the top her lady’s maid met them, and Annis released the older woman into the maid’s care.
“Good night, Lady Eleanor,” she said, as the maid led the older woman away.
Lady Eleanor paused, changing her grip on her maid’s arm so she could turn back to look up into Annis’s face. Her eyes, autumn hazel like her son’s, glistened in the low light of the gas lamps. “You know, Miss Allington,” she said, “I would very much have liked a girl like you for my daughter-in-law.”
“S-so kind,” Annis stuttered, startled and touched. The only other woman she had ever known who spoke so plainly was Harriet.
“Not at all,” Lady Eleanor said, with a small, regretful smile. “I’m not a particularly kind person, I’m afraid. I meant what I said, all the same.”
Annis met Antoinette in the corridor on her way to lay out Frances’s nightdress. With sudden inspiration Annis said, “Do you know where Velma is? I suspect she’s still in the kitchen. I want to have an early night.”
Antoinette frowned over the extra steps she would have to take and gave a noisy sigh, but she went through the baize door to the servants’ staircase without argument.
Annis could still hear Frances’s voice from the parlor below. She seized her moment. She slipped into Frances’s bedroom and moved hastily to the dressing table. Antoinette had already cleaned the hairbrush, but there was another brush, carelessly dropped onto the openwork cloth. Its bristles were white with the pearl powder Frances used. Hastily Annis wrapped it in her handkerchief and hurried out of the bedroom.
In her own room, Annis found Velma drowsing in a chair. She checked the drawer in her bedside table to make sure the folded handkerchief was still there, with its precious remedy. She felt no need of it at the moment, but it reassured her to know she had it.
She roused Velma with a gentle shake of the shoulder just as Antoinette peeked in to say she hadn’t found her. As Velma yawned and got up, Antoinette sniffed and backed out of the room, closing the door with unnecessary force. Velma ignored her, beginning to help Annis out of her evening dress and the stays beneath it. Velma yawned again as she hung up the clothes, then brushed out Annis’s hair.
“Tangled,” she complained.
“Sorry,” Annis said. “I had to do it myself, and I was late.”
“Out walking?”
“Yes. I walked farther from the hall than I realized.”
It was what she had told everyone at dinner. She said she had wandered away from the gardens and out into the woods, lured by the wildflowers, and had lost track of time. She described a white flower with a yellow center, much bigger than the field roses she had noticed on her ride with James. Mrs. Derbyshire, with a forgiving smile, told her they called it a moonpenny in Dorset, but it was properly named an oxeye daisy. A lively discussion between Mrs. Hyde-Smith and Mrs. Derbyshire ensued about the correct names of local wildflowers. Amid the chatter Annis’s infraction was forgotten.
Not by Frances, of course, who looked daggers at her whenever she wasn’t playing at charm and vivacity.
And not by James, whose intense gaze followed her the entire evening.
With her hair braided and her gown exchanged for a nightdress, she said good night to Velma. She settled herself into bed with a novel she had found on the bedside table. It was a vapid, pointless tale of a peasant girl and a prince, and it didn’t hold her interest. She closed it, turned down the lamp, and settled down to sleep.
Her door burst open with a bang just as she started to close her eyes.
Annis gasped and bolted upright, the coverlet clutched to her chest. James loomed in the doorway, tall and dark against the low light of the corridor. He still wore his evening clothes, but his jacket and waistcoat were unbuttoned, and his tie hung loose beneath his collar. He stood, one hand on each side of the doorjamb, and gazed at her, slack lipped and glassy eyed.
“James!” she cried. “Whatever—why, what’s the matter with you?”
He lurched into the room, much as if he were drunk. Annis had little experience with intoxicated men—her father drank very little—but she had read descriptions. James had that look, his face suffused, his step unsteady. He advanced toward the bed, and she could hear his rough breathing, as if his throat were constricted.