Page 5 of When She Loved Me
“Yes, there’ll be mackerel,” said the cheery woman, “broiled in herbs and butter the way your father likes it.”
Nicole grimaced, as she was not a lover of seafood and had been sad when many years ago Mrs. Abercrombie had merrily announced that the great majority of recipes—even if it weren’t obvious—called for fish, or fish stock, or fish parts, to which Nicole had requested that she never know into which dishes such offensive ingredients were being sneaked.
“Very well, but please not cream of mushroom soup,” she said now. She’d folded her hands at her breast, very close to Mrs. Abercrombie, offering a charming and manipulative grin to the appeal.
“Oh, go on with you, child,” Mrs. Abercrombie laughed. “It’ll be white soup today for you—and what has you so interested suddenly in what I’m putting out to the table?”
“Lord Leven is coming to dine, as well you know,” Nicole said, slinking along the counter to the other end, where the kitchen maid, Edrina, was hulling strawberries. Edrina sent her an indulgent smile as Nicole swiped several cleaned berries out of the bowl and plopped them into her mouth. “It has to beperfect—oh, I wish you had made ice cream, that would be so lovely!”
“And so I did, and Edrina will make the berry sauce to serve with it.”
Nicole’s eyes widened with delight, and she stole one more strawberry before returning to Mrs. Abercrombie at the other end. She kissed her rosy cheek. “Bless you.”
“And why would you be caring if it’s perfect or not? Are you to be marrying the earl, and not your sister?” The woman asked, raising a dark brow and giving a knowing look to Nicole.
“I am not,” Nicole told her, then grinned cheekily at the woman, “but I have it on good authority that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
Mrs. Abercrombie giggled gleefully at this. “And here I thought, all these years, you’d not been paying attention.”
Nicole leaned close to the woman and made to whisper something serious. “Sabrina is going out of her way to jeopardize this betrothal. We’ve only your cooking to save it now, Mrs. Abercrombie. The forever fate of my dearest sister lies solely in your hands.”
The jolly woman laughed yet more at Nicole’s jesting and shooed her out of her kitchen, chuckling as she did so. “Off with you, silly girl.”
Nicole dashed away, scooting out of the way of Mrs. Abercrombie’s snapping of her kitchen towel. “Sole-ly, Mrs. Abercrombie. Not mackerel!” Nicole called from the corridor that led to the back stairway.
More chuckling followed her up the stairs.
Nicole found her chambers and her maid, Amelia, waiting within.
“Oh, we’ve to hurry now, miss,” said Amelia, her little mop cap bouncing about her head as she scurried around the room, “if we’re to make any sense of your hair.”
Nicole grinned at the unintentional slight—even she knew her hair was unruly at best. She thought sometimes Amelia was deserving of some sort of prize or acclaim for the feats she managed with the long and curling locks. Other times, she thought Amelia might well benefit from a few lessons in comportment or tact, as she struggled much to rein in her expression often when, by the end of the day or evening, Nicole returned to her chambers and showed what remained of the carefully coiffed hair to the often alarmed maid.
She allowed Amelia to strip her of her day gown, tossing that item onto the big four poster bed. She lifted her arms as the young woman arranged the chosen evening wear about her. Amelia scampered around Nicole, pulling the gown into place as it fell over her shoulders and hips and legs. Satisfied that all was settled appropriately, she attended the fastenings at the back while Nicole considered this choice in the cheval mirror. She’d wanted a full dress dinner, but Sabrina had refused this, reasoning that only Leven and his mother were to attend, and complete formality was unnecessary, and half-dress was decided upon. But she liked this dress, the soft baby blue gathered just beneath her bosom and clinging to her hips and thighs in graceful folds of plain silk while the shirred bodice and short capped and ruffled sleeves were decorated with dainty embroidered white flowers.
She slid her feet into the dainty silk slippers and then sat at her dressing table that Amelia might begin the ever-daunting task of arranging her hair. On several occasions, Amelia had been forced to call for help, Nicole having done so much damageduring a morning ride or brisk constitutional—which might also include, when they were in the country, time spent along the creek or in the stables—that Amelia had enlisted the aid of another maid to comb out snarls on one side of Nicole’s head. As Nicole had today only spent the afternoon with her head buried in a book—today, Walter Scott’sWaverley,with tales of the Jacobite Rebellion—Amelia was pleased to be able to brush through with nary a snare.
Nicole regaled Amelia with the story of that young dreamer, Edward Waverley, and the wild Highlanders with whom he became impassioned and indebted. The young maid pretended interest while pinning her hair neatly at the back of her head in a loose chignon, taking special care with the ringlets that fell from the arrangement, these having very little need of the curling papers. Only a few pins were added, these affixed with wooden white flowers to match her gown.
Amelia turned her palms up, on either side of Nicole’s head, her eyes critically scanning her hair before pronouncing her dressing complete.
Nicole thanked her kindly and skipped out of the room, Amelia admonishing her to slow her pace to a “dainty crawl, if you please!” so that her steps were less hurried as she descended the ornately curved stairs. She found her father in the drawing room, a glass of port in his hand as he peered out the windows onto the street below.
He turned as she entered and smiled fondly, if not absently. Nicole pressed a kiss onto his cheek and accepted a watered down madeira from the butler as she and her father then took seats, Nicole upon the velvet covered settee and Baron Kent within his favorite wing back chair of rich blue damask.
“I wonder what the earl’s mother is like,” Nicole said. “Is she as favorable as her son?”
The baron barked out a harrumphed snort which gave an answer before his words did. “She’s a tight-lipped and mean-spirited older version of her son, I should say.”
“Oh my,” Nicole allowed, finding this unfortunate. “Certainly then, his affability comes from his father.”
The baron shrugged with a twisted grin, “I shouldn’t think Leven has ever been accused of affability, or the countess of anything even remotely resembling that.”
“I hope it all goes well, father.”
“It’s just dinner, girl.”
“Yes, but Sabrina is not giving this a chance at all and the poor earl—”
