A Lady Never Tells(26)

“I thanked the maid, and she looked at me most oddly,” Lily went on. “I thought, well, she doesn’t know who I am, so I introduced myself and tried to shake her hand.”

“She was positively shocked,” Camellia added, throwing herself onto the bed. “Ahhh.” She let out a satisfied sigh. “This is soft.”

“It’s beautiful here,” Lily added, and clambered up onto the bed beside Camellia. “I’ve never seen so many fine things—did you notice the velvet drapes? And those statues that are scattered around! It’s enough to make you feel as if you’re in a palace.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “But the people are odd.”

“What do you think these aunts are like?” Rose asked. “Is the earl asking them here to get their opinion of us?”

“No doubt they are horrid and stern,” Lily ventured. “They’ll probably order us out of the family.”

“If they’re anything like their father, they very well might,” Mary agreed. “However, I have the feeling that the only opinion that matters here is the earl’s.”

“Have you ever seen anyone so … so …” Camellia began.

“Aristocratic?” Lily offered.

“I would have said auto cratic,” Mary retorted dryly.

“He is rather arrogant,” Rose allowed. “But maybe you can’t be aristocratic without being arrogant.”

“I don’t know,” Lily argued. “Sir Royce didn’t strike me as arrogant, and he is quite aristocratic.”

“Watch out, Mary, you have a rival for the gentleman’s affections,” Camellia warned playfully.

“What?” Rose turned to regard her sister with interest. “Do you like Sir Royce? Truly?”

“Camellia is being silly.” Mary shot a dark look at the other girl. “I have no interest in the man.”

“Why not?” Lily piped up. “I think he’s awfully handsome. And so courtly. Did you see his bow? I have never been bowed to so elegantly.”#p#分页标题#e#

Mary rolled her eyes. “As if I care for that.”

Camellia snorted. “When have you ever been bowed to at all, Lily?”

Lily tossed her head. “Well, perhaps never before. But I have seen bows. Mr. Curtis always—”

Their conversation was interrupted by two footmen carrying in their luggage, followed by two maids. When the bags had been sorted out to the right rooms, one maid went to Lily and Camellia’s room while the other began to put Rose’s and Mary’s clothes away in the wardrobe and dresser. Mary felt odd, just sitting there and watching someone else take care of a task she could easily do, but when she offered to help, the girls gazed at her with such astonishment that she quickly subsided.

It was not as if she had no experience with servants. There had been a cook and servants at the tavern, of course. But Mary and her sisters had taken care of their own rooms and clothes and had also pitched in to clean the tavern or work in the kitchen whenever they were needed. It was most peculiar to do nothing concerning her own dresses.

It was even stranger later that evening when the maid returned to help the girls dress and do their hair. When Mary politely declined the offer, she could see from the girl’s expression that she had again stepped astray. And though the maid said nothing, Mary also suspected that she had found Mary’s and Rose’s dresses wanting. Her mother had told her that they had dressed for dinner every evening when she was a girl, so Mary and the others had been careful to choose their very best dresses for tonight, the ones they wore to church on Sunday. However, when Mary saw a shadow flicker across the maid’s face, she knew that their best was not fine enough for a British lady.

But it was not until she and her sisters trooped downstairs that Mary realized just how far short their attire fell. The earl and Sir Royce were waiting for them, wearing black silk breeches and jackets, with snowy falls of cravats down the fronts of their white shirts. A flash of rubies glinted at Sir Royce’s cuffs and nestled in the folds of his neckcloth. The earl was more subdued, with onyx gleaming in his cuff links and stick pin, but Mary had no doubt that what he wore was the equal of anything that adorned Sir Royce.

There were two women with them—one an imposing female with iron gray hair and hard eyes, the other a younger copy of the first, her hair still dark and her form more slender. The older woman was dressed in black satin with an overskirt of lace. The neckline was low, exposing more of her bosom than Mary was accustomed to seeing, especially on a woman her age, and the sleeves were elaborately slashed and puffed. Diamonds winked at her ears and encircled her throat and wrist. The younger lady wore a burgundy silk dress in the same high-waisted style, with ruffles of lace cascading down the bottom third of her underskirt. Slippers in the same shade of burgundy peeped from beneath her dress. Pearls adorned her throat and ears.