Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen
thing that smallpox, she must have been so beautiful. I have lent her one of your nightgowns.’
Bree climbed into bed, blew out the candle and curled up, pulling the feather comforter round her ears, expecting to lie awake for hours. But when she woke abruptly, to complete darkness, she realised she must have fallen asleep almost immediately. It had not been an untroubled slumber. Fragments of dreams, of jumbled memories, of emotions swirled in her brain.
What woke me?
She struggled up against the pillows, disentangling twisted sheets to do so, and forced herself to remember. Yes! That was it, the sense of something not being right, of something in the picture being at odds with what it should be.
Then the pieces all slid together and she knew. She is not Drusilla. She is too young. This is not a woman of almost thirty, this is one who is twenty at most.
‘Then who is she?’ Bree threw back the covers and reached for the tinder box. In the light of the candle she sat on the edge of the bed, bare feet dangling, and put all the inconsistencies together. Those plump, flawless hands. The smooth nape and perfectly black hair, her gauche manner that had so reminded Rosa of the girls she used to teach, that slip of the tongue when she was describing life at Longwater: It was like being at school, Drusilla said. That was what she had almost blurted out before she had hastily turned Drusilla into dreadful.
Fanny, that is who she is. The little sister. No one else could be so like Drusilla. And Max sees what he had last seen, what his memories had preserved, a beautiful woman of twenty, only with the mask of those scars to veil the differences.
Relief swelled through her, so violently that it almost hurt. Max was not married. He was free. He was hers. The clocks in the house chimed three, the sound silvery in the stillness. Was he awake, like her? Yes, her instinct told her. He was awake, suffering, believing that his own actions and inactions had led to the end of both their hopes.
Bree slid off the bed and began to drag on clothes, snatching up a gown she could manage without waking Lucy and pushing her feet into the nearest pair of shoes. She found her reticule, checked that there was enough money in it for a hackney carriage fare, then stopped in the act of fastening her pelisse. How on earth was she going to get a hackney at this time of night? And she could hardly walk there, not alone.
Shielding the guttering candle flame with one hand, she crept along the corridor and eased open Piers’s door. Goodness knows what time he had come back last night, she thought, guiltily aware that Rosa had probably sat up for him.
‘Piers, Piers, wake up.’
‘Wha—?’ He rolled over, rubbed one had across bleary eyes and stared up at her. ‘Bree? What on earth? What time is it?’
‘Three in the morning. Piers, get up, please, and get dressed. I need to go to Max.’
‘Are you eloping?’ He sat up, unfocused, the night’s growth of stubble making him look older than he was.
‘No, of course not. Piers, listen, he isn’t married after all.’ Bree sat on the edge of his bed and gave him a shake. ‘She isn’t Drusilla.’
‘But Max recognised her. Bree, I know you’re upset, but we’ve got to face facts.’
‘She is what Max remembered of Drusilla.’
‘You mean, she’s a ghost? I know you need to hope, but, Bree, that isn’t possible.’
‘No—I mean she’s her younger sister. I mean, she is Drusilla’s younger sister, Fanny, pretending to be Drusilla. And she is just the age Drusilla was when Max met her.’
‘Oh, I see!’ Piers looked wide awake now. ‘But you cannot go off to see Max at this time of night.’
‘Why not? If he is half as miserable as I was until I realised, I cannot bear to leave it until the morning. But I can hardly walk across London by myself.’
‘Well, let me get dressed then. But I’ll wager you he has sunk his troubles in a brandy bottle.’
Bree had already drawn back the bolts when Piers came downstairs, his hair still tousled and his chin unshaven. ‘I’ve left a note for Peters in case he thinks we’ve been burgled. Do you think there is any chance of a cab or shall we take the most direct line and walk?’
‘We’ll try Tottenham Court Road,’ Piers decided. ‘You never know.’
They were in luck. One weary cabby, obviously returning home, agreed to turn around and head back into the West End for double his fare. Bree could hardly sit still on the battered upholstery as the horse plodded its way down to Oxford Street.
‘What are you going to do with her? Fanny, I mean?’ Piers asked.
‘It’s not for me to say. She is pretending to be Max’s wife, after all.’
‘She nearly ruined your life,’ Piers pointed out.
‘I know. It has hardly had time to sink in, it was such a shock. I can’t imagine doing something that dreadful to another person, but I don’t think she understands.’
Piers’s snort of derision was comment enough. He peered out of the smeared window. ‘Almost there, this is Bruton Street.’
‘Here’s the money.’ Bree thrust it into his hands and tumbled out of the carriage door before it had stopped moving. She was halfway up the steps to the shiny black front door when it opened and a tall, cloaked figure stepped out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Bree?’ Max’s heart seemed to stop, then he saw she was smiling.
‘Max! Oh, Max, it is all right! She isn’t Drusilla.’ She flung herself into his arms and clung. Hell, I must reek of brandy. She doesn’t seem to mind.…
From the pavement he heard the rasp of the hackney driver’s voice. ‘Blimey! That’s a willing tit,’ and a snort of laughter. He glanced up. Thank goodness, at least she had Piers with her.
Max bent his head as his arms closed round her. ‘Darling, I know, I was coming to tell you.’
‘Five minutes either way and we’d have passed each other.’ Piers came up the steps to join them. ‘You’d be hammering on our door, we’d be upsetting Bignell all over again. Do you think we ought to go inside? I mean, there’s a couple of bucks strolling this way, and a carriage has just pulled in three houses along, and I don’t know what your neighbours are like …’
‘Come on.’ Max steered them both inside and into the study. It seemed impossible to let go of Bree, but somehow he managed to untangle himself and sat her down. ‘Pour three glasses of brandy, Piers, I think we need it.’
‘You’ve been drinking it already,’ Bree said. ‘Piers said you’d be drunk.’
‘I’ve had a few, I’ll admit. Bree, what happened? Did Fanny confess? I assume that’s who she is.’ He wanted to touch her, hold her hands at least, but he knew if he did, then he would not be able to stop himself kissing her and they needed to talk first. Suddenly, opening up in front of him, was a lifetime of being able to kiss Bree.
‘I think she must be Fanny. I only realised at three o’clock this morning. I’d been dreaming. All the things I had noticed and yet not realised the significance of, were churning about in my brain and I woke up—and there was the answer.
‘She’s a woman of twenty, not one of thirty. Her hands, her skin where it isn’t pockmarked, her hair, are all those of a very young woman. And to hear her talk, she is so immature—Rosa spotted that and she is used to young girls. If we discount ghosts, then it being her younger sister seems the only solution. But how did you guess?’
Max got to his feet, lifted the small oil painting off the wall and handed it to her.
‘Oh, it’s you! What a charming study. When