Decorating massive Kilcullen House for the coming holidays was apparently one of those matters. And Alice did not mind, or wouldn’t have, if she’d had the time to spare. But there were a great many matters that Lady Kilcullen did see fit to leave to the servants, including some she quite probably should not. Alice was now responsible for the book-keeping, the stores, and the staff itself. She had joined the household on the assumption that she would be seeing to the needs of its lady. Half a year later, she was running the house.
She tried not to think of the dozen or so duties yet to be done that day as she fumbled with the holly. “Higher,” Lady Kilcullen commanded from below. Alice sighed, ignored yet another holly prickle in her thumb, and raised the garland.
She was doing her very best to regard her companion with peace and goodwill. After all, the Dowager Countess of Kilcullen had been widowed a mere six months. Always pampered, accustomed to a great deal of attention and little exertion, Clarissa Kilcullen was oppressed by mourning, depressed by solitude. This would be her first Christmas not only without her husband, but without the heady round of festivities that rang out the Irish year.
She was also expecting her first child by Twelfth Night. The very social, very vain Lady Kilcullen would be spending the jolliest days of the year confined to her sofa, balancing her cups of tea and eggnog on her very round belly.
Alice secured the last spray of berries to the garland and climbed down from her perch. She’d spent the better part of the day up and down ladders, in and out of various niches and alcoves. Preparations for an Irish Christmas began early, could easily fill every day in December, and really didn’t end until January. As much as Alice loved the season, she found herself mentally ticking off each day until this one would be over. She was tired. She needed tea, a long, luxurious bath, and several days on an overstuffed sofa with a good book.
She would settle for the tea. Between the holidays and the impending birth, there was too much left to be done for her to grow lazy now. And besides, Lady Kilcullen had taken up residence on the best seat in the house at the beginning of the month. She showed no signs of vacating it in the immediate future. Alice chose a hard-backed chair nearby.
“You look terrible, dearest,” Lady Kilcullen commented. With neither relish nor malice, Alice knew, but it wasn’t a pleasant sentiment, for all its honesty.
Garbed all in dull black, heavy with child, the countess was still easily the loveliest creature in Kildare. She always had been. Tiny, slender, flaxen-haired, ivory-skinned. A fey fairy in a land where fairies were revered. True, she wasn’t precisely slender at the moment, but pregnancy had brought a glow to her skin, a brightness to her already startlingly blue eyes. And there was little doubt that she would be back to form within weeks of the birth. She’d decreed as much. And what Clarissa Kilcullen wanted, she got. Always. Had Alice not loved her completely, she might have loathed her utterly.
But no, that wasn’t in Alice’s character. From the moment she had first seen Clarissa, mere hours old in their mother’s arms, she’d loved her in the way only sisters can. Despite the immediate bossiness, the tantrums, the sometimes comical refusal to use what was a perfectly good head. From infancy, Clarissa had needed only to rely on her beautiful face.
“Rouge,” she went on wistfully. Clarissa needed such cosmetics as rouge like a duck needed a rudder, but she’d always loved playing with the little pots and bottles. “You need color.”
“The window trim could use a coat of paint,” Alice said mildly. “I’ll see about slapping a bit of it on myself.”
Her sister sniffed. “You needn’t be quite so plain, Alice. If you would but put a bit of effort into the matter, you would be entirely passable. For heaven’s sake, just look in a mirror occasionally! You will see how very right I am.”
Alice knew precisely how she looked. Small, like all the Kildare Ashes, like her sister. But the resemblance ended there. Alice’s hair was an earth brown, with a tendency to curl wildly when left to its own devices, her eyes more the gray of a stormy sky than celestial blue. She had an unremarkable, straight Ashe nose, a wide mouth at its best when smiling, and skin prone to brown in the sun and mottle with emotion.
Alice knew she had been pretty . . . once. But in the shadow of her sister’s glory it hadn’t really caused much notice. And in the last eight years had faded enough to be more or less forgotten.
She used the looking glass to make sure her clothing was neat and her hair wasn’t too wild. Even if she’d had the inclination to gaze longer at her reflection, she really didn’t have the time.