Then, the spell seemed to be broken. It made Edwin sad, but he knew that this moment could not last forever. It came suddenly, and it caught him by surprise. He welcomed its appearance nonetheless, despite the knowledge that it was all too fleeting.
“Well, I’d best head back inside,” she said, still with that flicker of a smile on her face.
“Of course,” he nodded. He regretted putting her in this risky situation of being unchaperoned with a gentleman, but at the same time, he relished the precious time they had together. He was certain that she was a lady unlike any other he had met. A part of him wished to see her again, but he was caught up in the momentum of things occupying his life right now. He had no time for courting. It would be unfair to her.
“Good night,” she told him, her lips widening into a proper smile this time. Her eyes sparkled even more now as if filled with some inner light she had revealed only to him right now.
“Good night,” he smiled back.
She turned to go then stopped. When their eyes locked, she made him a promise. “Your secret is safe with me, Edwin.”
With those words, she tiptoed back into the house, disappearing from sight. The sound of his name on her lips inflamed him. It awakened passions he thought were long buried and forgotten under the burden of finding his sister. But they were there. They had awakened. And he feared it would be a difficult task to put them back to sleep again.
CHAPTER3
“Susannah?” Lydia called out to her lady’s maid that evening as Susannah was combing her hair, preparing her mistress for bed. She gave her one ofthoselooks. Lydia knew that Susannah would recognize exactly what was expected of her. No words of explanation were necessary. The plan for that evening was more than obvious.
“You can braid my hair in the back,” Lydia instructed. “I want to be as simple as possible. Nothing convoluted. Also, if you would be so kind as to bring me your blue dress from last time, the one with the roses. I really liked that one. It is so comfortable for dancing!”
Susannah smiled. Lydia smiled in return, taking her friend’s hand into her own. “You have no idea how much I appreciate your willingness to cooperate with me in my shenanigans,” she chuckled. That was what Susannah and she always called their adventures.
“You know, in all the years of me working as a servant girl, which I’m counting now more than ten, I never had such a strange request,” Susannah expressed her surprise as many times before. “Not that I mind, My Lady. It is, in fact, nice to see someone wanting to be an ordinary woman instead of it being the other way around.”
“This is all sometimes suffocating,” Lydia admitted, looking around at nothing in particular, “but I am grateful for it all, nonetheless. I simply like to live outside the confines of this house.”
The rest of the house was sound asleep. Lydia had started sleeping in her own chamber years ago, leaving Anna and Selina in another to keep each other company while she herself got some respite from everyday obligations. That privacy was also rather beneficial when it came to Lydia’s nightly wanderings as she liked to refer to them.
“You know,” Lydia remembered, “I will never forget the first time I explained what was required of you.” They both chuckled. “You could not understand why I wanted to dress as a commoner, make my hair in that same manner, and go out to a tavern where I would be treated as any other commoner.”
“I honestly could not, My Lady.,” Susannah admitted, amused by this reminiscence.
“You see, for someone like me, it made perfect sense. Every single hour of every single day requires of me to be prim and proper. My own behavior always needed to be a guide for the behavior of my sisters. That means if I were to make any mistakes in behavior and decorum, my sisters would follow suit, and I could not have that.” She paused to sigh heavily then she continued, “It is very difficult to appear constantly proper, to perpetually speak and act in the right manner.”
“And when you are a commoner, you do not need to be any of these things,” Susannah added.
“I could be someone else,” Lydia agreed. “During these outings, Lady Lydia Lambert does not exist any longer. She is asleep in her chamber. The Lydia that is out there is someone else entirely, someone who does not need to think about manners and decorum, someone who could watch people live completely differently from her, simply and without the restraints of polite society that I feel are strangling me like a noose.”
“You know I will always be there for you, whatever it is you wish to do, My Lady,” Susannah smiled, and Lydia felt overwhelmed to have someone by her side in her adventures. After all, going through them alone would not be even half the fun, and it might even be dangerous as well.
That night, like all those nights before, Lydia and Susannah snuck out of the house, making sure that no one noticed their departure. They could never use their own carriage for these purposes. Lydia could not trust one of their footmen with this secret. She was already forced to place her trust in Susannah. That was one person, but more than one would mean that a secret was not as safe. Lydia would worry that one of them might mention something unintentionally to her father, who would probably have a heart attack to learn what his eldest daughter had been up to behind his back! Lydia generously wanted to save him from the burden of that knowledge.
At first, Susannah felt uneasy about all this, but slowly, she learned to enjoy it as well. Lydia felt unrestrained. She could converse with people. She could laugh with them. She could dance to her heart’s content, and no one would be any the wiser.
Upon entering the tavern, Lydia was washed over with the rowdy sounds of song and merry laughter. Everywhere she looked, she could not recognize a single face. It made her even more comfortable. She ordered two drinks for them and immediately started to dance. A few men were giving her interested glances, but she was never afraid when she was in a tavern. Lydia had learned not to return those gazes, and it quickly proved to the men that she was not interested in them but rather in dancing and having fun.
However, sometimes it happened that there was someone who did not understand such subtle hints, and Lydia had to be more vocal about it. When a man approached her while she was dancing, she smiled back politely but tried not to engage in either dancing or conversing with him. However, he was resolute to exchange a few words with her. He leaned closer to her, and she could smell beer on him.
“Oy, luv,” she heard him say, drawling out the words. “Fancy a dance wif me?”
“Thank you,” she smiled, trying not to get too close to him as he had already tried to put his arms around her. “I’m here with my friend, and I wouldn’t want to lose sight of her.” That was the first thing that popped to mind. She could not very well refuse him outright. It would be rude. It might also be dangerous. She did not know what sort of a man he was. It was best to always deny people’s wishes in the gentlest manner possible.
“I can ‘andle two of yah,” he told her with a lewd look in his eyes, after which he laughed loudly.
Just when she was about to tell him that she was not interested, another woman came up and pulled the man by the arm.
“Come nah, Tim, leave the girls alone, will ya?” The lady gave Lydia an understanding look, and Lydia smiled.
“I was just…” the man started, but the woman, who was obviously his sister or perhaps a good friend but not his wife, kept pulling him away good-humoredly, telling him it was not nice to accost young ladies in such a manner.