Pauline’s spirits sank straight to the carpet. Two minutes into her undressing last night she’d realized she didn’t get along with Fleur. Or more to the point, Fleur didn’t get along with Pauline.
The lady’s maid had golden hair and cornflower-blue eyes, and she floated into the room like a snowflake. Perfect, pale, and cold.
“Hmph,” Fleur said. It was a very French sound, and it didn’t sound complimentary to Pauline’s hair, face, attire, or character.
The Halford driver and footmen had been present in Spindle Cove for everything, and Pauline knew how quickly gossip passed from one servant to the next. By now they all must know she was a mere country farm girl, not worthy of a lady’s maid’s attention. Surely the servants would resent her and the extra work she was causing them.
Fleur unpacked a set of tissue-lined boxes, drawing out a series of undergarments and three nearly identical frocks.
“They’re all white,” Pauline said.
“Of course they’re white,” the duchess replied.
Never in her life had Pauline worn a white frock. Perhaps not even at her own christening. White was the color for ladies, because only ladies could keep a white gown clean. If she had ever been so foolish as to make herself a light-colored frock at home, it would have been gray within three washings. Excepting aprons and stockings, everything she owned was either brown or dark blue.
Not any longer.
First she was cloaked in a snow-white chemise, then corseted within an inch of her life. The duchess selected the simplest of the frocks—a high-waisted morning dress in layers of sheer muslin—and Fleur lifted it over Pauline’s head. The pale fabric descended like a cloud, wreathing her in airy prettiness. She stared down at her arms, so tanned and freckled when placed against the pristine muslin.
The duchess scrubbed her with an appraising look. “At least it fits in the shoulders. It’s fortunate you’re willowy.”
Willowy? That struck Pauline as a generous way of describing her figure. Even willows had curves.
After fussing with the frock’s loose waistline for a few moments, Fleur took a length of jade-green satin and slid it about Pauline’s middle, cinching it tight and tying a bow in back.
“Hmph.” This time, Fleur sounded satisfied.
“Yes, much better,” the duchess agreed. “Now what can be done with her hair?”
Not much, appeared to be Fleur’s opinion.
Once Pauline’s hair was coiffed and pinned in a simple, upswept knot, she was left staring at a most unfamiliar reflection in the vanity mirror. Not a hair out of place, not a speck on her frock’s scalloped lace overlay.
The duchess dismissed Fleur with a few words in French, then addressed Pauline’s reflection in the mirror. “I am going to do something I never do. I am going to talk to you about my son.”
Pauline’s mouth opened. But even if she’d decided what to say, the duchess’s look forbade her to say anything.
“I know. I know. But I can’t speak to my peers about such things, and I’d never confide in the servants. I’m at my wit’s end with Griffy, and I’ve no one else to tell.”
Griffy?
“He’s changed since last autumn. I noticed it the day I arrived in Town. My son was always a rascal as a young boy. Then he grew into a dissolute young man, always playing cards with his friends or hosting bacchanalian parties at that Winterset Grange. And there’ve been so many women.”
No doubt, Pauline thought. Did last night make her one of them?
“But this past year, everything changed. He didn’t even open the Grange last winter. He stayed in Town. For what purpose, I can’t imagine. He never goes out to the clubs, shows no interest in friends or society. And then there’s the locked room.”
“A locked room, you say?”
She tried not to betray her heightened interest. With all that had happened in the library afterward, she’d almost forgotten surprising him in the corridor last night. He’d certainly behaved like a man with something to hide.
He also kissed like a man who craved warmth and comfort. But she wasn’t about to tell the duchess that.
“A locked room,” the duchess repeated. “He keeps one chamber of his suite locked day and night. Only he has the key. He doesn’t even allow the maids to dust it. It’s . . . it’s perverse. Who knows what he’s keeping in there?”
“I do hope it’s not a collection of severed heads. Perhaps he’s been trawling the countryside for impertinent serving girls, and I’ll be number eleven.”
The duchess harrumphed. “You’re not number eleven. You’re going to be his first—and only—bride.”
“But I’m a commoner.”
“The Halford legacy is sufficiently robust to withstand my son’s debauchery. It can even survive a commoner as duchess. But it will end—forever—if there is no male heir.”
“Surely the duke has decades yet to produce a son. You can’t honestly believe he’ll marry me.”
“He must. I can’t wait decades. You don’t understand.” The duchess halted. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Now I see I have no choice.”
The older woman thrust one hand into her pocket and drew it back out, clutching something small and fuzzy.
“There,” she declared. “Just look at it.”
Pauline looked at it. A knitted object, of indeterminate purpose, made from light yellow wool. Part of it looked like a cap, and part of it looked like a glove, and none if it looked well made.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s appalling! That’s what it is. I don’t even know how it happens. I haven’t done needlework since I was a girl of fourteen. Even then it was crewel work and embroidery. Never knitting. But every night, for the past several months, I sit down for the evening, intending to read or write letters, and three hours later there’s a lumpy, misshapen thing in my lap.”
Pauline stifled a giggle.
“Go ahead, laugh. It’s ridiculous.” The duchess picked up the knitted mess and turned it over in her hands. “Is it a cap for a two-headed snake? A mitten for a three-fingered arthritic? Even I don’t know, and I made the thing. The shame. I can’t let the servants see them, of course. I have to stash them in a hatbox and smuggle them out to the Foundling Hospital on Tuesdays.”
Pauline laughed aloud at that.
“A lifetime of elegance, poise, and jewels, and now I’ve come to this.” She lifted the distorted mitten and shook it at Pauline. “This! It’s absurd.”