Page 139 of The Ladies Least Likely

In the doorway to the morning room stood a young lady, tall and slender and very pale.

She had a cloud of white-blonde hair, the color Ren’s had been when he was younger, though his had now darkened to a brown with honey streaks.

Her wide blue eyes held surprise and curiosity—no, only one eye was blue, Harriette realized as she stared.

Her left eye was brown. The girl wore an open robe of pale primrose silk over a delicate white petticoat, white lace over her bodice, and a prim white scarf pinned atop the lace.

Her face was as white as her linens, though her lips were red, or what Harriette could see of her lips behind the slender hand she held over her mouth.

“Amalie,” Ren said warmly. “This is my Rhette. Lady Harriette of Lowenburg, I am p-pleased to say. Rhette, this is my sister, Lady Amalie Matheson, lately of Bolton Abbey, currently of London for now and, I hope, a good deal longer.”

Amalie dropped a curtsey, moving her hand from her mouth to hold the ruffled lace of her opposite sleeve. She rose with a stare for her brother, not for his guest.

“George,” she whispered. “Barely a stammer!”

“And you said my whole name,” Harriette murmured, remembering how he never could manage it before.

His straight mouth twitched into a smile. “Practiced last night,” he said proudly. “For an hour. Or two.”

Harriette hugged his arm and indicated the doorway. “Shall we?”

“I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you.” Lady Amalie spoke scarcely above a whisper as she led them into the morning room.

Unlike the formal parlors above, this room held a more restrained elegance, with greens and gold dominating the upholstery and walls.

“I was all arranged on the couch, but then your voices stopped, and I worried that—” Her voice fell to a barely audible register, and she stood cradling the sleeve of her gown with her hand. “You’d changed your mind.”

“Your mother did suggest it was better for all concerned if I did not meet you today.” Harriette looked about for a seat.

She was the ranking lady now; as the daughter of a duke, she had precedence over the daughter of an earl and even the countess herself.

When she came into her title she would have precedence over her own aunt in society circles, a sudden, disconcerting elevation.

Tamping down her nervousness that Ren’s sister would not like her, Harriette selected a seat on a low chaise next to a shawl that she guessed was Amalie’s. This left Ren to one of the delicate, hard-backed chairs. He lowered himself using his cane, then leaned it on the armrest alongside.

“I suspect your mother thought I would be an untoward influence,” Harriette explained.

“Oh, not in the least,” Amalie answered in a rush. “She didn’t want you to have to see me .”

“Why should her ladyship want to hide you?”

Ren watched his sister with an almost painful look of adoration mingled with worry. “You needn’t fear Rhette,” he said gently.

“But I’m hideous.” Amalie cast a look of despair towards her lap. She picked up the shawl and pulled it partially over one leg. Harriette wondered if she had a clubfoot, too, though she hadn’t noticed a limp.

“Hardly hideous,” Harriette objected. “You are the most perfect creature.” Amalie resembled a Madonna in a Renaissance painting, with a halo of angelic gold circling her head.

A maid entered the room with a tea tray.

She looked with wide eyes at Renwick, at Lady Amalie, and then at Harriette, as if any one of them might leap up and bite her.

With a faint rattle of porcelain, she set the tea tray on the low table before the chaise, then hastily backed out of the room.

Harriette watched, her curiosity intensifying.

“I asked for tea,” Amalie said in a small voice. “I’ve heard it is a drink much enjoyed in London.”

“Oh, excessively,” Harriette said. “Coffee as well, though women aren’t allowed in many of the coffee shops, which are deemed the domain of men who overestimate their own importance. There are tea shops that admit women, though. Ren and I shall take you to one.”

“Oh, I don’t go out,” Amalie said in a rush. She looked about the morning room as if its painted green walls lined with gilded frames were her sanctuary, and beyond its walls held terror and death.

“I was hoping to persuade you to come to Marylebone Pleasure Gardens with us,” Harriette said, trying to keep the disappointment from her tone.

Perhaps Lady Amalie had already concluded that Harriette was an unsuitable acquaintance, and that was why she resisted making plans.

If Ren’s sister had indeed wished to meet Harriette, she showed no sign of it.

“There are any number of gardens about London we might see,” Harriette went on, hoping to make the girl comfortable. “But Marylebone has agreeable music, and these tarts that?—”

“Pour the t-tea, d-dear,” Ren said suddenly, addressing his sister. If Ren were stammering around his sister, too, then something must have upset him.

“Tea would be lovely,” Harriette prattled. “I take mine with a lump of sugar. Ren likes his as black as his thoughts are much of the time.”

The levity did nothing to soothe her hostess. “Must I?” She sent her brother a forlorn look.

“It wouldn’t be suitable to ask Rhette,” he said gently. “She is our guest.”

Harriette held her breath, catching the rising tension and wondering if she were its cause.

Amalie regarded the tea tray as if it were a sleeping animal that might bite if she woke it.

Then, with a deep breath, she picked up the tea pot with her right hand and lifted her left arm.

The lace sleeve fell away and Harriette saw that, instead of a delicate wrist and pretty hand, the girl’s left forearm ended halfway in a small pink stump.

She used it to steady the teapot as she poured.

Then she picked up a lump of sugar with the dainty tongs, placed it in the liquid, and stirred with a tiny silver spoon.

Harriette felt Ren’s eyes burning into the side of her face, though he said nothing.

“See? I am not perfect.” Amalie looked Harriette in the eye with a fierce resolution as she held out the dish of tea.

“Because of this.” She indicated the left sleeve, lying in a pool of lace in her lap.

“And this.” She pointed to the left side of her face, where Harriette could detect, beneath the heavy layer of makeup, a strawberry birthmark reaching from her hairline to her neck.

Harriette took her tea and sipped. “I haven’t the faintest idea why that means we can’t be friends,” she said.

She was aware, without looking at him, that every muscle in Ren’s frame relaxed.

He practically released a whoosh of air.

Her heart clenched. He’d been afraid, like his mother, that his sister’s deformities would make Harriette reject her.

The countess might truly care for her daughter, but her protectiveness looked like cruelty and shame to Harriette.

Amalie’s face was the picture of surprise.

The blue eye was set just a hair above the brown, and didn’t widen or narrow in the exact same way.

Only a portrait artist would notice the subtle difference in proportion.

The rest of Amalie’s face was the pattern of classical beauty: a wide arching brow, perfect half-circles of eyebrows, and rounded cheeks slightly narrowing to a chin, like Renwick’s, with a tiny cleft.

Her nose was Renwick’s as well, strong and commanding, but hers sloped faintly up at the tip.

The tightness in Harriette’s chest formed tiny cracks. She adored Amalie instantly, as much as she adored Ren. She wished she could stay and enjoy them both. Get truly acquainted, become part of their lives. Instead she would be forced to the Continent to preside over a duchy she had never seen.

“I wish I could paint you,” Harriette said.

Amalie gasped. “As you are painting George?”

“Yes. A portrait of him, a portrait of you, and then a portrait of you two together. Perhaps,” and she grinned at the mischievous thought, ”a family group with Lady Renwick included.”

“I don’t doubt that will drive up the price of the commission a great deal,” Ren murmured.

“To be sure.” Harriette nodded. “And it would be to your benefit. This house very much requires new art along the stairs.”

Amalie blushed. Harriette detected the red tinge beneath the heavy layer of concealing makeup. “Mother won’t allow it. Not even if you disguise my—defects. I am delicate, you see.”

Harriette raised her brows. “Is that what she calls you?”

“Not just that.” Amalie looked both miserable and determined to bare all. “I am often ill. I am plagued by headaches and tire easily. And my appetite—” She rested her hand over her middle and gave Harriette an apologetic smile. “It is not robust, either.”

Her teeth were small and white, but Harriette noticed a thin grey line along the gums that she had seen before. She had also heard these symptoms described before. “Like the grippe?” she asked.

“Not the same, because there is no fever.”

“Rubbish,” said Harriette, who had never been ill a day in her life. “Taking fresh air and a bit of exercise will cure almost every ill. Shall we try it? Come to Marylebone Pleasure Gardens with me, and we will see if a turn about the paths and a tart or two might perk you up.”

“Oh, such a thing sounds lovely,” Amalie said. Her lovely face drew downward, lips, brows, chin. “But my mother will never allow it.” She looked toward her brother with a desperate, haunted expression.

“But your brother shall.” Harriette pushed to her feet, levering herself up out of the layers of petticoats.

“Now then! This is a splendid tea, but I am holding out for tarts. Shall I play lady’s maid and attend your toilette?

And Ren can go repair himself as well.” She waved a hand in his direction. “Your neckcloth is crumpled.”

“Because you crumpled it,” Ren grumbled. “I suppose I could read the news while you powder. There is some upheaval in Shepton Mallet over the new automated looms, and I’ve heard they expect a riot.”

“Pooh,” said Harriette. “Nothing exciting has happened in Shepton Mallet since the Duke of Monmouth’s supporters were drawn and quartered in the market square. Shall we?”

She slipped a hand around Amalie’s upper arm as she rose, and the girl startled. Harriette wondered if it were too bold in her to touch her—and the arm Amalie tried to keep hidden, no less—but it was too late to retract the gesture now.

“How is it you dare manage George?” Amalie whispered in awe as Renwick bowed and then left the room, his stiff leg causing a slight limp. “He does what you tell him!”

“What, Ren? He has always been the most biddable of men,” Harriette said. “Come, show me your dressing table. You are in London Town now, and we must turn you out in London style.” She kept hold of Amalie’s arm as they ascended the curved stairs to the second floor and her boudoir.

In the end she added only a light dusting of powder to Amalie’s hair, turning her gold-white to a becoming white halo.

Harriette sorted through the pots and jars on the dressing table as Amalie darkened her eyebrows with a smudge of charcoal.

Brilliant vermillion for lips and cheeks, an arsenic tonic to bathe the face; the girl’s assemblage was very much the usual.

“And this is the paint you use on your face.” Harriette opened a jar and sniffed.

“I need it.” Amalie looked pained. “My mark—it is very ugly. People cannot see anything else when they look at me. So I cover it.”

Harriette dipped a finger in the white liquid and touched it to her tongue, then spat. It was sweet, no less than she expected.

“Your paint is still in place. Whyn’t we simply put a layer of powder over it and go downstairs? We can tease Ren for making us wait for him.”

“I dare not.” Amalie plucked at the ruffle not quite covering her left arm. “Mama will be so angry—and I cannot be seen.” Her eyes filled with tears and she gave Harriette a watery, imploring gaze. Her shimmering, bereft eyes tore Harriette’s heart.

“My brother doesn’t know yet,” she whispered. “I knew Mama would disapprove, but I had to come to town because—because I am dying, you see, and I very much wanted to see him before the end.”

Then she put a hand over her face and dissolved into racking sobs.

Harriette put aside the thought of Marylebone Pleasure Gardens that day.

Instead she knelt and wrapped her arms around the younger girl, holding her shaking form as she wept.

Her heart cleaved in two for the tender young woman, but she ached just as much for Renwick.

His sister was ailing, and his mother had no ability to care for anyone but herself.

Who would look after the Matheson siblings when Harriette was gone?