Bel knelt at the hearth to insert the brushes through the fireplace. Unfolding the jointed rod and locking the sections into place, she advanced the contraption higher and higher. It wasn’t quite as easy as she’d imagined it would be. The flue was clogged with a winter’s worth of soot, and it took a great deal of effort to push the brushes through the narrow passageway. Small trickles of ash filtered down periodically, dusting her hair and clothes.
As she worked, she sensed the ladies in the room growing restless. She surreptitiously wiped her brow on her sleeve.
“Is your husband not at home, Lady Aldridge?” Of course, it was Lady Violet’s smug voice.
“No,” Bel clipped, forcing the brushes upward with a vicious shove. “He is away.”
“Pity,” Lady Violet said. “He is so amusing with the ladies. One can always count on Sir Toby to enliven a dreary party.”
“I beg your pardon,” Bel said, her movements growing more agitated. “This isn’t a party. If it’s amusement you seek, you may wish to go elsewhere.”
A hush cloaked the room. The scrapings of brush against flue were the only sounds.
“As for my husband,” Bel continued, “he is not amusing any ladies this morning. He is in Surrey.”
“Oh, but surely there are ladies in Surrey,” the matron said significantly. “Ladies eager to be amused, no less. But from what I read in The Prattler, Sir Toby’s corner of Surrey has a most interesting geography. I understand it quite closely resembles an establishment known as the Hidden Pearl.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure you don’t, dear girl.” Lady Violet gave her a cruel smile. “That’s probably why he’s there.”
Bel’s every muscle tensed. Anger heated her blood, but she could not let it boil over. She’d worked so long and so hard to make this demonstration a success, and the lives of children could very well hang in the balance. Even though she was annoyed with Lady Violet for making such crude insinuations, and even more irritated with Toby for the caricatures that spawned them … she would not be a slave to unpredictable passions.
Patience, she admonished herself. Goodness. Charity. Miserable waifs.
“The brushes are fully inserted now.” She addressed the room calmly, rising to her feet and clapping the dust from her hands. “And now, I give a small twist on the handle to expand the bristles, and as I retract the device, the soot will be removed.” She gave Lady Violet an innocent smile. “You may wish to retreat now, my lady. To the back of the room, perhaps. Or further. This may get dirty.”
“Oh, I think I shall remain. I’m enjoying my front-row view immensely. What an enlightening morning this is proving to be.”
“Very well.” Bel knelt again and began retracting the brush with rough yanks, twisting and turning the rod as she did. With each motion, a shower of soot rained down the chimney, settling around her skirts.
“Now, typically this method is not so untidy,” Bel explained as she worked. “Sweeps who use this machinery also have a set of curtains that they arrange before the hearth, so as not to—”
She stopped short as her brush caught on an obstacle. “So as not to soil the—” A rougher tug gained her nothing. She braced one boot on the grate and pulled hard with both hands. No progress.
“I believe it’s stuck, dear,” Lady Violet said helpfully.
“Yes, it’s stuck,” Bel snapped, releasing the rod and scrambling to her feet. Her breathing was quick and shallow. “Just as these young children get stuck in flues with alarming frequency. Imagine, Lady Violet, that you’re the one wedged into that flue two bricks wide. Imagine that you’re the one stuck, unable to move, suffocating in a cloud of soot, frightened beyond belief. Imagine that your cruel master below is jabbing pins into your flesh to convince you to move—
or, if that fails to work, lighting straws on fire and using them to toast the soles of your feet. Imagine, Lady Violet, that you are a miserable, impoverished, friendless child about to die. To be sacrificed on the altar of English tradition simply because a lady of the ton could not be bothered to instruct her housekeeper to embrace modern improvements.” Bel sniffed and pushed a stray wisp of hair from her eyes. “Are you enjoying that image, Lady Violet?”
“No,” the matron said smugly. “But I think you are.”
Bel gasped. Lady Violet was right. She was enjoying the image of a cramped, choked, sootcovered Lady Violet. She was enjoying it far too much. What was wrong with her? This was meant to be a charity function, not an exercise in hostility. But she had so much emotion churning inside her—she felt like a volcano, preparing to erupt. The worst of it was, she couldn’t very well flee the danger, when it resided in herself.
She could do this, she told herself, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. She could conquer her simmering passions and complete this demonstration with dignity and grace. She would not explode.
Sophia moved toward her. “Bel, you’ve been working so hard. Perhaps you need a rest.”
Bel warned her off with a shake of her head and bent down to take up the rod again. “What I need is a bit of assistance. Let us work in harmony, Lady Violet. May I ask you to lend a hand?”
The matron cast her a withering look. “Surely you’re joking, Lady Aldridge. As if—”
“Not strong enough, then?”
“It isn’t that, I assure you—”
“Afraid of a little soot?”
“No.” Lady Violet’s mouth thinned to a slim red gash in her face. She rose from her chair and placed her hands on the rod above Bel’s. “Anything to get me out of this mad house,” she muttered to Bel. To the room at large, she sang, “What a lark this is, Lady Aldridge. It’s giving me all sorts of ideas for my next party. I think I shall distribute aprons at the door and invite all the ladies to take turns at scullery maid. After tea, each guest must wash her own cup and saucer.”
The ladies giggled. Bel seethed inside, but she forced herself to remain outwardly calm. “On three, then?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“On three,” Lady Violet agreed. “Oh, but wait! I’ve just had a brilliant idea for my autumn house party. We’ll all play at dairymaid!”
Bel ignored the laughter and began counting. “One …”
And somehow—in that brief, fleeting moment—a strange thing happened in Bel’s mind. Grasping that wooden rod in her hand, listening to the mocking laughter of her peers, feeling the anger bubble and rise inside her … she faced down the specter of madness.
“Two …”
She felt it keenly, the temptation to just give in. To go into a rage, scold Lady Violet, cast these insufferable women out of her home, and smash a few ceramic figurines, just to complete the dramatic effect. It would be so easy, to fly off the handle.
But Bel chose not to. Instead, she made a very calm, very rational decision. To let it go.
“Three.”
Bel released her grip and stepped back. She stood watching a few paces distant as—. Whoosh.
Lady Violet’s full-strength tug released a deluge of ashes and soot. A plume of black vapor swallowed her puce-clad form.
Turning away from the cloud of ash, Bel clapped her hands over her face. Oh, there was no more laughter now. The room was so silent, she could hear the coal dust settling to the floor. Slowly, she lowered her hands, uncovering only her eyes, and turned back to face the hearth.
Lady Violet stood before her, coated with coal dust from crown to toe, sputtering and fuming like a snuffed candlewick. Around them, a dozen ladies stood stock-still, handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths in horror.
Bel kept her own hands clamped over her mouth, to no avail. No matter how hard she pressed her fingers against her lips, she couldn’t prevent it.
She laughed.
It started with a few inane giggles, then quickly progressed to full-throated peals of laughter. She couldn’t help it. This demonstration was a travesty and her marriage was a disaster and she was very likely going insane—and there was just nothing for it but to laugh. Laugh loudly and long. Really, where was the benefit in being a madwoman, if it didn’t entitle one to bursts of wild laughter?
Bel laughed until her sides ached and she was wiping away sooty tears with her handkerchief. Then she met Lady Violet’s shocked blue eyes, staring out at her from an ash-powdered face. The matron stood frozen in place, hands raised in surrender, and before Bel even knew what she was doing, she embraced the woman. She caught Lady Violet in an unabashed, exuberant hug and laughed harder still.
“I wish I could say I’m sorry for your gown,” Bel said at length, stepping back. “But really, the invitation did explicitly call for black.”
She removed her own soot-matted apron and cast it aside. “Well,” she said to the gawping ladies, who had now most certainly witnessed the scandal they came for, “this concludes the demonstration. Lady Grayson will pass round the list of professional chimney sweeps who use machinery in place of climbing boys. I do hope you will employ their services in your house holds. Unless, of course, Lady Violet is taking on clients.” She giggled again as she headed for
the door.
Sophia rushed to her side. “Bel, where are you going? Are you well?”
“I don’t know that I’m well. But I’m going to Surrey.” Craning her neck, she glanced at the clock in the corridor. “And I have to make haste, or I’ll be too late.”
“Too late for what?” Sophia asked.
Ignoring her, Bel turned to the ladies. “Please excuse me, but I’ve just remembered an urgent appointment and I need to …” Her laughter turned to nausea as she realized what her plan entailed.
Oh, blast.
But she’d made the decision now. Just as Joss had said, she couldn’t let fear hold her back. She finished weakly, “I need to order the carriage.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Toby stood at the foot of the hustings platform, waiting for Colin Brooks to wrestle into that abominable yellow topcoat and come make his victory official. As he waited, he paced back and forth, every so often tossing his walking stick into a fresh grip and resisting the urge to do something truly ridiculous, like fondle the ivory knob.
Really, what a sentimental fool he’d become. He had a full set of clothing at Wynterhall—more than enough to see him through Yorke’s funeral and the election—yet he’d sent two servants to Town with directions to pack up half his wardrobe. All that effort, simply an excuse to retrieve this useless walking stick.
Certainly, if he could have done so without looking a complete ass, he would have requested even more embarrassing mementos. A lock of jet-black hair, a verbena-scented pillow, a swatch of that red silk gown … But this walking stick was the only thing of her that belonged unequivocally to him—and as a consequence, he was making rather a fetish of it.
“What’s keeping Brooks?” he asked the sheriff’s deputy.
The man gave him a mumbled “dunno” and picked his teeth.
Toby paced away again, swinging the stick with impatience. The sooner Brooks arrived, the sooner the election results could be made official—and the sooner Toby could be on his way back to London. To her.
What an idiot he’d been. Sophia’s words had shown him the error of his ways even before he’d left the Town limits. Well, truthfully, he’d sulked most of the way to Surrey, but he’d come to his senses sometime before the carriage drew up to Wynterhall’s moat. All he’d wanted was for Isabel to see him at his worst, and love him. And stupid blighter that he was, he’d failed his own test. He’d professed his undying love for her, and the moment she’d become (quite rightfully, he might add) angry with him, he’d deserted her. God, what a struggle he’d had over the past two days, fighting the urge to ride back to her and simply fall at her feet, beg her forgiveness. But there were things he needed to do here in Surrey—not just because they needed doing, but because Toby needed to do them, to prove his own worth. He needed to see his friend buried with honor, he needed to lend support to his grieving mother … and now he needed to secure this seat in Parliament. Really, it was all she’d ever asked of him. Such a small thing. Why the devil had he ever resisted? He could have so easily secured her regard, if not her love. Now he’d lost any chance for either.