Want a sneak peek at my newest book? Read on to find Chapter One in full – and if you enjoy it, you’ll find the link to find it on Amazon at the bottom. Happy Early Reading!
Anna stood in the middle of my bedchamber, hands clasped over her starched white apron, her expression apologetic in a way that never boded well.
“I’m sorry to tell you, Miss, but the coat and boots you bought for today are not where you put them.”
“The wardrobe of the red room?” I asked my lady’s maid. “You checked the back of the top shelf, like I told you?”
“I checked all the shelves, and searched the wardrobes of the blue and green bedrooms as well.” She hesitated, glancing nervously at the cream-coloured walls of my room as though they might have sprouted ears, before adding, “The items in my bedroom are still there.”
Of course they were. My mother would never be so crude as to send someone upstairs to search through Anna’s things.
Not a total loss, then. I crossed to the window and stared down at the omnibus rolling along the busy London street below, weighing my remaining options. March down the hallway to Mother’s room and start an argument? Accept defeat of my plans with a grace I did not feel?
I’d been told from a young age that raising one’s voice was not ladylike. Subtle acts of rebellion, however…
Before I determined my next move, someone knocked at my door.
I turned, braced for a dressing-down. However, when the door opened, it was not my mother who entered, but her lady’s maid, carrying a navy hat trimmed with black braid.
“Her ladyship asked me to bring this to you,” she said, her tone pleasant and entirely without question. “She remembered how much you admired it in the shop. It will pair nicely with your navy walking suit.”
A peace offering. And an instruction.
I accepted the hat with a smile that cost me more effort than I cared to admit. “Please thank her,” I said. “I look forward to wearing it to the bazaar.”
The maid departed, satisfied. Anna met my gaze, reading the decision I’d already made.
I may have lost the battle, but there was still a chance I could notch a victory in our ongoing war of wills.
Anna and I moved in tandem, wordlessly ignoring the navy walking suit suggested by my mother. Instead, Anna fetched my ivory shirtwaist and the blue-and-white striped poplin skirt I favoured for mornings spent reading in the library. Hardly the ensemble one wore to a charity bazaar, but when paired with my new navy mantle, it struck the perfect balance. Respectable at first glance, rebellious upon closer inspection. And with her new navy hat perched atop my curls, the whole arrangement looked so intentional that even my mother would struggle to fault it.
I smiled at my reflection, pleased with the creative way I’d got around her edict. When I presented myself on the main staircase, I caught a flash of a scowl on Mother’s face before she hid it away behind a polite nod of hello.
“Etty dear, the hat suits your complexion just as I imagined. Was your navy suit not clean?”
“We discovered a tear in the hem. I knew you wouldn’t want me to appear dishevelled,” I replied with a carefully straight face. Appearing dishevelled and in need of charity had been my original plan. The threadbare coat and worn boots I’d hidden away might have served as a reminder to those in attendance of the importance of generosity.
That plan had failed, but it was no matter. I was confident I’d find some other way to get my point across. I would be more careful this time.
My mother was fast approaching her wit’s end. If I pushed her too far, too fast, I was likely to end up with a lifetime sentence to the worst prison of all.
Marriage.
The last thing I wanted was to find myself standing at the altar. I knew good and well it would not be with a man of my choosing, for such a man I had yet to find. It would be some poor man with a title, desperate enough to put up with me in exchange for my sizable dowry.
Despite offers aplenty in the two years since my debut, I was holding out for something more. The problem was that I had no idea what the ideal husband might look like.
That thought weighed upon my mind as we arrived at the Hanover Square Rooms, the site of our charity bazaar. The growing crowd warmed the room; the refined drone of aristocratic voices rose to the high ceiling over the stalls laid out in careful rows.
I nodded a polite greeting to Lady Wallingford, the organiser, and pretended not to see her frown at my arrival. I left my mother there to exchange words of hello while I took my place in the flower stall where we’d been assigned.
“Mr Golden is handsome enough,” my mother murmured under her breath after she joined me some time later. “Give him a wave to coax him over.”
I wiggled my fingers at the tall man, keeping my thoughts about his puce-coloured waistcoat from my face. “Perhaps you’d like to buy a bouquet for someone special?”
“Any woman would be delighted to receive this bundle of daffodils, would they not, Etty?” My mother waved a wrapped bouquet in the air. “Isn’t this shade of yellow your favourite?”
Pale yellow and tightly closed, the buds in question resembled a line of prim and proper debutantes waiting for their debut. Some would blossom, others would shrink from lack of proper attention. I wanted nothing to do with them.
“I much prefer the sunflowers, Mama,” I replied. “It takes nothing less than the sun to turn their heads.”
Mr Golden’s frown suggested he understood he’d been insulted, though he wasn’t bright enough to grasp exactly how. He tossed some coins on the table and opted for a rose boutonniere instead.
“You could at least try to make pleasant conversation,” my mother said after he walked away. “Perhaps go for a drive, or a turn about the park, and give the man time to say something before you judge him.”
She may have been right, I silently conceded. But it would take more than a poor taste in waistcoats to convince me he, or any other man here, might be open to straying outside the rigid lines of polite society.
I swept the coins from the table and went to deposit them in our collection basket when a thought crossed my mind. He’d generously donated a tidy sum in exchange for a lone rose bud. Yet, here we were offering grandiose bouquets for the same price. If we were to split the bunches apart, we would raise twice as much as expected.
“Your Highness,” my mother gasped, sinking into a curtsey at my side. I raised my eyes to find my best friend standing across the table.
HRH Princess Louise also wore a jaunty new hat on her head and a twinkle in her eye. She stood with an ease that seemed to defy the press of people around her, as though space simply made way. In her defence, it usually did.
We’d met over an easel at an art class two years prior. I was there at my mother’s insistence. Louise, by choice. While everyone else in our class had fallen over themselves to compliment her skills, I’d been painting a debonair moustache on my self-portrait. Was it any wonder Louise had decided then and there I was the only person worth knowing?
“Have you considered adding a twirl to the ends, to match the waves in your hair?” she’d asked.
I’d tapped my brush against my lips, considering the question. “My mother has long given up any hope of taming my curls, but I am certain she’d not let me leave the house without waxing my moustache into order.”
Princess Louise had turned then and added a thick beard to her painted face. “I can’t have you face society alone, now can I?”
And that was that. True to her word, whenever Louise managed to escape from the tight hold of her mother’s state of mourning, she sought me out at every event. Her friendship was the one thing saving my mother from total despair.
She might not have felt the same had she realised we were co-conspirators in the same cause.
“Good afternoon, Lady Redgrave and Miss Redgrave. How delighted I am to find you here,” Louise said in a voice loud enough for those around to hear. “I am positively parched and was thinking of fetching a glass of something cool. Perhaps you’d like to accompany me, Miss Redgrave?”
My mother’s eyes widened, and I could see her running through the calculations. What would benefit my ever-precarious social position? For me to parade around, arm in arm with one of Victoria’s daughters? Certainly, it would help, but there was too much of a risk that Louise might get pulled away to someone society deemed more appropriate.
Far better for my mother to keep Louise exactly where she was. Stuck at my side, behind a table.
“Please, Your Highness, take my seat here. I will get you a fresh cup of lemonade.” My mother dared to lay her fingers on Louise’s gloved hand and nudge her deeper into our stall.
“And a glass of fruit punch for me,” I added, though I doubted my mother heard. She was already bustling off, murmuring to all who passed how she was fetching a drink for her daughter’s dear friend, the princess.
“Quick, stand watch,” I instructed Louise before she sat down beside me. At her raised brow, I explained my plan. “There is extra wrapping and ribbon in that box over there. If I work fast, I can split these into two before my mother returns.”
“Because you wish to sit here twice as long?” Louise asked, her voice trailing off. “Sell twice as many?”
“Half as large for the same listed price.” I pointed at the little card showing the suggested cost. “We’ll double our donations. No one here is likely to know the real cost of flowers. Even if they did, they are hardly going to quibble with the Queen’s daughter.”
“You would,” Louise pointed out.
I rewarded her accurate assessment with a wink and shooed her into position at the front of our table. Around us, ladies drifted from stall to stall, pausing only long enough to be seen making a donation before moving on.
Had I been more proficient at tying bows, I might have got away with it. My fingers twisted the ribbon into knots that even Louise could not untie, try though she did.
“Etty! Did you never play with dolls as a child?” Louise asked in a moment of frustration.
“I had exactly one doll, which I lost while chasing the mouser’s kittens in the stables. Their fluffy tails and purrs were far more interesting. When a stableboy returned it, the doll’s dress reeking of manure, my mother gave up.”
“Papa gave me a kitten once,” she said in a wistful tone. “And dolls, as well. One form of entertainment does not have to preclude another.”
If Louise had a motto, that was it. She abided within the strict confines of her mother’s expectations when she thought anyone was looking. But give her half a chance and a moment to herself, and she was an expert at seeing to her own satisfaction.
We were not exactly two peas in the same pod, but we were close enough that we might be found in the same bushel.
As we worked, I inquired as to the reason for Louise’s late arrival. “Has your mother come to town?”
“No, thankfully, for if she had, I wouldn’t have made it here at all. I had a private art lesson. It ran late. That’s all.”
Before I could inquire what technique she was studying, a nasal voice sent my spine ramrod straight. “And over here, Your Grace, is our flower stall. Can we interest you in a bouquet for display in your drawing room?”
“It is a lovely shade of pink, is it not?” Louise said, sliding in front of the table before Lady Wallingford saw the mess we’d made.
The appearance of the princess distracted Lady Wallingford and the Dowager Duchess of Rockingham for a moment, but not nearly long enough for me to put the bouquets back to rights. A sharp gasp of horror let me know exactly when my time ran out. Conversation nearby faltered, and I was suddenly aware of how many eyes had turned our way.
“What have you done?” Lady Wallingford said, her voice sharp with reprimand. “Miss Redgrave! You’ve ruined them all!”
My mouth was dry, for she was not wrong. I searched for any defense I might offer that she would understand, but my mind was blank.
Louise stepped in to save me from societal destruction. “It was my idea, Lady Wallingford. There are so many flowers in each bunch, far too many for anyone to carry around all afternoon. I thought if we split them into smaller bouquets, they would be more appealing. Do you not agree, Your Grace?” she asked the other woman.
“Quite right, Your Highness,” the dutiful duchess replied. “Here, let me help you with the ribbons.”
Louise beamed in delight at the generous (and fully expected) offer to help, and then reassured the organiser all was well in hand. “Lady Wallingford, do not let us hold you up, for I am certain you have more important matters to occupy your time.”
My mother returned a minute later, a glass of lemonade in hand. She drew up short at the sight of me, the daughter of a mere viscount, working elbow to elbow with two of the highest ladies in the land.
She swooped in then, shooing the aristocrats off before I further embarrassed myself. Before I could so much as breathe a word, she held up a hand to stop me from offering an explanation.
“I am certain you meant well, but would it kill you to simply do as you are told for once?”
Her reprimand, coming so quickly on the heels of her stealing my clothing, made it sting worse than usual.
“I suppose that depends on what I was told to do,” my mouth replied before my good sense could stop it.
My mother’s glare was fiery enough to chase my spirited demeanour into hiding. “They need an extra pair of hands at the refreshment table. See if you can collect payment and make change without offending any other women of the ton.”
Want to keep going? Grab your copy of What’s a Little Blackmail Between Friends – book 1 in the Etty and Tris Victorian mystery series.
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