She watched him descend the half dozen steps before he turned, to look at her. “Good night,” he said again.
“Yes. Good night.”
“There’s a chill, Miss Foster,” the butler pointed out. “Come inside now and allow Martin to shut the door.”
“In a moment.”
Coop reached the open coach door and turned once more.
“If it’s all right with the countess, I’ll call on you tomorrow at noon. We’ll go for a drive, perhaps a picnic in Richmond Park if the weather cooperates.”
“Noon would be fine. As would earlier,” she added, and quickly wiped at a tear that had escaped down her cheek.
Anyone would think he was going off to war, and she might never see him again. Yet that’s how she felt. Lost. Bereft.
Coop nodded, and stepped into the coach.
“Now, Miss Foster. The countess would not approve.”
“Dany—wait.”
She turned to see Coop all but bounding toward her, her scarf in his hand.
“You forgot this,” he said, draping it around her shoulders.
Suddenly everything was awkward.
“Th-thank you.”
“My pleasure, Miss Foster.” He leaned toward her and whispered, “What’s his name?”
“His— Oh. Timmerly. Why?”
“Timmerly? A word.”
“Yes, my lord? You wanted something?”
“Indeed I do. Bloody shut your eyes,” Coop said as he pulled Dany to him for one last, lingering kiss.
This time, when they broke their embrace they were smiling. Smiles that turned to laughter, at the butler’s expense, surely, but also laughing at the world, life in general, and with a happiness neither seemed ashamed to show to that world.
“Tomorrow,” Coop said, and bounded down the steps once more.
“Harry. To the Pulteney. Quickly, before I change my mind.”
The tiger closed the coach door and climbed back up onto the seat next to the coachman. “Queer as folk, all of them, that’s what I say,” he commented loudly enough for Dany to hear him as the coachman flicked the reins over the horses.
“Now, Miss Foster?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said as she stepped inside the mansion, still struggling not to laugh. “I’m a sad trial, Timmerly, do you know that?”
“There have been rumors to that effect, yes, miss.”
“So you’re going to tell the countess?”
“No, miss. His lordship is the hero of Quatre Bras and you are betrothed. Besides, Mrs. Timmerly and I were once young.”
“But you’re comfortable now.”
He cocked his head to one side, as if considering her need for an answer. “There’s love, Miss Foster, and then there’s love. The first, when it strikes, is all we believe we can wish for.”
“And the second?”
He looked at her for another long moment, and something about him seemed to soften. “And the second, the love that remains, sustains, is all we never realized we needed. Good night, Miss Foster.”
Dany felt tears stinging at her eyes again, and went up on her tiptoes to kiss the butler’s cheek. “Thank you. You’re really a very nice man.”
Timmerly cleared his throat with an imperious harrumph. “I’m nothing of the sort. Upstairs, young lady. Martin, close your mouth.”
“Yes, Martin, before a fly wanders into it.” Laughing, Dany lifted the front of her skirts and took off up the stairs, feeling light as a feather, almost as if she could fly.
“Decorum, Miss Foster,” Timmerly called after her. “Decorum at all times.”
Dany turned at the head of the stairs, ready to ascend the next flight, but then hesitated. Mari really should know there are two kinds of love.
Besides, she knew if she didn’t talk to somebody she probably was going to burst!
She crept down the hall on tiptoe, not wanting to alert Timmerly as to what she was doing, knocked lightly on the door of the master’s bedchamber and slipped inside. There was still light from the dying fire, and for some unknown reason, a candelabra still burned on a table beside the bed. Was her sister still afraid of the dark? After all these years? She tiptoed across the floor, heading for the partially curtained four-poster.
“Mari? Mari. Pssst. Mari.” She pushed the curtains farther apart. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Mari, wake up!”
The Countess of Cockermouth, serenely beautiful by day, sat up all at once, and Dany jumped back a step, clapping her hands over her mouth so as to not cry out.
“What do you have on your face?” she asked as her sister pulled off a quilted satin sleeping mask, to blink furiously in the light. “My God, Mari, you’re green! And why were you wearing that mask? And...and where’s your hair?”
“I am not green.”
“You are so,” Dany said, hopping up onto the bed. She reached out to remove a bit of something that was hanging from Mari’s cheek. “And you’re molting. Ugh!”
Mari put her hands to her face and likewise came away with a little bit of peeling greenery. “Now you’ve gone and ruined it, Dany. The instructions were to wear it for a full twelve hours in order to wake with a dewy, flawless complexion.”
“Whose instructions?”
“Mrs. Angelique Sweet, of course. She comes straight from Paris. And before you say it, no, she’s not a witch, like that old crone Mama used to visit in the village to buy her elixir, until Papa drank some and took it for himself. But her results are magical. She’s a highly respected...purveyor of beauty. All the best ladies of the ton seek her custom.”
Angelique Sweet. I’d wager my best new gloves the woman’s real name is Agnes Clump and she hails from Cheapside.
“And if all the best ladies of the ton stuck their fingers in their ears and quacked like ducks, I suppose you’d join them in that, too. I can see you all now, marching through the park on your way to wade in the Serpentine.”
“You always think you’re smarter than me, but you aren’t. I have every confidence in Mrs. Sweet.”
Dany sniffed the bit of dried potion, which smelled rather like apples, and then sniffed the air...which didn’t. “You have something on your hair underneath that toweling, don’t you? Or are you hiding a chicken leg you stole from the kitchens?”
Her sister patted the wrapped toweling. “If you must know, Mrs. Sweet’s recipe for maintaining a lush, full head of hair does contain some...some chicken fat in it, I believe.” She rushed to add, “But she warned me that many women lose handfuls of hair when they’re increasing, and this is the one sure way to prevent that. Nourishing the...the follicles, whatever they are.”
“Feeding the follicles. With chicken fat,” Dany said flatly. “I begin to understand the multitude of bottles and pots on your dressing table.” She reached out to put a hand on her sister’s. “Don’t you know you’re already beautiful?”
“Yes, I suppose I do. Mama always says I am her beautiful daughter.”
Dany rolled her eyes. Just when she wanted to hug her sister, she said something like that. Lord bless her, she never meant anything mean by what she said. Or perhaps that was the pity of the thing.
Mari