Nora tilted her head toward the sketchbook in her lap, where she had been drawing imaginary gowns to wear to an equally imaginary ball. As much as she loved these dress-up sessions, she never forgot that the result was an illusion. So she drew a universe where it was not. Ballrooms where she belonged. Fashionable friends she would never have. Mr. Grenville’s arms, reaching out to pull her close.
Her day would not be so exciting. If anything, she was surprised Lady Roundtree had gone this long without summoning Nora to her side. It would not do to anger the baroness.
“Are we nearly ready?” she asked Pepys, anticipating the maid’s trademark, long-suffering sigh.
She was not disappointed.
“By now you should know that one cannot rush perfection,” Pepys chastised her. “Lady Roundtree will thank you for ensuring your appearance fits her station. Think of the baroness.”
Norawasthinking of the baroness. Fancy coiffures befitted Lady Roundtree’s station, not Nora’s. She couldn’t see the logic in hiring someone to be a companion, and then essentially paying that person to spend hours each day primping in a guest chamber well out of sight of the person the companion was meant to be accompanying.
Even Captain Pugboat was here with Nora, rather than with his owner. He yipped softly in his sleep, wriggling in a patch of sunlight beside a spotless bay window.
She grinned despite herself. It was so nice to have a pet, even temporarily. At home, they could not afford to keep non-producing animals from a monetary standpoint, and also due to her aging grandparents’ waning eyesight. The last thing Nora needed was for one of them to trip over a puppy, endangering both themselves and the pet.
The sketches she sent home of the myriad dogs she glimpsed would simply have to be enough.
“So lifelike!” Pepys exclaimed as Nora’s fingers added Captain Pugboat as her accompaniment to the imaginary ball. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I taught myself,” Nora admitted. This was what she preferred to draw—realistic portraits and hyper-detailed fashions, not boring, simplistic caricatures. “From the time I was small, I’ve loved art. We rarely have money for paints, but I can always manage to scrounge up a bit of pencil lead. Eventually I figured out how to draw and shade and create various styles. It was just a way to entertain myself.”
And now it was a means to an end. Not drawings like these, in which she could hold artistic pride, but the exaggerated cartoons she sent home to her brother to help fund the farm. The companion salary wasn’t accruing fast enough, nor did it provide as much relief for her grandparents as the caricatures.
Nora’s eyes shifted. She felt like a hypocrite sending a pittance home to her grateful family when even the towel she dried her face on each morning was more luxurious than anything her family could possibly afford. But what else could she do that she hadn’t already tried?
“No long faces,” Pepys said. “I’m nearly done.”
“I wasn’t scowling because of you.” Nora stopped drawing. “I was just thinking about how different life will be when I go back home.”
“Couldn’t you find some other lady in need of a companion?” Pepys asked.
Nora grimaced. Was that what she wanted? A life of public servitude and secret sketches, far from her family? She ignored the loneliness in her belly. Perhaps it didn’t matter what she wanted. All that mattered was her family.
“You don’t think Lady Roundtree would let me stay on a bit after her splints come off?”
“The baron would never allow it,” Pepys answered without hesitation. “Those splints are the only reason she has any company at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if she broke her leg on purpose, just for a little attention.”
Nora shuddered at the thought.
“Stop that,” Pepys scolded. “I’ll have to redo the last curl.”
“You cannot mean it.” Nora couldn’t believe how sorry she’d come to feel for a woman who seemingly had everything. “Why marry her and then never wish to see her again?”
“He’s the baron,” Pepys said simply. “He has more important matters to attend to than a wife. All titled men do. That’s whattonmarriages are like.”
Mr. Grenville’s face flashed across Nora’s mind. For the first time, she thought of him not as a charming and genuine Society gentleman, but as a future baron. Would he be just as cold and distant as Lord Roundtree someday? With nary a moment or a care to spare for his wife?
She suspected it would break her heart to marry a man she loved, only for him to never again have time for her. And if she discovered that her love was one-sided, that he consciouslychosenot to fit her into a purposefully busy schedule… Her heart clenched at the thought. It would be as though she had not wedded a husband, but rather shackled herself to a daydream. A wish that would never come true.
And if the reason he did not have time for her was because his attentions were more eagerly spent at the club or in the practiced arms of a mistress…
“Henwit,” she muttered under her breath.
What did it matter what kind of husband Mr. Grenville would be like? It wasn’t as if Nora was in any danger of marrying anyone, least of all him. By the end of the Season, she wouldn’t even be in London.
“There.” Pepys handed Nora a mirror so she could view the maid’s efforts in the vanity looking-glass. “What do you think?”
Nora stared at the elegant stranger reflected back at her.
