The Changeling Bride Page 5

  “Hello?” she called softly into the night, self-conscious of her own voice in the lonely air, breaking the quiet. “This is Elle, the woman you took from Portland. Is anyone there?” The wind soughed, leaves rustled, and owls hooted. No other answer came to her. “I want to go home.” No answer. “Or at least ask some questions.

  “I don’t know what you want of me, or why you’ve done this. I’ve been pretending to be Eleanor all day. Is this what you wanted? How long do I have to do it? When is she coming back?” The image of Eleanor, dead on the cave floor, flickered in Elle’s mind. “She is coming back, isn’t she? I mean, you got me out of that landslide, which should have killed me, so a bit of the flu shouldn’t stop you from resurrecting Eleanor Moore. You dressed her in my clothes; does that mean she’s living my life?”

  Elle thought about her dreary job and her small apartment, and came to a startling conclusion. Besides for being scared out of her wits and worrying about Tatiana, she was almost enjoying herself. It was that feeling she got when skiing down a too-steep, too-advanced slope: Each moment she managed to stay upright was a victory over danger and chaos. For months now—no, for years—she had been feeling dead. Now, at this moment, alone on a hill in the dark in an unknown land, she felt vitally alive.

  “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t mind staying through the wedding. I’ve always wanted one, you know. The dress, the flowers, maybe a carriage ride to the church. You’ve got to get me out of here before the wedding night, though. I’m not going to let some old man have sex with me. I’ll stay through the wedding, then you come get me and take me home.” She decided she’d just have to assume that they heard and understood and that she had some sort of say in what went on.

  She stood up, brushing the back of her cloak free of grass and twigs. The night sky overhead was dense with stars, and she tilted her head back to gaze up at them. The constellations were the same as at home, only brighter in this deep darkness. She was alone, completely and utterly alone in this past world, and it both thrilled and terrified her.

  The image of Tatiana being washed under rocks and mud filled her mind, and she clamped down on it, shutting off the emotion that would come if she let it.

  “I know that if you could save me from a landslide, you must have been able to save Tatiana as well,” she said to the stars. “It may not be convenient to bring her to me here, but when I get home she’d better be there.” She tried to sound threatening, but her voice quavered. “This little adventure isn’t worth it, if it means losing my dog.”

  She remained on the hill some time longer, waiting for some sign, some evidence that she had been heard and understood, but none came. The warmth of exertion had faded, and she began once again to feel the chill of the air. She reluctantly picked her way down the hill and headed back to the house.

  Elle was in bed asleep by the time, several hours later, the answer to one of her queries appeared on the hill in the forest. The unfortunate boy chosen as messenger was far from pleased with the task he had been assigned and was doing a poor job of it. His name was Mossbottom, and as far as fairies went, he was relatively inexperienced.

  Mossbottom slipped out of a crack in the hillside, followed closely by Tatiana, whose white fur was powdered with greenish phosphorescence. Placing spells on people was a simple fairy trick, but animals were another matter. Mossbottom had been stuck with care of the dog by the more senior fairies, who thought it great fun to watch him flounder about their underground labyrinth of caves chasing the hyperactive dog. The senior fairies had also thereby escaped personal dealings with a creature that scared them. It had been, after all, a disastrous run-in with some similar beasts that had started this whole confusing drama, so many years ago.

  Mossbottom warily eyed Tatiana, who met his gaze with ingenuous brown eyes and smiled her panting smile. A twig cracked somewhere out in the dark, and Tatiana’s ears perked forward, her panting suddenly stopped as she strained her attention into the blackness around her. Whatever hold Mossbottom had temporarily thought he had over her disappeared, as the awareness of being outdoors came rushing to Tatiana’s senses. With a bark and a bound, she was off and running, shedding shimmers of fairy dust in luminous streams behind her.

  If Mossbottom had been capable of crying, he would have done so. That wicked dog—she’d be the death of him. With steps unusually heavy for one of his sort, he followed the fading glimmers of her trail.

  Chapter Five

  The day of Elle’s wedding dawned bright and golden upon the countryside. She was awoken by Marianne, her new maid, who had spent last night upon a trundle bed beside her own bed. In fact, since she had chosen Marianne from the three maids presented by Mrs. Moore, Elle had not had more than ten minutes free of her company. The woman was cheerful and energetic, which had seemed to recommend her when compared with her more subdued competitors, but after nearly twenty-four hours in her company, Elle was beginning to wonder if she had made a serious error in judgment. The woman was driving her batty.

  “Now, I have rung for your bath, and tea is on its way. Here now, let me help you out of bed. You must be fairly faint with excitement, yes?”

  Elle rolled her eyes and suffered Marianne to lead her to the bench in front of the vanity, where she began to brush Elle’s hair.

  “We’re going to wash it today, aren’t we?” Elle asked, looking in distaste upon her powdery locks. She had had a basin of water in which to wash her hands and face every day, and there was even a toothbrush and some toothpowder that tasted foul, but no one had made mention of a proper bath until today. Her hair had been kept somewhat clean by having powder rubbed into it and then brushed out. By the scent of Marianne, it was apparent that full-body bathing was not a daily affair.

  “Did you wish to? Mrs. Moore did say that you were to wear a formal wig for the wedding, and really, that is the most appropriate thing, do you not think?”

  “I don’t care if I wear the wig or not; I want to wash my hair. My scalp itches.”

  Marianne seemed to think that was funny. “So now you will want to wash it every time it itches?”

  “I’d like to wash it every day, before it even starts. I’d like to take a bath every day, too: a long, hot bath. I think maybe you should, too, Marianne.”

  Marianne threw her hands up to her mouth to stifle her laughter. “If once a day is so beneficial, might not twice a day be even better?”

  “I’m thinking that the entire staff could use a good scrubbing. What do you think, shall we order everyone down to the reflecting pool in the garden and give them a good dunking?”

  The maid just laughed.

  Soon a legion of maids was filing in and out of the chamber, depositing tub, towels, soaps, and bucket upon bucket of steaming water in front of the fireplace. They spread a linen sheet in the tub before filling it with water, draping the white folds over the edges. Elle sipped her tea and watched in awe the womanpower required for a simple act of bathing. She realized rather belatedly that she was not counting on being here past this evening, and wondered what the real Eleanor would think when she came back and found a bath waiting for her every day.

  Marianne and two other maids remained in the room when the tub was full, and Elle watched them patiently, waiting for them to leave. Instead, they just stood there. Two minutes passed, feeling like two hours, before Marianne finally spoke.

  “Miss, the water will not long stay hot.”

  “It rarely does.”

  “No, miss.”

  They looked silently at each other for a long moment. “I, ah, I’m a rather private person,” Elle said.

  Marianne flicked a glance at the other women, back to Elle, then turned to the maids and ordered them from the room. “You can bring the rinse water to the door, and I will take if from there,” she told them. “There now, miss. I could pour some milk in the water, if you like.”

  “To drink?”

  “To obscure the water, miss,” Marianne giggled.

  “Only if you inte
nd to give me biscuits to scrub with.”

  Elle thought that there was still one too many persons present for privacy, but this was obviously the best she was going to get. Besides, there was the matter of rinse water to consider as well, if she truly wished to have clean hair.

  Elle threw off the nightgown she’d been wearing for two days and stepped gingerly into the tub, sinking down into the water with a sigh. The wet linen made a comfortable liner for the tub. She’d just try to ignore Marianne’s presence. She’d close her eyes and pretend she wasn’t going to have to scrub her nooks and crannies under the eyes of another woman.

  Something splashed into the water in front of her, and Elle opened her eyes to see Marianne lathering a sea sponge with soap. The maid then reached into the water and grabbed Elle’s arm, lifting it above the surface, and began to wash it with the rose-scented foam. Elle gaped, and barely stopped herself from jerking her arm away from Marianne’s touch.

  “Marianne,” she said as softly as she could, trying not to show her tension. “Why don’t you have some of that tea? I’ll call you back when I need to wash my hair, and you can help me then.”

  “Oh no, miss, I would not think of it.”

  “Marianne, please. I am not an infant.”

  Marianne stared a moment, then handed Elle the sponge. “As you wish, miss.”

  After the bath, Elle combed out her own hair, bending from the waist and letting it dry a bit in front of the fire. Marianne had brought out the wig she was to wear, and Elle looked at it now from her upside-down perspective. It was an ugly thing, powdered a grayish white, frizzy on top with ringlets down the back and two rows of horizontal curls on either side, above where her ears would be. She had suggested forgoing its use, but when Marianne had let her know that the alternative was to have her own clean hair pomaded and powdered and arranged, the wig had started to look a whole lot better.

  The first thing Elle put on was a long chemise that was identical to the sort that she had been sleeping in. Over that came a set of stays, which Marianne strapped her into with the help of another maid. They pulled steadily on the laces in back, tightening the boned structure until Elle thought her ribs would crack and her breasts spill over the top. They seemed dissatisfied with the results, but could pull the laces no tighter for fear they would break. Elle breathed shallowly and took small steps over to the mirror to see what the contraption had done for her figure.

  Yes, her waist was much smaller than usual, and yes, her breasts were bulging like honeydews above the neckline, but breathing was an agony; she couldn’t raise her arms thanks to the tight shoulder straps, she couldn’t bend at the waist, and her belly was already feeling pinched and tortured.

  Next came a single petticoat, then stockings that were held up by garters tied above the knee. Marianne held up a large sausagelike affair, covered in muslin and tapering at the ends, that she then tied around Elle’s waist, so that the thickest part rested above her derriere. Her butt was not a part of her anatomy Elle had ever wanted to pad for effect.

  She sat on the vanity bench and allowed Marianne to lightly powder her face and apply a touch of color to her lips. With a small brush Marianne subtly darkened Elle’s lashes and brows. Elle looked at the results and wished she had her bag of L’Oreal. She’d spent the last ten years of her life learning how to apply makeup to her best advantage, and now, on her wedding day, she’d have to do more or less without.

  Another maid carried in the wedding gown, cradled carefully in her arms. Marianne clapped her hands together in delight, and Elle could only stare in wonder at the creamy confection of gauze, lace, and muslin.

  The maid laid the gown on the bed, and Elle kept her eyes upon it in the mirror as Marianne set to work confining her hair. How many dress designs had she dreamt of through the years, thumbing through bridal magazines? It seemed like thousands. Well, here was a wedding dress for her, and she was going to be married in it to a man who was a stranger, and there would be a party afterwards attended by people she didn’t know, and she’d be congratulated by family and friends that she’d never seen before and would never see again. All of it had been planned by someone else, and not one choice about the food or music or decorations or entertainment had been hers to make. She wasn’t paying for so much as a miniature quiche. After tonight, even the husband wouldn’t be hers.

  All considered, it was a pretty good deal. Her heart beat with happy excitement.

  In a room at an inn near the church, Henry George Archibald Phillip Trevelyan, the Earl of Allsbrook, dressed without the help of either a man or enthusiasm. His younger brother, Frederick, was sulkily polishing his boots yet another time, his large, poetic brown eyes expressing all the dismay that he had been forbidden to express by mouth. He had been quiet for some five or six minutes now, and a minute more proved unendurable.

  “But why does it have to be her?” he questioned yet again.

  Henry groaned silently. Freddy’s eighteen-year-old heart was a romantic, impassioned relic of another age. He should have been born a hundred years before, when stories of princesses in distress and true love winning the day were all the fashion.

  “I refuse to discuss this any further, Freddy,” he said without a trace of his own inner disquiet.

  “Do you not believe in love? Do you not think you will regret this all the days of your life, as you grow old with a woman you despise?”

  “I do not despise her. She is young and ignorant, as are you. That is no cause to dislike someone but rather a reason to educate them. A tactic that has obviously failed in regards to yourself, I regret to say.”

  “Well, I do not like her.”

  “You have not even met her.”

  “I have heard about her, and that is enough. You know how servants talk. My man Jim has heard plenty since we arrived, and it is very little of it good.”

  “I am glad to hear that you have become so fine in your judgment that actually meeting the accused and forming your own impressions are unnecessary. That is quite an accomplishment.”

  Frederick flushed under the rebuke. “You have met her, and I do not hear you singing her praises. You do not even look happy, on this, your wedding day.”

  “Even if she were the loveliest woman in the country, possessed of the finest mind and the most equable spirit, I do not see how that would alter my mood. Marriage is a practical matter. It is for family and estate that we do it, and I challenge you to find any man, yourself excluded, who would marry for the sheer thrill of it.”

  Freddy put an extra bit of energy into his boot polishing. “You have no heart in you,” he muttered, just loud enough for Henry to hear.

  Henry ignored him, and sat to put on his wig. He was thankful that the hot, itchy things were passing from style. He planned to abolish them entirely from his wardrobe, along with hair powder, just as soon as his own financial well-being was not so dependent upon the opinions of others.

  If his father were not already dead, he reflected for not the first time, he would be sorely tempted to kill him himself for the mess the man had made of the family’s fortunes.

  His one meeting with Eleanor had done little to endear her to him. Or him to her, he imagined. After her vow to make his life miserable, she had proceeded to dig her vicious little tongue into his shame at selling his title for a bride’s riches. It had taken every ounce of self-control to keep his anger from showing, for he had refused to let her provoke him into a reaction. If he controlled himself, he controlled the situation. He had learned that lesson by observing its opposite in his father, and had made it his guiding principle.

  He tried to tell himself now that Eleanor had been tense, had been herself embarrassed at being a tool for her father’s attempts to enter the nobility. There might be a kind woman somewhere under the acid, who would make a passable mother to their children. All he asked for himself was that she behave with civility in public.

  He checked the time on his pocket watch. Eleanor should have received the bridal
gift he had sent her by now. Had she sneered?

  He glanced at Freddy’s mournful face, and his lips tightened imperceptibly. The luxury of sentiment was not his to indulge. Eleanor was suitable in the only respects that mattered: She was rich and young enough to bear his heirs.

  When Elle climbed into the carriage that would take her to the church, she wore around her neck the earl of Allsbrook’s bridal gift, her fingers straying to it at every opportunity. Mrs. Moore had scoffed at its value, remarking that such a small amount of gold, and such minor gems as amber and jade, were hardly befitting a future countess. Elle heartily disagreed, although she did not argue with Mrs. Moore. Instead she insisted upon wearing the filigreed necklace that did not sparkle or shine, but rather glowed with a soft warmth that brought out the green and rich brown in Elle’s eyes.

  Marianne had firmly secured the wig to Elle’s head, yet with every movement it felt as if it would topple to the ground. Elle had never liked the “big hair” look, and powder and flowers did nothing to improve the style. The dress, however, with its tight bodice and sleeves, and skirt that poofed into a gauzy bell over the bustle beneath, was all that she could hope for. The wide sash around her newly slender waist was tinted a pale gold, as were the ribbons on her silk shoes, complementing the lace. The rest of the dress was cream in color, chosen no doubt for the soft effect it had upon her redhead’s complexion. The only element she could have wished different was the airy scarf that was piled in high folds over her bosom, making her look something like a pouter pigeon and obscuring the lovely necklace.

  The carriage started with a soft jolt, rolling slowly away from the house. Mrs. Moore and Marianne accompanied her, the one to see to her emotional well-being, the other to repair any last minute imperfections in her appearance. Elle looked back at the house, newly astonished at its size, and wondered how the lawns were kept so neatly trimmed without benefit of a lawnmower.