Mesmerized

“Lady Olivia.” Lady Pamela’s voice was cool, and there was a look of amused disdain in her eyes. Olivia colored faintly under her gaze, acutely aware of her own travel-stained state.

“And this child jumping out of her skin in eagerness is my sister, the Lady Belinda St. Leger.”

“I am not a child,” Belinda protested, directing a look of mock anger at her brother. Dark haired like her brother, she had bright eyes of a dark gray-blue, and she smiled merrily, fairly vibrating with youth and high spirits. She turned to Olivia, taking her hand and saying candidly, “I am so happy to meet you. We’ve all been dying to see you.”

“Belinda!” her mother said reprovingly. “Lady Olivia will think you have no manners.” But the doting smile she turned on her daughter took any sting out of her words.

“You know it’s the truth,” Belinda responded irrepressibly.

“Allow me to introduce my dear friend Madame Valenskaya to you,” Lady St. Leger said, turning toward the woman who sat beside her on the couch.

“I am ferry happy to meet you,” Madame Valenskaya said, inclining her head regally to Olivia, her voice surprisingly deep for such a small woman, and thickly accented.

Olivia responded, her eyes taking in the woman with interest. Madame Valenskaya was short and stocky. Sharp, button-black eyes, small inside the fleshy face, peered out at Olivia, and Olivia had the impression that Madame Valenskaya was sizing her up just as much as Olivia was analyzing her.

“And this is Irina, Madame’s daughter.” Lady St. Leger indicated a small, colorless young woman sitting in a chair somewhat removed from the others.

The girl gave Olivia a brief nod and an unaccented “Hello,” then glanced away. Olivia was unsure whether Irina was shy or simply rude.

“And Mr. Howard Babington,” Lady St. Leger said, smiling toward the man standing beside the window.

He had turned toward Olivia as she entered the room, and he gave her a polite smile and greeting now. This, Olivia knew, was Madame Valenskaya’s sponsor into society. Olivia did not know him, which was not unusual, as she did not go out much, but when she had asked Kyria about him, her sister had not heard his name, either, which meant that he was certainly not a member of the upper echelons of London society, if he was even a gentleman at all and not just a pretender like Valenskaya herself.

Mediums commonly had such sponsors, people who invited them into their homes and introduced them to their friends, who allowed them to conduct their séances in their houses and under the aegis of their good name. Some such sponsors were merely dupes, as fooled by the mediums as their other victims. Others, Olivia knew, were accomplices of the mediums, aiding them in perpetrating their frauds. She had no idea which Mr. Babington was.

A slight man of medium height, he had a pale, narrow face made even thinner by a pointed goatee. His hair was a light brown, as was his beard, and his eyes were hazel. He was, in general, a rather nondescript-looking fellow, neither handsome nor plain, and when he spoke, his voice was as nondescript as the rest of him. He was the kind of man, who, whether through intent or simply by nature, was easy to ignore and even easier to forget mere moments after one saw him.

“Such an honor,” he murmured, taking Olivia’s hand limply and letting go almost immediately.

“I am sure you must be tired after that long ride from London,” Lady St. Leger said kindly. “No doubt you would like to go to your room.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Olivia accepted the offer gratefully.

“I’ll show her to her room,” Belinda said cheerfully, popping up from her seat. She led Olivia out of the drawing room, then along the gallery and down another hall.

Belinda linked her arm companionably with one of Olivia’s and, leaning in, confided, “We were all agog to meet you. I hope you won’t take offense at our curiosity. You see, it is the first time that Stephen has asked a woman to the house. Well, I mean, since—well, since he’s been home this time.”

Olivia felt her cheeks flush hotly. “Oh, no, you mustn’t think—I mean, Lord St. Leger and I are merely friends. There is nothing to—well, to warrant any particular interest in me.”

She felt embarrassed by the St. Leger women’s assumption that Stephen was interested in her as a female and guilty that she was lying to them, or at least hiding knowledge from them. Yet she could tell them the truth about why she was here even less than she could have told her own family. Lady St. Leger would be horrified and insulted by Olivia’s real reason for visiting.

“Of course, Stephen has scarcely left the estate since he returned. He says he has too much to do, learning all the estate affairs.” She grimaced. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s a little uncomfortable here. He was in America for almost ten years. But, then, no doubt you know that. How did you meet him? We’ve all been wondering like mad. It must have been when he was in London to fetch us, I suppose. But I didn’t think he went to any parties. He positively refused to go with us. It must have been romantic.”

“Oh! Oh, no, it wasn’t—we are merely friends,” Olivia repeated lamely. “We—uh, I met your brother through my brother, Reed. Lord St. Leger came to call on him, and I happened to be there.”

Olivia thought to herself that she would have to remember to tell Lord St. Leger about their chance meeting. It had been foolish of them not to have dreamed up a story in advance. Naturally his family would be curious—and would not be distracted so easily, as her own family had been, by a diversion into 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?