“Refurbishing a hat. Ladies in the village pay me to make over their old hats: it’s a lot cheaper than a new hat, and I have a talent for it.” Her nimble fingers worked quickly, ripping faded ribbons and squashed flowers from the dowdy headpiece.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to do that in the daylight?”
“Yes, but I’ve been busy.” She bent over the hat.
Firelight danced through her hair and candlelight gilded her skin as she bent over her task with a small frown of concentration. She never stopped working. He’d never seen her just sit and be. It was his fault she was behind with her work, and the thought made him angry.
She removed the last of the old trimmings from the hat then brushed it vigorously all over with a small wire brush.
“How did you come to be living like this?” he asked abruptly.
Her flying fingers stopped for a moment, then resumed their busy work. “Like what?”
“Living in a small laborer’s cottage, apparently the sole support of five young children. From your accent, you weren’t born to this.”
“No.” She took the sad-looking, denuded hat over to the kettle and held it over the steaming spout.
“So how did you come to be here?”
“My father died in debt.” She pressed the hat onto an inverted bowl and smoothed it with her hands.
“Were there no relatives you could turn to?”
“None who wanted all the children. One distant, very rich cousin would have taken Susan. Just Susan by herself. No nasty, noisy boys or inconvenient toddlers, and certainly not Jane. She had the cheek to say to me, ‘Just the pretty one.’ ”
She threaded a needle and began to stitch a ribbon to the hat, her stitches stabbing angrily through the fabric. “Pretty one indeed! Jane is a dear, loving child and just because she isn’t as pretty as Susan . . .” Her needle stabbed into the hat with precise, angry movements. “She said she would consider Lucy when she was older, that she promised fair to be pretty, too.”
“You would have given Lucy away?” he said, surprised.
She turned and gave him a long, considering look. “You think Lucy is my daughter, not my sister.”
“No, not at all—” he began, though indeed he had wondered.
“She’s not,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Yes, she’s a lot younger than the others, and we’re both redheads, but Lucy’s eyes are blue, like her brothers and sisters, and mine are brown.” She smoothed out several strips of colored net ribbon, selected a bronze one, and threaded her needle.
Her eyes weren’t brown, they were the color of brandy or sherry, a luminous dark gold. Intoxicating.
“I apologize, it’s no business of mine.”
She shook her head. “I’m used to people saying it behind my back, so I rarely get the chance to explain. The truth is, Lucy’s mother died not long after giving birth to her. Lucy is the reason Papa sent for me.”
“Sent for you? Why, where were you?” He did the sums. She would have been about eighteen or nineteen when Lucy was born. “In London, making your come-out?”
“No.” She gathered the net onto her needle, forming a ruffle. “That’s why I thought Papa had sent for me, to make my come-out at last. But his plans were . . . otherwise.”
She held up the hat, turning it and examining it from all angles. “What do you think? Will the ruffle suit?”
He gave it a cursory glance. “Yes, very elegant. But you were telling me about your father’s plans. Instead of you making your come-out, he wanted—what?”
She bit off the thread with her teeth. “He wanted me to take charge of the nursery.”
“Where were you?”
“Living in . . . the country with my grandmother. My mother’s mother.” Her mouth twisted ironically. “Living much as I am now—growing vegetables and keeping bees. It’s where I learned to refurbish hats. My grandmother had a flair for such things.”
He glanced again at the hat. It looked surprisingly stylish. Had her grandmother been a milliner? If so, she was a good one. That hat looked almost French. No wonder the ladies of the village used her services.
It was apparent also that her father had married beneath him and wanted to disown the offspring. “Your father couldn’t help?” Surely he could have afforded to support one young girl.
