The Silent Language
Chapter Ten
Hattie hadn’t beenfitted for one of Monica’s costumes in a decade, and yet somehow, standing on this little platform again had returned her to exactly the same dreamy, distracted state of mind in which she’d always found herself during this ritual.
Today, while things were pinned and tucked and measured, she drifted beyond the chatter of the other women as she’d always done, past Libba quoting the stack of newspapers she’d finally gotten in the post from London, past Ruby examining fabrics and staking claims on the prettiest ones, past Monica muttering about a pincushion she’d lost when she had been thirteen and was convinced was still hiding somewhere in this very room.
She was thinking about Elias Selwyn.
“If you want to learn this silent language you so covet,”he had said to her as they’d left the master suite, some days ago,“you may observe me at any time, make your guesses, and then ask me if your translations were correct. Perhaps you may find you can build the skill if it is not inherent.”
And so she had been. Watching, that is.
She had not yet gotten the courage to approach him with any hypothetical interpretations. She imagined she needed time to hone her skill first, anyhow.
It was odd. She had never felt abashed about having an accent in a new tongue or getting a turn of phrase grammaticallyincorrect whilst learning something new, even when her teacher was already fluent in English. It had always been a bit of fun.
But she knew she would be far too embarrassed to reveal her stumbles to Elias. She wanted to find her feet first.
He was the most intriguing to watch at dinner.
The way he held his utensils. The way he cut his food. The slow way he lifted things to his lips and the way he listened and tilted his head while he chewed and tasted things. He always ran his fingers over the little crystal spikes at the base of the wineglasses before he took a sip of what was inside, and afterward, he stroked the stem or traced the circle of the base.
Why did he do that?
She could see him now, could see his lips on the rim of the crystal.
“Hattie!” Libba exclaimed. “Gracious, girl. Share your reverie with the class.”
“I… Pardon?” Hattie said, sounding rather hoarse. “What?”
Libba was grinning at her over the top of a copy of London’sMorning Chronicle, dated ten days past, while Ruby was frowning at the sketch Monica was referencing in her folio.
“That’s for Hattie?” she asked tartly. “You’ve never made me anything like that.”
“Well, it’s about words,” Monica said defensively, curling the page to hide it and hunching her shoulders. “And it’s just a concept. Velvet is too heavy for summertime, anyhow. I was thinking perhaps suede.”
“What is it?” Hattie asked, forcing herself to swallow, to amass some moisture in her throat.
“A duochrome medievalbonbon,” Ruby snapped.
“It is a recreation,” Monica corrected, before the other woman had even gotten the words out. “Of Jadwiga of Poland’s famous split gown, royal blue and gold on one side, creamy ivory and orange on the other. She was a king.”
“A… what?” Libba said, already flipping her paper back up over her face. “‘Queen,’ you meant to say.”
Monica shook her head. “No, she styled herself king. I thought it the type of thing Hattie might play with. Do you speak any Polish, Hattie? I think you’d need to, if we made this?”
“A woman king?” Ruby said, her dark eyebrows climbing. “Have there been others?”
“Hatshepsut,” Hattie murmured, leaning forward to peer at the sketch. “She was a pharaoh. She wore a fake gold beard.”
“There, you see?” said Ruby. “Make Hattie wear the beard and give me the gown.”
“Anne Boleyn was a marquess,” Libba put in idly. “Christ, but I’m missing so much in London! It hasn’t even been a month. Can you imagine what I’ll miss if a whole year goes by?”
“What’s happened?” Ruby demanded, immediately distracted. “Scandal?”
“Of course,” said Libba with a sigh. “Someone broke the bollocks off a Biblical statue at my parish picnic and then got caught with the vicar’s hand up her skirt. I should have been there!”
