Edith bent to kiss her forehead before moving toward the bell pull. “Perhaps I won’t dress at all today. I’m considering ordering a pot of chocolate and tackling the book that your sister loaned me. Do you want to join me?”
Gracie grunted, causing Edith to smile. The girl had been spending too much time with Mr. McTaggart. “You promised we would go on an adventure.”
“What would you have me do? There is snow everywhere.”
“But you said you would join us. Fergus is readying the sleigh.”
Edith paused with her hand on the cord, her pulse jumping. “Mr. McTaggart is still planning to go on the outing?”
“Yes, and I want you to come.” There was a whine to Gracie’s voice.
“I didn’t realize…”Oh, dear. She wouldn’t have dallied if she had known. “Tell Mr. McTaggart I will be along shortly.” Hurrying to the pine wardrobe, she yanked the doors open and rifled through her gowns searching for something warm.
She heard a brief squeal a second before a force slammed against her back and two thin arms circled her waist. Edith braced a hand against the wardrobe frame to keep from tumbling headfirst into her gowns. “Gracie!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The girl kept gushing thanks until Edith extracted her from around her waist.
“You’re welcome,” she said with a chuckle. “Now, off with you so I can get dressed.”
At the doorway, Gracie turned to Edith with a big grin. “You should wear your hair differently. Pulling it back makes you look old.”
“Thanks,” Edith muttered as Gracie dashed into the corridor and slammed the door. She might truly be offended if Gracie had meant to insult her. The girl was simply repeating what she’d heard her sister Lavinia suggest to Edith many times. Gracie was just more blunt about it.
After donning a heavy apron-front gown, Edith sat at the dressing table to gather her hair in the usual knot at the back of her head but stopped as she caught her reflection in the looking glass. Would she really appear younger if she left her hair down?
Hesitantly, she released her hair and allowed it to fall around her shoulders. Her stomach knotted as she studied herself. She rarely spent long at the mirror. It seemed silly and vain for someone like her. She was no beauty like her friend Lavinia, so she did the best she could with what God had given her. Yet, the woman staring back made her breath hitch. Her eyes shone with vitality and her features were less sharp now that she’d put on some weight. Her complexion had lost the sickly paleness she’d had when Lavinia found her in the alley behind the brothel. Even her white hair appeared soft and shiny again as it gently curled at the ends.
Perhaps Lavinia and Gracie were correct. If not younger, she appeared healthier, at least. Besides, it was too cold to leave her neck exposed. She placed combs to keep her hair from falling in her face and vowed not to give her appearance another thought.
Below stairs, Lady Thorne met her in the foyer with a light blue pelisse draped over her arm and a fur muff. “I wasn’t certain if you had everything you needed to stay warm.”
“Thank you. I promise to take good care with it.” The pelisse was a much finer quality than the one Edith was wearing, and she gladly discarded her old one. The baroness busied herself with assisting Edith into the coat and fastening the frogs as if she were under service to Edith instead of the other way around.
Lady Thorne stepped back to admire her handiwork. “It fits perfectly.”
The sleeves hit her right below her wrists, fully covering the sleeves of her gown. “It’s a well-tailored piece. Thank you for allowing me to wear it, milady.”
The baroness shrugged one shoulder. “Fergus was whistling this morning, which means he’s in good spirits. I think he would be disappointed if the outing were cut short due to the cold.”
Heat rushed into Edith’s face. “I—I’m certain his mood has nothing to do with me.”
“After ten years, I’ve learned to read him fairly well, Edith. He seems fond of you.” She handed Edith the muff. When Lady Thorne smiled, she sported a set of dimples identical to Gracie’s. “If you happen to develop an attachment to Fergus and decide to prolong your stay at Aldmist Fell, Lord Thorne and I would not be opposed.”
Edith shoved her hands inside the muff, too flustered to speak. They wanted to leave her behind in Scotland? Withhim? Until yesterday afternoon, the only words to pass between them had been insults and accusations. Half a day of peace did not mean Mr. McTaggart’s attitude toward her had changed. Just like her opinion of him hadn’t altered, not greatly anyway. He was still reckless and more prone to grunt than speak, but she could see he had a few good qualities too. For one, he seemed genuinely concerned that Lady Thorne and Gracie enjoyed a lovely holiday, and Edith wouldn’t spoil it by contradicting her employer.
She clamped her lips together and shrugged slightly.
Lady Thorne sighed. “Very well then.”
Edith supposed the baroness expected a response, or at least a reaction to her offer to stay in Scotland. “I should go, I think.” Edith didn’t know if she meant outside or back to London when the Thornes departed Aldmist Fell, but she definitely wanted to escape this awkward moment.
Lady Thorne’s smile reappeared. “Fergus and Gracie are outside feeding the horse. He smuggled a few carrots from his mother’s kitchen, and Gracie couldn’t wait any longer for you to come below stairs. Have a lovely time touring the estate.”
Edith mumbled her thanks and hurried for the front door. On the drive, she spied the brawny Scot standing beside a bay mare hooked to a black sleigh. The backseat was taken up with the largest picnic hamper she’d ever seen, and the front barely looked big enough to hold her and Mr. McTaggart, much less Gracie too. He casually gripped the horse’s bridle and laughed at something Gracie said as she held a carrot to the mare’s lips. In unguarded moments, Mr. McTaggart’s jaw lost its hard edge. He was not classically handsome like Lord Thorne, but he possessed a ruggedness that made Edith’s pulse race a little faster. When he decided to turn his attentions toward courting a woman, he should have no trouble securing a wife, provided he began using the brain God had given him.
“Gracie, do be careful,” she said when the girl’s fingers came too close to the horse’s enormous teeth.
Mr. McTaggart made a sound deep in his throat and gently tugged the horse’s bridle to get the animal’s attention. Gracie looked toward Edith with a small frown marring her brow.
