"Oh, quite. I'm halfway healed already." She took another sip, deciding the sherry must be healing her even faster. "Tomorrow I'm sure to be good as new."
Two kitchen maids wandered in, also wearing plain nightgowns. "What's going on here?" one of them asked.
"Come in," Alexandra said brightly. "We're making lemon puffs." She took another sip. "However did you know we were in here?"
"They sleep right down the corridor," Mrs. Pawley said, fetching another bottle of sherry and two more glasses.
There was much beating to do of the egg whites, in order to make them nice and stiff. And after that, they were supposed to be rubbed together with sugar for half an hour. Alexandra appreciated all the help. She was a bit sore to be doing something so strenuous, and while the others had their turns, she could relax and drink more sherry.
Before long, three housemaids and two footmen had joined them, and it was quite a while before her turn came to beat the eggs. In fact, she was so busy sipping sherry that she missed her turn twice. When they weren't occupied beating eggs, the servants took turns telling jokes. Alexandra thought they were quite the funniest jokes she'd ever heard, and when she told one or two herself, everyone laughed even when she stumbled over the words.
She rather suspected they laughed mostly because she was their mistress, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
By the time the lemon puffs came out of the oven, shiny and white as snow, five bottles had been emptied and the kitchen rang with laughter. "You must serve these to my husband first thing in the morning," Alexandra told Mrs. Pawley as she peeled the finished puffs off the brown paper on which they had baked.
"Our fine master cannot abide sweets in the morning," the cook pronounced with formal reserve. Then she dissolved into laughter that brought tears rolling down her plump cheeks. Everyone else laughed, too. One of the footmen—Alexandra couldn't remember his name—even snorted once or twice.
"For luncheon, then," Alexandra instructed. Noticing no scullery maids had joined them, she waved a hand magnanimously—or rather, flung it somewhat flamboyantly. "You may leave this mess until morning," she trilled as Vincent grabbed her to stop the momentum from tipping her over.
She quite liked her new servants, she thought as she giggled her way up to bed, Vincent close behind in case she should fall. She'd never had so much fun in the kitchen at Cainewood Castle.
The lemon puffs had better turn Tris from sour to sweet, because she wasn't going to be leaving Hawkridge Hall anytime soon.
FORTY-EIGHT
THE NEXT DAY, Alexandra was not good as new. To the contrary, her head ached abominably, her stomach felt queasy, and her body was stiff and more sore than ever. She didn't know whether Tris was served the lemon puffs with luncheon, since she couldn't seem to force herself out of bed. Even the daylight seemed to make her hurt.
Peggy came in from time to time, clucking and leaving Alexandra cup after cup of strong, hot tea. Alexandra wasn't certain whether the clucking indicated sympathy or disapproval, and she didn't really care. As long as Peggy left the drapes closed tight and the gaslights off, she could ignore the clucking. She ignored the tea as well for the first few hours, but after a while she started sipping it, and after a few cups, she started feeling a bit better.
By late afternoon, she finally felt well enough to dress and rejoin the world. Since her battered body didn't want to move, she allowed Peggy to help her, enduring still more clucking. At long last, she painfully made her way downstairs, going straight to the main parlor and the new pianoforte.
It was magnificent. She walked around it reverently, trailing a hand along the fine, polished mahogany. Finally, she stopped in front and hit middle C. The single note sounded so rich it sent a tingle down her spine.
She sat down to play, choosing Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, long one of her favorite pieces of music. "Quasi una fantasia," he'd called it…"Like a fantasy."
Indeed, only a few notes into the first movement, she lost herself in the fantasy that was the beautiful music coming out of her beautiful new pianoforte. The minuet and trio that made up the second movement flowed more easily from her fingers than ever before. And when she reached the stormy final movement, she played it with more passion than she'd thought herself capable of producing.
As the last note faded away, she heard applause. "Brava," Tris called from the doorway.
She turned to him with a tentative smile. "You're not scandalized? Most of the older people of my acquaintance find Beethoven's style too emotional and therefore unfit for young, impressionable ladies."
"Do you think me that old?" he wondered aloud.
"I remember a time when you thought our six-year difference made me much younger than you."
He nodded slowly, as though he were remembering, too. "You played the piece wonderfully," he said, "scandalous or not."
"It's a wonderful pianoforte." She wouldn't pretend modesty, because she'd played better on it than she ever had before. "I thank you for it."
"I didn't buy it to bribe you," he said quietly.
"I know."
The two words hung between them for a long, silent moment. "Shall we go in to dinner?" he finally asked.
It was her turn to nod. She rose so stiffly, he came to help her, placing a hand beneath her elbow to lend her support. Funny, but when she was playing, she'd forgotten all about her assorted aches and pains.
Not to mention the awkward state of her marriage.
If Tris wasn't dismissive, he wasn't particularly friendly, either. Their dinner passed in relative silence, the rattle of dishes and clang of cutlery more prominent than conversation. It seemed forever before Hastings placed the
