“You should smile more often,” she said without thinking.
“What? I should . . . what do you mean, I should smile more often? You haven’t spent more than fifteen minutes in my company. For all you know, I might smile all the time.”
“You might. But I doubt it.”
“I came here to deliver this dress, not to hear a critique of my appearance.”
Patience shrugged. She wasn’t critiquing his smile—there was nothing there to critique. “At any rate, it suits you.”
His smile faltered, and his brow furrowed. “The dress?”
“No.” She knew Mr. Woodsworth was intelligent. She had seen the books he kept as she swept his study. “Your smile.”
He shook his head as if confused. “But what do you think about the dress?” He took one step forward. Patience instinctively stepped back, but there was only her bed behind her. Her calf hit the bottom of it, and she fell into a sitting position.
“Oh bother. Here.” Mr. Woodsworth stepped forward with an outstretched arm, but the voluminous fabric of the dress tripped him, and he pitched forward toward Patience. She quickly jumped out of his way, narrowly missing him as he fell forward. The bright dress twisted about him as he scrambled around in her bed. “Blast,” he mumbled, frantically trying to untangle himself.
Patience pressed her lips together as hard as she could. A maid shouldn’t laugh at a gentleman.
A lady probably shouldn’t either.
He attempted to stand, but one foot was still caught on the fabric, and a ripping sound made him flop back down. This time he was completely hidden behind yellow. Despite her best efforts a snicker escaped her throat. The scrambling on the bed stopped.
“You find this funny?”
She backed away from him, closer to the door. Of course she found it funny. Mr. Woodsworth was the most solemn person she had ever met—save perhaps her newly serious brother—and yet he couldn’t untangle himself from her dress. She couldn’t really tell him that though, could she?
“Well?” he demanded again, this time poking his head out from under the bodice of the dress. His hair was tousled, and his frown lines looked different somehow—less stern and more exasperated.
“It is only that . . .” Oh, she couldn’t say it.
“It is only that what?” he practically growled.
“Well, in hindsight, that dress does suit you.” She bit her lip, poised to run. When she teased Nicholas as a child, a remark like that would have meant she was about to be chased about the room. She eyed Mr. Woodsworth.
He wouldn’t dare.
And he didn’t dare, as it turned out. Instead his shoulders slumped, and he sighed. He finally untangled himself from the dress and left it lying on the bed.
He smoothed his hair and pulled on each of his shirt sleeves. “Sorry about the tear.”
“I can mend it. Sewing is one of the few things I’m good at.” Patience pointed to the dress she had been working on earlier. He looked so downtrodden that she reached for his hand. He jumped at her touch and stepped away from her. “It really is a beautiful dress. Thank you.”
He straightened his shoulders and strode to the door, his back still toward her. “I thought yellow would suit you. At any rate, for a first ball gown, it should do.”
He yanked the door open and was gone. The room felt quiet and empty without him. Patience sighed and picked up the dress. The tear was small and wouldn’t take her long to repair. There was no mirror in her room, but as she held the dress up to herself, she decided yellow wasn’t a bad color after all. After two years of wearing black, she could use something cheerful and bright. She spun in a circle, and the fabric of the skirt belled out around her. She would need a petticoat. Hopefully whoever had loaned him this dress would also be able to provide one. Tomorrow she would dance. She would even dance with the strange Mr. Woodsworth, and hopefully when in public he wouldn’t flinch away from her touch.
There was a soft knock once again, and Patience threw the gown on the bed and hurriedly touched up her hair. She concentrated on breathing in and out.
“Come in,” she called when the door didn’t open right away.
Once again Mr. Woodsworth poked his head in. His eyes flashed to the bed, where the dress was obviously in a different position than the wild mess he had left it in.
“I forgot to tell you. Meet me in my study tomorrow morning at ten, sharp. I need to introduce you to my sister and her two children. My sister, Mrs. Jorgensen, will have her maid help you both get ready for the Simpsons’ ball. After tonight, you will begin your duties helping with her children.”
He shut the door quietly.
For several minutes Patience watched the door, waiting for his knock, but it never came. She sat back on the bed, once again picking up the yellow ball gown. Mr. Woodsworth unsettled her, with his surprising smile and his desire to please her with a dress. No matter how worried she was about being discovered, she would need to make certain Mr. Woodsworth felt that he had made her happy. She had seen him try to please his father in his choice of bride and try to please his choice of bride by signing up for this charade. The last thing he needed was one more person who was hard to please.
Chapter 7
The next morning, after leaving the dress, repaired and folded as neatly as she could manage, on the wooden chair in her bedroom, Patience approached Mr. Woodsworth’s study. She turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door. Mr. Woodsworth sat at his desk, and a woman in her day dress sat at a chair just to his side, her back as straight as Mr. Woodsworth’s and her frown just as severe. Miss Morgan?
No, his sister.
Mr. Woodsworth had told Patience she was here to meet his sister. This must be Mrs. Jorgensen. Her eyes were the same startling pale blue as Mr. Woodsworth’s. She was a female version of her brother. Was Miss Morgan like this woman—slender and serious? It would mean no laughter in their home, but not all homes had to have laughter in them. More often than not, hers didn’t.
But she missed it.
She waited for Mr. Woodsworth to rise at her entrance, but of course, he didn’t. What did maids do when they entered a room? Bow?
She lowered to a curtsy but stopped halfway down. She was quite certain no servant had ever done a low curtsy to her. She hastily stood up straight and just caught the end of a look between the siblings.
“This is the beautiful maid you told me about?” Mrs. Jorgensen said in French. Her eyebrow was raised even though her mouth stayed the same.
French. A maid wouldn’t speak French. Patience concentrated on not reacting to the woman’s words.
“I didn’t call her beautiful,” Mr. Woodsworth said in bored tone. “You guessed that she was beautiful.”