She waited through the first remove—slivers of pheasant in tiny choux pastry, which would have looked delicious had she not been too sick with nerves to eat—and made her move in the second.
It was a soup course. The broth was a rich brown color, bursting with neat slices of stewed parsnips and carrots. She took a spoonful, lifted it to her mouth, and dumped it directly onto her bodice.
She gave a very convincing gasp—at least, she rather thought so—and clapped her fine white cotton napkin to her breasts. “Oh goodness!”
Lady Yardsley made a sound of dismay. “Oh, my dear! Your lovely embroidery!”
Winnie decided she liked Lady Yardsley.
“Have you any turpentine?” asked Miss Thampuratti, the throaty-voiced woman who sat at Spencer’s side across the table. “The best for grease stains, you know,” she said confidingly to Winnie. “I am a painter.”
“Not at all, not at all,” put in the dowager at Spencer’s left. This woman, Winnie had discerned through conversation, was Miss Thampuratti’samoureuse. “It’s hartshorn you want, and a warm iron after—that’ll bring it right out.”
“Let me call my maid,” said Lady Yardsley. “I’d be lost without her, utterly lost.”
She half-rose from the table before Winnie could interrupt her. Somehow, Winnie hadn’t expected this outpouring of feminine—almost motherly—advice. It quite took her aback before she managed to recover herself.
“Oh no, please.” She came to her feet, gesturing for Lady Yardsley to resume her place. “I wouldn’t dream of putting you out. I can fend for myself. I’ll nip down to the kitchen for a little soap and hot water. Don’t bestir yourself, please.” She let herself flutter a little. “I’m ever so embarrassed—my first time meeting you all, and I’ve made a cake of myself already. Might we pretend this didn’t happen?”
She wasn’t as good at this role—the bashful young wife—as she was at the femme fatale. She’d had only her mother to pattern herself upon, and her mother hadn’t been bashful a day in her life. But somehow, she seemed to manage it. Lady Yardsley sat back down. “I’ll have one of the footmen show you down to the kitchens, then?”
Winnie accepted gratefully. She let the footman escort her to the kitchens, assured him she could make her way back to the dining room without abetment, and then attacked her bodice with hot water and lye for roughly half a minute.
She made excuses to the harried undercook—who seemed quite relieved to see her go—and then slipped off to the small parlor at the front of the house where the coats and cloaks had been stored for the duration of the dinner.
She’d expected a liveried footman to be in place—had planned excuses and rebuttals—but the parlor stood open, lit only by the starlight glimmering in the window. She slipped inside and pulled the door closed behind her.
It was dark in the room. The outer garments, removed from their wearers, had been folded neatly and laid across a mahogany sideboard in the corner of the parlor. When the guests began to assemble near the entryway at the evening’s close, the garments would be shaken out by the footman and returned to their respective owners.
She picked her way around an armchair, a side table, and a large settee before she made it to the sideboard. There she rifled through the folded outerwear, trying to disarrange as little as possible, searching for the violet-striped lining she recalled from Noake’s greatcoat.
Three coats in, she caught a glimpse of purple, dusky in the starlight. Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the coat. Yes, there it was—the striped satin lining, the ivory buttons. She dipped her fingers into the interior pocket. It was large and empty—a perfect receptacle for the diamond-and-ruby necklace.
She swallowed as she unfastened the hooks at the seam of her bodice, loosening it enough to slip her fingers into her stays and lift out the necklace she’d concealed there. The jewels were warm from her skin as she slipped them free—much warmer than her fingers, which were icy and a little clumsy.
It was a beautiful necklace. The rubies were surrounded by diamonds at all sides, haloes upon haloes of glittering stones. Together the jewels formed a collar; in the front, where the necklace would rest just above the wearer’s breasts, more rubies dangled, teardrop-shaped and so dark red as to be almost black.
Her mother had stolen this necklace from Noake—pilfered it from the baroness’s jewelry-case while Noake had been fetching more champagne. Noake’s necklace had been one of the last thefts—one of the final incidents that had motivated Eliza’s departure from England.
Ten years. It had been ten years since she had seen her mother.
She wrote to Eliza thrice each year: at Christmas and Easter and Michaelmas. She still wrote, even though the names and addresses that her mother used in France had changed often enough that she no longer knew if her correspondence made it to her mother’s hand.
It had been three years now since she’d heard anything back.
She’d told herself for so long that she did not mind being alone. But still she kept posting her missives, letting them free like stones dropped into a pond.
She held the jewels, warm and solid, and remembered her mother. Eliza had been made of glitter and flash, delicate fingers and sweet perfumed skin, hair the same color as Winnie’s own. As fleeting and insubstantial as a flame.
She had tried to believe that Eliza had stolen the jewels for her, Winnie. Her daughter. Perhaps it was why she had held on to the necklaces as long as she had—wanting to make of them more than they were, as if she could wring love from them through the grip of her hand.
But they were only stones, not love. They were not hers to keep. They never had been.
With one careful breath, she made herself let it all go. She slipped the necklace into the pocket in Noake’s greatcoat. Let one fingertip linger for a moment on the satin.
And then the door to the parlor came open.
Her gaze shot to the entryway.
