hmm? Oh, aye.”
“Bound to grow impatient.” She tapped a fingertip against the silk. “The quality often do.”
A pause and a clink as one of Mr. Moody’s tools was exchanged for another. “Suppose so.”
Curling curiosity wormed deeper. Dug in. Demanded.
“I shall keep him occupied for a while,” she murmured, drifting toward the curtained doorway. “Give you time for the repairs.”
“Oh, no. That is, certainly you may do as you like, Miss Huxley, but …”
She was no longer listening. She’d shouldered past the curtain and entered Mr. Pritchard’s shop where few females ever set foot—even Mrs. Pritchard.
Holstoke stood with his back to her, one hand clasping the opposite wrist behind him. A waning shaft of light gleamed a streak across black, short-cropped hair. He was tall—an inch or two above six feet. She recalled craning her neck to speak with him, though it had been years.
“Lord Holstoke. It has been an age.”
His shoulders stiffened. Were they broader than before? They were, she thought. Heavier, too, as though both muscle and bone had thickened.
His head tilted and he began to turn. First came the cheekbone, high and prominent. Next the nose, long and straight. Finally, the eyes.
Ah, the eyes. Like green ice, pale and piercing. She’d nearly forgotten how they made one shiver. Eerie, one of her sisters called them. Others termed them ghostly. Genie simply thought them an unusual shade of green.
Genie was not one for poetry.
“Lady Eugenia.” Low and deep, his voice resonated like metal. Unblinking eyes slid along her torso, pausing where she clasped the gold silk before returning to her face. “Six years.”
She moved past the counter toward the window, where he stood as still and expressionless as she remembered. “Is it six? I had thought five.”
“Six.”
“No matter. It is splendid to see you again. My sister mentioned you were in town for the season.”
“You have four sisters. Perhaps you could be more specific.”
Her mouth quirked in a sympathetic smile. “Lady Dunston, of course.”
Silence. And a long, green stare.
Genie forgave the moment of awkwardness. A natural thing, really. He had courted her third-oldest sister, Maureen, ardently before having his marriage proposal rejected in favor of Maureen’s real and only love, Henry Thorpe, the Earl of Dunston.
Turning, Genie laid her silk upon the counter and moved nearer the man many found intimidating if not frightening. His features had a spare quality Maureen had once called “ascetic.” Genie wasn’t certain what that meant, but the high cheekbones, bladed nose, and lean jaw enhanced the chill of his strange, expressionless eyes. And yet, he was tall. Trim. Wealthy. An earl. And, unless he had changed a great deal in the past six years, a man of stunning intellect.
By all rights, Phineas Brand, the Earl of Holstoke, was a splendid catch. If one overlooked his peculiar nature.
Curiosity—one of her abiding weaknesses—struck again. But she could not simply ask him the question burning in her head, so she began with an easier inquiry. “What happened to your hat?”
He surveyed the empty shop as though wondering how she’d made her way there from Bedlam. “Lady Randall.”
“Lady Randall ate your hat?”
She’d said it to make him laugh. Or smile, at least. But she’d forgotten how rarely he did either.
“Her dogs.”
She grinned, chuckled, and rolled her eyes. “Little devils. She never could control her pugs. A shame, really. Yours was a very fine hat. Exquisite beaver.”
He did not reply.
“So,” she continued, feigning blitheness. In truth, curiosity was eating at her like one of Lady Randall’s pugs on a slice of ham. Or a very fine hat. “You are in town. After six years rusticating in your Dorsetshire castle.”
Glancing down at his gray wool sleeve, he retorted dryly, “Observant of you.”
“Oh, come now.” She stepped closer. “Do not play coy. How goes the search?”
“My hat was damaged less than an hour ago. I have not yet sought a new one.”
“You know very well I meant—”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I know.”
Any other woman would have heeded the warning in his voice. Genie had never been any other woman. “Well? Tell me, then. We were friends once.”
A hard light glinted inside icy green.
“After a fashion,” she clarified.
His expression remained stony.
“Very well, acquaintances. My family is fond of you, Holstoke. We should like to know whether you have found a suitable bride.”
“We?”
She sighed, conceding his point. “I. I should like to know.”
“Why?”
“Matters were left … rather a mess.”
His jaw hardened and tilted. “Quite the contrary. Lady Maureen became Lady Dunston. Matters were made extraordinarily clear.”
Yes, she supposed that was true. And he had been hurt. Genie had hated it, for Holstoke was a fine man who had pursued her sister honorably. He’d even shown generosity to Maureen’s two fractious younger sisters, bringing Genie and Kate along on several excursions, including a lovely day at Astley’s Amphitheatre.
“Regardless,” she said. “I should like to see you make a good match.” She raised a brow and eyed him teasingly from beneath her lashes. “A lady capable of coaxing a smile from those lips now and then.”
Something strange flashed in Holstoke’s eyes—stranger than normal, that was. A kind of fire. Perhaps he was angry.
Quicker than a blink, his gaze dropped to her mouth then came up again, cold as ever. “Six years is a long time. Whatever our prior connection, Lady Eugenia, my present circumstances needn’t concern—”
She abandoned pretense. “Yes, but I am dying of curiosity. You must tell me.”
His silence was long and probing. She wondered if he was remembering the time she had astutely advised him to wear an emerald pin with his silver cravat, or the time she’d wheedled a surprised chuckle out of him as they’d departed Astley’s. To her recollection, she had been quite helpful. Perhaps he would take pity upon her and satisfy her craving.
After long seconds, he did. “I’ve yet to locate a suitable wife.”
Just as she’d suspected. He’d run aground in the marriage mart. In this, at least, she might be useful. The marriage mart had proven rough waters for her, as well.
“You are not unattractive,” she began, assessing level black brows and flat lips.
The comment earned her a blink.
“Not handsome either, mind. And even you must admit to having a rather peculiar nature.”
This produced a small frown.
“Still.” She propped one elbow on her opposite wrist and tapped her lip with her finger. “Attractive, in your way. Maureen doubtless would have accepted your suit had she not been mad for Dunston. By all rights, you should be besieged by ladies eager to be made a countess.”
It was true, and yet she sensed it displeased him greatly.
“What are you doing here?” He snapped the first word and glided over the rest.
Her finger paused. “I am employed here. The milliner’s shop, rather. Next door. I am here to fetch silk for a customer who wishes to add to her collection of identical turbans.” She shook her head and snorted. “Speaking of peculiar.”
Green eyes calculated and probed as though she were a complex equation. “Why?”
“My question precisely. Is she part of a secret society in which gold turbans with a single white feather are required for entry? Or is the reason more sinister? Dreadful taste, perhaps. But if that is true, she might aim for variety at the very least—”
“No. Why are you working here?”
She blinked. “Where else should I work?”
“I shouldn’t think you would be working at all, Lady Eugenia. I assumed you would be wed by now.”
“Wed?” She laughed, shaking her head.
He tilted his head as though she’d made a jest he didn’t understand.
“The scandal?” she prompted, sighing when his response was another inscrutable stare. “You’ve been away from London too long.”
“I know about the scandal. Whatever your indiscretions, you should not be reduced to”—he glanced around the tiny shop—“this. You’re an earl’s daughter, for God’s sake.”
“My employer does not know. To her, I am Miss Huxley, lately of Nottinghamshire. I came with excellent references.” Her lips quirked. “The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham, no less.”
“Patently ridiculous. Someone should marry you and stop this nonsense at once.”
Sniffing, she folded her arms beneath her bosom. “You and my mother are in agreement. And yet, despite her efforts, three years on, no man has tendered an offer. Disgraced brides are in low demand, evidently.”
“I saw your mother several weeks ago outside Almack’s. She mentioned nothing of this.”
“Mama has reinvested her hopes in my younger sister, Kate. For my part, I simply stay out of sight and attempt to keep my scandalous vapor from spoiling the husband hunt.”
Again, his head tilted. “Do you always speak so bluntly?”
“Candor spares us all a good deal of meaningless prattle, wouldn’t you agree? As for my employment, working here is preferable to wandering about the grounds at Clumberwood Manor.” She had done that for nearly two years. It had felt like prison.
A perplexed cleft now shadowed the bridge of his long, straight nose. “Your father can be none too happy.”
“Papa would prefer I remain in the country, rotting away like some old, forgotten rodent in the corner of the stables. Here, at least I shall learn a useful trade. That is more than most spinsters can claim.”
“Making hats.”
She stiffened at the implication in his tone. “I have a talent for it. Hats are an integral element of a lady’s fashionable ensemble. A veritable proclamation of—”
“So, you are a milliner.”
She sniffed. “Assistant. Milliner’s assistant.” At his raised brow, she straightened her shoulders and tried to forget Mrs. Pritchard’s ominous assurance: That will be that. “Only for now, whilst I learn the trade,” she hedged. “One day, I shall open my own shop.”
“Huxleys do not open shops. Particularly …” Green eyes dropped to her apron-covered skirts then returned to her faded blue bodice. “Female Huxleys.”
Her hands propped on her hips. “Well, this one shall.”
He moved mere inches away, his gaze now disconcertingly focused.
At this proximity, she felt the weariness in her neck, a disturbing shortness of breath. He was taller than she’d previously estimated. Perhaps three inches above six feet.
“Your older sisters have borne twelve children between them.”
Four. Definitely four inches. The man loomed. “Your point?”
“Huxleys breed. A lot.” He muttered the words to himself, though his eyes never left her.
Amusement tugged at her lips. He truly was a most peculiar fellow. “Some do.”
“But not you?”
Amusement shook and dissolved. “Breeding is best done with a husband. Or so I have heard.”
“Rather than a footman.” Again, he murmured the words to himself like a scientist puzzling out the structure of an exotic insect, unconcerned with the insect’s feelings on the matter.
A footman. She wanted to laugh and cry at once, felt both urges shuddering in her chest. No, a footman could not be her husband.
The scandal had ravaged her family. Mama had wept for weeks. Papa—kind, loving, good-humored Papa—had not spoken to Genie for a fortnight. Finally, when he had, he’d quietly explained that if she wanted Kate to have a chance at an acceptable match, she would leave London and remain in the country until the scandal receded. Genie had left for Clumberwood the following day.
Even now, some in the ton still whispered about her, crass epithets and lewd snickering. She didn’t care, so long as the cruelties did not touch Kate. It was why Genie needed employment. Needed to finish Mrs. Herbert’s silly gold turbans. Needed to endure the false smiles and forced cheer of Mrs. Pritchard.
Her family had borne the Great Burden of Genie too long.
“Well,” she said briskly, raising her brow at the man whose eyes pinned her like a silk rose to a straw brim. “I believe we have solved the mystery of your difficulties in the marriage mart, Holstoke. A bit of subtlety might help. Perhaps even a jot of politeness.”
“You were neither subtle nor polite.”
“Yes, but when I am blunt, it is bold and charming. When you are blunt, it is offensive and annoying.”
“That is hypocrisy.”
She shrugged. “Call it what you will. I do not make the rules.”
“Newton’s third law of motion is a rule. Your statement is an assertion.”
“A correct one.” She sighed and reached out to pat his elbow, ignoring how he stiffened. “Listen carefully, Holstoke, for that is the only way you will find success among the matchmaking mamas. You are odd. There is simply no way round it. The less you say, the more the ladies will fill in the gaps with their own suppositions. Begin with polite flattery. Practice it. Then, do not—whatever you do, do not—deviate from your script.”
His gaze fell to where her hand rested on his arm. “Among my oddities must be forgetfulness.” Pale green came back narrowed and sparking. “I don’t recall asking your advice.”
She withdrew. “Very well. Ignore me, then. But do not complain when you must return next year to dance the same tedious dance.”
Head rearing back, he flared his nose in disgust.
“Indeed,” she said with satisfaction. “No man wishes to enter this farcical exhibition twice. Or, in your case, thrice.”
He’d spent his first season courting Maureen, of course. For a proud man, the rejection must have cut deeply. Then had come revelations about his mother. Little wonder he’d avoided London all this time. Even six years later, the embers of that particular scandal smoldered throughout the ton. In fact, Genie would wager Holstoke’s mad mother in part explained why he’d not yet found a wife. Lady Holstoke might be dead, but she’d been a murderess on a grand scale.
It was hardly an argument for perpetuating the bloodline.
“My family will help,” she assured him. “Mama will delight in the challenge. She always was fond of you.”
“Unnecessary,” he answered, his frown returning deeper than before. “I am perfectly capable—”
“Of course you are.” She patted his elbow again, grinning. “But you are not a mother who has successfully launched four daughters.”
His head lowered until she felt his breath upon her nose. He smelled of mint and lemons. Those pale eyes lit gold in the late-day sun. “Five.”
Suddenly, she could feel what others complained about. Shivers. Breathlessness. She swallowed and licked her lips. “I was a scandal. I do not signify.”
“I think you do.”
Her reply was stopped short by an ominous, overly pleasant voice. “Miss Huxley, you may return to your work. Now.”
Genie’s heart thudded. Her stomach cramped. Her eyes slid closed for a long moment.
Drat. Drat, drat, drat. She’d been certain Mrs. Pritchard had left already.
“Of—of course, Mrs. Pritchard.” Retreating a step, she gave Holstoke a wobbly, regretful smile before turning to face her employer. “Straight away.”
Mrs. Pritchard had been tippling the vinegar again. Her pursed lips and pinched nostrils resembled a caricature with that tight coiffure.
“I expect Mrs. Herbert’s order to be complete before the morning,” the milliner snapped. “Is that very clear?” The words were low, spoken as Genie gathered her gold silk and headed for the workroom doorway.
She nodded, not wishing to further antagonize the woman.
“Speak, Miss Huxley, so that I know you understand.”
Genie halted, her skirts brushing the curtain, her fingers clutching the silk.
There it was. The viper beneath the pleasant façade. Others imagined it did not exist.
Until it bit them.
Genie had always known. A woman like Mrs. Pritchard possessed only enough competence to eke out a feeble enterprise, and only enough intelligence to resent those with more. Ever so slowly, the milliner was failing, the flow of customers down to a trickle, her shop propped up by her husband. Shortly before Genie had arrived, a string of assistants had either left or been dismissed. Once Genie had seen Fancy Nancy’s handiwork, she’d understood why.
Mrs. Pritchard liked things plain and pleasant. She did not favor being shown she was wrong.
Contrarily, Genie preferred progress above pleasantness. Her creations had attracted dozens of new customers. Another milliner might have viewed her as a boon.
Instead, Mrs. Pritchard had assigned Genie more orders like Mrs. Herbert’s five turbans and suggested fashionably minded ladies might be better served on Bond Street.
Bond Street. The very idea of rejecting new customers out of hand had sparked Genie’s outrage, and she’d redoubled her efforts, using Mrs. Pritchard’s love of pleasantness against her. Red silk roses had been the least of it.
Genie had felt the noose of dismissal more than once, but never more than this moment. She straightened and regarded the other woman’s face. Mrs. Pritchard would not meet her eyes, half-turned and fully puckered.
“I understand,” Genie answered. “Mrs. Herbert will have her turbans, precisely as she requested, before the morning.”
A sharp nod signaled the end of the interchange. Mrs. Pritchard pasted on a false smile and approached Holstoke, who scowled in Genie’s direction.
He was about to protest. Perhaps even inform Mrs. Pritchard of Genie’s rank. She felt it coming like a storm on the horizon. She met his eyes over the other woman’s shoulder and shook her head, pleading for him to keep silent. After a long moment, his nostrils flared and his shoulders flexed as though anger were moving him against his will. Then, he gave a slight nod.
She smiled and mouthed, “Thank you,” before rushing past the curtain. Waving away Mr. Moody’s round-eyed stare, she returned to the millinery workroom.
Sinking into her chair, she closed her eyes and felt the silk between her fingers, the noose around her neck. Drat, drat, drat. She should have ignored Holstoke, stifled her everlasting curiosity, and hurried away to finish Mrs. Herbert’s tedious turban collection.
But, then, she wouldn’t have seen him again or learned of his struggles on the marriage mart or rediscovered the strange kinship she’d always felt in his presence.
Somehow, she would repay him, she decided, spreading the silk upon the table and retrieving a white plume from the basket at her feet. It was the least she could do. He would keep her secret, after all. This she knew without question.
For, even when he said nothing, the Earl of Holstoke could be relied upon to keep his word.
*~*~*