Mesmerized. Candace Camp
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the issue of equality for women. There were definitely advantages to having a liberal-thinking—and vague—group of relatives.
“So you see,” Olivia went on, “it was more prosaic than romantic. Lord St. Leger invited us both, but Reed could not come.”
Belinda looked at her assessingly, and Olivia thought that she was not completely dissuaded from her romantic notions by Olivia’s story, but then she shrugged and said, “Oh, well. At least it put Pamela’s nose out of joint.” She smiled a little at the thought.
“Lady St. Leger?” It was Olivia’s turn to look at her companion curiously. “What do you mean?”
“Oh! Well...” Belinda hesitated, then finished, “I mean, just that she’s used to being the lady of the house. You know, the most important female. And you’re the daughter of a duke, so of course you outrank her.”
Olivia, looking at the young woman’s guileless countenance, had the definite suspicion that Belinda’s explanation had not been her original thought. However, she could scarcely press her about it, so she merely smiled.
Belinda stopped at an open door. “Here is your room, my lady.”
“Oh, please—I do so dislike titles. I usually go by Miss Moreland,” Olivia protested uncomfortably.
The girl’s eyes widened, “Oh, but I could not call you that! Mama would be furious with me if I were so rude.”
“Well, then, perhaps just Olivia?” Olivia suggested.
Belinda goggled even more. “Truly?”
“Yes, of course. To tell you the truth, I do not feel much like the daughter of a duke.”
Belinda’s smile flashed across her face. “You are not high in the instep at all. I knew I would like you. I just felt it!”
Olivia chuckled. “The feeling is mutual.” It would be, in truth, hard not to like the girl’s fresh and candid manner.
If possible, Belinda grew even sunnier, and she gave Olivia’s hand a quick squeeze. “This is your room. I hope everything is satisfactory. If not, Mama would be happy to change you around.”
“Oh, no. It is a lovely room.” It was indeed a pretty place, spacious and elegant, with a set of windows on either side of the bed looking out on the rear garden.
Belinda left soon afterward, closing the door behind her, and Olivia sank down with relief onto a chaise longue. It was more tiring to play a part than she would have imagined, she realized. Nor could she completely stifle a twinge of guilt over the fact that Stephen’s mother and sister assumed her to be a woman for whom Stephen had feelings. Well, she had done her best to set Belinda straight about that, she reminded herself. She could not make them believe differently.
There was a knock at the door, and Joan bustled into the room, followed by Tom with her trunk. Joan set about unpacking the trunk and putting away Olivia’s clothes, while Tom and Olivia held a low-voiced conference. He was, he assured her, settled into the servants quarters, and he had great hopes of soon being in the know of all the gossip. He had already heard that neither Madame Valenskaya nor her daughter had brought a maid nor Mr. Babington a valet, which caused St. Leger’s servants to hold them in disdain.
“I’m not sure that the lack of a maid is something we can hold against them,” Olivia commented.
“Aye, well, the maids as are ‘avin’ to do double duty hold it against ‘em.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Yeah. Two of the upstairs girls were arguin’ somethin’ fierce over which one of ’em had to go help the Valenskayas dress for dinner.” He sighed. “Makes my job harder, too. I was ‘opin’ to get some gossip from their maid.”
“Well, perhaps it’s an opportunity. What if you were to volunteer to act as Mr. Babington’s valet?”
Tom looked none too pleased at the idea at first, but as he thought about it, his expression brightened. “Aye, that’s a cunning thought, miss. He might let somethin’ slip to me, and it’ll set me up right with the lot downstairs, too.”
Tom went off with renewed eagerness, and Olivia turned back to help Joan unpack. Joan, however, looked clearly affronted by Olivia’s offer. “It’s resting you should be, my lady. Dinner is at eight, so we shall have to do your hair and dress in another hour or so. You lie down while I get the wrinkles out of your dress.”
Olivia gave in, too tired not to, and she awoke thirty minutes later feeling much refreshed. She arose and washed up just in time for Joan’s entrance with her dinner gown, freshly pressed. It was her own emerald-green satin gown on which Kyria had lowered the neckline to what seemed to Olivia a scandalous degree by ripping out the lace trim above it. Still, she had to admit, when she was in the dress, her hair artfully arranged into curls by Joan’s nimble fingers, that she did look, well—rather pretty.
Her pride in her appearance lasted only until Lady Pamela St. Leger swept into the dining room after all the rest of them had gathered there. There was no way she herself could compete, Olivia knew, with the woman’s narrow waist and the smooth expanse of white chest and bosom revealed by the low-cut black gown. Why, she wondered, looking at Pamela, had she ever worried that her own gown revealed too much bosom?
Subdued by the other woman’s blond beauty, it took Olivia some time to notice that the widow’s flirtatious comments seemed to fall on deaf ears where Lord St. Leger was concerned. He looked, if anything, bored, and for much of the rest of the dinner, Pamela directed most of her words and glances at Mr. Babington.
Halfway through dinner, the Dowager Countess St. Leger said, smiling, “Madame Valenskaya, I hope we can persuade you to honor us tonight with a sitting.”
Lord St. Leger stiffened and shot a glance at Olivia. She turned interestedly to the Russian woman, who had spent most of the meal silently plowing her way through her food.
Madame Valenskaya paused now and looked at Lady St. Leger. “Da,” she returned in her guttural accent. “It is you who honors me, my lady. But, as you know, spirits are not always, how you say, ready.”
“Of course,” Lady St. Leger agreed eagerly, her face alight with enthusiasm. “But it would be so good of you to try.”
“Da, da. I will try. For you, my lady.”
Lady St. Leger turned to Olivia. “Madame Valenskaya is a gifted medium, my lady. I do not know if you have any experience in such things....”
“I have long been interested in matters of the spiritual world,” Olivia told her pleasantly. “If you are about to hold a séance, I would very much like to join you.”
Lady St. Leger beamed. “That is so good of you, Lady Olivia. It is just splendid. Stephen? I hope you, too, will join us.”
“Of course.” Stephen nodded shortly. “If you wish.”
So it was that, after the meal, the group gathered in the smaller, less formal dining room, grouped around the table. There was an empty chair at the head of the table for Madame Valenskaya, who had excused herself to go to her room to “attune” herself to the spiritual vibrations of “the other side.” Irina, so far so quiet that one would hardly know she was in the room, spoke up to arrange the rest of the seating. She put herself on one side of her mother, Olivia noticed, with Mr. Babington on the other. She put Stephen’s mother next to Babington and Pamela next to herself, with Belinda beyond her and Stephen at the opposite end of the table from Madame Valenskaya. Olivia had little doubt but that Lord St. Leger’s position farthest from the medium was quite deliberate, buffering the medium from him with her followers. Olivia herself was placed opposite Belinda, and between Stephen and his mother.
Madame Valenskaya swept into the room and crossed to the head of the table, hands clasped at her waist and eyes turned downward as if in deep thought. At a look from Lady St. Leger, the attending footman left the room, closing the door after him.
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