Lady In Waiting Part 23

"Really?" Jenny turned to look at the modiste, dying with antic.i.p.ation. "Will you show me?"

Mrs. Russell smiled knowingly as she drew several of Jenny's gold-shot brunette locks through the pale Indian roses and set her fingers to work braiding them. "Now, here is the special trick. You just twist the braids... like this... so the coils of hair mimic the shape of the roses. You see?"

Staring with awe at Mrs. Russell's creation, Jenny bounced with glee on her heels as the modiste slipped from the dressing chamber.

Jenny bit her lower lip as she admired her image in the mirror. All the ladies of the ton would be so envious when they glimpsed her in the gown. And well they should be.

The gown was everything she'd hoped it would it be, elegant, simple... and memorable. At the ball, she wanted, nay needed, for Callum to look upon her with love in his eyes, albeit for the very last time, and see her as the lady he made her feel she truly was.

Seconds later, the modiste returned with something white in her hands. "Surely you have white satin shoes and kid gloves, but let us slip these on so you will have the full effect."

Jenny did as Mrs. Russell suggested, then looked at herself in the gla.s.s and let out a long sigh. It was perfect.

Then, Jenny caught Mrs. Russell's reflection in the mirror. Gads, she was waiting for something. Oh... her payment, she realized belatedly. Jenny lifted a brow. She could have at least waited until she had removed the gown, Jenny thought sourly.

Reaching for her reticule, she withdrew a small velvet bag and handed it to Mrs. Russell.

The modiste emptied the coins into her hand, then looked up. "And two more guineas for the headdress."

"Two?" Jenny glanced down into her bag and saw to her displeasure that it was empty. "That's a bit dear, isn't it?"

"Do you want it, Miss Penny, or do you not?"

Jenny swallowed. "Yes, but I haven't got any more money."

"Well, then you shan't have it." With that, the modiste reached up and pulled the ornament from Jenny's head, yanking hard at the braids of hair she had worked into the design.

Jenny clapped a hand to her pulsing scalp. "But I must have it. I simply must. I-I can pay you next week perhaps."

Mrs. Russell shook her head. "Miss Penny, I have sewn for you before and though you might have forgotten about your delinquent payment history, I have not. No, I must have the money before you"-she dangled the flowered circlet before Jenny's clawing hands-"receive the headdress."

"I'll get you the money."

Mrs. Russell leered at her. "Good. I shan't wish to apply pressure, but I will do what I must, Lady Genevieve... or would you prefer to be called Lady Eros?"

Jenny gasped. "H-how did you know?"

Mrs. Russell laughed. "Miss Penny, your trio of ident.i.ties are well known throughout the servant and merchant cla.s.ses. 'Tis only the Quality that cannot seem to see the grand imposter before their very noses."

That night, Jenny peered into the harvest basket. Blast, only one stone. One.

It was as she feared. She'd glutted the tingle cream market. Now she could do naught but wait for the highborns to run out of their current supply.

She slumped down on the stool and let a loud sigh roll down her tongue. What was she going to do? She needed money and needed it now.

Then a single word waved for attention in her mind, like a squealing shop sign in the wind. Bartleby's.

Shortly after sunrise the next morning, Jenny stood shivering outside, harvest basket in hand, as Mr. Bartleby unlocked his shop door.

"Good morn, sir," Jenny said brightly. "I made up some extra pots last eve and I thought you might be able to use them."

"More pots?" Appearing confused, the shopkeeper stared blankly back at her. "Erma brought round over twenty pots just yesterday."

"What? Only yesterday?" Jenny furrowed her brows. "No, no, you must be mistaken."

"I a.s.sure you, I am not." Bartleby invited Jenny inside as he flipped open his ledger book and ran a finger down a page. "There you go. Have a look. Twenty guineas, I paid her just yesterday."

Jenny began to sputter. "B-but I didn't make any cream-" Suddenly an uneasy thought exploded in her mind.

Maybe she didn't make any cream... but Erma had been watching her whip the emulsion for several nights now.

No, she couldn't have. But nothing else made more sense.

Erma was making the tingle cream and selling it-herself.

Why that double-crossing thief!

"All right, Erma. Give it over." Jenny ground her teeth at the grimy scullery maid.

Erma looked up at her quizzically as she stoked the fire in the kitchen hearth. "What are you going on about, Jenny?"

"I know you have been making the cream and selling it on your own." She folded her arms at her chest. "I want the money you've stolen from me-now."

Erma stilled for a moment, then slowly turned her body to face Jenny. "Figured it out, did you? Aren't you the clever one? But I ain't givin' you nothin'. I made the cream."

"From my receipt, using my supplies!"

"All right then, I will pay you for the supplies I borrowed. What would that be-all of five shillings?"

"I'll see you dismissed." Jenny glared at Erma, her fists clenching and releasing in her rage.

"I'll see you in The Bath Herald's on-dit column."

A tremor shook Jenny's body. "What do you mean, Erma?"

Setting her hands on the broad shelf of her hips, Erma laughed. "Oh, nothin'... except if I was you, I'd make b.l.o.o.d.y sure I enjoyed the ball tomorrow eve- because it's the last one you'll ever attend."

Jenny tried her best to sound strong and sure, but inside she was shaking like a mouse under a cat's paw. "You had better explain yourself."

Erma stretched out her arm and pulled something from a nook in the overmantel. She turned and dangled Lady Let.i.tia's bag of coins Jenny had given Erma to silence the widow's service staff.

"Y-you never paid the McCarthy service staff," Jenny muttered in shock.

"Why should I? There is more blunt here than I'd see in five years. And now that I know how to make the cream... it won't matter a lick if I get sacked."

A cold finger swiped down Jenny's spine. "Oh, Erma. What have you done?"

Erma smiled amusedly back at her. "Enjoy your glittery life while you can, Jenny," she said in a singsong voice. "Because even now, your world is crumblin' down."

The scullery maid emitted a deep throaty laugh as she rotated her hip and strolled c.o.c.kily from the kitchen.

Jenny paced the floor of her bedchamber. Just what had Erma done exactly? She'd mentioned the on-dit column. Had the wretched scullery maid truly exposed her to The Bath Herald?

Oh, no. Callum. The sudden thought stopped her midstep.

He mustn't read of her treacherous lies in some gossip column. No, no, she had to tell him herself.

Raising her hand to her mouth, she bit the soft fleshy tip of her thumb as she sat down on the edge of the bed to think.

Today was Thursday, the day before the ball. But The Bath Herald would not be delivered until Sat.u.r.day morning. She still had a modic.u.m of time in which to think, to plot her strategy.

Jenny rose, opened her wardrobe, and looked fondly at her lovely new blue gown and sighed.

Time was short. There was no time for half measures. Jenny swallowed the apprehension wedged in her throat.

She knew precisely what she must do.

In way of preparation for the grand birthday ball, the Featherton ladies, and surprisingly Meredith herself, took Jenny's very helpful advice. They retired early to conserve their strength for the much antic.i.p.ated event the next evening.

Of course Jenny had her own reason for seeing them all abed. She could not risk them creeping around the house and looking for her once she'd made her escape.

It was only half past nine, when she surrept.i.tiously wrapped herself in her warmest pelisse and mantle, then headed off alone into the cold night.

In the bitter wind, it hurt her lungs to breathe during the long walk from Royal Crescent to Laura Place-and Callum. But she had to see him. Had to hold him, kiss him... one more time before her life crashed down about her.

She longed to see the tender love in his eyes as he caressed her skin, and merged his hard body with her own.

For the last time.

This idea of hers was beyond scandalous, she knew. But it really didn't matter anymore. Jenny didn't care. She would be ruined in the eyes of all by Sat.u.r.day morn with the sunrise delivery of the newspaper.

Her breath puffed furls of gray clouds into the air and her strides were wide and swift. In fact, so determined was she to see Callum that she found herself standing before Lord Argyll's tall buff-colored home far more quickly than she had antic.i.p.ated.

This was a problem, for though her pounding heart had made its choice by driving her out into the night, her mind still had not figured out what to say... without sounding like a light skirt.

One just could not barge up to the door and say, "Callum, I need to be with you tonight. Do not ask questions, just kindly show me to your bedchamber." Though, she thought, it would certainly be efficient.

And honest. And he did admire honesty.

It was standing before his front door that bothered her most. Anyone could walk by and see her, though that was unlikely on a freezing winter night like tonight. Still, why sully her name earlier than absolutely necessary?

So, she turned the corner for the alleyway between his house and the next, and scurried down a few narrow steps. With a hard shove, Jenny pushed the service door... and to her surprise, it opened.

Quietly, she crept through a dark cloakroom, then into the bright kitchen, where a plump cook sat drinking tea tinted near white with cream.

The older woman's eyes grew astonishingly large when she spotted Jenny, and she struggled against her own heft to stand.

"Oh, do not mind me," Jenny said confidently as she pa.s.sed through the kitchen. "Lord Argyll and I need to discuss a private matter and I did not wish to alert all of Laura Place to my presence." She paused before three wide doorways and turned her head back around to the woman at the kitchen table. "Which way above stairs?"

The confused cook lifted her finger and hesitantly pointed to the door on the right.

"Very good. Thank you, Cook." And with that, Jenny hurried through the doorway and up the stairs.

It was very dark when she emerged, though a wand of light broke through the partially open door of what Jenny took to be the drawing room. Stealthily, she tiptoed forward, holding her breath as she leaned close to peer through the opening between the door and the jamb.

And there he was. Callum.

The chair in which he rested seemed uncommonly pet.i.te in comparison to his large, commanding form. But there he sat, his long muscle-scored legs rising from beneath his kilt to prop themselves on a tiny footstool.

A smile came to her lips as the image of a great friendly giant from a childhood faery story seeped happily into her mind.

Jenny whisked her mantle from her shoulders with one hand as she unfastened the frogs at her throat and removed her pelisse with the other. All the while her gaze remained riveted on Callum.

The strong profile of his face, and even the sinuous curve of his broad chest through the linen of his shirt, was silhouetted against the light of the roaring fire in the hearth and it was all she could do to keep from sighing aloud.

G.o.d had certainly blessed the man.

Jenny removed her velvet Bourbon hat and quietly placed it and her wraps on the foyer table. Catching notice of the looking gla.s.s above the table, she leaned forward to peer into it. Her fingers poised to return any loose locks to their places, but the faint impression of the whites of her eyes peeking back at her was all she could see in the darkness.

What was she doing? She b.l.o.o.d.y well knew she looked grand, for she'd spent a full hour on her toilet before leaving. No, she was only delaying the inevitable.

Reaching out, she touched her fingers to the raised panels and pushed the drawing-room door open. Quietly she moved inside the room, then closed the door behind her and turned the key she found poised in the lock.

Callum did not look up. "I'm weel, Winston. But perhaps another whiskey might be in order."

Jenny's eyes caught notice of the amber liquid glowing inside the sparkling crystal decanter on the table near his chair. She slowly moved toward it, lifted the decanter, and tipped it so the liquid trickled slowly into Callum's awaiting gla.s.s.

She moved to the far side of him, already breathing deeply of his smoky masculine scent. Slowly, she lowered the gla.s.s down before him.

It took him but a half breath to realize it was not Winston at his side. Before she could blink her eyes, Callum's hand shot forward and caught her wrist.

Jenny struggled to hold the drink level as he swung his head up to look at her.

"I must be dreamin'." His voice was deep and husky as he drew her around the chair to stand before him.

Smiling, she knelt before him, and leaned over and seductively sipped slowly from his gla.s.s. Moving it to his lips, she urged him to drink as well, then she set the gla.s.s on the plush carpet beside her.

"This is no dream, my love. I have come."

Callum's eyes were confused, but still he pulled her wrist toward him, drawing her forward until she hovered above his seated body. "I dinna understand, Jenny."

Shaking her head slowly, she laid her finger over his lips. "Hush now. No words. No thoughts," she whispered softly.

Raising her skirt slightly for movement, she placed one knee and then the other on either side of his hips, straddling him. Callum sucked in a breath, then moaned with pleasure as she wriggled atop his kilt to find her balance.

Through the silk of her gown and the cotton of her chemise, she felt him harden against her, and like the wanton she was this night, she pressed solidly against him.

Heat washed to her center, making her want things an unmarried woman had no ent.i.tlement to desire.