Imposter Bride

Patricia Simpson

Smashwords Edition

© 2013 Patricia Simpson

Lucky Publishing

United States of America

London, 1765

Trudging up the stairs behind her mistress, Sophie
Vernet reminded herself that her life could be a lot worse. One
glimpse of London had been enough to put the world in perspective.
She had been shocked by the number of waifs begging for bread on
the streets, offering to do anything for a coin, and so bedraggled
the sight of them tugged at her heart. But for the grace of God and
Katherine Hinds, she could have been a member of that tattered
tribe.

Yes, she was lucky. She wasn’t starving. She had a
pallet to sleep on and clothes to wear. She should have been
grateful for her servitude to the Hinds family. But she wasn’t.

The bags Sophie carried dragged down her shoulders
and shot pain across her back as she climbed the dark stairs of the
inn where they had finally found a room. She had carried three
valises for a good five miles that day, never complaining even
though she thought her arms would pull out of their sockets at any
moment. She longed for the journey to end. She longed to put down
her load. Most of all she longed for freedom. But her day was far
from over. And freedom was just a dream she held tight to her
heart. She had no money, and she had no place to go in this huge
frozen city so different from her island home of Santo Domingo.

Katherine Hinds unlocked the door of the room Sophie
had rented on her behalf and marched across the threshold. She
swept a horrified glance around the tiny chamber and then turned to
glare at her servant.

“This won’t do!” Katherine flushed with anger. “What
were you thinking? This simply won’t do!”

Curious to see what Miss Hind’s meager funds had
rented, Sophie left the bags in the doorway and stepped up behind
her mistress to survey the room. It was a small space with a tiny
fireplace and narrow window. The walls and floor were fashioned
from rough wood planks and topped by a ceiling angled at the sides.
Beneath the eaves squatted a wardrobe that couldn’t even be pushed
all the way to the wall because of the low line of the ceiling. The
design made the room seem more like a cave than a bedchamber. It
was a far cry from the airy rooms they were accustomed to on the
island and a great deal smaller.

How were they to manage in this space? There were
three of them traveling together, and yet the room offered only a
single bed, one chair at a small wooden table, and one candle
already half spent. Even for a servant like Sophie, who didn’t
expect much in the way of personal accommodations, the room was
inadequate.

Sophie had been the one to make the arrangements for
the room, as Katherine and Agnes were much too ladylike to deal
directly with innkeepers. Now she feared she would be blamed for
the state of the place, even though she’d had no choice in the
matter.

“This room isn’t fit for swine to shit in.”
Katherine exclaimed over her shoulder. “You have been cheated, my
girl, and cheated thoroughly!”

“The innkeeper said this was the only room he had,”
Sophie backed toward the doorway, wary of being disciplined with a
slap. “There’s a festival on, he said.”

“Festival, pah!” Katherine scowled. “I have never
seen such a wretched hovel in my entire life!”

“Shall I try to get your money back?”

“And walk another mile to another inn?” Agnes
Preston sank to the chair, slumped backward, and thrust out her fat
feet. “Lord, no! I’m spent, Miss Katherine. I can’t take another
step.”

Sophie looked back at her mistress and waited for
instruction. She knew better than to suggest they return to the
ship. Katherine had hated every moment spent on the schooner and
vowed she would never step foot on one again. Sophie wondered how
her mistress planned to return to Santo Domingo without benefit of
a sailing ship. Perhaps she never intended to go back.

“I can’t stay here!” Katherine pointed at the narrow
bed pulled close to the fireplace. The quilt was faded and lumpy.
“Look at that bed. It’s likely crawling with vermin!”

“We can air it,” Sophie suggested. For once, she
agreed with Agnes. She didn’t want to go anywhere else this
afternoon either. She was exhausted.

As Katherine’s white rimmed stare swept from the bed
to the door and back again, Sophie reached for her mistress’ cloak,
expecting to wait on Katherine as usual and expecting to be cuffed
if she didn’t anticipate the young woman’s slightest desire.

“Don’t!” Katherine slapped away Sophie’s hand. “I’m
freezing! And we shan’t be staying!”

Dutifully, Sophie acquiesced and let her hands fall
to her sides. She knew that pretty, brown-haired Katherine often
displayed outrage when she was frightened, and today was no
exception. Coming from the quiet warmth of the West Indies and an
insulated life on her family’s sugar plantation, Katherine had been
unprepared for the possibility that no one would meet her when she
arrived in England. She had been forced to make her way in this
foreign land with its dirty air and reeking rivers, and with very
little money in her purse.

At twenty-one, Katherine was not a babe to be sure,
but she had been coddled far too much by her mother, who had
recently passed away. Though Katherine never mentioned the
financial status of the plantation, Sophie knew Katherine’s mother
had left her with many debts when she died.

Katherine’s English grandmother, on the other hand,
was fabulously wealthy.

“Sophie, quit badgering Miss Hinds,” Agnes hissed
from the chair. “Can’t you see she’s upset?”

Sophie hadn’t thought she was badgering her
mistress, but she didn’t say anything to the surly governess.
Thirty-two-year-old Agnes Preston had always been surly, but her
bad temper had reached new heights now that she was separated from
the furniture-maker she had fallen in love with on board
The
Hesperian
. He had been the first man to ever pay court to
Agnes, and she had lost all sense over him. “Hurry up and make the
fire before we all freeze to death!”

“No fire, I tell you!” Katherine snapped. “We’re
going back to that inn—the Golden Swan—and demanding a room! My
grandmother paid for a room and I shall have a room!”

Agnes sighed, having suffered the same dialogue
earlier that afternoon. “But not until two weeks hence, miss.
They’ve not got the room now.”

“I’m to be the Countess of Blethin! I can’t stay
here!”

“What choice do you have?” The governess crossed her
short, pudgy arms. “We arrived early. You haven’t a penny to your
name. The inns are all full. Your grandmother is not here yet. It’s
cold. It’s late. And we don’t know the city.”

“My future in-laws live in London. Surely they would
take me in.”

“Then send a messenger with a note.” The governess’
cold black eyes leveled upon Sophie who had returned to the pile of
bags in the doorway where she was safely out of reach of her
mistress. Agnes nodded in her direction. “Send her.”

Katherine turned and glanced at Sophie. The two
young women were the same height, so it was difficult for Katherine
to look down her nose at Sophie as she preferred to do with
subordinates. Her wild-eyed glance flitted over her
maidservant.

“Why not?” Katherine mused breathlessly, more to
herself than anyone else. “What harm could it do? The Metcalfs
wouldn’t want me suffering in this fire trap, would they?”

“Of course not,” Agnes agreed. “Why don’t you write
a note, miss, while Sophie lights the fire?”

“Good idea.” Katherine fluttered a hand over the
trunk Sophie had just lugged into the middle of the room. “Sophie,
get my writing box out at once. Then see about the fire.”

“Yes, miss.” Sophie ducked to do Katherine’s
bidding, pacing herself, knowing her work for the day was far from
over. She would have to deliver the message, find victuals for the
other two ladies to eat and—wherever they ended up for the
night—-help Katherine undress, launder her stockings, carefully put
away all the clothing and jewelry, clean Katherine’s shoes, and get
out her clothes for the next day. If she were lucky, Katherine and
Agnes would leave a portion of food for her to eat when she finally
sat down for the evening, somewhere close to midnight. Many times,
however, Sophie ended the day with no reward for her hard work but
cold tea and bread, as Agnes often ate the last of the cheese or
meat before she retired.

Sophie set the writing box on the small table by the
window, opened the ornate lid, placed a quill on the right and
removed the stopper from the ink. Then she carefully got out a
piece of paper and stepped back.

It wasn’t often she had a chance to write, although
she knew how, which was uncommon for a servant. She knew she was
clever, for over the years she had picked up everything Katherine
had been taught, just by listening as she worked. She could even
play the harpsichord, although she made sure her mistress was
nowhere in the house when she indulged in music. Katherine would
have punished her for wasting valuable time. She also loved to
cook, and often suffered blows and reprimands for spending too much
time in the kitchen when she should have been upstairs.

There wasn’t anything Katherine could do that Sophie
couldn’t do better, and it seemed grossly unfair that simply by an
act of fate one should be mistress and the other servant. Sophie
sighed and walked to the fire. She had learned at a young age that
the world was not a fair place.

Sophie used a flint to light the kindling, but her
mind was far from the task at hand. During the many days at sea and
the endless hours filled with nothing but water and sky to
contemplate, she had thought about England and about starting a new
life there, about running away to a place where no one would know
her as Katherine Hinds’ servant, but mostly about becoming a free
woman.

Sophie knew her desires were far different from most
women of her day. Her ill-natured mistress wanted nothing more than
to marry her earl and become a countess. Agnes wanted a life with
her furniture-maker, complete with a brood of what would likely be
surly little daughters. But at nineteen years old, Sophie wanted
only her freedom—not a husband, not a grand home, not even
children. All she wanted was to be able to get up in the morning
and be the mistress of her own time and master of her fate. Yet of
the desires of the three women, hers was the least likely to be
attained. A woman could easily marry and bear children, but she
could not easily survive without a man.

Once the kindling was in flames, Sophie carefully
built the coal fire. She was still not adept at using the shiny
black stones that to her were magical in the way they could burn
like wood. For a moment, she knelt at the little flame, letting the
slight heat bathe her face. She hadn’t been warm for two months,
since they had left Santo Domingo, as no one had thought to bring
gloves and boots for her like Agnes and Katherine wore. At least
Katherine had provided her with a woolen cloak, albeit a cast-off.
Sophie often wore Katherine’s old clothes, once the ribbons and
trimming had been carefully removed, as the two women were similar
in size and stature.

“I’m finished with the note,” Katherine called, her
voice lighter than it had been a moment before. “But I confess, I
don’t know where the Metcalfs live. Still, it can’t be far.”

Couldn’t be far? Sophie stared at her mistress. How
could Katherine utter such nonsense? Hadn’t she seen the huge smoky
expanse of London as the stage had rolled into the city from the
docks at Southampton? The city went for miles.

“Ask around.” The governess looked over her shoulder
from her place by the fire. Her short, compact body soaked up what
little heat the coal on the grate threw out. “Someone will
know.”

“And don’t be long, girl,” Katherine warned. “I’m
truly out of patience with the events of the day.”

Sophie took the folded and sealed paper. “I’ll do my
best.”

“See that you do.”

Sophie stepped out of the cramped little room and
found her way back down the stairs. She felt a stab of panic at the
thought of going out alone into the busy streets of London, of
getting lost or being accosted by thieves, but she quickly
swallowed back her fear. It wouldn’t do her any good to be afraid.
Besides, it wasn’t often she was out from under Katherine Hind’s
thumb. She had to take her moments of independence when they
came.

An hour and a half later, Sophie was still hurrying
along the streets, too worried to walk and too well-mannered to
run, as night fell around her like a heavy drape, bringing with it
the first flakes of a winter snowstorm.