“Wherein we meet our heroine and one of many villains.”

 

Belinda looked up from the cuff she was turning and regarded her younger half-sister with a wry smile. She found herself little surprised to see that Lucretia’s mending had been set aside and her lovely nose buried in a book. Belle knew better than to be fooled by the innocent cover, however. It may look like the lovely young woman - who had been compared to everyone from Aphrodite to Helen of Troy, much to the girl’s disgust - was reading the collective poems of Wordsworth. However, Belle knew that the book that was actually gripping her sibling’s full attention was a blood-curdling collection of ghost stories. The cover was of Crecy’s own making, and her entire book collection looked the same. Apparently, it was to keep the books in good order. In truth, it was actually to hide a number of titles that would shock most young ladies of frailer sensibilities. Heaven help anyone picking up a copy of what purported to be Gulliver’s Travels. They’d be in for a shock.

Belle often wondered if the books were like Crecy herself, that exquisitely lovely exterior, hiding something far more tangled and complicated.

“Don’t bite your nails, Crecy,” she scolded, her tone mild as the beauty looked up with a scowl. With a tut that seemed to imply such things were of little importance, she returned her attention to whatever gory highlight she was currently finding so gripping.

Belle sighed and stared at the cuff she was turning with dejection. They ought to be excited. Their very first season was about to begin, and by some miracle, they had secured one of the most coveted invitations that there was. That at least was something Belle had done right. She had met Lady Russell only briefly, but the rather daunting old lady had taken a shine to her and promised her that she could come to the glamorous party being held by the dashing and rather heroic figure of the Marquess of Winterbourne.

Lady Russell was organising the party with the marquess’ sister who had recently married Lady Russell’s grandson, Aubrey. There had been rather a lot of scandalous talk about that, as well as murmurs of an elopement, and Belle suspected the party was to hush up any further gossip. Whatever the reason, she was grateful. Their opportunities to marry well were slim indeed, and they needed all the help they could get.

Though from a respectable family of good ton, their impecunious father had died and left them at the mercy of his appalling sister. Things after that had deteriorated with predictable and depressing speed.

Whilst Belle’s mother had lived, everything had been fine and rather wonderful, if her perhaps rose-tinted memories were to be relied upon. But her mother had died when Belle was very young, and her father had married again: this time to a beautiful and flighty creature who had led their father into gaming and debt. Lucretia had been born soon after they married, but her mother had died, too, only three years later whilst delivering a brother to the girls. The poor boy had followed her to the grave within hours.

Their father had managed, in a manner of speaking, lurching from one crisis to the next, until four years ago when his liver finally succumbed after too many years of relying on drink to cure his woes.

Since then, they had been thrown on the mercy of their Aunt Grimble, and mercy was something she did not have in abundance. Indeed, any of the softer human emotions seemed to be a foreign concept to the wretched woman who was a muck worm of the worst variety. Happy enough that her nieces should live in penury, shivering in their beds, whilst her bedroom fire blazed all hours of the day and night. She treated Belle as her own personal slave as far as Belle would allow it, and looked at poor Crecy like she was the key to her fortune.

Aunt Grimble didn’t care that Crecy was in no way a conventional beauty. Crecy despised polite conversation, romantic poetry, dancing, and all the things that young ladies ought to find enthralling. The things she did find of interest, even Belle found daunting, so she could only imagine what any amorously inclined young gentleman might make of her. But all that woman saw was a face and figure that could snare a duke, and Belle was terrified that marriage wasn’t the only option the woman would consider.

It would take a very particular type of man to truly appreciate Crecy, and Belle was determined that her half-sister would have the time to find him. Time, however, was something they didn’t have. This was to be their one and only season. There was no money for a second. If they didn’t marry, Belle knew that Aunt Grimble had plans for Crecy that were not at all respectable. Indeed, she wouldn’t put it past the cruel-hearted creature to sell her off to the highest bidder before this season was even over.

The idea made fury burn in Belle’s blood and she stabbed the needle through her mending with such violence that she pricked her thumb. Cursing under her breath, she sucked the blood away before it could stain the delicate fabric of one of her better dresses.

“Language, Belle,” Crecy, without looking up from her book, said in a singsong mocking tone that Belle well knew was an imitation of her own words.

Belle poked her tongue out and she saw Crecy’s lips twitch with amusement, even though her eyes never lifted from the page. Well, Aunt Grimble could go to ... to somewhere hot and unpleasant, and stay there. It was up to her. Somehow, she was going to have to make the best of things and snare herself a husband. Someone wealthy enough to overlook their lack of dowry, and generous enough to give Crecy the kind of season she truly deserved.

How exactly she was supposed to do that, however, was not something she could figure out.

She had spent some time giving herself a critical once-over before the one tiny and rather tarnished mirror. Though certainly no beauty, she wasn’t exactly hard to look at. Her pale blonde hair was unremarkable when compared to Crecy’s golden shade, it was true, though it was glossy and soft. Her eyes were an unusual shade of blue, perhaps, but nothing truly out of the ordinary, though they were wide and ready to be pleased with the world. Her figure was good as well, though once again, nothing special next to Lucretia’s. The problem was, if you put Belle next to Crecy, which was where she always was, she faded into the background.

If Crecy had been a different kind of creature, Belinda might have felt a twinge of resentment at that fact. However, Crecy regarded her looks as nothing but a freak of nature and would cheerfully point out to any young man that dared to compare her to some ridiculous goddess that she would be old and haggard one day, and then where would they be?

It was a fair point. Crecy would drive any romantically inclined gentleman to his wits’ end in days with her rather prosaic outlook on life and her studious interest in the macabre and, well, downright disturbing. If he took her for a stroll in the gardens, she was far more likely to return with a bird’s skull, or something else as revolting and long dead, than a bouquet of roses.

Belle sighed.

Lucretia looked up and frowned at her sister while twisting her bookmark, a thin length of black velvet around her fingers. It was a nervous habit that Belle well recognised, though it was her that Crecy was anxious for.

“Do stop fretting, Belle,” she said, though Belle could see the strain of their uncertain future in the serious grey eyes of her sister, too. “Everything will be fine. I know it will. One of us will marry and we’ll get away from ... that woman, and everything will be rosy. You’ll see.”

Belle returned an uncertain smile and Crecy huffed, placing the velvet book mark carefully in between the pages, and closed her book. “It will! I’ve promised to behave for this blasted house party, haven’t I?”

“Crecy!” Belle replied, shaking her head. “Mind your tongue. You speak so freely to me that you’ll be bound to forget yourself in company.”

Crecy shrugged but didn’t deny it. Instead, she set the book to one side and got to her knees, sitting at Belle’s feet. “I hate to see you so worried, Belle,” she said, taking her hand and squeezing her fingers.

“I can’t help it,” Belle admitted, turning her head to stare into the fire. “I’m frightened what will become of us. We have such a short time to find a good match. How can we possibly find someone who will be a good husband when we have but a few months?”

As ever with conversations of this nature, Crecy grew quiet. If Belle didn’t know it was impossible she could have sworn her heart was already engaged. But due to their straightened circumstances and the fact that Aunt Grimble was universally detested, they had very little society, and Belle never, ever left Crecy alone. It was impossible. More likely, she was in love with some devilish character from one of her dreadful books, in any case.

Belle had wondered if perhaps she simply didn’t want to marry, and somehow this seemed far more likely. Crecy was a solitary girl, far happier alone with her own thoughts than forced to be the centre of attention. The idea of the beautiful creature leading such a solitary existence, of never being in love or loved, was enough to make tears spring to Belle’s eyes.

“Oh, now stop that!” Crecy cried, revolted. “If you are crying for my sake, I shall get cross, you know I will!”

Belle spluttered a hiccoughing kind of laugh, amused as ever by Crecy and her forthright nature. The trouble was that no one else understood that there was a heart of gold beneath that rather sharp tongue. Belle had lost count of the amount of wounded birds, cats, ducks, dogs, and, God help her, even a rat, that had recovered under Crecy’s tender care. Though, of course, that had been curtailed once they’d moved in with their aunt. She would not put up with such nonsense, being the kind to drown kittens without batting an eye.

Before he had died, their father had left them very much alone and to their own devices, though, and Belle had brought up her younger sister as best as she could manage. She wondered now if she’d done right in allowing Crecy such freedom of speech and thought. It would surely lead her into trouble.

Well, their chance was before them, and Belle was going to do everything in her power to make sure she found a way to save them both. She cringed instinctively at the idea. Like Belle, the idea of polite conversation and dancing and socialising, paled against the idea of sticking her nose in a good book and curling up by the fire. She despised the city and always felt rather out of place at the few parties she had attended. She often dreamed of a life in the country, but now she would settle for a roof over their heads, wherever that might be.

Desperate times called for desperate measures - and Belle was desperate.

So, she would go to the ball and simper and smile and giggle with all the other brainless débutantes, and pray someone of worth could actually do something as strange and remarkable as fall in love with her.

***

Edward watched the tearful reunion between Puddy and Violette with impatience. He felt a fool, being forced to come and stir a blasted pudding with Violette’s husband looking on with that perpetual glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Well, at least he’d have to do it, too.

“Come then, my lord,” Puddy said, bustling about the kitchen and setting a huge china bowl on the scrubbed wood table. “You must be first to do the honours.”

Edward frowned at Puddy, but found even his impatience to leave couldn’t compete with the expectation in the woman’s eyes. As children, Puddy had been the source of the only hugs and soft words that the two of them experienced. Not to mention the secret parcels of sweets and cakes. In all the days that he’d been sent to bed with no supper (and there had been plenty of those), Puddy had always managed to get someone to sneak him sustenance. A thick slice of cake or something equally mouth-watering would generally take the sting out of his punishment.

So now, to see the short, dumpy lady with her hair greying and a fond look in her faded blue eyes waiting for him to stir the pudding ... well, blast.

He took the large wooden spoon from her and stepped up to the bowl.

“Close your eyes,” she warned.

Edward opened his mouth to protest the fact he was no longer in short coats, but caught the fierce warning look in Violette’s eyes and thought better of it.

“Stir clockwise, from east to west,” the cook added as Edward stuck the spoon in the thick, dark mixture.

“That’s to honour the journey of the magi,” Violette said, explaining their daft tradition to her husband. “There are thirteen ingredients, too, to represent Christ and the twelve apostles, and when you stir, you must make a wish and never tell a soul or it won’t come true.”

Edward groaned inwardly, closing his eyes as he stirred the sticky contents. The rich scent of dried fruit and spices wrapped around him, and for a moment he was lost in memories of a sweeter kind. He remembered another night like this as a young man of perhaps fourteen, holding up his baby sister so that she could have her turn to stir and make a wish.

Suddenly he was glad on Violette’s insistence that he come down here. There had been little enough warmth and love in their lives. At least this was one memory that he could hold on to, and know that they’d both been truly happy. The wish came to him unbidden, that there might be other such days in his future. A foolish wish, he scolded himself, putting the spoon down. Better to have asked that he not let his temper run wild in the next few weeks and lose his sister’s good opinion forever.

It was all superstitious nonsense, in any case.

“Well, my duty is done,” he said, smiling at Violette and handing her the spoon. He turned to Puddy next.

“Mrs Puddleton, I know this pudding will be as much as a triumph as all of the others.”

To his surprise the woman reached out and took his hand, holding it between both of hers, a look of such warmth and hope in her eyes that he almost snatched it away again. “I can’t tell you how glad we are to have you home, my lord. Nothing ... nothing was the same after ... after ...”

She trailed off, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. Edward swallowed, appalled and uncomfortable by the show of emotion which ought not to have been directed at him. He withdrew his hand and gave the old lady a tight smile, before making his excuses and hurrying from the kitchen.

***

Violette watched her brother leave with a sigh of disappointment. She shouldn’t have expected anything less, of course. That she’d even persuaded him to come at all was something of a victory, she reminded herself.

“Don’t fret over him, Lady Violette,” Puddy advised, her voice warm. “He’s still raw, is all. This party will do him good, force him to socialise. Mayhap he’ll find himself a wife, that would be the best medicine he could find, if it were a sensible maid and not some flighty piece.”

Violette smiled and grasped Puddy’s hand. “Oh Puddy, I did miss you so.”

“Oh now, my lady,” Puddy protested, flapping her apron in distress. “Stop that or you’ll turn me into a regular watering pot. You’ve already turned my hair grey, running away like that. Oh, when I heard the news!” The older woman put a hand to her ample bosom and shook her head. “Not that I doubted you had reason with that wicked creature here, turning us all off and taking his lordship’s place.” She gave a disgusted sniff. “Still. Least said, soonest mended.”

Violette nodded and reached for Aubrey’s hand. “And if I hadn’t run away, I would never have met Aubrey,” she replied, watching with amusement as Aubrey coloured a little under the watchful gaze of the cook.

“That’s true enough,” Puddy said, measuring up her new husband with what Violette suspected was approval. “But now it’s time to stir that pudding or you’ll put me all behind like a lamb’s tail, and there’ll be no dinner for any of you!”

Violette laughed and turned to the large bowl, clasping the wooden spoon and closing her eyes. At the last moment, she turned to Puddy.

“You did remember the charms?”

Puddy tutted and shook her head. “Well, my lady, as if I should ever forget such a thing.” She raised her hand, counting off the tiny charms as she recited. “A thimble for another year single, a ring for marriage, a coin for wealth, a shoe for travel, a wishing bone for a wish, a horseshoe for luck, and an anchor for safe harbour.”

Violette sighed, content. “And if there is any way you can arrange for Edward to get the ring ...” she said, grinning at Puddy as she turned back to the bowl. “I’m sure we’d all be very grateful.”