‘Complicated!’ Josephine muttered, not even lifting her eyes from her book.
Phoebe stared at her pretty cornflower-eyed sister, wondering when she got to be so duplicitous, and yet even she had to admit the idea was attractive.
‘You mean, invent someone who can havea few adventures?’ she quizzed.
‘I mean, become someone whom Bath society would accept as entitled to enjoy a few diversions without a chaperone, such as a … mysterious widow of independent means, visiting Bath after her husband’s early demise to … the dropsy!’
‘Not the dreaded dropsy!’ Josephine objected, glancing up. ‘It’s so depressing! Why not irritation of the nerves? Much more romantic!’
‘Pah!’ Matilda jumped up, her eyes gleaming. ‘Any early demise is excessively dull – unless he was murdered, gruesomely, in a duel! But if a mysterious widow means Phoebe can do more than drink mud water while we’re here, then I say she should do it!’
She paused to survey her older sister critically.
‘Two minutes!’ she exclaimed, running from the room.
‘We might regret this,’ Sophie muttered.
Seconds later, the twelve-year-old reappeared with a rolled-up blanket, which she then discarded, with the air of a court magician, to reveal several items hidden inside.
‘One of Aunt Higglestone’s wigs?!’ Sophie gaped in horror. ‘Just because Phoebe’s going to pose as a widow, doesn’t mean she needs to look positively medieval!’
‘Actually, it’s a cap and wig powder!’ Matilda defended hotly. ‘And spectacles. Phoebe will need a good disguise if she’s to pass undetected, she can’t just go out as she is!’
There was a brief silence while they all acknowledged the wisdom of the youngest Fairfax, before Phoebe grinned and took the items from Matilda.
‘A deceased husband would explain an absent chaperone,’ she mused. ‘And a level of disguise would be highly useful should any person of our acquaintance be out at the same time.’
She popped Aunt Higglestone’s cap on her head and tied it beneath her chin. Instantly, her sisters dissolved into laughter.
‘It actually suits you!’ Sophie snorted, wiping away her tears.
‘But still, how is she to actually go anywhere?’ Matilda asked, her forehead creased with concern. ‘She can hardly waltz directly in and out of Aunt and Uncle’s front door, after all!’
‘Are you forgetting our sweet and delicate older sister holds the fastest, tree-scaling record across Dartmoor?’ Josephine smirked, nodding towards a maple tree just outside the bedchamber window. ‘I’m sure the lack of a door isn’t going to prove too much of a problem, even with an injured shoulder.’
Phoebe glanced at the tree with its conveniently thick and twisted branches, just waiting to assist an intrepid widow to the ground, and felt a flicker of hope. She wouldn’t make the same mistake as last time; there would be no devil’s brew, no duels, no interfering viscounts – just a little freedom … before everything changed for good.
She drew a breath.
‘Which just leaves the question of a name,’ she murmured, her mind filling with myriad possibilities before inspiration struck.
She sank into a curtsey.
‘May I present to you … Mrs Mary Smith!’ She grinned. ‘Younger cousin to Miss Sarah Kemble, otherwise known as Miss Sarah Siddons, darling of the theatre, and daughter totheatrical extraordinaires, Mr Roger Kemble and Sarah Ward!’
There was a brief pause before the bedchamber erupted in a chorus of groans and laughter.
‘Mrs Mary Smith, younger cousin to Miss Sarah Siddons, darling of the theatre,’ Sophie nodded, wiping her eyes. ‘It’s perfect!’
‘It soundsexcessivelyold,’ Matilda grumbled.
‘Or a governess’s name! Everyone will expect you to talk about manners and coach-springs!’ Josephine warned.
‘I don’t care,’ Phoebe returned brightly. ‘And Mrs Mary Smith won’t care! She’s a young widow from theatrical royalty with none of the trappings of an unmarried debutante, which means she can explore Bath’smany delightswithout Thomas, dearest Aunt, or anyone else, suffering some kind of terminal apoplexy.
‘Unlike Phoebe Fairfax, Mrs Mary Smith is quite free!’
* * *
