The very thought of her unquestioned obedience made her try it on, and for the first time ever in her life she actually liked the face of the woman reflected in the mirror. The colour matched her eyes and the tone of her skin, the sallowness of her often-favoured beige or brown lightened by the tint of green.
‘I think this colour suits you very well, madam, as would this one.’
A dark red hat replaced the green and the transformation was just as unbelievable.
‘I have always worn the shades of colour that are in this gown,’ she explained and the woman shook her head forcibly.
‘Those tones would not highlight the colour of your eyes, or enhance the cream in your skin.’
She hurried to lift down a creation in beige from a top shelf and brought it back.
‘See, madam. This is the colour you have preferred and you can see how little it favours you.’
Beatrice’s mouth fell open. Lord. Was it that easy to look more presentable? She could not believe it.
‘I have a sister who is just beginning as a modiste in London, madam. If you should wish to consult her for your gowns I am sure she would be very obliging. She is both reasonable and skilled.’
Sarah’s head nodded up and down beside her, a wide smile on her face.
Perhaps it was time for a change. A time to look at the things she had always enjoyed in her life and to try to incorporate them in the next part of it.
Books. Ideas. Discussions.
These were the things she had longed for most in the silent big house in Ipswich. When she had tried to speak to Frankwell about her own desires, his set opinions had always overridden her own and his anger had made her wary about disagreeing.
But now? Now that she had the money, time and inclination to follow her own dreams, the colour of a hat that actually suited her took on an importance that even yesterday would have been ridiculous. But here in the aftermath of a galling indifference the worm of something else turned inside her.
Freedom might be possible.
Freedom to do exactly as she pleased and to live her life in a way that would suit her, with no regard to others’ opinions.
The thought was heady and thrilling, a mandate to be only as she determined was right for her.
‘I will take both hats, please,’ she said, pulling out a purse that was filled with money, ‘and I should very much like to meet your sister.’
Taris placed his hand across the reins, feeling the pressure.
‘Ease up a little on the right, Lucy, for there is a slight pull.’
He knew in the breeze on his face the moment his sister re-aligned the horses and felt a tug of pride.
‘You have been practising while I have been away?’
Laughter greeted his question. ‘If that is your way of telling me I have improved, brother, then so be it.’
‘You have improved.’ The words came readily and he felt his sister lay her hand across his own.
‘From you that means a lot. All my life I have been in the shadow of my big brothers and it is good to finally cast one of my own. I appreciate the loan of your team in my quest to master this horsemanship, by the way, and if there is ever anything that you would like in return…’
He shook his head. ‘Become the Original you are destined to be, Lucinda, and that will be payment enough.’
‘Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady, Taris, because you have never allowed yourself to define others in the way the ton demands. With you I always feel that I could be…anything.’
The wind took his laughter and threw it across the street and in the corner of his vision he could just make out the forms of people watching them.
Women by the looks with their gowns and hats, and the sound of bells pealing out across the afternoon.
Two ‘clock. By five he would be on the road south, leaving the traffic and the noise of London behind him. He closed his eyes briefly and imagined the promise of Beaconsmeade and the warm comfort of his home.
He would take his own carriage for the ride down, however, for his recent poor experience with the public transport system allayed the delight he so often felt in mixing with the ordinary folk.
A gentler vision of well-rounded breasts and long dark curls made his fingers clasp with more fervour on to the silver head of his cane. Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke!
They had both agreed to the limitation of just one night and he had heard the sound of relief in her voice when he had not demanded different. Perhaps the state of widowhood was more promising than that of Holy Matrimony with its sanctions and its rules. As a man he saw the strictures that a woman was placed under when she married and if she had any land at all…?
No, he could not now search for Bea or betray such a trust. He had no earthly reason for doing so and she did not seem the type of woman who might welcome a dalliance. Besides, a wife was the very last thing he needed with his receding sight and his blurring vision.
Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady…
‘Your horses are attracting a lot of attention, Taris. Why, nearly everyone is watching their excellence.’
‘Well, Lucy, one more round and then home; I have much to do before I depart for Kent.’
‘Ash asked you to stay longer.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Or won’t.’
Both of them laughed as they careered around the corner and into the pathways of Hyde Park.
Chapter Four
Beatrice tucked her hair behind her ears and surveyed her downstairs salon, bedecked with books on each available surface. Her weekly book discussions were becoming…fashionable, attended by people from every walk of life, a crush that was the talk of the town.
How she loved London, loved its rush and bustle and the way the fabric of life here was so entwined with good debate and politics and culture. No one expected things of her or corrected her. If she wished to spend an evening reading in bed she could. If she wished to go out to a play she could. London with its diversity of intellectual pursuits set her free in a way that she had never been before and she relished such liberty.
Her clothes were nothing at all like the ones she would have worn three months ago either, those shabby country garments that spoke of a life tempered by ill health and routine long gone, and the highly coloured velvets she had replaced them with as unusual as they were practical.
Unconventional.
Original.
Incomparable.
Words that were increasingly being used to describe her in the local papers and broadsheets.
She liked the sound of them, the very choice such description engendered. No expectation or cloying pragmatic sensibleness that had been the hallmark of her years with Frankwell.
She did not think of him now as the man who had hurt her, the image of an angry bully replaced by the child who had lingered longer. Hopeful and dependent.
When he had died she had laid him in his coffin with an armful of Michaelmas daisies because they had been his favourite and the church had rung with the sounds of children’s songs, the same tunes that he himself had sung in his final moments of life on this earth.
Sorrow had been leached though here in London, her life filling