Page 7 of The Governess’s Absolutely Impossible Wish (The Notorious Briarwoods #8)

G iselle hated rehearsals.

At least the ones that she was in. They were painful. Everything felt terribly wooden. The entire long hall had been turned into a rehearsal space, where they were setting up a sort of stage for what seemed to be an ever more elaborate performance.

Apparently, they were using it as would have been done in Shakespeare’s time. There were small set pieces and a few back drops. There wasn’t a great deal of silliness. No, they were just actors in a space, at least that’s what the dowager duchess said, with the audience on three sides of the playing space.

She was building a balcony.

Builders had come in.

This seemed mad and not as simple as the dowager claimed it would be.

But that was the Briarwoods. They did not do things by halves, it seemed.

Giselle could not relax into the magic of it, nor did she wish to. She needed to be quite serious because if she was not, the look upon Zephyr’s face every time he turned towards her was going to completely eradicate all of her resolve.

Zephyr played an excellent lover.

He knew the play already from front to back, up and down, sideways and all around. He could actually do the lines for every single part. As a matter of fact, it seemed like all the Briarwoods knew all the parts.

Lord Ajax was playing Demetrius and his wife, Winifred—Win to everyone—was playing Helena. The two were having so much fun. It was mystifying to watch. How could two people take such utter delight in each other?

The two were not supposed to like each other in the play. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Helena was supposed to be head over heels in love with Demetrius, and Demetrius was not supposed to be in love with Helena. As a matter of fact, he was supposed to be pursuing Hermia, who loved Lysander.

It was a terrible muddle of confusion and hilarity.

And then, through the silliness of the play, it would all work out in the end, with the aid of mischievous fairies.

Win and Ajax were teaching Giselle new meanings to the word fun as the clear desire between them crackled in their scenes, as did their deep affection.

There were some quite naughty bits in the play too, which she was surprised by. Oh, she’d read the words before, but she’d clearly not understood all their meanings! Apparently, Shakespeare was a very, very naughty fellow. Now, there was nothing overt, of course. They were all being very playful about it, but the naughty comments were impossible to miss when she watched Lord Ajax and his wife together.

Winifred was a great lover of Shakespeare, it seemed, and so was Giselle, if she was honest. She loved the Bard’s plays. She particularly loved the sonnets. She’d read them over and over in the quiet hours while alone at night in her dormitory. Poring over those powerful sonnets, full of longing and strife, she’d tried to forget music—the power of it and how it had nearly seared her soul when she was a child and how it still called to her.

And then, she’d put the sonnets aside and compose. Compose songs that no one would ever hear. Shakespeare seemed to understand suffering in a way that most did not, and so she felt akin to him. She did not feel akin to Hermia at present—not Hermia Briarwood, but Hermia in the play, whom Hermia Briarwood was named after.

It was all very confusing and all very difficult. And she wished she could go hide upstairs in the nursery.

Sylvia, the dowager duchess, kept sighing because apparently it was quite clear that Giselle was wooden in the part, but she had to be. If she was not, she would succumb. And she could not succumb; she had made a vow. And so she chose to focus largely on the children and their roles as the fairies.

Octavian was making a marvelous Puck. Maximus was quite clever as Mustardseed. The children were wonderful in all of the fun parts and doing a remarkable job with the lovely dialogue. She spent a great deal of time working on it with them because they were quite small, but they all seemed up for the challenge.

Now, she was up in her room, late into the witching hours. Away from the last rehearsal, which had been a bit of a disaster because she kept refusing to hold Lord Zephyr’s hands as they vowed to run off into the forest together to escape Hermia’s father, she wondered what she was going to bloody well do.

If she held his hands, she might never let go, but she couldn’t very well tell that to the dowager duchess. There was a soft knock at her door.

She jolted. Surely not. He would not try again, would he?

She froze, a traitorous part of her desperately hoping it was him.

“I say, will you let me in?” said a rather remarkable female voice from the other side of the door.

Giselle shoved herself up from her chair. Was it the dowager duchess? It sounded a bit like her.

She crossed to the door and tentatively opened it. No, not the dowager duchess. It was Estella instead.

The woman stood there in all her glory and all her power holding a tea tray. “Are you going to make me stand here or will you invite me in? This is surprisingly heavy.”

Stunned, Giselle stepped back and allowed the older woman to gain admittance to her small but rather comfortable chamber. It was sumptuous for a governess.

Estella crossed to the table before the fire, placed the silver tea tray down, and immediately began to pour out. “Sit down,” she said. “You earned it after all that hard work. And it did look very hard, my dear. I really thought acting would come easily to you.”

Giselle felt quite surprised. What was Estella doing here? They were not close, nor should they be.

“Sit,” Estella commanded again. “Don’t make me ask thrice. That’s terribly rude.”

It was her room though, wasn’t it? Surely, she shouldn’t have to expect visitors all the time.

Estella sighed and then gazed at her kindly before pointing out what she clearly thought was obvious. “You need a friend, my dear. Come, come, come.”

It was so powerfully said that Giselle had no choice but to go and sit by Estella, who then thrust a teacup at her.

“Some drink wine when they are ill at ease,” began Estella as she stirred cream into her tea. “I think it’s a terrible idea. I have seen the ill effects of drink upon many an actress, and I hope to look young for years to come. And so tea is what keeps my skin looking as marvelous as it does.”

The truth was, Estella did look marvelous. It was rather interesting to hear that she had eschewed alcohol. Giselle thought that actresses all swilled champagne and drank wine and gin like they did in books. “Truly? I thought actresses enjoyed making merry all through the night.”

“Oh, we do! We do! But not always with gin as those clodpoles in the newssheets say. You see, anyone who wants to look particularly good on stage cannot over-imbibe. It’s simply not a good look if you are, well, three sheets to the wind before a performance or after. One must keep their wits about them, especially when all the gentlemen are backstage.”

Giselle snorted. “Why are men the worst?”

Estella laughed. “They certainly can be. Until you learn to manage them and pack your purse with shot. I’ve brained several fellows. I’ve quite a good arm. Now, tell me all about your mother.”

“Pardon?” she said, plunking her teacup down, completely unprepared for the question.

“Tell me all about your mother,” Estella repeated, draping herself dramatically across from Giselle. “I think you need to speak about her with someone who understands.”

She straightened, tempted to thrust the teacup back at the actress and escort her out of the room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Estella arched her brow. “My dear, my sister and I have no secrets.”

“It’s not a secret,” she clipped, her heart squeezing with pain.

“Then why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“Because people are so judgmental.”

Estella softened. “I’m not. I promise I won’t be.”

“People romanticize my mother,” she blurted suddenly.

“Ah,” Estella said, her eyes shining with understanding. “Now, that’s interesting. Tell me more about that.”

She looked to the fire, trying to put words to her pain. “People don’t think of my mother as a person. Do people think of you as a person?” she asked.

“Well, you are speaking with me,” Estella teased before she grew serious. “Often people don’t treat me as if I have feelings. I do understand your meaning. Go on.”

Her throat tightened, but now it felt as if a tide of emotion and memory was rushing upward since Estella did indeed understand as Miss Abelard could not. “My mother was a composer, an artist. Someone grand. They would trot her out. Emperors, kings.”

Giselle winced. “But she was not flesh and blood to them. She was a pretty new toy. A novelty. More so because she was a genius and female. But they didn’t see her as a creature of emotions who could be crushed by their cruelty.”

Estella nodded. “It is one of the greatest difficulties of the professions of a musician, singer, or actress. We are not really seen as people. We are seen purely for the entertainment that we can provide.”

“It’s terrible,” she ground out, her hand tightening on the saucer until the edge bit into her palm.

“No, it’s not,” Estella countered simply.

“What?” she gasped.

“Would your mother have preferred that no one heard her music?”

She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Your mother,” Estella said with surprising firmness. “Would she have preferred to compose, as you do, with no indication at all that anyone had ever heard a single piece she’d created?”

Giselle’s stomach twisted, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “How do you know that I compose?”

Estella’s gaze flicked to Giselle’s hands. “The ink stains on your fingers. I don’t think you’re up at night scribbling in a journal, or are you? Oh, I know you plan for the children, but there is an intensity and size to the ink stains you cannot quite get rid of. Perhaps I am mistaken.” Estella’s eyes danced merrily, but also with kindness. “Perhaps you’re going to be a great playwright.”

“No, not a playwright,” she whispered. “But how could you possibly guess I compose music?”

Estella tsked. “Of course you do. You are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you? And I’ve heard stories…” Estella’s gaze softened. “About a little girl who was an excellent violinist, who could play the harpsichord and created her own surprisingly complex songs for a child. A little girl who performed for her mother’s patrons and the gentlemen of Europe. Only someone like me or my sister would recognize what you have truly been through.”

Tears filled Giselle’s eyes and she blinked furiously. There was no judgement, only a strange combination of admiration and sympathy in Estella’s eyes. She could not speak. So, instead, she nodded.

Estella drew in a long, satisfied breath, then took a sip of tea. As she placed the cup down, she asked, “Well? What say you? Would your mother have wanted to have her songs silenced?”

She struggled to speak, her body trembling with memory, but it also felt…good. Good to at last speak of the mother who had loved her and left her, not because she wished to but because life was cruel. “No. Of course not. She wanted people to hear her songs. She lived for it. She lived for applause, if you must know.”

Estella smiled ruefully. “So many of us do, my dear. And when the applause stops, it’s positively brutal. It hasn’t yet stopped for me, and I’m grateful. I don’t think it stopped for your mother in her lifetime, did it?”

“No,” Giselle said, staring into her teacup, wondering if her fortune could be read at the bottom of it. For now, it all seemed a mystery in this house. “Honestly, she was adored until the end.”

She closed her eyes, remembering. Remembering her beautiful mother performing at the harpsichord or reveling in the praise and applause at the performance of one of her successful compositions. The aristocrats of Europe had cheered. The wealthy classes had swooned in adulation. “I saw it on their faces. How in awe they were of her.”

“It must’ve been somewhat frightening for you though. You were very young.”

She nodded and then swallowed as the unhappy memories flooded in. “All those men, they would come and watch her play and ask her what she would compose next. But they didn’t really want her, you see. They wanted—”

Estella cut in, “They wanted the goddess.”

“What?” she asked, shaking her head, trying to understand.

“The goddess,” Estella said with a touch of her own anger. “They wanted whatever divinity was in your mother. They thought if they could own her, they could take some of her greatness. That’s what many great men do with women such as your mama. They think great people have the divine spark, and they desperately hope they can get a bit of it of themselves. And they don’t care if they crush the person who has it while they try to get it.”

“That’s exactly true,” she breathed, shockingly relieved to have someone put words to what she had always felt.

“I know,” Estella whispered. “I have to protect myself very carefully from people like that. My sister, she was lucky. She found someone who loved her.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” Estella asked, slightly taken aback by Giselle’s intensity.

“The love in this house,” she said, gesturing with her free hand all around. “It can’t be real.”

Estella threw back her head and began to laugh, and then she choked a bit. “Drink your tea.”

Giselle did as she was instructed because Estella was suddenly so firm.

It was positively delicious.

Everything in this house was delicious, wonderful, lovely. It couldn’t be real, could it?

“My dear,” Estella began with a large dose of patience, “when all you’ve known is bitterness, you look for it everywhere. When all you’ve known is lack of love, that’s all you see. So when you see the love in this house, you are already seeing the end of it. You are waiting for it to end, waiting for it to turn foul because that is what you know, isn’t it?”

She winced. “Yes, and I won’t let it happen to me.”

“Good,” Estella said. “I would applaud except I do not wish to put down my tea. You should not let it happen to you.”

“Then you understand,” she returned, relieved that someone finally seemed to, “why I can’t be in this play anymore.”

Estella tilted her head to the side. “No, I don’t. Though you are terrible. I admit it. Clearly, you’re a musician and not an actor.”

“It’s because…” She could not get the words out.

Estella leaned in. “Yes?”

“Because Lord Zephyr is…”

“Lord Zephyr is wonderful, isn’t he?” Estella finished for her.

She bit back a groan and looked at her fire. “Yes,” she said, “but I cannot allow myself to be close to him. I shouldn’t even be allowing myself to be close to you.”

“Why ever not?” Estella asked, appalled.

“Because I am the governess. I’m little more than a servant. I must know my place.”

Estella snorted. “Your place in this world is whatever you want it to be,” she said unapologetically. “Look at me. I roamed the streets as a child. Didn’t have shoes. My clothes were torn and there were many nights I went to bed hungry. Now look at the jewels upon my ears. London is transfixed by me. And every night, if I want, I could play a different character and everyone would adore it. My sister is a duchess.” Estella leaned forward, took her hand, and said with utter conviction, “We can be who we want, my dear.”

“Maybe you can,” she contradicted, even as the feel of Estella’s kind hand threatened the defenses she had erected to keep herself safe. “But not I.”

“Ah, what a tragedy,” Estella whispered, leaning back, withdrawing her hand slowly, regretfully.

“What?” she demanded, stunned by her reaction.

“How little you think of yourself and how little you clearly think you deserve.”

Giselle bit back an angry retort. Instead, she tempered herself, determined to make Estella understand. “I’ve seen it,” she said. “What happens when you reach too high. Like Icarus, you get burnt by the sun.”

“Possibly. Or perhaps you can be like Prometheus. You can reach for the fire and then give it to the rest of us poor mortals.”

“Prometheus was a god,” she said, countering the argument.

“He was, but his brother was higher than him. There’s always someone higher, my dear, and if you allow that sort of thinking to control you, what a little life you shall lead.”

She lifted her chin. “Perhaps you have forgotten what happened to Prometheus, Estella. A little life is enough. It is better than…”

“What?” Estella asked.

“Misery,” she returned.

“For now it is,” Estella said sadly, “but one day you are going to wake up with your little life and all that you didn’t try, with all the music that you’ve written still in your head or on papers locked away in your room with no love, and you will have to live with that for the rest of your days, however short they may be.”

Giselle sat silently, those words cutting through the room like a knife.

But Estella was not done. “But I can promise you one thing.”

“What?” she rasped, wishing she had never let Estella in.

“Those days at the end will be miserable because you will understand you betrayed yourself. So misery, my dear, is coming for you, no matter what you do because suffering is part of being alive. If we do not suffer, we do not live.”

She frowned. “I do not know why you are telling me this.”

“Giselle,” Estella said softly, “I think you do. I would just like to see you be happy.”

“I am happy,” she replied tartly.

“Apologies. Forgive me.” Estella shrugged. “Then you should not have any difficulty in playing Hermia as she should be played. You should not hold yourself back anymore. You should not pretend to be what you are not because if you’re happy, you are not afraid of losing your safety.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m not pretending.”

Estella winked at her then. “Good. So prove it.”

And it was the most powerful challenge Giselle had ever faced. But could she do it?