Lady In Waiting Part 22

Callum lifted Jenny's hand in his. "I had come here this eve with a purpose."

The Featherton sisters looked at each other, clearly perplexed.

Settling Jenny in the same chair he had placed her in earlier, Callum knelt down on his knee as he had done just before the widow had so rudely interrupted.

"Jenny, I have not yet discussed this with Lady Let.i.tia and Lady Viola, but I must approach ye now. I've left this too long already." He paused but an instant before bringing her hand to his lips and gently kissing the tops of her gloved fingers. "Jenny, would ye do me the great honor of becomin' me wife?"

Jenny's eyes flooded with hot tears. She could not agree, could not scream yes, though it was what she wanted most in this world. "Callum, I-"

Lady Let.i.tia hurried forward, and Jenny glanced up to see her violently shaking her head and placing her index finger vertically across her lips.

Lady Viola, hands folded over her heart, was beaming. "Oh, Jenny, say yes! You love him, and he loves you. Now is the time to listen only to your heart, dove. Nothing else matters at this moment. Nothing." Her gaze that held Jenny was crystal clear in meaning.

Jenny looked at Callum, and at the Featherton sisters, all watching for her reply with joyous antic.i.p.ation.

Listen to her heart? Golly, could it be so easy?

Say yes, embrace this glorious moment, and make everyone happy. Or should she do what her conscience dictated... and confess.

"Young Callum has had such a difficult hour, love. Make this moment one he will recall happily 'til the end of his days." Lady Let.i.tia stared hard at Jenny, her eyes pleading with her to accept his troth.

But how could she when their entire relations.h.i.+p was based on a ma.s.sive lie?

Jenny thought silently for several moments, until Callum withdrew a brilliant ruby ring from his sporran. As he peeled back her glove and slipped the ring onto her third finger, Jenny gasped at its beauty.

The facets of the bloodred center stone caught the candlelight, its brilliance enhanced by a circlet of sparkling diamonds.

And all at once, that little scolding voice in her head started to fade away.

It made no sense, but for some reason, when she looked at the ring, that stunning ruby and diamond ring, she could barely hear that nagging little voice at all.

Jenny raised the ring before her eyes and blinked at it. And then it happened.

Four words slipped past her lips before she could bite them back.

"Yes, I'll marry you!"

Late that night, as Erma toiled in the kitchen filling two dozen pots of cream, Jenny sat on her small bed, head dropped forlornly to her chest.

"Heavens above, child, how could you have accepted Lord Argyll's troth, his ring, when you've still not told him who you are?"

"Because I love him, Mama."

Her mother grabbed Jenny's hand and, bending her fingers toward her palm, forced her to look at the ring. "Look at that, Jenny. Here is proof that he loves you. If you truly love him as well, you owe him the truth!"

Pulling her hand away, she let her back fall across the width of the horsehair mattress. Her feet tapped nervously on the stone floor. "I know 'twas wrong. You needn't remind me. And I was about to admit everything to him, really I was, but then the ladies started shaking their fool heads and signaling for me to shush. *Listen to your heart' they told me. And so I did."

Her mother folded her arms across her chest. "I repeat, gel, you owe Lord Argyll the truth."

"I know. I know. I just love him so much and the instant I tell him-" Jenny sat up and sadly rested her head in her hands, but the moment she felt the smooth cool band of the ring against her cheek, she had to lean back and take a quick peek.

But Jenny's mother knew where she was headed. "You must give the ring back and tell him who you really are. If the ladies are right about him, your true ident.i.ty will not alter the way he feels about you. He will still love you, still honor his offer, and still marry you."

"Can't I wait, for just a week... until after Meredith's ball at the Upper a.s.sembly Rooms? I swear, I will tell him then."

"Waiting will only make it worse."

"Heavens, Mama, don't you think I know that? But you should have seen the look in his eyes. Had I not accepted, I would have destroyed him."

"The viscount is stronger than you know. Do what is right, Jenny. And you know what that is." Then her mother turned her nose upward and sniffed the air. "Best check on Erma too. Something's burning."

Erma. Bleedin' Erma.

She'd paid both the scullery maid and her spy inside the widow's lair, and did she get so much as a whisper that Lady McCarthy was about to expose dear, harmless Lady Viola's past? No.

Well, Jenny wanted to know why.

With hands clenched into fists, she charged into the kitchen to find Erma capping the last of a dozen gallipots.

"Oh, there you are," Erma said the moment she noticed her enter the kitchen. But the smirk on her face melted the moment she saw the hard expression on Jenny's face.

"Why didn't you tell me what Widow McCarthy had learned? You must have heard."

"I heard, I did. Surprise it was too. The prim Lady Viola must have been quite the tart in her day. Who'd have guessed."

Immense heat boiled up into Jenny's temples and her fisted knuckles went white with rage.

But Erma didn't seem to notice, for she'd turned away and set herself to the task of placing the pots into the harvest basket. "But I didn't tell you because it wasn't none of your concern."

Placing her hand on the base of her back, Erma straightened her stiff spine. "The widow's on your trail though, Miss Penny. She doesn't like it none that you and the viscount are gettin' all sweet like, so she's been doing some pryin' into your lineage as well."

"My lineage? But h-how?" A sick feeling tore through Jenny's stomach.

"Well, from what I've heard, she's got her maids and footmen pumping our house staff for any information about you. The first one who comes forward with something interesting gets a reward of some sort." Erma sat down on the stool and rested her elbow on the table, and her chin on her hand. "If I was you, I'd be thinkin' about the value of pressin' a few guineas in the hands of the staff... in both houses."

"Both? But I haven't got that sort of money."

Erma scoffed at that. "Well, maybe you might consider wearing a gown more than one time once in a while. Listen, I'm tellin' you to find the money, or the widow will have your mask in her hand in no time at all. I'm serious, Jenny."

Jenny dropped her head in thought as she turned from the table and started for her chamber. She couldn't let the widow learn who she really was. She had to protect Callum, for at least another week. Until the ball.

Criminy, just where was she going to get that sort of money?

Why, she still needed to pay on her accounts at four shops on Milsom-for she'd been warned that they would cease to allow her to frequent their establishments if payment was not made soon.

But most importantly, she needed every guinea she'd earn this week to pay for her finest, grandest ball gown of all-the one for Meredith's birthday ball.

Well, she'd just have to find a way to get the money. She just had to, else Callum and all of Bath would soon be reading a great dark heading in The Bath Herald's weekly on-dit column: Lady Eros revealed to be Miss Jenny Penny, lady's maid and liar extraordinaire.

She s.h.i.+vered at the thought.

That Sat.u.r.day, Jenny was summoned by her employers to the breakfast table, where, as more often than not, she found them chatting over the newspaper's latest on-dit column.

"A whole day it took the columnist to scrounge up the details of Lord Argyll's betrothal to our Jenny. Imagine that." Lady Let.i.tia chuckled. "The columnist's spies must be slipping up."

Lady Viola wrinkled her nose. "Does this not disturb you in the least, Sister? No one knew of his offer except those inside this house."

Jenny swallowed hard as she stood at the sideboard alongside her mother. A little tremor shook her bones. It was happening already, just as Erma had foretold. Information was dripping from the house like tea from a leaky pot.

Her employer gazed up at her. "Jenny, have you told anyone about your betrothal?"

"No, my lady."

"And you, Mrs. Penny?" Lady Let.i.tia asked.

"I needn't tell a soul. All of below stairs knew of the match before the conclusion of the rout." Her mother quieted for a moment as she organized her next words. "Begging your pardon, my lady, but George, the footman, overheard two of the party guests discussing it before the lot of you left the study."

"Dear me, Let.i.tia!" Lady Viola's eyes lit with alarm. "Was it possible someone was listening from the pa.s.sage?"

Meredith set her toasted bread on her plate and looked up. "More likely someone was in here."

Lady Let.i.tia snapped her head around. "The dining room?"

"Oh, yes," Meredith replied as she rose from the table and walked to the south wall. "If you stand right about here, and place your ear against the wall, like so, you can hear everything said in the study."

She turned around and smiled, but seemed startled to see that everyone was staring at her with harmonized looks of shock. "What? The study is just on the other side, you know. Would you like me to go into the other room and demonstrate?"

"No, dear. We believe you." Lady Viola sighed. "Now we know how the information escaped, but we have yet to discover who the spy might have been."

Lady Let.i.tia exhaled. "And 'tis likely we never will."

Then, bells started tinkling in Jenny's ears. "I think we must suspect the service staff."

Mrs. Penny's eyes bulged in her head. "What are you saying, Jenny," she whispered hotly into her daughter's ear. "Casting the light of suspicion upon your own."

Jenny continued, however, for here was her chance to get the blunt she needed to seal the wagging lips of the staff-both Featherton and McCarthy.

"Just last night, one of the scullery maids informed me that Lady McCarthy had bade those in her service to learn as much as possible about my lineage."

"Oh! That... woman. Why will she not just leave us alone?" Lady Viola exclaimed, her high voice wavering angrily.

Jenny knew this was her moment. "The scullery maid even suggested that the widow was paying for the information, and that if we wished to ensure that my ident.i.ty remain secret, until such a time as we choose to reveal it, that we pay the Featherton staff, as well as the widow's, for their continued discretion."

The two Featherton ladies sat very quietly as they considered Jenny's words.

Then a meaningful gaze pa.s.sed between them.

Lady Viola settled a spoonful of hot porridge into her mouth, and after swis.h.i.+ng it around a bit, swallowed. "Sister, I fear we have no choice. It is too soon to reveal our gel's true ident.i.ty. Why, Callum is still reeling from the revelation that I am his grandmother."

"Of course you are right, Viola. His wound is still fresh and he must have time to heal completely-before learning Jenny's secret." Lady Let.i.tia turned to Jenny. "Our man of affairs will arrive this afternoon. I shall leave instructions that he deliver to you whatever funds you request before he leaves. You will see that it reaches the proper hands, won't you, gel?"

Jenny bobbed a quick but buoyant curtsy. "Oh, of course, my lady."

Later that afternoon Jenny walked into the kitchen looking for Erma, when she felt a bone-biting draft coming from the outer door.

Rubbing her arms for friction against the bitter chill, she caught the handle to close the door when she noticed Erma chatting with, of all people, Hercule Lestrange!

The little man, spotting Jenny at the kitchen door, tipped his hat and smiled, then bid good-bye to Erma and set off in the direction of Brock Street.

Erma started back toward the house, but she seemed anxious.

"What was that all about?" Jenny asked her.

"What, the little man? Oh, I was givin' the little beggar a few tidbits, 'tis all."

Jenny nodded slowly. Indeed, she had not seen any food in his hands, nor any parcel of any kind. She watched the little man until he turned the corner and disappeared from her sight.

Ah, she just was being overly mistrusting, she decided, due to the fact that there was a spy in the household.

"I wanted to give you this." Jenny dropped a full guinea into Erma's right hand.

Erma looked up at her in disbelief. "I thought you had no blunt."

"I didn't." Jenny smiled, lifted Erma's other hand, and dropped a small cotton bag into it. "And this is for the McCarthy service staff. Can you see the money is distributed-along with a promise to bite their loose tongues, of course."

Erma opened her mouth and gave Jenny a near toothless grin. "You can count on me, Miss Penny. From this moment onward, your secret will be safe."

From this moment onward. The words echoed in Jenny's mind as she walked back through the kitchen toward her bedchamber.

Why did Erma's parting phrase itch at her brain so?

Chapter Fifteen.

Oh, Mrs. Russell." Jenny knew she was gus.h.i.+ng ridiculously over the modiste's work, but my word, how could she possibly help herself? Tears actually welled in her eyes, for this had to be, in all honesty, the most beautiful gown ever created.

Jenny beamed at her reflection in the long oval mirror mounted upon the wall of Mrs. Russell's private dressing chamber. She fingered the fine vapor of blue Venetian gauze layered over the underfrock of white c.r.a.pe and sighed with pleasure. Gorgeous. Perfectly gorgeous.

Swirling in a circle, Jenny watched the bottom quarter of the gown sway gracefully around her. No matter how she tried, she was simply unable to remove her gaze from the elegant confection.

"And what do you think of this?" Mrs. Russell settled a stunning blue headdress ringed with a double wreath of pale roses. "There is a French trick to wearing this headdress," she confided. "One that is sure to gain the wearer much notice."