Chapter 1
Celeste Singer carefully brushed the blue cashmere wool morning dress. Mud had caked on the hem. Margery Harper, the Duchess of Gwyndonmere, was remarkably careless about where she walked in the gardens and when visiting the village. She was also viciously scathing if her garments were not pristine when she was ready to wear them. Celeste dampened a cloth in cold water and carefully removed the smudges. It would not do to saturate the fine wool because that might cause it to shrink.
When the garment was properly clean, Celeste rubbed the inseams and the interior of the bodice with a sachet of rose petals and lavender, a combination the Duchess had selected from the local apothecary shop. She then hung the dress in the big wardrobe that stood on the northern wall of the Duchess’s chamber.
The southern wall had two large casement windows that opened out onto a balcony. The balcony overlooked Gwyndonmere, the small lake that shared its name with the estate and the Duke who governed there.
Celeste loved walking in the orchard on her free afternoon. She also enjoyed attending the Sunday sermon. The little village church was very much like the one she had attended with her family in France.
She had loved her life in France. Celeste sighed, remembering her little dress shop. She remembered that last morning, when she and her father had surveyed the wreckage of her little shop.
Officially, the shop belonged to her father. Papa and Mama had invested their entire life savings to pay the first month’s rent and her patroness, a marquess who had liked her needlework, had provided the fabrics for the first round of orders. Orders that were almost ready when the soldiers came.
The Marquis and Marquess were dead. The village was razed, and all the shops along the cobbled main street were destroyed, as was Celeste’s dress making shop. The silk that would have been a wedding dress was trampled in the mud and muck that was caked on the floor. The dress maker dummy had a broken sword thrust through it. The cash box hung from its chain, the lock smashed and the money that had been inside it gone.
All the work she had put into arranging it just so, the shelves Papa had made, the little frills Mama had helped her add to the edges of the display shelf, all of it was ruined.
“Whatever shall we do? The shop is destroyed, the fabrics are all ruined. All your life savings that were supposed to take care of you and Mama, it is all gone. My patroness was slain in the fighting, there is no way for me to start over.”
Mr. Singer put his arm around his daughter’s shoulder. “Shhh, shhh, ma petite. There will be a way, there always is. At least you were not in the shop when the soldiers came through.” He nodded at the dress maker dummy with the sword thrust through it. “That could have been you, my daughter. As it is, you are alive, we are alive, and that means we have hope.”
Hope. It was a fragile thread embedded in a tangle of heavy yarn, with some burrs thrown in for decoration. Celeste almost smiled at this fanciful thought, but remembered just in time to keep a properly respectful expression on her face. The Duchess could return at any time and it would never do to be caught in a moment of unseemly levity.
Celeste used a soft cloth to polish the little vials of perfume and pots of color that were arrayed on the vanity. Carefully, she wiped the marble top, replacing each item exactly as she had found it. As she worked, she was careful to keep a cloth or handkerchief between her fingers and the surfaces of the bottles. Not only were the little pots and vials fragile, but the Duchess used arsenic to lighten her skin to an interesting pallor. The stuff was insidious, easily seeping into exposed skin. Celeste was sure she absorbed enough of it when applying paint to the Duchess’s face.
Celeste could hear her mother’s voice in her head,“Do not be taking up with the ways of the peerage, my daughter. Those as has aspirations to the peerage and those as are members can afford to let go of reality a little. You cannot. Your life depends upon keeping a clear head at all times.”
Mama had been their rock as they walked toward the coast, hoping to catch a boat to the islands and away from the fighting. But Mama had fallen ill after a particularly cold wet day. They had been offered shelter along with other refugees at a charity home not far from Calais.
Papa had been able to earn a little money doing odd jobs, but hard cash was scarce. In the end, they had only been able to scrape together enough for passage for one person, and that on an old tub of a fishing boat headed to Scotland.
Mama was too ill to travel alone, and Papa would not leave her. That meant that only Celeste had boarded the grubby old boat, redolent with fish and ringing with oddly accented English.
With the dressing table all in order, Celeste turned her attention to her next task: laying out the Duchess’s dinner gown and fresh underthings. Then she turned her attention the Duchess’s bath. She had already called down to the kitchen to have water heating in the big kettles. The youngest under-footman would be up shortly with the first cannister of hot water to pour into the wooden sheet-lined bath and to leave a cannister of cold water to temper the heat.
It was just luck that I arrived at the same time the Duke of Gwyndonmere was in Edinburgh looking for an abigail for his wife. At least, I hope it was luck. Some days it is very hard to work for her. But I have asked the steward to put a little aside for me each week so that I can save to pay their fare.
The Duchess was out riding. By the time she arrived, the water should have cooled to the perfect temperature for bathing.
It was a little tricky to manage the timing on this, Celeste had learned. Start bringing the water up too soon and it was tepid by the time the bather climbed into it. Bring it up too late and a cannister of cold had to be added to bring the boiling water back down to perfect bath temperature. She had learned to have the boy bring up at least one cannister of cold water, and one of hot, just in case.
The water had just reached perfection when the Duchess swept in. “There you are, Celeste! Are my bath things ready?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Will you have the attar of roses tonight or the lavender water?”
“Lavender, of course, Celeste. You know I cannot bear the strong scent of attar of roses.”
Celeste sighed. Last week it had been lavender she could not bear, the week before it was the scent of honeysuckle. Well, she would simply have to persevere and try to discover favorite scents.
The Duchess surveyed the clothing that was laid out for her. “No, no, no!” Her brows drew together until they almost made a straight line across her forehead, and her face flushed an unattractive mottled red. “How often have I told you? I never wear velvet at home. It is far too heavy, and it is so cold today I shall freeze.”
“Will you have the cream woolen, then, Your Grace? It is freshly brushed.”
The Duchess shrugged. “It isn’t the mode, but there won’t be anyone special at dinner tonight, so I suppose it will do. Now, have you let my bath get cold with all this standing about yammering?”
Celeste stepped into the bathroom and tested the water. “I think it is at the perfect temperature, Your Grace. Would you care to test it for yourself?”
“Don’t just stand there! Help me out of my habit. I am fair famished from riding, and have no wish to set Jonathan’s back up by being late for dinner. It is so dreary when he sighs at me, then tells the butler that dinner can now be served.”
