Masquerade (17 page)

Sophie sat in shocked silence. She had never received such a severe lecture. It left her speechless. It also brought a fresh set of thoughts and emotions to her already taxed mind.

Fortunately, her mother seemed not to require any sort of reply. Shaking her hair over her shoulder, she stood and said, “The whole house will be awake before I know it. Time for me to begin my day.” She crossed the room, but stopped at the doorway. “I hope you will carefully consider what I have said, Sophie. It is, I believe, in your best interest to do so.”

The day presented little time for introspection once it began, and Sophie was glad for it. Better to keep busy than agonize over the mess inside her own head.

With no one save themselves to plant the kitchen garden, every aspect of the affair fell to the family. More to the point, since they were children, it had been Rachel and Sophie’s job to care for the small garden plot they kept in the back yard. Neither had ever minded the job and, as a result, the family had a wide assortment of produce every year for their dinner table.

Gardening was not a pastime limited to the summer months. During the bleakest winter days, the seeds for the spring planting were sown. With nothing better to do, Sophie and Rachel decided the January morning was an ideal time for the work.

They supposed their guest might not wish to dirty her hands with the planting, which turned out to be an accurate guess. Wendy claimed to be allergic to soil and chose, instead, to spend her morning in the guest room.

Downstairs, in the small glassed greenhouse behind the kitchen, the sisters went about their business with little conversation. They each enjoyed the break in chatter and fits of giggles for well over an hour before breaking the silence.

Rachel inserted dried corn kernels into miniature clay pots filled with a mixture of rotted manure, peat moss, and garden soil. The mixture had been resting since last summer, so any offensive smell it may have had had long since vanished. Now the soft loamy mix accepted the seeds with no more than a slight poke of a finger. She patted soil over the seeds before she paused.

For the last quarter hour, Sophie had studiously avoided looking up. She felt Rachel’s gaze on her several times and knew the younger sister well enough to know she wanted to talk. While Sophie had no objection to hearing whatever it was that might be on Rachel’s mind, she didn’t fancy being subjected to hearing another lecture on her own behavior.

“Sophie?”

“Mmm hmm?” She kept her attention on the Swiss chard seeds in her palm. They were tiny, and could be lost easily if she didn’t keep them in her sight. “What is it?”

Even a blasé tone couldn’t dissuade Rachel when she wanted to talk. Sophie knew it, so when her sister went on, she wasn’t surprised.

“I have been wondering something.”

When Rachel failed to elaborate, Sophie sighed and asked, “Well? What have you got on your mind?”

“Well…” Rachel pushed a kernel into the dirt with the tip of her index finger. She patted it carefully before looking up and across the table. Wiping her fingertips together delicately, she asked, “Do you think the same men will be at the Atwell’s St. Valentine’s Day dance as were at the New Year’s dance?”

Precisely one of the questions she had been mulling over.

“I suppose so. I mean, it does seem logical, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought. I almost wonder if there might be even more men in attendance, now that the weather may be letting up somewhat. It stands to reason that by February there should be less snow underfoot, so travel will be easier, even within the city. The party should be even better attended than the last.” Rachel hesitated, then said softly, “Given the facts, wouldn’t you think everyone who attended in the miserable weather will also be there when it is less inclement?”

Despite Rachel’s assertion to the contrary, Sophie saw she hoped to meet the same man she had danced with at the Atwell’s on New Year’s at the Valentine’s dance. It seemed heartless, as well as fruitless, to dismiss the possibility. Besides, her sister voiced the selfsame hopes she harbored within her own heart.

“I think there’s a very good possibility that all who were there last time will show again. And I would imagine that those who were kept away by the bad weather will, hopefully, not be kept away by the same sort of problem in February.”

Thoughts of the upcoming dance sent a flock of nervous butterflies careening through Sophie’s midsection. She swallowed hard and tried to regain the calm state that planting had brought. Before Rachel began the discussion, she had been somewhat tranquil, something that happened to her each time she did gardening work. Now, however, the peace had vanished—borne off on the wings of imaginary oversized butterflies.

“Colin should be there.” Rachel finished with the corn kernels and wiped her hands on a moist rag. She handed it to Sophie so she could do the same. “That, at least, is a good thing, don’t you agree?”

Colin again! Everywhere she turned, Colin showed up—even when he was nowhere about. Had she been looking for him—which she most assuredly
was not
—he would have been scarcer than an empty hackney during a thunderstorm.

She heaved a jagged sigh. How to escape someone who had been part of nearly every memory of one’s life? It seemed impossible—and, more to the point, it seemed unthinkable. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Colin in her life. Rather, she wanted him in his proper place in her life. The question was…in what capacity? And what, exactly, place should Colin inhabit?

He is growing entirely out of the best friend position
, Sophie thought glumly.

“You imagine I care more deeply about where Colin is, and with whom, than I actually do. It isn’t a becoming trait, Rachel, to try to put feelings into a person which they don’t have.”

“You protest too much, dear sister.” Rachel let out a tinkling laugh, one she had used since childhood but which now, with their “allergic” guest so nearby, grated on Sophie’s nerves in a rather unpleasant manner.

“Enough, Rachel! It isn’t up to you to decide how much is too much about anything I do.” Sophie couldn’t help herself. Her temper, ordinarily slumbering like a satisfied cat, reared its head and growled—loudly. She wouldn’t allow a younger sister the liberty of making her feel foolish. It wasn’t fitting—and she simply wasn’t going to tolerate it. “All of your attempts to push Colin Randolph at me are entirely inappropriate. Colin and I are adults, and as such are in control of our feelings toward one another. He and I—and
only
he and I—will decide where our association goes. It is, must I remind you, only friendship we share. Nothing more—
nothing
more!”

Remorse seized her instantly. Her tone was unduly abrasive, and she knew it.

Rachel’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She wasn’t used to such a dressing down from anyone. She was especially not prepared to hear such harsh words from Sophie, for her older sister had never uttered such stern words.

“I—I…” A tear fell, sliding slowly over Rachel’s creamy cheek. It hung on her jaw line for a moment before it dropped onto the shoulder of her serviceable morning dress. “I didn’t mean…I wasn’t—”

Sophie rushed forward and grabbed her sister in a crushingly tight embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel sniffed. “I didn’t mean—”

“Hush.” She wiped a soothing hand down her sister’s back, and wished she hadn’t been so awful. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m being a beast and you are the lamb led to the slaughter. I don’t know what overcomes me sometimes. It doesn’t take much these days to bring me to a fit of temper. I apologize. Oh, my dear, I apologize most heartily.”

She held Rachel at arms’ length, searching for mercy in the eyes so nearly identical to her own. To her relief, she found pardon.

“Honestly, these past weeks have been a trial for me,” she admitted. Rachel wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, and nodded her understanding. “It’s been one thing after the other since…” The memory of the masked dancer’s arms about her stilled Sophie’s tongue. She couldn’t say the words, so Rachel finished the thought for her.

“Since the New Year’s dance. You haven’t been yourself since that night, have you?”

Sophie shrugged. She let her hands drop from Rachel’s shoulders and hugged them tight around her middle.

“No, I fear I haven’t been myself at all.” A sigh, its release a slight consolation, allowed her to go on. “I don’t know what happened, Rachel, between then and now. I was happy before and now I am…”

“Unhappy?”

She quickly shook her head. “No, not exactly. I’m at odds with the unfamiliar feelings I suddenly have. And yes, I suppose a small part of me is not at all happy I am so unsettled since the party, but that just isn’t the whole of it. I cannot put my finger on what, precisely, troubles me, but it’s clear I’m suffering some kind of…” The word escaped her completely. How to term what felt like craziness but which had to be something else? At least Sophie hoped mental illness wasn’t what plagued her.

Good Lord, can I be losing my mind?

Rachel smiled, and the expression of understanding stilled Sophie’s conscience. She was forgiven, and nothing else mattered.

“I almost hate to say it, for fear you may chop off my head…” Rachel’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “But I am going to take my chances and say it sounds like you are in love, Sophie.”

“And how would you know anything about how it feels to be in love?” she teased, pulling a ringlet beside Rachel’s ear. “Tell me, oh wise one, what do you know about love?”

The tinkling laughter did not annoy her when it came this time. With an airy wave of her hand, Rachel replied, “Why, I know
all
about love. After all, I have read Ms. Austen’s works, remember? She’s taught me simply everything!”

Chapter 11

When the
tap-tap-tap
came at the closed bedroom door, the sisters exchanged guilty glances. They had been awake and dressed for some time but lingered in their room. Neither wished to go downstairs and begin another day punctuated by Miss Wentworth’s incessant giggles, so they had simply stayed put. They busied themselves dusting the furniture and straightening dresser drawers. Now Sophie darned a stocking heel, while Rachel sketched in her journal.

It was rude, they knew, but they couldn’t help themselves. It was one day past their guest’s scheduled departure date, and every extra hour spent in the woman’s company brought Rachel and Sophie one step closer to foul tempers.

Tap-tap-tap.

Heaving a ragged sigh, Rachel closed her book with a snap and tossed her pencil on the table. It hit the surface so hard the point broke, which brought a fresh sigh.

When she glanced at her, Sophie shrugged. What could she do? If Wendy had tracked them down, there was no way to escape. It wasn’t as if they could evade discovery. The only exit was the door which, even now, was getting a new wave of tapping. That or the window, and Sophie didn’t wish to avoid their guest so vehemently that jumping from the window was on her list of options.

“Girls, let me in, please.”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Rachel hurried to the door and pulled it wide. “Mother—we didn’t realize it was you.”

“I should hope not. I stood out in the hallway for so long my feet nearly took root in the floorboards. And carrying this heavy load, besides.” An impeccably starched dress and upswept hair showed they weren’t the only early risers in the household. Her arms were so full her nose was barely visible above her load. Layers of crimson fabric fluttered behind her as she swept into the room, kicked the door closed with her foot and placed her burden on Sophie’s bed. “There!”

Sophie set aside her needle. She went to the bed, staring down at the vivid hue splashed across her white counterpane. Reaching for the fabric, she asked, “What is this?”

Their mother gave a soft laugh. “I’m not sure, exactly. It was one of my old ball gowns—my favorite one, actually. Oh, I may as well confess—” She swept a slow fingertip across one of the crimson folds and said, “This is the gown I wore the night your father and I met. It has been tucked away all these years, in fabric and a sturdy box in order to preserve it. Truthfully, I have not given the gown much thought in a long, long time. Then, I recalled its existence yesterday afternoon. It is, I know, horribly out of fashion, but I believe it can be made over into a beautiful gown. Something more modern…something with a bit of Valentine’s Day spirit.”

Rachel lifted the gown at the shoulders and held it against herself. The design was terribly out of date, but the bones of the gown hinted at its potential. The neckline was higher than women now wore, but it could be lowered and squared off. Perhaps a bit of cording would dress up the puffed sleeves. The skirt, voluminously paneled, was so full there was fabric enough to make an extra gown from the excess—that is, if one was daring enough to dismantle a dress with so much significance attached to it.

“It is beautiful,” Rachel said admiringly. She looked from the gown, to their mother, and then met Sophie’s stare. “It matches Sophie’s coloring perfectly, doesn’t it? She wears vibrant colors so well, and the crimson would make her look like a dream. Don’t you agree, Mother?”

Their mother placed an arm around Sophie’s shoulders and gave her a small squeeze. Smiling, she said, “That is exactly what I had in mind, Rachel. You have no need for a new dress for the upcoming dance. You have the blue dress you made over from one of Sophie’s old gowns. It will look fabulous on you, my dear. But Sophie…”

Still holding the gown up in front of her, Rachel said, “Sophie has no new gown, and she simply cannot wear that green gown one more time. This one, with a few alterations, will make her the talk of the Town. Won’t it, Mother?”

Another squeeze. “It certainly will. Sophie will turn heads in a crimson gown. I know it is hardly ever done now, for unmarried women to wear such bold colors, but I have talked it over with your father and he agrees. If it was acceptable for me to wear a red dress without causing a scandal, it will be fine for Sophie to do the same.”