J. Cheney - The Golden City

THURSDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 1902

Lady Isabel Amaral plucked another pair of drawers from the chiffonier and tossed them in her companion’s direction. Oriana caught the silk garment and folded it neatly while her mistress disappeared into the dressing room.

Oriana laid the drawers in a pile with the others, surveyed the collection spread across the bed, and shook her head. Even after two years living among humans she was still bemused by the number of layers a proper Portuguese lady must wear. Chemises and underskirts, drawers and stockings and corsets: they all lay neatly prepared to pack away, none of them meant to be seen. It was a far cry from the comfortable—and less voluminous—garb Oriana had grown up wearing out on the islands that belonged to her people. She rarely noticed her heavy clothes any longer, but seeing all the lace-bedecked items displayed on the bed before her, Oriana found the quantity of fabric in which Isabel swathed herself daily rather daunting.

What was missing? Even with all that lay in front of her, Oriana was sure Isabel had left something out. She puffed out her cheeks, mentally cataloging the garments on the bed.

She wished Isabel hadn’t waited so late to inform her of the plan to elope. If she’d known in advance, she would have packed Isabel’s best clothes neatly. She could even have sent a couple of trunks ahead via train to the hotel in Paris. Being rushed at the last moment was her own fault, though. She’d made her disapproval of the match known early on, and Isabel probably wanted to avoid an argument. But it was also Isabel’s style to wait until the last moment. That made everything more of an adventure.

Unfortunately, adventures didn’t always turn out well . . . particularly if one didn’t have the proper undergarments.

Aha! Oriana suddenly placed the oversight. “You haven’t any corset covers.”

Isabel peered around the edge of the dressing room door and waved one hand vaguely. “Pick some for me. I only need a couple. Marianus will buy me new ones after we’re married.”

Isabel disappeared back into her dressing room, leaving Oriana shaking her head. She had to wonder if Marianus Efisio knew he would be spending the next few weeks shopping. While Isabel’s family possessed aristocratic bloodlines tracing all the way back to the Battle of Aljubarrota, they had very little money. Everything supplied by the various milliners and dressmakers who’d rigged Isabel out in style had been bought on credit. Isabel’s mother was counting on her beauteous daughter’s marriage to a wealthy husband. Luckily, Mr. Efisio did meet that requirement.

Unluckily, he was already promised to another woman: Isabel’s cousin Pia.

It was an arrangement made when he was just a boy and Pia an infant. Even so, it wasn’t fair to simply ignore the arrangement. At any rate, Oriana didn’t think so.

Isabel had waved away Oriana’s concerns, claiming that Mr. Efisio wasn’t suited to Pia’s placid disposition. The elopement would cause a scandal, and Isabel’s rarely present father would be livid. Nevertheless, Isabel’s popularity in polite society would help her survive the disgrace. In time, Mr. Efisio would be forgiven for breaking his betrothal, particularly if Pia were to marry well. He had money, which always seemed to temper society’s disapproval.

Isabel was like a tidal wave, though. She always did as she wished, and the gods would merely laugh at anyone who stood in her way.

Clucking her tongue, Oriana sorted through the contents of the rickety chiffonier’s top drawer and selected the two best corset covers. She’d just laid them neatly on the bed when Isabel emerged from the dressing room, her arms overflowing with skirts and shirtwaists. She dropped them atop the garments Oriana had already folded, and a narrow line appeared between her perfectly arched black brows. “Am I missing anything else?”

“A nightdress,” Oriana answered. She eyed the wreckage of her neatly folded stacks. Isabel probably hadn’t even looked before dumping the clothes she’d carried. Oh, well. There was nothing to do but start over. Oriana nodded briskly and lifted the top skirt off the pile.

A knock came at the door, and she jumped. She instinctively hid her bare hands in the fabric of the skirt. She was usually so careful, but she’d taken off the mitts that normally hid her fingers so she could help Isabel pack. Then she realized she was wrinkling the skirt terribly and forced herself to let it go. She took a calming breath, hoping her voice would sound normal. “Who is it?”

“Adela, Miss Paredes,” one of the maids responded from the hallway. “I have what my lady asked for.”

Oriana cast Isabel a questioning look. What was Isabel plotting?

Isabel hurried to the bedroom door herself. Oriana stayed by the bed and shoved her hands behind her back. Other than Isabel, no one in the Amaral household knew her secret. Oriana wanted to keep it that way.

Her webbed fingers would give her away, and being caught in the city would mean arrest and expulsion, if not worse. They were her great flaw as a spy. She’d finally made the decision to have the webbing cut away, as her superiors insisted, and had planned to take her half day off this weekend to have it done. But Isabel’s sudden decision to elope had fouled those plans. Oriana hadn’t decided if she was vexed . . . or relieved.

Isabel opened the door only wide enough for the maid to pass her something and closed it quickly. She turned back to Oriana, a mischievous grin lighting her face, and held up a pair of maid’s aprons and two crumpled white caps. “See what I have?”

Oriana stood there with her mouth open. Why would Isabel ask for those ?

Isabel rolled her eyes. “A disguise,” she explained. “See? If we wear black, we can put these on over our skirts and we’ll look like housemaids.”

Well, the only thing more scandalous than engaging in an elopement had to be exposure while doing so. The disguise would make the two of them less noticeable at the train station; most people in Isabel’s circles didn’t notice servants. Surely none would comment on a couple of housemaids dragging luggage about for their mistresses, even this late in the evening.

“I understand,” Oriana said, trying for an enlightened expression. The black serge skirt she currently wore would pass for a housemaid’s, but her white cambric shirt and the blue vest wouldn’t. “I’ll need to change my shirt, but it should do.”

Isabel tossed the aprons atop the chiffonier and grinned. “See? It will all work out.”

“I’m certain you’ve planned for everything,” Oriana allowed, inclining her head in Isabel’s direction.

A dimple appeared in Isabel’s alabaster cheek. “When it comes to marriage, one must.”

Oriana laughed softly. Isabel always had a clever retort on her silver tongue, a talent she envied.

She regarded the pile of garments atop the bed and tried to think of the best way to tackle the task ahead of her. An open trunk waited on the old cane-backed settee at the foot of the bed, although she would have to fold and tuck judiciously to get all these garments into it. She would likely have to add a portmanteau as well. Mr. Efisio had gone ahead to Paris, but he had ordered his coach to pick them up no more than a block away. She could carry their luggage to the coach in two trips if needed.