One more this week. Hopefully I will have actual sewing content tomorrow. If you missed the first two parts, click HERE and read from the bottom up, lol
Rita spent most
of the next day in the company of the Queen’s secretary, carefully lettering
the invitations, which would go out by royal courier. Rita enjoyed making the neat rows of script
on the fine parchment paper. It was a
skill she had developed the winter she was twelve, when she was recuperating
from a serious illness. It had helped to
pass the time when she was basically an invalid, but she had since discovered
that it was gratifying to have a skill not common among the queen’s
ladies. She had been excused from her
tutor for at least the next two days, while the invitations were being drawn
up, since there were so many to do and such a short time in which to do
them. However, neither she nor the secretary
could keep it up for hours at a time, so they took frequent breaks to rest their cramping fingers.
The secretary used the break time to tend to some other bit of business
necessary for planning the ball, so Rita was free to do as she pleased for a
little while. It was during one of these
breaks that she found her uncle, the Grand Duke Godfrey, reading in the library
and decided to ask him about Isabella...without actually telling him anything,
of course. He looked up from his book as
she entered and curtsied. “Why, hello
Gwendolyn!” he said cheerfully.
“Hello, Uncle Godfrey.” Rita sat down on the settee opposite
him. “I overheard a name mentioned
sometime yesterday, and it seemed to me that I ought to know who it was...but I
couldn’t place it. I asked Papa about it
last night, and he said I should talk to you. Then, this morning I lettered an invitation
for Lady Alicia Bonstil
Godfrey grimly supplied the name
Rita couldn’t remember. “Eugenia. Two more coldly beautiful girls you’ll not
find anywhere in the kingdom. I suppose
some noble family who has seen their investments go bad will marry off a son to
each of them in an effort to revive the family finances, but I would consider
it a very bad bargain, myself. I think
they’ll find the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Uncle?” Rita was perplexed by what Godfrey was saying
as much to himself as to her. “What do you
mean?”
Godfrey smiled ruefully. “Only that the girls will probably turn out
like their mother and care more for their own personal appearance and comfort
than anything else...but you wanted the story of the family. I imagine you remember hearing the name when
Max died; you were probably about nine.
He was out hunting on a foul, rainy day and somehow the horse slipped
when jumping a fence. Max’s neck was
broken in the fall. I was abroad at the
time and didn’t get back soon enough to attend his funeral or help his daughter.”
Rita’s ears tingled. “Daughter?”
Godfrey sighed. “I suppose I’d better begin at the beginning. Max and I were best friends -- he lived in
the manor house just east of the stables.
Anyway, we went to the Academy together, and I honestly think he was
closer to me than your father at times.
When we grew up, he fell in love with one of my mother’s ladies-in-waiting
and they married. A year or two after
the wedding, he inherited the family estate and he and his wife moved to the
manor house. They had a baby girl about
that time and I was named Godfather.”
Rita inhaled sharply, but her uncle was too engrossed in his story to
notice. “They were very happy for a
while, but then problems -- primarily with his wife’s health -- caused everything
to go downhill.”
“What happened?”
“Well,” Godfrey hesitated, wondering
if the story were inappropriate for the Princess. He chose his words carefully as he
continued. “Max and his wife wanted a
large family, but after the first little girl, all they had was a series of …
miscarriages. Finally, after about five
years, it appeared that they were actually going to have another child. They
were deliriously happy…but there were problems with the birth and the baby, a
boy, was still-born. Max’s wife died two
days later.”
Rita was horrified. “How awful!”
“Max was ripped apart. He’d loved his wife dearly and her death, not
to mention the death of his son, was almost more than he could bear. His little girl, who was the image of her mother,
really saved him. He devoted himself to
her and gradually his grief became something he could live with. He eventually remarried, as he felt his
little daughter needed a mother. His
second wife was the widow of the Flavian Earl of Buckmoore. She had two little girls about Isabella’s
age. I suppose they got along well
enough, but Max was never again the light-hearted friend he used to be. I always felt like he was carrying a burden
he couldn’t share with anyone. I have
wondered often since his death if there was something I could have done to
help.” Godfrey fell into a thoughtful
silence.
“What happened to the little girl?”
Rita queried after a moment or two, trying to sound only mildly curious.
“Well, apparently, she was so
distraught over her father’s death that she ran out of the house when they
brought the body home. It was after
dark, cold and rainy, and they didn’t find her until the next morning. She’d spend the whole night weeping in the
crook of an apple tree in the orchard and was feverish to the point of delirium
when they finally found her. She died
about a week later.”
“She died!” This time Rita was profoundly shocked.
“Yes...it was a terrible pity. Since the family was already in mourning,
they had a small private memorial service.
I heard nothing about the whole sad situation until I returned home,
which was about a month later. Lady
Alicia, being the girl’s next of kin, inherited the entire estate. I must say it has distressed me to see what
has become of it since then, but I have no right to tell them they need to keep
up the estate as Max would have wanted. Lady
Alicia must have a very good business manager, because I don’t see how they are
getting much income from the property.”
He frowned a moment, then continued.
“I was especially sad about his daughter. I guess she was about thirteen or fourteen
when she died…right around your age, in fact.
It seemed like such a waste; if someone had stopped her before she went
out into the weather she would not have fallen ill. Max had even given me some things to keep for
her...now, I don’t know what to do with them.”
“What kind of things?” Maybe she could at least return to Isabella
what was hers...but if Isabella died, then who was the girl she’d talked
to? Could she have been lying? Rita’s head was spinning.
Godfrey looked at Rita a
moment. “I’ll tell you what -- I’ll show
them to you.” He stood up and Rita
accompanied him out the door and down the corridor to the apartment he and his
wife used when they were in court. As
they went, he explained, “There is a portrait, some jewelry and a diary. Max brought them over just before his
marriage...he didn’t think his new wife would appreciate having his first
wife’s picture and things about. He said
he’d given a few things to Isabella, but he wanted this saved for her for
later. He wanted to give her the jewelry
for her sixteenth birthday, and the diary and the portrait were to be wedding
gifts.” As they entered the Grand Duke’s
sitting room, he instructed Rita to wait a moment and disappeared. In a few minutes he re-appeared, carrying a
large velvet-draped rectangle. “This is
the only thing I have accessible, after all.”
He spoke as he carefully unwrapped it, “I don’t even know why I have
kept it here…” He pulled the covering aside and laid the portrait on the
table. “This is the first Lady
The Princess walked around the table
to get a better look, and what she saw shocked her into forgetting her
promise. “Isabella!” she gasped. The lady in the portrait had darker hair, and
blue eyes rather than gray, but otherwise it could have been a painting of
Isabella herself.
Godfrey looked at Rita strangely. “Yes, that was her name, although most people
called her Bella. How did you know?”
Rita was horrified at her slip and
made a supreme effort to control herself, although she wanted nothing more than
to tell her uncle everything she knew. She’d promised, she reminded herself as she
stammered, “I...I...don’t know. Maybe I
heard it when Lord
Godfrey sadly shook his head as he
re-wrapped the portrait. “There’s a name
on the canvas, but it is utterly unknown to me.
Jerome Baltry did a magnificent job, whoever he is and whatever else
he’s done. I suppose I should put the
picture in the art gallery, but since Lady
“I suppose.” Rita was not being honest. Actually, her curiosity was more aroused than
before, but she had to let her uncle think that the matter was closed. “I really just wondered why the name was so
familiar. I think I must barely remember
it from the talk that went around at the time.”
That much, at least, was the truth.
“Thank you, Uncle Godfrey!” Rita
curtsied to him from the door of the library then returned to write out some
more invitations, her head spinning. Her
earlier concern that Isabella was not really Isabella was put to rest when
she’d seen the portrait. Obviously,
Isabella was Bella’s daughter. But, how
did the story get about that Isabella was dead when she was perfectly
fine? How did she stay hidden all this
time? Hopefully, she could sneak off
again tomorrow and get some answers to her questions...the biggest one being
why Isabella was so afraid for Rita to tell anyone about her.
To be continued....
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