reaction.
Even now, I do consider abandoning the blanket, but the thought only lasts a heartbeat. We’re still on uneven ground, and I want him to be comfortable.
“I can offer you some hospitality,” he says. “Mrs. Shaw has left for the day, and there’s hot tea or a cold supper, whichever you’d prefer.”
“Does the tea include Mrs. Shaw’s scones?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. “It does. Come, and we’ll see whether we can find you something to wear.”
As I walk with a blanket clutched around me, William explains that his mother passed nearly sixteen years ago. She’d been bedridden when I was here at fifteen, and while she’d recovered from that, she’d never truly regained her health.
After her death, he’d told Mrs. Shaw to do as she wished with his mother’s dresses. With William’s permission, the housekeeper had refitted them for members of the local minor gentry, women whose budget sensibilities overcame any aversion to secondhand finery. Lady Thorne’s gowns were long gone, but since then, Mrs. Shaw had made a side business buying and reselling dresses, and William let her store her stock in his mother’s old bedroom. That’s where he takes me—to two wardrobes bursting with finery.
It’s like opening a door into another world, a Victorian Narnia through the wardrobe. One peek, and I become the girl who would crack open her mother’s historical romances, too young to appreciate the actual romance part—much less the sex parts—but leafing through to devour the inevitable ball scene. It didn’t matter if I’d read a hundred of them, all of a sameness. A young woman transformed into a society debutante, squeezed into a corset, layered with finery, adorned with jewels, her hair twisted into a masterpiece of soft curls and smooth sweeps. She’d step from the dressing room like Cinderella, whisked off in a coach-and-four to the ball, where she’d meet her dashing prince—or brooding earl or rakish lord—and dance the night away, belle of the ball, twirling effortlessly to the string quartet, slipping out to a convenient parapet for a clandestine kiss. Even my eight-year-old heart would pitter-patter at that kiss.
Now I’m opening a wardrobe to the core of that romantic fantasy. Dresses. So many dresses. It doesn’t matter how many gowns I’ve seen in museums—these are a revelation. The smell of muslin and potpourri. The jewel colors and shimmering waterfalls of fabric undimmed by age. My fingers stroke the silk bodice of a breathtaking gown. It’s wine-red paisley on white, its long sleeves bedecked with enough ribbons to make my inner tween squeal.
“That one?”
William’s voice jolts me, and I glance over only to be plunged straight into the heart of the fantasy. August called William “not unattractive.” While he may not be conventionally handsome, his face is the ideal blend of the boy I knew and the man I’d like to know better, familiar and mysterious, every edge and curve making my fingers ache to reach out and touch. Freya teased that William had to be real because a fantasy lover would be perfect in every way. He is perfect, though. To me. As swoon-worthy as any man who ever stepped out of a novel.
And of course, even thinking that, my face heats, and I stammer a non-reply that has his brows knitting in confusion.
I force a laugh. “This dress is not exactly tea-time wear.”
“As I am the only person here, I don’t believe that’s a concern.” He glances down at his own outfit—the loose white shirt and coarse trousers better suited to a stable boy than a lord. “I will need to dress as well, and I shall choose my attire to complement yours.”
“You don’t need to change, and I’m too hungry to spend a half-hour lacing myself into that gown, as lovely as it is.” I flip through and tug out a full-skirted green dress with short puffed sleeves. “This will be perfect.”
As I shake it out, he says, “Do you remember when we planned to sneak you into a ball?”
I laugh. “I confessed my completely unrealistic fantasies, and while you warned me the reality would be a disappointment, you vowed to sneak me into one. Find me a dress and give me a mask and present me as your mystery companion for the evening.” I shake my head. “We were very young, weren’t we?”
“We were, indeed. I take it you no longer yearn for a ballgown and a coach-and-four?”
“Oh, no. I totally do. But I can just imagine what a disaster that would have