I would like to spend more time with you. For our time together to flow as my magic pen does across the pages you’ve seen fit to so generously provide.
I would like for the hesitance that often characterizes our in-person interactions to ease and the inviting, invigorating tone of our written correspondence to take its place. You make me laugh so easily, in person and on the page, yet I find, reluctantly I admit, that I do not know you at all.
How do you spend your days (other than getting beamed on the nose and clobbered on the ribs, if you will forgive my impertinence)?
What matters concern you? Matters of state, matters of your own holdings and responsibilities? Matters of family? I would listen to it all, if you would but share.
What things do you like? Rainy days by the fireside or walking in the sunshine? After-dinner port or evening brandy? Strolling in the countryside or shopping in the busy streets? Arm-scratching, nose-dribbling cats or rescuing playful, barking dogs?
Have you any personal interests? Any favorite pastimes or nonsensical enjoyments?
What do you dream of? (Whether you wish your nosy mistress would squelch her inquisitive nature and leave off pelting you or your life dreams…I wish to know them all.)
I wish to know whether you’re married, possibly have children
That last, she’d crossed through so much that he had a devil of a time making it out.
In all honesty, I wish to know so many things about you, but I quite wonder whether you’ve continued to read this far.
Aye, I would very much treasure attending the theater with you (most anyplace, in fact).
But I simply cannot, my lord.
And please do not laugh at my reasoning. I don’t claim to know how things are conducted in the upper reaches of society, but I assure you, I exaggerate not my situation. The bald truth is…
The reason why I cannot accompany you is…frankly…
Well, to be perfectly blunt, I haven’t a thing to wear.
5
Squinting Quint’s Quality Quizzing Glass
Squinting Quint’s quality quizzing glass is queerish fine;
before he got it on Quarter Day,
the quaint, quaking man had been in quite a quandary
when queried to dance the quadrille!
Thomas Edward Everson, Lyrical Lines for Education, Elocution and Entertainment, circa 1820s
The next morning, Thea nimbly ran her fingers over the keys of the pianoforte they’d found stashed away, along with a host of older, unused furnishings, in another bedroom upstairs. Mr. Samuels and Buttons had liberated the shrouded piece and shuffled things around so Thea and Mrs. Samuels could give the old instrument a thorough cleaning.
Those efforts had defined Thea’s day after she’d sent off the final, unanswered note to Lord Tremayne. Now, though, even the reality of the pianoforte failed to make her smile.
The sounds it made when she picked up speed weren’t quite enough to make her cringe—but they were close.
The sun sliced in through the open window, promising a warmer—and drier—day than the preceding few. It was still early enough she wasn’t yet worrying over what Lord Tremayne’s response might be to her last missive, nor was she agonizing over why she hadn’t she heard from him yet (not overly much, anyway). But it was late enough she was definitely wishing she’d added one more request to her brazen list of what all she wanted.
If she was going to pelt him with a plethora of requests, she might as well include everything.
A piano tuner. By Jove, she’d neglected to ask for a piano tuner.
She played a little harder, a little faster. A lot louder. And then she did cringe—how could she?
A new mistress didn’t rail at and complain to her protector, not when things were going rather swimmingly, and not if she sought to retain her intimate position in his life. Which she did, oh, how she most definitely did.
The discordant notes that followed echoed her uncertain mood.
“Miss Thea!” Buttons burst through the open doorway. “Down…stairs…”
He was out of breath, both hands dangling at his sides, neither extending a folded square in her direction.
So, no note, then.
Disappointed, apprehension growing at her no doubt off-putting forwardness, she tried to whip beautiful music out of the stubborn old pianoforte. (All she whipped were both their eardrums.)
Her fingers never breaking stride, she asked, “What is it? Something certainly has you in a dither.”
“You’re needed downstairs,” he repeated in a more normal voice and she glanced up in time to see a secretive smile flash across his lips before he wiped it clear. “You have guests.”
Her fingers fell from the keys. “Guests? Plural?”
“Aye.”
“Who?” She reached the doorway but hung back, leery of venturing out into the unknown. What kind of guests visited the abode of a mistress—other than its master, who arrived most definitely not in the plural?
“Come and see.” Buttons’ posture urged her to hurry. “You won’t be sorry.”
Taking the trusted servant at his word, she sped down the hallway and flew down the stairs, only to come up short at the sight of Mrs. Samuels beaming at her.
“Get yourself settled and I’ll bring them in.” The woman stood in the entryway, all but blocking the closed front door. She pointed toward the morning room near the back of the residence. That particular room was airy and inviting, decorated in simplicity and pastels. (Not at all like the sumptuous squares of decadent debauchery of the entry and master bedchamber.) “Go on with ye now, can’t keep them waiting.”
Them? “Who?” Thea tried again.
But the bustling housekeeper had already slipped outside through the narrowest crack in the door. Thea heard her telling someone it would be but a moment.
“Ah, miss?”
Not yet to the morning room, Thea halted when Buttons spoke. “Aye?”
“You’ll want to read this first.” Winking, he tucked a familiar-looking square into her hand. “I’m goin’ back out to help Samuels get the mare settled.”
“The mare?” Thea’s fingers trembled
