Page 41 of Forget Me Not

Julia was having second thoughts.Fourth and fifth thoughts, if she were being honest. Her childhood picnics had been magical. She’d lived for them during Lucas’s brief school holidays. They’d started by filching food from the kitchens, then had met at their rock. Inevitably, the afternoon’s excursion would lead to the lot of them chasing each other up and down the paths of either Farland Meadows or Lampton Park, climbing trees, or playing hide-and-seek. Sometimes they would fish in the river, though they seldom caught anything. Early on, the rock had been quite crowded. But their numbers had dwindled painfully over the years.

She needed this grown-up picnic to be as wonderful as those long-ago ones had been. Hope and optimism, peace of mind and heart had been too fleeting and out of reach for far too long. She needed it as desperately as she needed air.

“She is a weight.”

“This ismyhouse.”

“I will gain nothing by marrying her.”

He’d once thought much more highly of her. He’d once been so thoughtful and kind. She saw glimpses of that now and then, but they were always tempered by frustration and the very real impression that he was enduring her presence rather than enjoying it.

What she wouldn’t give to return, even for a moment, to those happier days.

She heard footsteps in her bedchamber. She shot to her feet. If Lucas found her in here... but how was she to escape if he was coming from herroom? She could slip out through his. Though, if she was unwelcome in this room, she would be expressly forbidden in his bedchamber. She rushed to the balcony doors, but the entirety of the balcony was visible through the glass.

Before she could take a single step in any direction, Mrs. Parks, not Lucas, appeared in the doorway. Julia’s inward sigh of relief was short-lived. The housekeeper was not overly fond of her. She’d never done anything unkind or dismissive, certainly not disrespectful, but there was a certain coldness there. Most of the staff were that way with her.

That the master of the house, the gentleman to whom they were loyal, had been forced to marry someone he’d not wanted to marry and that the lady who’d been foisted upon him was now their mistress likely explained the dismissal she felt. She hadn’t the first idea how to get past that; she didn’t know if she had the strength to keep fighting losing battles.

“Mrs. Parks.” Her voice shook a little. What a shabby mistress of the estate she was proving.

“Begging your pardon, Lady Jonquil. I’ve come to offer my assistance in dressing for your picnic.”

Thehousekeeper’sassistance. “I don’t wish to take you from your duties. I’m certain one of the maids could be spared.”

“It is no bother.”

It wasn’t possible for the inconvenience to be anything but a bother. Julia needed to procure a lady’s maid. Truth be told, she needed to do a lot of things. Perhaps it was time she pulled herself together, pushed her grief and frustration out of the way, and saw to her new responsibilities.

“I’d hoped for a moment to speak with you, m’lady, and this seemed a good opportunity for doing so.”

Julia attempted to look quite certain of herself. She walked with as much dignity as she could through the doorway into her bedchamber, her hair in its usual messy braid and her shoes yet to be donned for the day.

“Would you be so good as to close and lock that door?” Julia tried to ask the question without any of the panic she felt every time she considered the possibility of Lucas learning she had continued using his round room. He had never been prone to bursts of temper, but she did not want to endure another scolding nor have to see his face fill once more with annoyance.

Mrs. Parks obliged, then crossed to the wardrobe. “The weather is fine, but this time of year, the breeze can be a touch biting. Might I suggest your wool caraco jacket?”

That seemed a good choice.

“And as you will be out of doors, this darker cotton gown, with the bottommost petticoat in wool.” Mrs. Parks pulled out each item as she mentioned it. She turned to face Julia. “I believe you do not wear the wide panniers that have been fashionable for so long.”

“I do not.”

“Many of the young fashionable ladies do not,” Mrs. Parks acknowledged. “I also believe you do not care to have your hair powdered.”

“I do not.”

Mrs. Parks dipped her head. “Very good, my lady.”

That was all? The housekeeper didn’t mean to insist she be traditionally fashionable or follow the edicts of... of whom? Lucas was the master of the house here, not her father, and he never had objected to her refusal to powder. Being Lucas’s resented wife had some advantages over being Father’s soon-to-be-spinster daughter.

As Mrs. Parks laid out each clothing item on the bed in the order it would be needed, Julia broke the silence. “Tomorrow, I would like to meet with you to go over the household accounts.” That hadalmostsounded like a mistress of an estate instead of a scared girl of twenty years who was entirely out of her depth.

“Of course, Lady Jonquil.” Mrs. Parks’s tone gave no clue as to her thoughts. Julia didn’t know Mrs. Parks well yet. That needed to change.

They went through the tasks of dressing, something every lady and one-time maid knew how to do without discussion. Her narrower, more modern panniers were tied into place over her tightly laced corset. The wool petticoat Mrs. Parks had selected proved softer than Julia remembered it being. Perhaps the housekeeper had a secret method of washing it. That was reason to be grateful.

Once Julia was laced into her modest but pleasant day dress, Mrs. Parks brushed through her hair, pinning it up in a simple but neat coiffure and smoothing the curls left to hang down. The moments stretched out with neither of them speaking. Though Jane had often sided with Father against Julia’s wishes, she found she did miss her former abigail in that moment. At least they were comfortable in each other’s company.

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