Page 32 of Baron in Check
Swish!The curtains moved, and Sofia stuck her head in, holding the fabric to frame her face. Sofia’s scent was nearly undetectable, a deceptive mix of neroli and danger, inviting and yet forewarning. “Need any help with the buttons of your frock?”
Drat! Hermy shrugged off her walking boots and made a great fuss about setting them aside.
“I’m right here!” Madame Giselle pulled the drapes open.
Sofia took a single step back and crossed her arms, standing in her black lingerie like an absurd statute as though used to conversing in such attire.
“You must excuse the baroness. She was a ballerina and thinks a petticoat is like a tutu.”
So that’s why her carriage was effortless, a skill from her past.
“Don’t think you can joke with me because I’m not an English baroness.” Sofia lifted her chin high in the air and tapped her naked foot on the floor. Her toes were covered in flakey white callus as if her feet had worked harder than any other part of her body. “I was a ballerina at the Bolshoi in Moscow. As soon as I produce an heir for my husband, I’ll take on residence in his castle in Königsberg.”
“Prussia?” Hermy asked.
“Indeed.” Sofia gave a self-indulgent smile. “I am already learning German.Wer sind Sie?” Who are you?
“This is the future Baroness Stone,” Madame Giselle said with the pride of a mother hen. To Hermy’s dismay, Madame Giselle was rather indiscreet when it came to her distinguished clientele.
Hermy’s heart dropped. She would be introduced in the Ton but didn’t want it to be done via a pregnant Prussian baroness in a lace chemise.
“Stone, as in Gregory Stone?” Sofia arched a brow and tilted her head backward. “He won’t play me, you know.”
“Play?”
“Chess. My husband won a ticket from him to the Pearler’s winter ball, and he owes me a game of revanche.”
“Sofia!” Rachel burst into the room, dropping the parcel she’d held. “Step back!”
“Oh, Mrs. Pearler, of course, you’re here. Too bad the English don’t restrain the Jews to dedicated areas yet. It works so well in Russia.” Sofia said and gave Rachel a superciliary glance. “I had the pleasure of meeting Stone’s fiancée. Did you know he was getting married?”
“Come on, Hermy.” Rachel held out her hand. “Madame Giselle, please have the full wardrobe sent for a fitting.”
“To Baron Stone’s residence?” Madame asked.
Rachel flinched.
“Oh, delicious! The fiancée is already in residence at his house? Pray tell, Mrs. Pearler, is Hermy connected to Lady Hermione Ellsworth, the sister of the late Earl of Ashby, the shamed younger sister who’s been locked away in Kent?”
Rachel deflated and looked at Hermy, pursing her lips as if to sharpen the words that were forming in her mind.
This was exactly how Hermy imagined her reintroduction to the Ton: disastrous, vicious tongues, ugly gossip, and the disapproval of her past in the papers.
Rachel folded her hands and assumed a placid look, her back ramrod. “The fittings for the wedding will be at his residence where I’m chaperone, if you must know, S-o-f-i-a.”
“Baroness, it is for you.” Sofia openly seethed.
“Yes,Sofia, you are as fond of your title as any of us, but this is England, and you’re little more than a political envoy here.”
“I’m a diplomatic relation?—”
“You’re a spy. A gun for hire, dear.”
Sofia pursed her lips. “Then beware of my bullets. You won’t see them coming.”
“That remains to be seen since you’ve been aiming at us for a while.”
“See you at the wedding then,” Sofia called after them as Rachel pulled Hermy, shoeless, into the next room.
