Page 9

Now that Fulvia was enraged, her blue eyes had deepened to an uncanny resemblance to her father’s. “You will marry this Season, Ella, as shall I. I will repay you for your mother’s diadem. My father be damned.”

Ella cleared her throat. “I’m actually not very interested in marriage.”

“Don’t be a fool,” her cousin snapped. “Do you want to spend your life as my father’s housekeeper or follow him to debtor’s prison if he figures out how to consign his bills to you?”

“No!”

“We need husbands,” Fulvia stated. “And Ella, make no mistake. I may not cross swords with my father, but have you ever seen me not get what I want?”

Ella thought it over. Fulvia had wanted her portrait painted by Lawrence, and it had been. Fulvia had wanted to go to a pantomime in a country inn, and they had attended.

“No.”

Fulvia squared her shoulders. “I shall not allow him to stand in my way.” She sprang to her feet with all the formidable energy her father radiated when enraged and stamped up the lawn without another word, her yellowing satin ruffles fluttering in the breeze.

Ella slowly walked after her cousin, thinking about the fact that her mother had left her the diadem. A gift. When she reached the house, she went straight to her room—or rather, straight to the attic. She had appropriated the space when they arrived in London, though her aunt would not have begrudged her the chamber she occupied as a girl.

The upsetting truth was that sleeping two floors above the family bedchambers meant that Ella would be spared the sound of her uncle ranting at his wife.

The attic was a long room that ran the width of the house. The ceiling was not overly low; a grown man could stand without difficulty. True, it was rather hot under the eaves in the afternoon, but presumably the viscountess would return to the country before July.

Trailing unpaid bills, Ella thought wryly.

She walked through the door and promptly dropped to her knees. An adorable little face peeked out from around her chair, and her pet squirrel bounded over with excited squeaks. “Who’s the sweetest squirrel in the world?” Ella crooned, putting Joe on her shoulder and running a finger down his red striped back. He cocked his tiny head, his black eyes shining with happiness to see her. “Who is growing the fluffiest tail that ever graced a squirrel in Christendom?”

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a bit of scone, putting it on the wood floor. “Currants, Joe! You’ve never had those before.” He leapt to the ground with the reckless joy that accompanied everything he did.

Ella had snatched him from a dog’s mouth eight months ago. He had been just a baby, and she had felt certain he would perish, but instead he’d rallied. Rather than the thin, bedraggled creature she’d rescued, he now glowed with health, his tummy plump from eating anything and everything Ella gave to him.

These days he spent his time prancing in and out of the dormer windows, making his way to the ground via an oak tree. Now he ran across the room and fetched an acorn bigger than his head, dragging it across the floorboards toward her. She brought him scones; he brought her acorns.

“Two gifts. It might as well be my birthday,” Ella told him, her voice husky as she thought of her mother.

Before Joe got very far, a streak of gray flashed across the floor, snatched the acorn, and scampered away.

The squirrel tumbled over his feet and sprang up, chattering angrily.

“Starlight!” Ella called. “Naughty kitty, bring back Joe’s acorn.”

Starlight began running in circles by the bed, showing off the acorn in her mouth. Having only three legs, she wasn’t able to climb down the tree the way Joe did, so she amused herself by making mischief.

Enraged, Joe disappeared, so Ella went over and picked up her cat, putting the acorn back on the floor where it could be easily found. Starlight deigned to rub her head against Ella’s shoulder, and they sank into a rocking chair liberated from the nursery.

Twilight was falling, and narrow streaks of violet light filtered through the narrow dormer windows. It had been a wretched day.

Ella felt subsumed by a burning rage at her uncle … at life … even at her parents for leaving her. Her uncle certainly didn’t love her, but he had never before threatened to throw her into the street.

“He is deplorable,” she told Starlight, who responded by jumping down and returning to her small bed, nestled against the warm chimney that led to the kitchen.

Joe popped back into view and began trundling the acorn under Ella’s bed.

“How can I possibly ask a modiste to make sufficient evening dresses for my aunt and cousin, let alone myself, with a mere two hundred guineas?” Ella’s voice was shaky, but she refused to cry. She swallowed back tears, and called, “Joe, I thought that acorn was for me?”

He had disappeared, so Ella went over and got down on her knees. A hatbox lay on its side under her bed, empty but for the acorn. Presumably it had once held a frivolous scrap of finery that her mother had worn to a party.

She pulled the hatbox out and discovered “Quimby’s Costume Emporium” inscribed on its side. Not for a party, then, but a costume ball—and she remembered which one. Ella had probably been around six years old when she’d been invited to join her mother and father in the drawing room before they left for a Yuletide masquerade ball. Her father had been dressed as the North Wind with a crown of icicles, and her mother as his consort.

Ella suddenly remembered the diadem: a spray of diamonds nestled into her mother’s red curls. Not that Ella had known what the stones were; her memory was of sparkles entwined with her mother’s laughter.