Page 30 of Hold Me Fast
“Clever,” Tammie acknowledged. “Enough like our own names that we are unlikely to be caught out.”
Conversation lapsed after that, and Tammie allowed the movement of the carriage to rock her into an uneasy sleep.
They arrived just at dusk. Tammie woke as they were pulling up to the house—little more than a large cottage set in an acre of gardens. The travelers stepped out of the carriage to be welcomed by candlelight in the windows and the smell of newly baked bread.
The driver helped Bran carry their bags while Jowan escorted Tammie inside. The driver, carriage, and horses would stay at an inn in Ealing until they were sent for. If anyone asked, the driver would say his master was visiting someone in the neighborhood.
It suddenly occurred to Tammie that she had no baggage, but Bran gave one of the bags he was carrying to the maid who opened the door to their knock. Perhaps the ineffable Mrs. Wakefield had packed for Tammie as well!
“If you come this way, Miss, I shall show you up to your room,” said the maid.
“The house looks immaculate,” Tammie commented.
“The owners always have it cleaned top to bottom when they wish to use it, Miss. Or so I was told. I’m glad, for it will be much less trouble to keep it that way than to clean it all from the beginning. This is your room, Miss.”
She opened the third door on the right from the top of the stairs and stepped back for Tammie to enter.
It was a pleasant room. Not nearly as sumptuous as some of those Tammie had slept in while on tour—Coombe tended to stay in palaces, mansions, and castles with the blue-blooded and the rich. Much more comfortable than most of them, though.
The paneling was painted a peaceful shade of mint green, and the same color dominated the wallpaper—a print with leaves and here and there a little bird. A woman waited for her there.
The maid undertook the introductions. “Miss Riddick, this is Mrs. Evangeline Parkerdale, who will look after you while you are here.”
“Mrs. Parkerdale,” Tammie said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” The maid-nurse was younger than Tammie expected—a tall, sturdy woman of around Tammie’s age with a pleasant if somewhat nondescript face and a brisk, competent manner.
The woman curtseyed. “Miss Riddick. Call me Evangeline, please. Richards, could you fetch hot water for Miss Riddick’s wash?” Richards bobbed a curtsey and left. “Miss Riddick, may I help you to change? Or do you wish to lie down for a while? Traveling can be tiring.”
An hour’s carriage ride? Tammie had traveled all over Europe and the Middle East and was not at all bothered by an hour’s drive on good roads. “A change would be good,” she said. “Let us take a look at this bag and see what might be suitable.”
“There is more, Miss,” said the woman. “Mrs. Wakefield sent a trunk with me. If you will step behind the dressing screen?”
Sure enough, once the bag was also unpacked, Tammie owned four night rails, six chemises and six pairs of daytime stockings, with garters to hold them up, two sets of stays, four day dresses, two evening gowns, a redingote, a soft warm shawl, and two pair of slippers. She also had handkerchiefs, a pocket, a hairbrush and pins, tooth powder, and a toothbrush.
By the time she had ascertained the state of her wardrobe, the maid Richards had returned with a bucket of hot water. “Dinner shall be in thirty minutes, Miss, if it please you,” she said.
Tammie removed her clothing behind the dressing screen so that she could retrieve Jowan’s ring from her hidden pocket. For the first time in half a decade, she put it on her finger, though she had lost so much weight that it had to go on the middle finger of her right hand, not on the ring finger.
Once she had washed, she allowed Evangeline to help her into one of the evening gowns. “The slippers are a good fit,” she commented after she’d put them on her feet.
“Mrs. Wakefield hoped they would be suitable,” Evangeline replied. “She thought you were perhaps a fraction larger than she, so she purchased slippers that she found loose.”
“She did very well,” Tammie acknowledged.
Evangeline also did a good job of putting up Tammie’s hair. “You are good at that,” Tammie commented. “I understand that your primary task will be to nurse me when I am suffering from the illness that comes on those who give up opium. I did not expect you to also make an excellent maid.”
“It is how I started,” the woman explained. “I was maid to a lady who took laudanum and looked after her when her son emptied all the bottles and refused to allow more in the house. After the first time, she went back to the laudanum as soon as he thought she was safe to leave to herself, so I nursed her through the relinquishing pains twice.”
“The poor lady. Did she manage to stay away from the horrid drug the second time?” Tammie was already desperate for her dream world. Was it really possible to get past the desperate yearning?
“Yes, Miss. She did. And she became anxious about one of her friends who used laudanum, so she loaned me to the friend, who had a friend with a son… Suffice it to say you are my eleventh patient, Miss Riddick, and I am determined to help you all I can.”
Tammie took both of Evangeline’s hands in her own. “I am grateful. I have asked the two Mr. Riddicks for a promise, and I would have the same promise from you, Evangeline. Do not give in to me. I would rather die than go back to taking the drug, but when the pain and the craving are bad, I fear I will beg for it. Do not give it to me. Keep me from it. Will you promise?”
“I will, Miss. I can tell you this if it helps, none of my patients have died. We will fight this together, Miss.”
“Excellent. Thank you.”
With those reassurances, Tammie went down to dinner.
