Cinderella Six Feet Under(37)

“There, there.” Lady Cruthlach stroked Prue’s arm. This time, Prue let her. The gesture held a tiny germ of comfort. “An orphan, you say? Lord Cruthlach and I know about orphans, all about indeed. Our own young ward, Dalziel, was an orphan, too, until we took him into our household and raised him as our own. But poor, poor Dalziel will once more become an orphan. We are dying, you see. Lord Cruthlach has slipped farther beneath the waves than I, but I shall follow him shortly to the grave.”

“Are you ill, ma’am?”

“These modern doctors tell us that so many generations of cousins marrying cousins has weakened the Cruthlach blood. Weakened! There is no value, anymore, placed upon purity, is there? Our blood, girl, is as pure as the driven snow. Its very purity leaves us vulnerable to the assails of this rude, modern world.”

“Awful sorry you’re ill, ma’am. Might I get out of the carriage, now?”

“No!” Lady Cruthlach twisted Prue’s sleeve so tightly it pinched. Prue cried out. “Not until I make you understand that Dalziel will become an orphan if you do not help us.”

“Help you with what?”

Lady Cruthlach let go of Prue’s sleeve.

Prue rubbed her pinched arm.

Lady Cruthlach rummaged for something in her bodice, under heavy furs. She drew out a locket, chained about her neck with fine-wrought gold. She snapped the locket open and pressed it towards Prue.

The locket held a miniature painting of a beautiful young man. Dark hair, dark eyes, grave expression, a dusky tint to his complexion.

“That is Dalziel.” Lady Cruthlach snapped the locket shut. “The young gentleman who will become, like you, an orphan, cast out into the nightmare dark of the world, shivering, alone. Unless you help us.”

“Dalziel looks nice,” Prue said. “Sure wouldn’t want him to be cast out into the nightmare dark of the world and what you say. But it ain’t clear to me how I can help, ma’am.”

Lady Cruthlach signaled to Hume. Hume thumped the ceiling. The carriage stopped. Hume reached over the fogey, jerked open the carriage door, and gave Prue a shove.

Prue screamed. She tumbled out and splashed on all fours into a cold puddle. She looked up. The carriage was rolling away into the night and—she looked around—she was in front of H?tel Malbert.

*

Only when Prue was drifting to sleep in her bedchamber, arms around the fat ginger cat, did it hit her: those old folks, and Hume, too, had never asked what her name was.

For some reason, her name was of no consequence.

*

Ophelia crawled back into H?tel Malbert through the cellar window, which she’d left ajar. She groped through the darkness to the door between the cellar rooms and the kitchen. She peeked through. Empty. She tiptoed in. A fading fire glowed and mice swarmed on top of the table, nibbling the remains of a tart. Dirty china filled the sink. A stone pestle lay on the floor. Ophelia picked it up and set it on the table. A mouse with quivering whiskers looked at her.

Ugh.

Well, she wasn’t hungry, anyway. For some reason, her belly had been in knots ever since the professor had told her about Miss Ivy Banks, of the ladylike, retiring nature and impeccable penmanship. Well. Ophelia refused to be envious of any lady, and indeed, perhaps the existence of Miss Banks could be considered a relief.

Yes, that’s what it was.

Ophelia lit a taper and stealthily searched the pantry until she found a tin of bicarbonate of soda. She mixed a spoonful into a glass of water, drank it down, washed the glass in the sink, and crept upstairs the back way.

But the soda and water did nothing. It seemed the pain wasn’t in her stomach, after all. It clung higher up, around her heart.

She looked into Prue’s chamber and saw her asleep with the ginger cat.

In her own chamber, Ophelia shucked off Henrietta’s clothing and wrested her crushed toes from the slippers. She washed at the basin and then pulled her theatrical case from its place in the bottom of the wardrobe. Her skin was still chapped from the Mrs. Brand cosmetics. She needed her calendula flower salve.

She opened the case. Something was different. The light wasn’t good—she had only the one taper—but . . . the crumbly sticks of greasepaint, in their paper wrappers, were not in their customary order. Yes, one stick, a carnation pink for lips and cheeks, was missing.

Someone in the house knew she was an actress.

*

Gabriel did not usually take port before bed. More often than not, he fell asleep over his reading or writing. Yet tonight he ordered a bottle of aged Colheita to be brought to his suite.