“I don’t know, either,” the young woman said cryptically, but she gamely pulled while Mariana pushed, and together they got it into the foyer. It left a glistening damp trail, and the dangling crystals of the chandelier above scattered little rainbows down upon it.
And then the maid, a fair-haired girl, ushered her into a pleasant parlor where a fire burned low.Mariana turned to look back at the foyer, arrested by the little rainbows thrown down upon it by dangling crystals on the chandelier.
“Oh, my, isn’t that the mostbeautifulchandelier?”
She was twenty-five years old and would never get over the enchantment of sparkling things.
The maid beamed at her as if she’d said magic words. And then she covered her mouth with her palm.
“Oh, ma’am, you’re steaming!”
Steam was indeed rising from her. Mariana gave a startled laugh. “So I am! It’s very chilly outside, and so wonderfully warm in here. Isn’t that funny? You’d think I was the devil himself arriving. Or... an apparition!”
“Have you heard of a book calledThe Ghost in the Attic, miss?”
“Cor, I loveThe Ghost in the Attic!”
“It’s my favorite!”
The maid and Mariana shared a moment of beaming accord.
Mariana’s eyes began to droop. Oh, God, the warmth. It was like a hug, the room. She could not recall the last time she was hugged by someone whose main objective wasn’t to shag her.
“Have you a room to let?” she prodded the maid gently.
“Well... it’s not up to me, you see, miss. If you’ll just wait here, I’ll go fetch Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand, and they’ll want to speak to you for a bit. Our place is exclusive, like. And we’ve rules,” she said proudly.
“Oh, my. Exclusive! How thrilling. Exclusive places are my favorite.” They were now. “And that’s very wise of them, of course. One never knows who might appear at the door in the middle of the night.” She said this with only a little irony.
“I’ll ask them if they’ll come down. Whom shall I say is waiting?”
Mariana paused. Somehow she had not anticipated this question.
She was disinclined to lie, but the truth might get her chased out the door with a broom.
“I think it wisest,” she said carefully, “if I tell Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand myself who I am directly, if they are kind enough to meet me.”
Mariana thought she’d succeeded in sounding the proper combination of genteel, confident, calm, amusing, and harmless—precisely the sort of person one wanted to let a room to in the dead of a rainy night by the docks.
The maid paused. Mariana held her breath.
“I’ll go and tell them, then.”
“She looks frightened,” Dot stage-whispered. “And she’s so cold she’ssteaming. And she’s doing this.” She clacked her teeth together noisily.
Delilah and Angelique reared back a little.
“Oh, dear,” Delilah said.
Dot had found the proprietresses of The Grand Palace on the Thames in the sitting room at the top of the stairs, where they liked to conclude their evenings and talk about the day and plan the next one. Gordon, the striped and plump residentmouse and rat catcher, was curled up in his basket at their feet, and two warm husbands, Captain Tristan Hardy and Lucien Durand, Lord Bolt, were stretched out in respective beds in their respective rooms, waiting impatiently for them.
But there was much to discuss tonight. They’d just said farewell to the Earl and Countess of Vaughn and their family, and to Mr. Hugh Cassidy, and had begun to wonder whether they ought to advertise for more guests straightaway. Guests tended to come and go, but expenses tended to come and stay. There was also the matter of the newly finished ballroom in the Annex, the stage freshly hung with beautiful green velvet curtains, and the possibility, which seemed remote at the moment, of holding musical evenings there for which the public would buy tickets. It would be a marvelous source of income and good fun. There was also the little challenge of hiring a footman.
“She’s young and has a very nice face, with one of these.” Dot pressed her chin to make a dimple. “She has pale eyes and red hair, and she sounds like a lady... and she looks like a lady... and her pelisse is lined in fur, but...” Dot lowered her voice to a stage whisper “...I don’t think she’s alady, if you take my meaning.”
Angelique and Delilah exchanged a speaking glance.
Dot had once been the world’s worst lady’s maid, fired by a horrible duchess, then rescued and employed out of the stubborn, long-suffering goodness of Delilah’s heart. She’d become a valuedmember of the household and a friend, after a fashion, even if they’d finally needed to firmly but gently admonish her about dropping yet another tea tray, this time because a fly had landed on her nose, and she’d sneezed, and closed her eyes, forgotten to open them again, and walked into a wall. They hadn’t the heart to outright ban her from bringing tea. Opening the door to the surprise of new guests and bringing in the tea were her two favorite things to do.
