Page 47 of The Heiress in Disguise
Grace shrugged her shoulders. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “The point is that Mother won’t keep me inside, because she wants me to get to know people. She wants me to marry, even if it’s not because she cares about me the way she does about you.”
“You want to be careful,” Gwyneth said. “You see what happens to people Mother doesn’t think are very important.” She cast a significant glance at Angelique as she said it.
But Grace rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Mother thinks that she can turn people into servants, no matter what the circumstances of their birth might be! But she’s wrong, Gwyneth, and you know it.
She was wrong to do that to Angelique, and she wouldn’t be able to do it to me, because people know me as an adult. It wouldn’t be as easy as making a child disappear into a new identity. She could give me a new name, but she couldn’t make people forget about me.”
“Your mother wouldn’t do that to you,” Angelique said. She couldn’t resist speaking up. She knew Grace was less favored among her siblings, but she couldn’t allow Gwyneth to make her feel this dispensable. “She would never eliminate you from the family. You are her daughter.”
“I don’t think anyone asked your opinion, Ella,” Gwyneth said. “You’renota part of this family, whatever you might think. And for God’s sake, stay away from that fellow from next door. You disgrace yourself and the whole family when you associate with people like that.”
“You don’t wish me to associate with servants?” Angelique asked mildly, wondering whether Gwyneth would see the irony in what she was asking.
“I fail to see why you were outside at all,” Gwyneth said. “You shouldn’t be. Hasn’t Mother told you to stay indoors while we’re here?”
“You’re quite right, of course,” Angelique said quickly. If she aggravated her cousin, Gwyneth would try to get her into trouble, and of course Aunt Wilhelminahadforbidden her from going out of the house. Being caught berry picking by her cousin might not be a problem of serious proportions, but the moment Aunt Wilhelmina learned about it, she would act to confine Angelique even more thoroughly than she had already.
“I like that fellow,” Grace said. “Philip, isn’t it?”
“Who cares what his name is?” Gwyneth snapped. “Why do you even know that, Grace?”
“We met him,” Grace said. “He was here delivering a basket from the earl, don’t you remember? That’s probably why he wanted to speak to Angelique. He met her that day as well.”
“Well, if he thinks he can marryourservant, he’s in for a rude awakening.”
“I think he’d be a fine person to marry,” Grace said rather dreamily. “There’s something almost noble about him, isn’t there?”
“About a servant? Grace, don’t be so ridiculous.”
“I don’t mean that he seems as if heisa noble,” Grace said quickly. “Just that he carries himself well. But he’s a simple man, of course.”
“No one said anything aboutmarriage, anyway,” Angelique said. She wasn’t exactly shocked that her cousins had taken the subject there—after all, they were preoccupied with marriage at the moment. She also knew that the question of what was going to become of her in the next few years was one the entire family had considered.
Aunt Wilhelmina was aware that Angelique was currently in a very difficult time in her life. She was pretty—prettier than anyone in the family would have liked to admit—and she was aware of that fact. If Angelique did wish to marry, now would be the time to do so, and there wouldn’t be much the family could do to stop her if she was able to attract the attention of a man.
Angelique herself hadn’t thought much about it. Any man she married would be marryingElla, not Angelique, and somehow, that was a thought she simply couldn’t bear.
Pretending to be Ella was bad enough on a day-to-day basis, but to marry someone who believed her to be the person her aunt had tried to reinvent her as would destroy her. Angelique would be lost forever. It would be better to remain in this house as a servant forever than to marry under conditions like that.
For a moment, she allowed an old daydream to surface. How would it be if shedidallow herself to fall in love? How would it be if marriage was a real possibility for her? For the first time, she found that she had a face to put on the fantasy—Philip’s face. It embarrassed her even to entertain the thought, and yet it was such a pleasurable one. What if she could admit her feelings for him? What if he could return those feelings?
But of course, as she had always known it would, the daydream soured at once, for he knew her only as Ella. Even if he came to her tomorrow and told her that he loved her, she would have to refuse him. She couldn’t marry him as Ella and then tell him afterward that it had been a lie, that she was really Lady Angelique.
She didn’t object to the idea of a marriage to a servant at all—all her favorite people were servants. But she couldn’t bear the idea of deceiving someone like that. She would either have to run the risk that he wouldn’t care for her any longer once he learned the truth, or—even worse—she would have to throw the whole idea of Angelique away and tell herself that she was only Ella and only ever had been. That was a thing she could never do.
“Ella, stop talking about marriage and go get us a pot of coffee,” Gwyneth said, as if Angelique had been the one to raise the subject of marriage in the first place. She pushed Angelique away with her foot. Angelique gritted her teeth, caught herself before she could fall over, and got to her feet.
“And, Grace,” Gwyneth said, “if you find that servant man so desirable, perhaps you ought to go see if he’ll marry you. I’m sure you’d have a better chance with someone like that than you ever will with a gentleman. No gentleman will ever look twice at you, and you may as well accept that now. You don’t even belong in the same room as I do. You’re an unfortunate, just like Ella there.”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears. She’d finally been hit where it hurt.
Angelique started toward the door. “Grace, come and help me with the coffee,” she said.
“You don’t give orders,” Gwyneth said. “We give the orders toyou.”
“Quite right. It was merely a suggestion,” Angelique said quickly. “But Icoulduse Grace’s help, if you think you can spare her here.”
“I don’t need her. Go on, Grace. See what the life of a servant is like. See what you can expect once you marry that man.”
