In Love with a Wicked Man by by Liz Carlyle

Author:by Liz Carlyle [Carlyle, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2013-10-28T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

A Romantic Assignation

“Kate, you should have a real maid,” said Nancy, drawing the brush through her sister’s hair. “A lady’s maid, I mean. Like Mamma has Tillie.”

“What, someone who’s paid to listen to my tantrums? And to pick up the shoes I hurl across the room?” On a laugh, Kate lifted her gaze to the mirror. “No. I have you, Nancy. For now.”

“For now,” her sister agreed, drawing the brush again.

Nancy stood in her nightgown and wrapper just behind Kate, her luxuriant strawberry-blonde hair hanging down her back in riotous curls, shimmering in the firelight as she brushed out Kate’s unusually elaborate arrangement.

They had always made do this way, she and Nancy; taking turns brushing out and lacing up and unhooking whatever required unhooking. Kate was the seamstress, expert at replacing buttons and darning up rips. Nancy had a way with ribbons and colors, often laughingly declaring that, were Kate left to her own devices, she’d simply dress in shades of brown so that nothing need match.

Given all that, a lady’s maid had seemed an unnecessary extravagance. So, at the end of a late evening—if it ran past dear Peppie’s bedtime—it was always just Kate and Nancy.

Nancy had found a stray pin at the nape of Kate’s neck, and was working it free. “How did you find Aurélie tonight?” she asked evenly.

“Ooh, now there’s a weighty question,” said Kate, watching her in the mirror. “On the whole, she’s been on quite shockingly good behavior. She isn’t flirting too outrageously with any of the gentlemen, nor drinking too much champagne. And she’s stopped pushing Reggie in my face.”

“She still insists on seating you near one another at dinner,” Nancy pointed out, tossing the hairpin onto Kate’s dressing table.

“Yes.” Kate sighed. “There is that.”

“Hmm,” said her sister, taking up her brush again.

Nancy wanted to talk about something, Kate could tell. A little anxiously—and selfishly—she glanced at the ormolu clock on her mantelpiece. Half past eleven.

She returned her gaze to the mirror before her. “So, how does Aurélie like Richard?”

“She adores him as much as I do,” said Nancy. “Can you not tell?”

“And yet tonight,” Kate murmured, “you danced with every gentleman present except Richard. Well, and Edward.”

“Actually, Edward was the only gentleman I did ask,” Nancy admitted, “but he turned me down. What is your point?”

“That Aurélie is flinging gentlemen at you,” Kate grumbled. “Her new scheme, I daresay, is to torment poor Richard into doing something rash. Do be careful, Nancy, please.”

Actually, it had been obvious for the last two days that Aurélie had surrendered to Richard’s earnest charm and utter devotion to Nancy. But whether that would translate into support for Nancy’s marriage—or something more devious—Kate could not have said. Perhaps she had been too fixated on her own desires to spare Nancy’s a thought.

In any case, Aurélie’s support, or lack thereof, scarcely mattered; in keeping with England’s archaic laws, a woman was not thought competent to grant a daughter permission to marry. Only her father or her guardian could do so.

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