“Sorry, my lady. I do beg your pardon. I’m not really a lady’s maid. I’m barely a chambermaid, but Lady W needed the extra hands, and here I am.”
“I am very pleased to have your assistance,” Della said, though she would have been more pleased to finish her nap. “I’m sure Lady Wentwhistle has faith in your potential, or she would not have relied upon you to take up these duties.”
Trask gazed at Della as if she’d spoken in Finnish.
“She trusts you,” Della said, “and to be honest, my needs are few. Sponge off a few frocks, iron a few others. Mend the occasional tear, and mind my linen doesn’t get lost in the laundry.”
Trask’s shoulders dropped two inches. “I can do that, ma’am. I mean, my lady. I’m a laundry maid, truth be told. I’ll see to your clothes and make a proper job of that. You don’t need me to tend to your hair?”
“I will manage that myself.”
Trask smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “I’m that relieved. I have no idea what to do with a lady’s hair. Never used a pair of curling tongs except once when my sister was trying to catch Whit Sylvester’s eye. That did not go well, though she’s Mrs. Sylvester now, with two little ones underfoot. Names are Jenny and Jake. I can mend and wash and iron with the best of them, but I’m not the fancy sort.”
Trask was not the quiet sort either. She chattered as she gathered up Della’s carriage dress and riding habit. She chattered as she tidied up the clothes in the wardrobe. She fell silent only as she wrestled with the window sash, which had refused to close the last inch.
“I’ll run a bar of hard soap along the sides,” she said. “Works a treat. It’s this weather. Too dampish for me, makes the wood swell. My mother always said…”
Her prattling ceased as she peered down at the terrace.
Della joined her at the window. Ash could very likely get the damned window shut without anybody using any expensive soap. Della had watched him circling the maze, though now he stood talking with Sycamore near the foot of the garden.
“If I might ask, who is that gent by the steps, my lady?”
Oh, him. “The blond fellow?”
“He’s been in and out of the gazebo since luncheon.”
“His name is William Chastain. He and his new wife are among Lady Wentwhistle’s guests.”
Trask’s fair brows drew down. “He has a new wife?”
William and Ash would not be able to see each other, given the height of the privet hedges. Della did not like knowing they were in the same county, much less the same garden.
“He does, a pleasant lady of French extraction.” About whom Della had myriad reservations, though at least the dreaded confrontation had been dealt with.
“Oh, the Quality,” Trask muttered, moving away from the window. “I’ll have your clothes back to you by tomorrow, my lady. You’re sure I can’t brush off that shawl for you? I’ll be ever so careful.”
“No, thank you.”
Though it took three more curtseys, Trask eventually went bustling on her way. Della considered returning to the bed, where she’d been all but asleep when Trask had interrupted her. To have been roused from near slumber left Della more tired than if she hadn’t tried to nap at all.
Rather than doze off while waiting for Ash to return, Della wrapped herself in her mother’s shawl and took out her needlepoint. A wife’s privileges included providing her husband with monogrammed handkerchiefs, and stitchery was a more productive pastime than speculating about why Trask had inquired specifically after William Chastain.
Chapter Twelve
Ash could have walked for another three hours, but he was mindful that Della awaited him in their rooms.
How long was a midafternoon nap?
Should he have joined her for her respite?
Was a nap a means of inviting a husband to enjoy marital pleasures in the middle of the day? Ash thought not, because Della wouldn’t be that coy.
Or would she?
Perhaps a nap was an invitation merely to cuddle and exchange those sweet nothings Sycamore seemed to think no woman should be without, though what did Sycamore know about anything?
Ash was lost in his mental peregrinations as he passed William Chastain at the foot of the terrace steps. Chastain’s cravat was slightly askew, and his hair looked windblown on a day without much breeze. His afternoon activities had included either overimbibing or swiving—or both—and Ash doubted the elegant Mrs. Chastain would have let her husband rise from a frolic in such an untidy state.
Ash nodded at Chastain and kept walking rather than indulge in verbal fisticuffs in his present mood. He slowed his steps as he approached the entrance to the house.
An older woman sat alone at a wrought-iron table. She looked slightly familiar and more than slightly upset. Her eyes were sheened with tears, and she clutched a handkerchief in one pale hand.
“Lady Fairchild?”
She looked up, her gaze more worried than friendly. “Sir?”
“Ash Dorning, at your service. May I join you?” He did not want to join her, but she was clearly in distress. They had doubtless been introduced at some point, though he knew he hadn’t met her at the Coventry.
“You have the Dorning eyes,” she said, gesturing to the only other chair at the table. “You are here with your new bride?”
“I have that honor. Would you like to take a turn in the garden?”
“No, thank you.” She sent Chastain a withering glance, then seemed to collect herself. “I was well acquainted with your father, Mr. Dorning. I’ve been introduced to Lady Jacaranda, and I’m sure I’ve crossed paths with your oldest brother—he’s Casriel now. So strange to think your papa has gone to his reward.”
“My youngest brother, Sycamore, is among the guests too.”
Lady Fairchild folded her handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket. “Mr. Sycamore Dorning is a scamp by reputation. I don’t move much in Society, but I’ve heard about his club. Does he have the same gorgeous eyes as the rest of you?”
“We don’t dare put it like that lest his head swell beyond the proportions necessary to fit through the average parlor door.”
She studied Ash, and he realized she was a very attractive woman.
“Your father had that same humor, an ability to poke gentle fun. It’s a lovely quality in a man. Were you walking off the dismals?”
If she’d burst into a Monteverdi aria, Ash could not have been more surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your dear papa used to walk off the dismals. He’d roam endlessly over hill and dale and take extended walking tours in every little corner of the realm. I wandered many an hour in his company, and he used to say the fresh air was a tonic. He was between wives when I knew him best, and he grieved for his first countess sorely.”
“I was under the impression Papa’s walking tours were in the interest of collecting botanical specimens.”
“He always had a specimen bag over his shoulder, and I do believe he was interested in botany, but when I knew him—this would have been quite a long time ago—he was somewhat at loose ends. Lord Fairchild was in Vienna at a diplomatic posting, and I appreciated your father’s companionship so very much.”