“I know,” another says. “I didn’t appear in public once people could tell I was with child. It’s not seemly.”
“I don’t mean the pregnancy,” the first woman says. “Even without a child in her, she’s going to need her gowns specially made. Lord Thorne may be a man of some size, but his hands still won’t span her waist.”
My cheeks heat. I should walk away. I know that. Yet I stand there, rooted to the spot, and I’m fourteen again, ignoring girls sniping as I buy a cookie from the cafeteria. I’m twelve, overhearing the boys snicker about the size of my breasts. I’m nine, when my ballerina mother canceled my beloved lessons, finally acknowledging I was never going to be ballerina sized.
Oh, I hear other voices, too. William ogling my figure as he plies me with scones. My father telling me I inherited his size—tall and broad and never “thin.” My stepmother marveling over how strong I am, how toned from my dancing.
I am big. Tall, big-boned and carrying extra weight even without a baby. I’ve come to terms with that. I’m healthy and fit and active, and if being a size eight would mean giving up my treats, I’m not doing it. Life’s too short.
Yet this still stings. Stings all the more because this is a world where concepts of beauty are shifting. In the early Victorian era, women were more likely to be mocked for being too slender. It was considered unhealthy. By the end of the nineteenth century, fat-shaming and diets will be in vogue. Even now, attitudes are changing, and in a time when the average woman is a size six, I very obviously do not fit that norm.
So their words sting, but I’m hardly going to let them ruin my evening. I continue down a side hall and find the sitting room we’d used earlier. I deposit Surrey there with more fish, and I promise August will return her to Edmund as soon as possible. Then I ease the door shut behind me and wait to be sure she doesn’t howl.
When all remains quiet, I make my way toward the ball only to hear the trio of gossiping women have entered the corridor. To return the way I came means passing them. I should, chin high, but I can’t be bothered. Not if I don’t have to. There’s another way around, and I decide to take it rather than risk any scene that might torpedo my perfect evening.
I head down a hall, and then another and then . . .
And then I am lost.
Seriously? It’s a house. You can’t get lost in a house.
You can if it’s an estate like this, with a dozen bedrooms and a half-dozen sitting rooms. When I spot narrow steps leading up to the second level, I realize I’ve reached the servant wing.
I’m turning around, orienting myself, when I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I spin to see the hem of a dress flipping around a corner.
“Miss?” I call.
I hurry to the corner. There’s a young woman ahead. Light hair. A pale blue dress. Moving soundlessly as her feet seem to float an inch above the floor.
A chill runs through me.
I shake it off. I don’t see ghosts. Okay, I have seen them, but only at Thorne Manor, and those have all been laid to rest. I haven’t seen one since. Nor have I seen one anyplace else.
This isn’t a ghost. It’s just a maid wearing slippers, a maid who has learned to move noiselessly through the house.
“Miss?” I call again.
She disappears around another corner.
I sigh and lift my skirts to follow. “Miss?” I call. “I’m a guest from the ball. I seem to have lost my way. If you could direct me . . .”
I trail off as I catch a low laugh. A laugh I recognize as the earl’s. I slow and turn the corner to see the young woman looking back at me, her pale face in shadow. She lifts one hand, as if in a wave, and I take a tentative step forward. She moves through a doorway, vanishing again.
Another chuckle from somewhere ahead and around yet another corner. Definitely Everett Courtenay. I do not want to bump into him, and I presume the maid’s thinking the same, waving me into a side room until he’s passed. Skirts lifted again, I jog along the hall and veer into the room she’d entered.
It’s empty.
No, it simply seems empty. It’s a music lounge, complete with a gorgeous little piano and seating that rings the walls. It’s also dark, and I walk in, squinting to see where the girl is hiding.
“Hello?” I whisper.
No answer. I take another step and my knee thumps against a stool. I stifle a yelp of surprise and bend to move it aside, my fingers sliding over crushed velvet.
Something moves alongside me, and I jump, straightening fast.
“Hello?” I try again.
Nothing. The room is silent and still, the only light coming from the hall. I squint and struggle to see, until I’ve surveyed the entire room.
The maid is gone.
I firmly remind myself that I do not see ghosts outside Thorne Manor. Well, the manor and the moors. Still, they’d all been connected to a single killer, and they’ve been laid to rest. Therefore this is not a ghost.
Then what is it? A teleporting maid?
No, it’s a maid playing a game. I couldn’t see her well enough to guess her age. She could be a parlor maid or a between maid, young enough to have a bit of fun with the fancy guests. Or young enough to want to see the ball, and now she’s hiding before her master catches her. I thought she was waving me into the music parlor, but she could have been waving me on, telling me which way to go to return to the party.
A perfectly reasonable explanation. And I don’t buy it for a second.
I saw the ghost of a woman in a blue dress. Not a maid’s uniform, but a lady’s dress. A fair-haired woman, small of stature.
When I’d been secretly trying to identify the ghosts at Thorne Manor, I’d asked William to describe Rosalind. Could she be tall and dark-haired? No, the opposite. Tiny and blond.
Like the figure I just saw.
I take a step deeper into the room and whisper, “If you want to speak to me—”
A yelp sounds outside the door. A young woman’s cry of surprise, dissolving into nervous laughter. I consider, and then I back up to the doorway to listen.
“Please, m’lord,” a young voice says. “I really do need to return to my duties.”
A rumble of a male voice, words indistinguishable, but the tone sounding like Everett Courtenay. I hesitate in the doorway and listen. When another girlish yelp comes, I hurry toward the voices without thinking.
Again, the yelp becomes nervous laughter, and I know that sound only too well. A young woman trying to make light of a concerning situation. Trying to laugh it off.
“You should get back to the ball, m’lord,” the young woman says. “They’ll be expecting you.”
“Is that an order?”
More anxious tittering. “N-no, sir. Of course not. I just thought your guests might appreciate your attentions—”
“More than you?”
The giggles take on a note of panic. “N-no, sir. I appreciate your kind words.”
“They aren’t kind. They’re honest praise. You’ve grown into a very pretty lass.”
I stride around the corner to see that the earl of Tynesford has a maid against the wall, his hand cupping her bottom as he leans into her. It’s Lottie, the maid who came out to greet us.
Lottie lets out a shriek, a little too loud for the surprise of seeing me. I feign a startled gasp and fall back. Then I laugh softly.