Page 6

T he dowager slept through breakfast.

In fairness, she had announced en route home from the opera that she would be doing exactly that, and so Millie hadn’t bothered dressing or coming down for breakfast either.

Instead, she had spent the morning indulging in the extreme luxury of taking breakfast in her new bedroom in the rented townhouse.

She had the tray delivered to her desk and spent an hour recalling the previous night in her journal between slices of fresh peach, crumbles of aged white cheese, and warm, seasoned lamb so tender, it had made her sigh and close her eyes each time she’d taken a bite.

They had only been back in London for a day, officially.

Her life as a lady’s companion had barely even begun, and already Millie thought herself much changed.

The world felt entirely new just now, with the perfect silence of a private, tree-lined courtyard opposite her window and the gentle fragrances of such an indulgent breakfast at her fingertips while she recounted her night at the opera in bold indigo ink on fresh parchment.

She hadn’t much talent for artwork, but in the corner of the top of the page she’d drawn a rough approximation of the dowager’s fan, once collapsed and once spread wide with a motif of constellations climbing along the latticed edges.

She leaned back in the desk chair and lifted her teacup to her lips as the image of Abraham Murphy swam up in her mind, his hand mimicking Lady Bentley’s motions with her fan as he watched her from across the mezzanine lobby last night, ladylike as you please.

She had been using fan signals, yes, but her messages had been completely harmless. Simply an invitation for conversation, an openness to new acquaintances. Why should that merit observation? Why was it of note at all?

Hunting a jewel thief indeed, she thought with a snort and a roll of her eyes. Why in the world had that sounded even half plausible in the moment when he’d said it?

Of all the acquaintances, near and estranged, that she might have guessed she could run into at the opera house, he would have been the very, very last. She had only met him once before, at Dot’s wedding, but the man hadn’t seemed very genteel at the time.

And what little she knew of him certainly didn’t lend itself to a gentleman’s image.

He was always carefully unkempt, she thought, with his sandy hair in artful disarray and his hazel eyes sparkling with things he knew that others did not. He was irritatingly handsome, long and lanky and so languid with his motions that a girl could not help but find her eye drawn to him.

She imagined he very well knew how attractive he was and used the knowledge to his advantage with many, many ladies.

Even though she’d been furious with him the last time they’d met, she could never have forgotten that face.

In fact, she had been shocked that he’d known who she was so quickly. Millie didn’t fancy herself someone who left much of an impression, especially after one short meeting.

She wondered how many of his former colleagues at Bow Street frequented the opera. Perhaps that was why he’d left the Runners’ service, she thought with a mutinous bit of amusement. They had doubtless discovered his love of the finer things and drummed him out.

A jewel thief. How perfectly ridiculous!

At the very least, he would never know she had believed him, even for a moment. But she knew, and now she had to endlessly ponder as to why. In the moment, she had believed every word he’d said for some absurd reason.

He had seemed so earnest, somehow. Like the type of rogue who never lied, even if only for his own amusement.

It drove her to distraction as she stood, picking through her selection of new dresses in the wardrobe.

She’d never had such fine things in her life, and she should be stroking the fabrics with tender affection and giving them her full attention, rather than turning over Abraham Murphy’s stupid ruses in her mind.

“Irene,” she said, spinning around so suddenly, it startled the maid who had come to collect her breakfast tray. “Were you in service here in London last Season?”

The girl blinked, steadying the tilted teacup on its saucer, and nodded. “Yes, miss,” she answered warily. “Last Season, this house was let out to the Everstead family from Norwich. Four girls, all but one debuted.”

“And did you hear tell of anything about a jewel thief terrorizing the ton last year? From the family or the other staff?” Millie pressed. “I’m afraid I only became aware of such a rumor last night, and I am not sure if I was being teased or if it is true.”

“Oh, it is true,” the maid confirmed, releasing the tray and batting at a stray curl that had escaped her bonnet.

“As far as I know, only a few thefts occurred, but at important balls and from important folk, including a duchess, so there was quite a stir about it. One of the pieces that went missing was a very old, very important ruby ring, in fact. That was printed in the circulars, I was told. I don’t gossip much, miss, if I can avoid it, but this talk was impossible to avoid between five ladies in the house. ”

“Of course not,” Millie agreed quickly. “Such news is not gossip anyhow, but important information for the safety of us all, especially women, in dangerous times. You should not trouble yourself over sharing it or hearing it in the first place.”

This seemed to reassure the girl, whose brow smoothed and shoulders slumped. “Oh,” she replied, thoughtful and perhaps a bit stunned. “I suppose sometimes it is hard to know gossip from news, isn’t it?”

“Any news for or about women is said to be gossip,” Millie tutted, waving her hand with annoyance. “The word is altogether meaningless, if you ask me.”

“Well, miss,” said Irene, her brow furrowed in thought, “perhaps more folks ought to ask you.”

Millie hid her smile. Dot had always told her that she was a ravenous little beast for gossip, and she very well knew it was true. She preferred word of mouth to the circulars, however, which was likely why she’d been ignorant to this jewel-thief business.

Still, it wouldn’t do to say that to the maid and distress her over what actually was simple information, and quite pertinent to their current lives besides. Even if it was still, technically, gossip.

“Could you bring me any correspondence from the door, please? I’d like to review it before I go down for the day.”

She waited until the girl had vanished before she chose a dress, her mind turning over this new revelation as she laid out her shift and stays and ribbons.

So there was a jewel thief.

That didn’t mean Mr. Murphy was being entirely truthful, of course. But it meant that he hadn’t been baldly lying either, the scoundrel.

She threw her night rail off with an annoyed huff, sending two of the rag ties in her hair flying across the room along with it, and climbed into the clean shift and reached for the half stays.

Why did it matter so much whether he had been truthful or not, anyhow?

He had clearly been studying Lady Bentley, tapping at his cheek with an imaginary fan like a fool.

He was up to something nefarious, and they both knew it, and here she was, mulling over some damned jewel thief he’d used to distract her, exactly as the man had intended for her to be.

She told herself repeatedly she would not let it occupy her thoughts as she laced up the stays and pulled the dress over her head.

She swatted it from her mind as she pulled the curls free from their rag knots and ran a ribbon through them.

And she certainly did not entertain thoughts of jewels that might be stolen at the events mentioned in the cards and invitations brought to her on the tray Irene left for her as she opened the brand-new leather journal and began the business of managing the dowager’s social agenda for the Season.

She allowed herself a moment of pride at how efficiently and thoroughly she had banished Abe Murphy from her mind as she descended the townhouse stairs with the leather journal tucked under her arm .

The first two pages of the book had been filled with neat lines of social options, dusted with rice powder, and dried, ready for Lady Bentley to make her choices for their upcoming days and nights, free of irritation from unexpected interlopers.

Millie’s hand was neater here than it was in her journals, and she’d made far fewer edits and margin notes, even when discussing the same event.

The dowager had commented upon it, reminding Millie that she had very much enjoyed the eccentricities of the private journal and would not at all mind it should Millie choose to embellish their social calendar in a similar fashion.

A surprising quantity of cards had arrived this morning following their evening at the opera, many of them from men young enough to be Lady Bentley’s sons, but plenty as well from legitimate social prospects, free of salacious intent.

The entire experience had been a surprising one for Millie, the theater and the environs both. It was a far cry from the plays she’d attended in Covent Garden throughout her life, comedies usually taken in from the galleries with Claire and Dot.

It hadn’t only been the finery or the scope of the opera house or the quality of the production, because of course she had been expecting those changes.

It had been the dance of social graces between acts that had been the true surprise, and the transformation that the dowager had undergone in those moments, drawing onlookers into her orbit like drones to a queen bee.

She must have been quite something in her youth, Millie realized, to still glitter so brightly now, after over two decades removed from Society. It was no wonder she had secured a titled husband when she was a debutante.

“Ah, there you are,” came the dowager countess’s voice from the sunroom, where she had sat herself with a novel in the early-afternoon light.

“I wondered if I’d have to send a maid up to fetch you for luncheon.

Oh, but don’t you look fetching! I was right about putting you in cool colors, wasn’t I? ”

“Perhaps you were,” Millie answered with a self-conscious sweep of her hand down the cranberry-red patterning on her dress. “It’s hard to choose which pieces I want to wear first. They are all so lovely.”

That was to say nothing of the fit. Millie wasn’t certain how to thank the dowager without breaching some social etiquette.

But, by way of a good modiste and a lack of concern for forcing Millie’s body into the illusion of a fashionable silhouette, Lady Bentley had visited an enlightenment onto Millie, who considered herself well into womanhood.

The astounding fact was that corseting was not supposed to hurt .

She was unsure whether or not her own mother knew this fact, or perhaps it had simply never been an issue for her, as slender as she was.

She slid into a chair across from the dowager without having to hold her breath or brace her heels against the floor to prevent her stays from digging into her ribs.

It was freedom, and she could not help but smile in satisfaction as she slid her leather book in front of her and opened it to her first page of notes.

“Oh, at least have some tea first,” Lady Bentley said with a chuckle. “I’ve already heard about the mountain of cards you’ve had to wade through this morning. Tell me, what did you think of the show last night? I’ve had the overture skittering through my head all morning.”

“It was surprising,” Millie said truthfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so lavish. And the music was very stirring, wasn’t it?”

“My aunt was in Vienna for the premiere, a lifetime ago,” the dowager said with a wistful sigh. “She says she met Herr Mozart that night and he kissed her hand. I’ve always wanted to see it, after hearing that story over and over as a child. I’m happy to have finally accomplished that feat.”

“I can’t imagine,” Millie replied, lifting a steaming cup of tea to her lips. “I’d probably tell the story over and over too.”

“I used to silently judge her for it,” the dowager confessed.

“When I was a young woman, I thought it sad she was living in a memory from decades ago, wishing to return to a moment in the past with such fervor. But, now that I am older and have such memories of my own, I see the folly in my prejudice.”

Do I have a moment I would go back to? Millie wondered to herself. Was she living life wrong, that she had no interludes in her past she longed to revisit?

The dowager was watching her, a sly smile curving the corners of her mouth, as though she could see directly into Millie’s mind and somehow approved of her thoughts.

For reasons she could not quite articulate, Millie found this approval disquieting.

So she spoke rapidly to diffuse the temperature that had overtaken the room.

“I’ve a meeting set up for tomorrow luncheon,” she said, sounding overly shrill and vim-filled, even to herself.

“An acquaintance of mine has a club we might use for your upcoming engagement with your … your spinster friends.”

The dowager’s feline smile only widened. “Is that so?”

“Yes! Yes, and I …” Millie swallowed. “I will inquire as to the cigars as well. But for today, we ought to discuss the opening balls of the Season, the first, in particular, which is only a few days away.”

“Don’t you concern yourself about that,” Patricia Hightower said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve already promised to attend directly to the hostess. She all but accosted me last night during the intermission. All you need to do is decide which gown to wear.”

Millie heaved a large breath and forced a smile. For all the beauty of her new wardrobe, the idea was still somewhat ominous. She had never enjoyed attending balls in the meager years of her debut.

Would it be any different now?