Catherine could feel her own blush singeing her cheeks. “Yes, thank you,” she managed, feeling every mile of the chasm between the stiff prudery of her tone and the lewdness of her pose and attire. Or lack thereof.
Narayan gave a hasty curtsy and vanished, and Catherine flopped back onto the pillow with a fearful huff.
Some people had years to enjoy illicit vices and hidden depravities before they were exposed to public censure. Apparently Catherine was doomed to be caught after just one night.
She slipped out of bed, pulled on the first dressing gown she could reach, and nudged Lucy.
The dark-haired woman mumbled something and rubbed at eyes gone crusty with sleep. “Morning already?” she asked.
“The maid will be coming soon,” Catherine whispered, agonized. She stroked one hand down Lucy’s arm from shoulder to elbow. “Narayan was just here. Lord knows what she imagined we’d been doing.”
The other woman stretched and smiled, catlike. “Something fairly close to the truth, no doubt. Loan me a dressing gown?” she asked, as Catherine’s blush deepened at the reminder of everything they’d done last night.
When Catherine returned with a wrap—her second-best dressing gown, all quilted green silk with lace trimmings—Lucy rolled out of bed and allowed Catherine to help her into the garment. She was moving quickly but with no panic, while Catherine fluttered like a sparrow who’d flown in the window and hadn’t figured out how to fly back out.
Lucy bent down and kissed Catherine swiftly but soundly; Catherine felt her nerves settle down from a painful jangle to a bearable buzz. “We’ve done nothing to be ashamed about,” Lucy said, her hands warm and solid against Catherine’s shoulders. “No matter what anybody else thinks.” Catherine nodded, putting on a brave face, and Lucy gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Surely this isn’t the first secret you’ve had to trust the servants with?”
Catherine thought back to George’s tirades, brief explosions surrounded by long spells of icy silence. When Catherine had avoided him, he’d abused the servants in her place—shouting at housemaids, demanding impossible things from the footmen, berating the gardeners. One of the reasons she’d gone on that last expedition was that it kept George’s targets to a minimum: he never dared to lose his temper while onboard ship and under the captain’s iron command.
Her relationship with Lucy might be an absolute scandal—but it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
So Catherine kissed Lucy again and cinched the borrowed dressing gown tight. It left Lucy’s long arms bare at the wrists, even as the thick silk’s extra fabric bunched at the waist. “I’ll see you for breakfast,” she said.
Lucy grinned and blew a kiss farewell as she slipped merrily from the room.
Catherine couldn’t blame her too much: she felt much the same herself, as though her soul was so light, the slightest push from below would send it flying toward the heavens.
Narayan returned a quarter of an hour later, her face carefully neutral, and began helping Catherine dress. Chemise, stays, and stockings went on with their usual precision, as Catherine struggled not to blush for thinking at how easily such things had come off under Lucy’s bold ministrations the night before.
“I am so sorry I disturbed you this morning, my lady,” the maid said, her eyes on the floor and tension pinching at their corners.
“Quite alright,” Catherine said, sitting down in front of her toilette.
Narayan’s quick fingers made short work of arranging Catherine’s more than tousled hair into something restrained and respectable. She looked up, and her eyes caught Catherine’s in the mirror. “May I be permitted to ask you an impertinent question, my lady?”
Catherine braced herself. “You may.”
Narayan’s mouth was flat and her features contained, as if she, too, feared the worst. “Did you know Miss Muchelney would end up... would end up sleeping here, last night when you dismissed me?”
Impertinent question indeed—but there was something about the set of her maid’s shoulders that plucked at Catherine enough to make her bite back any reprimand. “I had a fair idea what would happen,” Catherine admitted. Her blush was doubled, but her chin was high. “We fell asleep before we remembered to be discreet. I am sorry to have shocked and offended you.”
“Offended!” Narayan’s tone was all surprise, and as Catherine watched, sunrise rays of cautious hope melted the ice of her expression. “You were simply trying to hide the affair, then, my lady?”
“With little success, it seems,” Catherine muttered. Truth was so difficult, and too much honesty stung appallingly.
“Oh no, ma’am—I mean, yes, I did—this morning—oh, my lady,” Narayan said, and with some alarm Catherine watched all the blood rush from her face, “do you think I might sit down for just a little?”
“Oh my—of course!” Catherine caught the girl beneath the elbow and helped her to the bench at the foot of the bed.
The maid was trembling, and for a time all she could do was bend low against her knees and take long, shuddering breaths. Eventually she lifted her head, and her eyes were shining with relief. “Forgive me, my lady,” she said, with a little laugh. “I have spent two weeks thinking you were about to give me the sack.”
“What?” Catherine cried. “What on earth for? You’ve been wonderful. I cannot imagine doing something like that without good reason.”
“But you are having Mrs. Shaw train Eliza up,” Narayan replied. “And my sister—who is lady’s maid for the Honorable Miss Cuthbert—said to watch out when they start bringing in people who are younger and—and lighter complexioned.” She set her chin as she said this.
“Oh!” Catherine pressed a hand to her mouth as the facts came clear. “Oh, no wonder you were worried. I am so sorry. Eliza was brought on to do for Lucy—I insisted on it to Mrs. Shaw...”
Catherine faltered, but Narayan had regained her customary poise by now and was able to fold her hands and nod. “I understand, my lady.” A flash of humor twigged the corners of her mouth. “You might ask young Mary to delay the hour when she lays your fire in the mornings. It would make it so you had to offer fewer explanations.”
