Page 25 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
“What look?” Bess said. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing.” Irene sighed. “Go on. Buy your shoes. I’ll be ready tomorrow night. Six o’clock?”
“Six o’clock,” Bess affirmed.
Minutes later, Bess marched through the dismal streets of an evening in chilly autumn, slipping through the racing crowd and listening to the chaos of the pedestrians around her. They seemed agitated, trying to forge their own path through a kind of jungle of downtown. Bess pressed herself forward, not wanting to allow anyone to cut in front of her. In her mind, this was how L.B., the writer, would walk. With certainty. Not like the girl, Lady Elizabeth.
Bess stopped at the shoe store’s front window, peering in at the slightly heeled, brown boots she’d been eyeing for the better part of the last year. She’d always been of the mindset that she needed to save money, to keep growing her bank account, lest something horrific happen to her all over again. In fact, she’d been rich, once, but had had to give all of her father’s money, her family’s money, to the government, in the wake of Conner and her father’s swindling.
Lord Linfield’s money burned brightly in her wallet, a kind of representation of Bess slogging through the hardest years of her life. Did she deserve this present to herself? She didn’t know. But as she slipped the shoes upon her feet within the shop and whirled towards the mirror, she felt tears glimmering in her eyes. It was almost like the emotion was too much, a punch in the face.
“They look stunning on you,” the shoe salesman said in the corner, crossing his arms above his bulbous belly.
“Really?” Bess asked. She hated how youthful she sounded, even in her own ears. Plus, it wasn’t like he would tell her if they looked ridiculous on her. Why was she looking for compliments from the man who wanted the cash in her billfold?
But the man just nodded, arching his brow. “It’s clear you have stellar taste,” he told her.
Bess set her chin, remembering the years of cultivating her personal “brand.” She’d been at the height of fashion, back in her debutante days: had known the proper shoes to wear, the best colours that brought out her eyes, the way to move and smile and dance to please a man. Although she was grateful that her life wasn’t entirely tied up in men any longer (or in the concept of becoming someone’s wife, above all), she still missed those tiny details that made her, well, the grand “Lady Elizabeth.”
****
“Lady Elizabeth.” She still remembered the way her father had said it, sounding so regal and proud. She’d been twirling in the centre of the foyer, her heart fluttering in her throat, while her father was on the landing on the second floor, near the staircase.
She’d paused mid-twirl, smiling up at him. He’d been a largely absent father, Thomas Byrd. But when he entered a room, Bess couldn’t help grinning madly. She’d loved him more than nearly anyone else on the planet. Loved him, perhaps all the more because he was so often gone. She’d stayed up nights as a girl, wondering what might keep him there with her. Wondering what might be enough for him if only he would stay.
“You’re really something to see. I’m sure old Conner Garvey will feel the same,” her father had said, sauntering down the steps. He’d paused, placed a kiss on her cheek.
This memory: this was the night she’d introduced them. The night Conner’s family had joined her and her father for dinner. Why hadn’t she noticed the twinkle in their eyes when they’d first begun a conversation? Why hadn’t she questioned her father, taking Conner off to his study for a private “chat”?
Because this was what was done. It was proper for a father to know his future son-in-law. In fact, at the time, it had filled Bess’s heart with wonder, marvelling at the fact that the man who’d picked her out of a line of so many, many debutantes, could possibly please her father, as well. The father she’d never been quite enough for.
****
“Have you made a decision?”
The voice rang out from the present. Lady Elizabeth stopped her twirling and gaped at the shoe seller in the corner, wondering where on earth her brain had been.
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
“Have you decided whether or not you’re going to purchase the shoes,” the man said. “For, it’s nearly time for me to latch my doors.” He pointed towards the window, noting the darkness of the sky.
Bess wondered how much time she’d lost. She wasn’t ordinarily so lost to the chaos of her own daydreams. She gaped at the seller for a long moment before reaching for her bag. “I’ll wear the shoes out, if you don’t mind,” she said. She flicked through her bills, drawing out the proper amount. “They fit perfectly. Like a dream.”
Bess walked slowly from the door of the shoe store, straining herself not to smile. Outside pedestrians swarmed wildly, and she scuttled on her new shoes towards the far end of the road. She felt her blood pumping wildly like she had a secret nobody else knew. Her shoes, her work for The Rising Sun, her work for Nathaniel. It all was hers and hers alone. And it had been years since she had something to secretly smile about.
Four women strutted towards her in the centre of the road, looking like a strange pack of animals. Their hats glowed beneath the lampposts; their dresses swirled out in drab colours, the colours of married women, of high-society women who’d long-ago latched onto a lord of their own.
The moment Lady Elizabeth looked up at them, her stomach dropped with fear. For, suddenly, she realised she knew them. They were all 28, 29 years old, just as she was, and had been debutantes at the same time. She remembered giggling with them, before balls—remembered catching their eyes as they’d twirled on the arm of one man or another. Even as they approached, she remembered their names: Charlotte, Anna, Olivia, and Ellen.
They recognised her, as well. Perhaps Bess would have continued on, tapping away in her little new shoes, if they hadn’t looked at her with more scorn than she knew how to handle. She pressed her lips together tightly, turned her eyes to the shops beside her, aching for anywhere else to look. But as the four women approached, they marched to a halt, drawing a line in front of her. Bess had nothing to do but to remain before them, at the mercy of whatever they would say.
“Well, would you look at that,” Olivia said, arching her very thin blonde brow. “Look at who thinks she can just waltz across London as if her very presence isn’t …”
“Olivia!” Ellen said, her voice like a chirp. “You can’t possibly think you can speak like this and still be deemed a lady.” Ellen sniffed, drawing her eyes up and down Bess’s form, seemingly analysing every single thing about her.
Bess had the strange instinct to stick out her shoe to show her brand new purchase. But she refrained, keeping her eyes towards the ground. These women; she’d attended their weddings. She’d been present for the baptism of not one, but two of Anna’s babies. But of course, due to their close proximity, their husbands had been very easy targets for Conner and her father.
How could Bess have known? She’d been in the sitting room with these very women, tittering about shoes and about hair and about fashion in ways that seemed entirely unlike her, now. But while they’d been occupied, Conner and her father had been presenting a business deal upstairs. They’d been convincing the husbands that this, this was the path to grander fortunes than their wildest dreams.
