“She wasn’t asked to leave. There was a family emergency. Surely I told you that?”
She had. Lightning struck outside and rain pummeled against the single-pane windows and Fiona lit the candles. She had laced Chloe’s hair with a string of beads, stained Chloe’s cheeks with strawberries, and used candle soot as eyeliner to fabulous effect.
Mrs. Crescent clasped her hands. “Mr. Wrightman couldn’t take his eyes off you this morning, and I intend ful wel to keep it that way. I’ve never seen him so animated. And he’s never given any of the other girls a gift.”
Chloe’s creamy silk, and now slightly wet, gown clung to her breasts as she descended the staircase. Grace, who sat in the foyer on a cushioned bench as if it were her throne, glared at her, a result of her dampened stays, no doubt.
Fiona guided her to a bench next to Imogene. “With the rain, miss, we’l need to strap on your pattens.” She strapped what looked like rol er skates without wheels to Chloe’s evening slippers.
Imogene explained. “We wouldn’t want to get our slippers caked in mud.” She clunked around on the black and white hal tiles, lifting her powder-blue gown to her ankles.
The pattens took Chloe some getting used to as they elevated her four inches off the ground.
Even Grace the fashionista couldn’t pul these things off. She frowned at them under her gold lame gown as her maidservant draped her shoulders in a fur capelet.
“I quite like your headdress,” Mrs. Crescent said to Grace. “You look very exotic.”
Grace toyed with her gold-and-pearl necklace. “Why, thank you.”
“Your pelisse,” Fiona said to Chloe. Chloe slid her arms into an ankle-length slate-colored satin coat, tight fitting on the top.
The great doors opened and a footman stepped in, rain dripping from his trifold hat. “Carriage is here for the first group.”
Becky, Gil ian, Olive, Julia, and Kate descended the stairway to get fitted with their pattens. Becky, bil ed as an heiress from Africa, looked radiant in a white silk gown and white headdress. Her dark complexion didn’t need any makeup, and out of al the women, she looked the best.
“You al look gorgeous,” Chloe said. “Especial y you, Miss Harrington. Al the hives are gone.”
Kate smiled. “I know. It was worth breathing in the smel of rotten eggs al day. I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Mr. Henry Wrightman.”
Chloe tried to arrange it so that she didn’t sit near Grace in the chaise-and-four, but with the rain pelting down and the teetering on her pattens, when al was settled, Grace sat right next to her and Mrs. Crescent across from her. Imogene sat at the far end of the carriage next to Mrs.
Hatterbee.
The women’s wet gowns and stockings stuck to the leather seats and the windows of the carriage steamed up.
“I’m sure we al have dampened stays now,” Chloe whispered to Mrs. Crescent, who motioned her to be quiet. She pointed to a mike hooked up inside of the carriage.
The rain cascaded on the roof of the carriage, lightning flashed, a rumble of thunder jolted Chloe, and for a moment she missed her car. At least when you were in a car, with the rubber tires, lightning wouldn’t strike you. She felt for the poor driver and footman outside, getting soaked through.
After the carriage got stuck in the muddied road and the footman managed to get the wheels moving again, Mrs. Crescent wiped the condensation off the window with her glove. “Can you see it, in al this rain, Miss Parker? From the vantage point of this hil , Dartworth Hal is quite remarkable.”
Chloe looked out the window, squinting, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Even in the rain and lightning, the edifice, of Anglo-Italianate design, two-story windows, and a massive neoclassical triangular pediment atop three- storey ionic columns shone. It wasn’t ornate, but classic and strong.
It had to be at least two or three city blocks end to end. A lake curved along the west end of it, and if it were sunny, the estate would be reflected in the water. She could almost hear the French horns resounding in her head. Like some sort of drug, or at least the feeling of euphoria she got while watching the 1995 BBC version of
“It’s Pemberley,” Chloe mumbled.
Grace laughed and the spel almost broke. “It’s as big as Pemberley—I should say as grand as Chatsworth or Lyme Park. Better yet, a real, live man owns it.”
The man that could choose from any one of eight beautiful, and a few intel igent, young women.
Just as quickly as the vision of Dartworth appeared, it disappeared in the condensation that soon re-formed over the window as the carriage descended into the val ey.
Grace crossed her legs, one of her pattens knocking against Chloe. “I’m curious, Miss Parker. Do you fancy Mr. Wrightman any better now that you’ve seen his vast estate? Or did you like him before you knew how much he was worth?”
Chloe took some satisfaction in noticing that Grace’s elderberry eyebrow makeup had smeared. “I liked him from the moment I knew he enjoys architecture, bird-watching, and reading. How he’s looking for true love. I just didn’t realize—”
“You didn’t realize just how much you fancied him until now.”
Chloe squirmed in her seat. “I’m not like that.”
“Of course not. None of us are like that,” Grace said. “If you enjoy reading and bird-watching, I should introduce you to the hermit on Dartworth grounds. He’s very attractive. Very brainy. About your age. Fortyish, I should say. And an artist, too. Into nature. You would adore him. He just so happens to live in a hut he fashioned from scrap wood himself. The hermitage.”
