This came as no surprise to Isabel as he’d said as much to her.
“And ye know what?” Tilly continued, conspiratorially. “I did. Me arse ne’er felt feathers so fine and fluffy. A gel can really get a dream in a bed like that.” The brush began running through Isabel’s hair with more ease. “Lawks be, Izzy, ye got the kinda ’air to strike envy in the best o’ us, all long and sable and silk. It’s a right good thing ye got out o’ Number 9 before Nan got ahold o’ it.”
“Oh?” Isabel met Tilly’s gaze in the mirror. “Was my hair in some sort of danger?”
Tilly’s light brown eyes went wide with alarm. “All it would take to separate yer ’air from yer ’ead is a sharp pair o’ scissors, and ye couldn’t be puttin’ that sort o’ thin’ past Nan. Ever since she lost that front tooth, she bin mean as a squirrel.”
Two light knocks sounded on the door. As one, Isabel and Tilly craned their necks around as a chambermaid shuffled into the room with a friendly, “A good morning to you, milady.”
“And to you,” was Isabel’s wobbly reply. How did English aristocrats address their servants?
“The Duchess sent this for you.” The girl extended a pressed newspaper to Tilly, who passed it along to Isabel on a snort.
A well-worn efficiency in her step, the maid set about her business, refreshing the basin water, smoothing bed linens, fluffing pillows, and so she went.
“What’s it say?” asked Tilly.
Isabel glanced at the paper in her hands. TheLondon Diary.“It’s a scandal sheet,” she replied, dismissive.
“Zounds! I love me some gossip. ’Oo’s it about?”
Isabel gave the front page a quick scan. “Some twaddle about a Savior of St. Giles.”
“Ye ’aven’t ’eard of theSavior of St. Giles?” Tilly exclaimed, eyes wide.
“Should I have?” What did this savior have to do with anything? He wasn’t here, saving her or Tilly.
Tilly giggled and clasped her hands together, only just containing her glee to be the first to impart this delicious tattle. “Well, it started in April. A man—a nob every’un thinks—won Tiny Titus’s ’ell from ’im, and every’un got ready fer a big change, but not really a change, ye ken?” Tilly winked. “There ain’t really no way to change a ’ell. Fancy or foul, they be what they are beneath the surface and behind closed doors.”
Isabel could only suppose that was the sordid truth of the matter.
“Anyway, ye know what ’e did?” Tilly paused half a heartbeat. “’E shut the place down. ’Ad all the tables, beds, and furniture ’auled off. Place is nuthin’ but bare bones. Then, ye know what ’e did next?”
Isabel couldn’t help it, she wanted to know. “What?”
“A fortnight later, ’e did it again with another ’ell.”
“Again?How is that possible? Wasn’t he recognized?”
“Not ’til it were too late, ’e wadn’t. ’E’s got people thinkin’ ’e’s a European lord, or sumpthin’.”
“That seems a smidge far-fetched.” Someone had to insert a bit of logic into this conversation.
Tilly had no use for Isabel’s stab at reason. “’Cause ’e’s bin real quiet the last month. People are thinkin’ ’e went back to one of them countries o’er there.” Tilly waved her arm in the general direction of nowhere. “I always did ’ope ’e would show up at Number 9 and sweep me off me feet one night. But ’e don’t go fer them fancy ’ells, only the ones like where I got me start in St. Giles.”
“Got your start?” Isabel asked, a mite breathless. Her gut seemed to have fallen to her feet.
“Oh, yeah, when I was fourteen.”
Nausea stirred inside Isabel at the very idea.
A dreamy light entered Tilly’s eye. “But could ye just imagine if ’e did? Rumor ’as it ’e’s ’andsomer than the devil ’imself.”
A throat cleared, and Isabel half turned to meet the chambermaid’s gaze, eyes wide as saucers. Her ears had picked up everything.Dios mío.
“Will that be all, milady?” the girl asked in a small voice.
Isabel nodded. The girl dipped in a shallow curtsy and began to leave when she stopped abruptly. “Lawks! I almost forgot. These are for you.”
