4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Rosanna inspected her nails. She’d be wearing gloves this evening, but if Lord Richard had a ring, she’d have to strip them off, and she couldn’t present the son of a marquess with ink-stained fingers.

Becca, the lady’s maid who saw to the older Hempel daughters, tapped at Rosanna’s waist. ‘Deep breath now. Ready?’

Rosanna inhaled, rolling her shoulders back into her practised posture and drawing in her stomach as best as she could. A slip of boning pinched her waist as Becca tightened the cord. Breathing deeper, Rosanna gripped the edge of her dresser and inspected her shape in the mirror. Her breasts pushed higher over the lace trim when the corset compressed her ribs and cinched her waist.

‘Tighter, Becca. I’d like a more fashionable silhouette.’

‘Pfft. There’s nothing wrong with your silh-u-ette . It might not be as fine as some of those ladies who flit about like little birds, but they don’t have kettle drums like you.’

‘Becca!’

The older lady chuckled. ‘If you insist. One more go.’

As Becca tugged the corset cord even tighter, Rosanna checked the back of her hands. Was that an ink spot or a freckle? She licked her thumb and rubbed. The dot smudged, and she wiped until she eradicated it. She should not have let herself become so easily frustrated. At least she’d won and had shown Babbage that she could be both fast and precise. He’d scanned her work with an odd expression—something between confusion and admiration—and tipped his head in a kind of stoic concession of defeat before taking his leave.

Behind her, Becca tied the cords into a bow. When she finished, Rosanna sank onto her stool before the dresser mirror.

‘I’d like my hair styled in this fashion.’ Rosanna pointed at an etching in an open magazine. ‘With the beads and the feathers.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And I’d like my peridot earrings, the ones with the pearl drops that my sisters gave me for my birthday last year.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And don’t tell Mama, but a little rouge.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And I will wear my blue dress. The one with the hand-painted flowers and the lace.’

‘ Yes , miss. You told me that’s what you’d like this morning. And after lunch. I’ve had it all pressed and ready for you for hours.’

‘Sorry, Becca. I’m just nervous.’

‘You, nervous? I haven’t known you to be nervous since I first came through the front door. I’ll never forget. Starting a new job, thinking it would be a lazy dream. Just a regular family done good who wanted some help looking the part. Wasn’t I in for it, finding a firebrand spit of a girl telling me how she liked things to be, and only six years old.’ Becca shook her head, smiled, and picked up her comb. ‘It’s all in hand, don’t you worry. You focus on looking your elegant best for that poor young man who seems to be so smitten with you.’

‘Becca!’

Becca chuckled as she set to work, pinning Rosanna’s long brown hair into place.

‘I want everything to be perfect.’

She had to be perfect. Everything had to be perfect. Because today, if he asked—and he seemed so close to asking… If he asked today, she had decided that she would say yes. She would not change the conversation. She would not encourage interruption. If he said, Be my wife , she would say, I will .

She’d be a lady. Independent. A fashionable figure in society. The woman who had everything.

A thump and a squeal came from the hallway, followed by a shout from Beatrice. ‘Keep your stupid things on your side of the room!’

Rosanna took a slow breath. She would not be flustered. She would not get angry and let her face flush. She would not break a sweat. Not today.

‘Mama says I cannot play on the stairs,’ Nova argued, her light young voice serious, pleading for understanding from her older sister. ‘And there isn’t enough space to line up all the carriages on my side of the room.’

‘Johannes!’ Elliot called from somewhere further down the hall. ‘Come to the courtyard. I made a new batch of pin-wheel firecrackers, and I want to test them.’

‘Becca!’ Beatrice swung the door to Rosanna’s room open. Becca jolted. Rosanna winced as the comb scratched hard into her scalp. ‘Was my lilac dress pressed? I’m going to be late for my dramatics club.’

Rosanna grasped the edge of her stool and twisted around to face her sister. ‘Do you have knuckles?’ she snapped.

Beatrice looked down at her fingers. ‘Of course.’

‘Use them! Knock first!’ Rosanna hated the return to childhood frustrations with her slightly younger sister, but she also found immense comfort in her anger. Thirty minutes, just thirty quiet minutes was all she asked for. So that she might dress and prepare herself to meet with Lord Richard on what might be the most momentous day of her life. Could she not have a small sliver of time? Of quiet?

‘But if I’m late, I’ll lose my place in the tableau,’ Beatrice pleaded.

Rosanna met Becca’s gaze in the mirror. ‘Finish my hair. Then help Beatrice find her dress. Come back afterwards and help me finish dressing.’

Becca worked fast, remembering the feathers but forgetting the beads. When done, she scampered from the room and across the hallway.

Rosanna picked up the string of seed beads and tucked them into her braid. For as long as she could remember, Rosanna had been responsible for dressing herself. It was only in the last half a dozen years that the long hours of building, opening, and running the three Asters had brought in substantial returns and drastically altered the family’s fortunes. The changes in their lives had been fully realised about a year before she debuted, at the slightly older age of twenty. Rosanna had entered society as if she had always been a woman with confident wealth behind her. No one bothered to examine how things had been before. No one knew that Becca had first been hired as a general house mistress, and that her mother didn’t keep her own help, and that Rosanna and Beatrice had dressed themselves and braided one another’s hair for their first encounters with society. No one seemed to care.

The house echoed with the steady bong of the clock in the hall.

‘Heavens.’ Rosanna leapt from her chair and pulled open the door to lean into the hallway. ‘Becca! Are you coming back to help me with my dress?’

Johannes’s and Elliot’s light laughter floated up through the stairwell, and Nova clattered past, her hair streaming behind her. But no sound announcing Beatrice or Becca followed. The last bong rang out loud. Seven o’clock.

Lord Richard hated to be kept waiting.

‘Blast and drat it.’ Rosanna huffed to herself. ‘Just one night. One night without noise and hassle and drama. Is that too much to ask? Obviously, yes.’ She pulled the bustle from where it had been laid out on the bed, stepped into the cage, then pulled it up over her bottom. She fastened the belt at her waist before checking herself in the mirror. Satisfied it hung straight, she snatched her cotton petticoat and tugged it over her head. A button caught on her hair.

‘Miss!’ Becca called from the door. ‘Look what you’ve done. Why didn’t you wait for me?’

Becca tutted and tugged at the petticoat until it lay smooth. Rosanna raised her arms as Becca gently angled the dress over her head. While Becca fixed the buttons, Rosanna fanned beneath her arms. Should she add a splash more rose water? Or would it be too much and she’d smell like she had marinated in it? The clock struck half past. No time, there was simply not enough time. Becca cinched the ribbon at Rosanna’s waist.

‘Thank you!’ Rosanna called as she yanked the door open and raced down the hall.

A quick glance to make sure she didn’t collide with anyone descending from the upper floor, and Rosanna clutched the banister to set off down the stairs. Above was the nursery for the younger children and where Becca and Nanny Abigail slept, while this floor was firmly the domain of the older Hempel children. Six of them, aged between eight and twenty- three, distributed between four rooms. The hallway on their level always had a slightly dishevelled look, with wallpaper faded from little hands trailing its edges, crumbs from biscuits smuggled from the kitchen ground into the carpet, and the endless shouts of fights or games bouncing off its walls and doors.

Rosanna turned the corner into the next stairwell. From somewhere down the corridor, baby Hazel squawked, and her mother hushed. Rosanna turned the next corner.

‘Rosie, was your friend a lord? Or a count? I forget.’

On the landing, Rosanna shot a look into the drawing room to locate the owner of the voice. Amadeus had contorted himself to fit into the window ledge, his back flat against the wooden frame, knees to his chest, and feet in the air. His hair hung on end with his face upside down.

‘Not now, Ammie, I’m late! He’s waiting for me outside.’

‘I’ll let him know you’re on your way!’ Amadeus swung himself upright, all lanky limbs and elbows. He levered up the window, pushed it ajar, and stuck his head through the gap. ‘She’ll be down in a jiffy, lord sir countliness,’ he shouted.

‘Ammie! I’m trying to be proper!’ she scolded.

Ammie shrugged, swinging himself to turn upside down again.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened, and Nanny Abigail stepped into the entrance. One hand clasped the unsteadily toddling Thaddeus while the other ushered a red-caped Ottile across the threshold.

‘The Misses Hartrights are out front,’ Nanny called up to her, her focus steady on the children. ‘Talking to that lord chap that keeps sending you boxes. I think Miss Petunia was trying to recruit him into her choir.’

‘Oh, dear heavens, they are meant to be chaperoning us, not talking about singing.’ Rosanna skittered down the final staircase and paused before the door. She shook out her dress, fanned herself a little, then paused. Were her cheeks flushed? Was her skin blotchy? She took one, two, three calming breaths. Just like they taught at finishing school.

Just like a lady would.

Tonight, if he asked, she would say yes.

She’d have her dress made by House of Worth.

They’d be married in the cathedral closest to his family estate.

She’d pick a date in autumn, when the leaves changed and set the oak trees ablaze with colour and the cooler wind made walking more pleasant.

They’d honeymoon abroad, in Paris or Lucerne.

They’d spend the London season in a townhouse in Mayfair, or by the park.

And all of it would be a world away from the madness of Number 3, Honeysuckle Street.

Rosanna heaved the door open and stepped onto the landing. She swayed for a moment, waiting, but Lord Richard remained deep in conversation with Miss Petunia.

She coughed.

Coughed again.

Elise tapped her aunt’s arm, and at the interruption, Lord Richard looked up.

He wore a sharp grey suit and a stiff top hat in the same shade. A lush blue cravat that matched his eyes and his waistcoat. He stroked his thick sideburns, the same shade as his strawberry blonde hair, then nodded, as if convincing himself of a thought he’d had, but up until now was uncertain of.

Perfect. Everything would be perfect. She was going to be a lady.

‘Miss Hempel.’ Lord Richard removed his hat before replacing it on his immaculate mop of hair. ‘Are you disposed to take a turn about the park?’