Page 16 of An Honorable Deception
Her pulse kicked up again, though she couldn’t blame it on exercise this time. “Lady Alethia?”
He nodded. “Marigold’s role is to watch our client—learn whatever she can about them. She can still help with that now, but you should be there too. To learn her techniques and develop your own. Befriend her.”
Her brows furrowed. “Befriend her only for the job? Isn’t that duplicitous?”
His brows arched. “Having a purpose for making a friend makes them no less true. Marigold only got to know Merritt because he was the client, and look how that turned out.”
She granted it with a grin. “I see your point. And it’s no more duplicitous, I suppose, than any other society gathering. We arealwayssounding people out, at first. Learning if their families will mesh with ours, seeing if our beliefs agree, and so on.”
“Exactly so. But when you discover a true friend, rare as that may be, they become just that, regardless of the circumstances. There—bar is empty. Lie back now.”
Lavinia obeyed, but her mind was only half on the process of setting the height—though she did laugh at how her arms shook under the meager weight of the bare bar. He must think her an absolutely weakling! And she was.
But that would change.Shewould change. She’d do something worthwhile.
And it would start that very morning. She would make a friend—and thereby find a way to help her.
SIX
The sun came in at an angle that said morning was nearly over before Alethia struggled to a sitting position and blinked the fog from her eyes. She knew where she was. She knew why she was there. She knew why the last thirty-six hours were a blur—special thanks to the physician and the medicine he prescribed for an easier journey. Even so, it was disconcerting to wake up in an unfamiliar place, to an unfamiliar vista, and realize that though one had ostensibly been carried to and from a train car, no memory of said journey was to be found in her mind.
Pain still lanced her side from shoulder to knee, but it wasn’t as intense as it had been during her last waking memory ... or else the medication hadn’t completely left her system yet.
On the bedside table was evidence that someone had been checking on her regularly. A jar of honey sat beside a roll of fresh bandages, making her remember the liberal application of the gooey stuff in London, which Marigold had sworn would ward off infection “like a veritable miracle.” Water waited for her, along with a plate with some fruit and a few biscuits. A teacup on the far side of the table, beyond her reach and empty, told her that someone had been sittingin the now-empty chair and having their own breakfast at some point.
She ought to be hungry. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten. It had been before the meeting with Mr. A, but that was ... days ago. Two? Three? Twenty? It was a muddle.
A bellpull hung beside the bed, and for a moment she considered giving it a tug. She didn’t need anything in particular, but the yearning for companionship struck her sharply, without warning.
For a moment, she could imagine herself utterly alone—not just in this room, but in the house, in the county, in the world. She could scream, and no one would hear. Charge from this room, and no one would see. Pound on the door, and no one would feel its tremor beneath her hands.
Foolishness. Sometimes she hadwishedshe were so alone, but she never was.
A light tap came on the door, and before she could convince her throat to work, it opened. Alethia blinked at the woman who entered. She’d expected Lady Marigold again, but no. This woman had olive-brown skin, deep and soft, with eyes as dark as her hair. She looked perhaps sixty, but with a figure still trim and lithe.
Alethia’s breath caught in her chest. The skin, the shape of her eyes, the color and texture of her hair ... this woman could have come from India. She wasn’t dressed in a bright sari, nor did her nose and ears bear the usual jewelry, but the features! Bengali sprang to her tongue. “Good morning.”
The woman smiled, but the knit of her brow said she didn’t understand the words. “You’re awake, I see, my lady. Good.” Her words were in English, but accented. Not, however, by any Indian accent she’d heard.
It shouldn’t make her heart sink. Why would it? She summoned her smile back to her lips and tried her greeting again in English. “Good morning. If we’ve been introduced, I’m afraid I don’t recall it. Forgive me.”
The woman gave her a smile so kind, Alethia found herself blinking back tears. “This is the first you’ve truly awakened since you arrived.” The woman moved to the side of the bed and sat on it, reaching a motherly hand out to rest against her forehead. “No fever. Good, good—it wouldn’t dare, with my honey-lavender on there, I know. I am Zelda. My family and I make our home here at Fairfax Tower.”
It was a strange explanation. Shouldn’t she have said she was employed there? Offered an explanation of her duties? Was she a housekeeper? A maid? Something else?
Amusement twinkled in Zelda’s eyes. Perhaps Alethia’s questions had been plain on her face. “We are Romani—circus performers. His lordship granted us leave to retire here on his property. We help as we can in exchange.”
Romani! That explained the features, the beautiful shade of her skin, even the odd accent. Alethia hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting any Romani in person, but she’d seen quite a few posters advertising traveling circuses and had begged Mama to take her to one.
It had seemed like a promise of home, even if only a glimpse of it. Elephants and monkeys, golden-skinned people with smiles as big as their hearts, bold colors, and pageantry like the English never offered.
Mama had always gotten that pinched look to her face and told her that circuses were dens of robbers and worse, and she wouldn’t ever darken the tent of one.
It seemed the Fairfaxes didn’t share Mama’s feelings, and for that, Alethia was so grateful that for a moment she forgot the pain in her side. All of her mother’s lessons on propermanners flying from her mind, she reached out a hand. “A circus! I have always wanted to see one.”
Zelda didn’t hesitate to clasp her hand and hold it between her own. Her palms bore the callouses of hard work, though her skin wasn’t rough. “I would find it odd you have not, eh? But they tell me you were raised in India.” At Alethia’s enthusiastic nod, she grinned. “My people come from there, they say. Long, long ago. My husband and his family and I, we have traveled much, yes? Across Europe—even into Russia. But never to the subcontinent. I wonder how I would like it.”
“Oh, you would love it. Everything is so vibrant and bold and beautiful. And warm! England is dreadfully cold in comparison.” Even thinking about the weather here made her shiver, despite having grown acclimated ages ago—more or less. Her parentssaidshe had, anyway.
