Cinderella Six Feet Under(116)

It had better not be. Ophelia said, “This is—”

“Mrs. Henrietta Brighton,” Henrietta said quickly, and then gave a sad smile.

Precisely when had Miss Henrietta Bright become Mrs. Henrietta Brighton? And . . . oh, merciful heavens. How could Ophelia have been so blind? Henrietta was in black. All in black.

“Did Miss Stonewall neglect to mention that I would chaperone her on this visit?” Henrietta asked Griffe. “I am a close friend of the Stonewall family, and I have been on a Grand Tour in order to take my mind away from my poor darling—darling . . . oh.” She dabbed her eyes with a hankie.

Griffe took Henrietta’s arm and patted it as he led her through the front door. “A widow, oui? My most profound condolences, Madame Brighton. You are very welcome here.”

Ophelia and Forthwith followed. The parakeet’s feet clung to Ophelia’s finger, and tiny snowflakes fell from the darkening sky.

“You’re shameless,” Ophelia said to Forthwith in a hot whisper.

Forthwith grinned. “Aren’t I, though?”





2




Ophelia’s conscience demanded that she call off the entire visit now. Because, well, the gall of Henrietta and Forthwith, springing those fake identities on her at the last minute! On the other hand, she didn’t have a centime to her name. Griffe would surely kick her out on her ear when he learned she was a fraud. She needed a little more time to cook up a plan.

She was led upstairs to a chamber with a canopied bed, walls painted with dark forest scenes—trees, rivers, castles, wild animals—and a carved marble fireplace. Footmen brought up the two large trunks of finery borrowed from Artemis Stunt, and then a maid arrived.

The maid, a beautiful blond woman of about thirty years with the full, sculptured figure of a Roman statue, tapped her chest and called herself Clémence. As Clémence hung the finery in the wardrobe, she furtively inspected Ophelia. Then she led Ophelia down a creaking corridor to a small bathing chamber. Marble from floor to ceiling, with a tinned copper tub and gold water spigots shaped like ducks’ heads. Clémence ran the bath, gave Ophelia a cake of soap and a parting glance of disdain, and left.

Awkward, having people tend to you. Especially when they made you feel that you ought to be waiting on them.

After her bath, Ophelia returned to her bedchamber, dried her hair before the fire, and arranged it in a frivolous braided knot. Then she squirmed and laced herself—she would not ring for Clémence—into corset, crinoline, evening slippers, and Artemis’s green velvet dinner gown.

After that, she checked on the parakeet. Griffe had sent up an unused brass birdcage from somewhere, and Ophelia had hung it near the fireplace with a saucer of water and a little bowl of breadcrumbs. The parakeet puffed up its feathers, its eyes mostly shut. “Are you all right?” Ophelia whispered.

The parakeet ignored her.

Outside the windows, snow blew sideways through blackness. The Baedeker claimed that it never snowed in the Périgord.

A rap on the door.

“Entrez,” Ophelia called. She was picking up bits and bobs of French.

Clémence had returned, carrying an envelope. She gave it to Ophelia in sullen silence and left.

Ophelia looked at the envelope—it read Mademoiselle Stonewall—and sighed. She knew that sloped, smeary handwriting. Although she hadn’t seen the Count de Griffe since the day after she’d accepted his marriage proposal, he’d written her daily rhapsodic letters from England. Luckily, she’d been spared the need to reply because he had been traveling.

She tore open the envelope and read,

Dearest Mademoiselle Stonewall,

It is with a swollen heart and fevered brow that I welcome you at last to this, my ancestral home. How ardently I dream of showing you every inch of this sacred place, the formal gardens by moonlight, the riches housed in the library, the Roman statues alongside the ornamental canal, the fruits and blooms in the orangerie. How I long, too, to show you the more intimate features of your future home.

Ophelia’s palms started sweating.

For instance, my late mother’s own wedding gown, preserved in delicate tissue in a box in her bedchamber, and the nursery and schoolroom where I once romped and studied and where, God willing, our own children will romp and study, too.

Ophelia hurried to a side table, where she’d seen a decanter of red liqueur. She poured herself a small glass and drank it down. Cherry. She coughed. She wasn’t really a tippling lady, but the image of a half-dozen hairy baby Griffes crawling around in diapers required blurring.