I have my own modiste, in the form of Mrs. Miller. She helped me fashion the walking dress earlier, and now she helps me create a costume. What is the base of it? The dress I wore through the stitch.
Mrs. Miller exclaims at the gown after we fetch it from Thorne Manor. It is so bright and colorful, with so many petticoats. It is practically a costume itself, or so it appears to her eighteenth-century eyes. It needs very little work, and so we can focus on the masks.
Yes,masks, as in plural. There is no chance that Nicolas is letting me into Norrington’s house alone. I insist that I wouldn’t be alone—I have the ghost of the former Lord Norrington to guide me. Yet a ghost is hardly a proper guardian, and so Nicolas insists on going.
I may not argue as much as I should. I want him there. The problem is that no costume will fully conceal his skin color, and there are unlikely to be any invited guests who share it. There are, however, a couple of servants who do. When Norrington retired from his admiralty, he brought two men from London. One is of African descent, the other from India. That means Nicolas will not be the only darker-skinned person in the house. With a decent mask and servant attire, if he stays away from the party, guests will mistake him for staff. He just needs to avoid theactualstaff... and Lord Norrington.
It is not a perfect plan, and I do worry, but if we are going to pull this off, we will need to do it together.
While I have beento many balls and parties in my life, very few were in the countryside. I grew up in London, and my social circle is there. The closest a Londoner usually comes to a country party is one held just outside the city, with grounds for perambulation. I might have claimed to have attended the Midsummer Ball at Courtenay Hall, but that is a lie. First, the earl no longer holds it. Second, the earl would never invite the unsuitable sister of his unsuitable sister-in-law. Third, the earl does not even visit Courtenay Hall any longer, having ceded that right to August. I have, however, attended dinner parties there and many picnics—my sister and her husband being very fond of intimate gatherings.
All this is to say that I do not quite know what to expect from tonight’s dance. Also, it is fifty years before any party I have ever attended, and customs will have changed. Nicolas knows no more about Yorkshire country society affairs than I do. Oddly, pirates are rarely invited, even if they come from noble stock.
I do know to expect something less formal than I am accustomed to, and if I did not realize that from Emily’s casual invitation, I know it when I am able to walk up to the door and no one wonders where my coach is. There are costumed guests spilling over the lawn, and none notice my arrival. The sun has already set, and the grounds are dimly lit with lanterns.
In size and grandeur, the Norrington estate is midway between that of the Thornes and that of the Courtenays, and again, this is what I would expect. I believe Lord Thorne would occupy the same social status as Lord Norrington, but Thorne Manor is a country estate. Norrington Hall is a primary residence, and as such, it has a central house and outbuildings set on acres of land where generations of gardeners have fought a losing battle to transform the moors into a proper English lawn.
The house is impressive, and I wonder that I have not seen it on hikes in my time. Has it been torn down? Do the Norrington fortunes evaporate when the current lord is financially destroyed by the very people whose livelihoodshesought to destroy? That would be a delicious twist to the story, but the truth may simply be that I have not spent enough time in this part of the moors to notice the house.
It is a three-story affair of brownish-gray stone set in the shape of anH. A massive drive circles around the front, and every window is alight with candles, flickering in the gathering dark.
I said that no one notices my arrival. That is not entirely true. Emily does. She must be on watch for me because I have barely reached the gathering when she flies from the house.
“Oh!” she says. “That is a lovely costume! I feel quite underdressed.”
I laugh softly. “I believe a traveling minstrel would appear underdressed next to me. I decided that if I was coming to a masquerade, I would make the best of it.”
I swirl, letting my skirts spin around me, and she claps.
“It is beautiful,” she says. “Such bright colors. Wherever did you find them?”
This, I realize, is the true reason why my dress is so much brighter than the current fashion. Not because women here prefer drabber attire, but because they do not yet have the dyes necessary to make the colors that women—and men—in my world prefer.
“That is my secret,” I say, laying a finger to my lips. “However, if you like the dress, I could let you have it afterward. The style is hardly fashionable, but you could use the fabric for bonnets or such.”
She hooks her arm through mine. “You are kind, Miranda, but I would never ask such a thing.”
“Do you think I could wear this dress in London?” I roll my eyes. “No, it is for tonight only, and then you may have it.”
As she leads me into the house, I look around to see I am indeed more elaborately dressed than most. In addition to my unusual nineteenth-century gown, my mask covers most of my face, in hopes that if I do encounter Norrington, he’ll never recognize me. I also have my hair down. Most of the other guests, not quite knowing what to expect from a “masquerade,” have simply paired a normal party dress or jacket with a mask.
Emily wears a gorgeous cream dress with embroidered flowers in rust and orange and green. It’s wide at the hip—a style I’ve only seen in paintings—with a slender bodice and natural waist. She pairs that with a sweeping cape and hood of black lace and a black mask. It is very stylish and flattering.
When Emily says, “Oh! There is my uncle!” my heart gives a stutter, even though I am clearly not the pink-cheeked boy he met with Nicolas.
Norrington is, as Emily said, deep in conversation with other wigged men, as if they are at a business meeting. He isn’t even wearing a mask, unless one counts the stony expression on his face.
“He seems busy,” I whisper as Emily leads me over. “Perhaps later?”
“Nonsense, he will be no less ‘busy’ later... nor tomorrow nor the next day. My uncle lives in a permanent state of busy. Yet he always has time for me.”
She is correct. The moment he sees her, that stone softens, and he even manages something like a smile.
“And here is my dear niece,” he says. “The instigator of tonight’s festivities.”
“Instigator?” Emily says. “That sounds suspiciously like laying the blame, uncle.”
His smile grows a fraction, eyes warming. “Architect, then? Is that better?”