Page 216 of The Ladies Least Likely
Amalie dropped a curtsey, moving her hand from her mouth to hold the ruffled lace of her opposite sleeve. She rose with a stare for her brother, not for his guest.
“George,” she whispered. “Barely a stammer!”
“And you said my whole name,” Harriette murmured, remembering how he never could manage it before.
His straight mouth twitched into a smile. “Practiced last night,” he said proudly. “For an hour. Or two.”
Harriette hugged his arm and indicated the doorway. “Shall we?”
“I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you.” Lady Amalie spoke scarcely above a whisper as she led them into the morning room. Unlike the formal parlors above, this room held amore restrained elegance, with greens and gold dominating the upholstery and walls. “I was all arranged on the couch, but then your voices stopped, and I worried that—” Her voice fell to a barely audible register, and she stood cradling the sleeve of her gown with her hand. “You’d changed your mind.”
“Your mother did suggest it was better for all concerned if I did not meet you today.” Harriette looked about for a seat. She was the ranking lady now; as the daughter of a duke, she had precedence over the daughter of an earl and even the countess herself. When she came into her title she would have precedence over her own aunt in society circles, a sudden, disconcerting elevation.
Tamping down her nervousness that Ren’s sister would not like her, Harriette selected a seat on a low chaise next to a shawl that she guessed was Amalie’s. This left Ren to one of the delicate, hard-backed chairs. He lowered himself using his cane, then leaned it on the armrest alongside.
“I suspect your mother thought I would be an untoward influence,” Harriette explained.
“Oh, not in the least,” Amalie answered in a rush. “She didn’t want you to have to seeme.”
“Why should her ladyship want to hide you?”
Ren watched his sister with an almost painful look of adoration mingled with worry. “You needn’t fear Rhette,” he said gently.
“But I’m hideous.” Amalie cast a look of despair towards her lap. She picked up the shawl and pulled it partially over one leg. Harriette wondered if she had a clubfoot, too, though she hadn’t noticed a limp.
“Hardly hideous,” Harriette objected. “You are the most perfect creature.” Amalie resembled a Madonna in a Renaissance painting, with a halo of angelic gold circling her head.
A maid entered the room with a tea tray. She looked with wide eyes at Renwick, at Lady Amalie, and then at Harriette, as if any one of them might leap up and bite her. With a faint rattle of porcelain, she set the tea tray on the low table before the chaise, then hastily backed out of the room. Harriette watched, her curiosity intensifying.
“I asked for tea,” Amalie said in a small voice. “I’ve heard it is a drink much enjoyed in London.”
“Oh, excessively,” Harriette said. “Coffee as well, though women aren’t allowed in many of the coffee shops, which are deemed the domain of men who overestimate their own importance. There are tea shops that admit women, though. Ren and I shall take you to one.”
“Oh, I don’t go out,” Amalie said in a rush. She looked about the morning room as if its painted green walls lined with gilded frames were her sanctuary, and beyond its walls held terror and death.
“I was hoping to persuade you to come to Marylebone Pleasure Gardens with us,” Harriette said, trying to keep the disappointment from her tone. Perhaps Lady Amalie had already concluded that Harriette was an unsuitable acquaintance, and that was why she resisted making plans. If Ren’s sister had indeed wished to meet Harriette, she showed no sign of it.
“There are any number of gardens about London we might see,” Harriette went on, hoping to make the girl comfortable. “But Marylebone has agreeable music, and these tarts that?—”
“Pour the t-tea, d-dear,” Ren said suddenly, addressing his sister. If Ren were stammering around his sister, too, then something must have upset him.
“Tea would be lovely,” Harriette prattled. “I take mine with a lump of sugar. Ren likes his as black as his thoughts are much of the time.”
The levity did nothing to soothe her hostess. “Must I?” She sent her brother a forlorn look.
“It wouldn’t be suitable to ask Rhette,” he said gently. “She is our guest.”
Harriette held her breath, catching the rising tension and wondering if she were its cause. Amalie regarded the tea tray as if it were a sleeping animal that might bite if she woke it. Then, with a deep breath, she picked up the tea pot with her right hand and lifted her left arm. The lace sleeve fell away and Harriette saw that, instead of a delicate wrist and pretty hand, the girl’s left forearm ended halfway in a small pink stump. She used it to steady the teapot as she poured. Then she picked up a lump of sugar with the dainty tongs, placed it in the liquid, and stirred with a tiny silver spoon.
Harriette felt Ren’s eyes burning into the side of her face, though he said nothing.
“See? I am not perfect.” Amalie looked Harriette in the eye with a fierce resolution as she held out the dish of tea. “Because of this.” She indicated the left sleeve, lying in a pool of lace in her lap. “And this.” She pointed to the left side of her face, where Harriette could detect, beneath the heavy layer of makeup, a strawberry birthmark reaching from her hairline to her neck.
Harriette took her tea and sipped. “I haven’t the faintest idea why that means we can’t be friends,” she said.
She was aware, without looking at him, that every muscle in Ren’s frame relaxed. He practically released a whoosh of air. Her heart clenched. He’d been afraid, like his mother, that his sister’s deformities would make Harriette reject her. The countess might truly care for her daughter, but her protectiveness looked like cruelty and shame to Harriette.
Amalie’s face was the picture of surprise. The blue eye was set just a hair above the brown, and didn’t widen or narrow in the exact same way. Only a portrait artist would notice thesubtle difference in proportion. The rest of Amalie’s face was the pattern of classical beauty: a wide arching brow, perfect half-circles of eyebrows, and rounded cheeks slightly narrowing to a chin, like Renwick’s, with a tiny cleft. Her nose was Renwick’s as well, strong and commanding, but hers sloped faintly up at the tip.
