The ladies had prepared as best they could. Menus were planned that wouldn’t involve frequent trips to market; a little library of books and games, like Spillikins and decks of cards, were collected and installed in rooms, and embroidery silks and yarn and oil pastels were stockpiled in case a guest wished to pass the time knitting or drawing.
Such had been the steadily gathering tension at The Grand Palace on the Thames, Captain Hardy had taken to mostly speaking in tense monosyllables even to his wife, as if to offset the relentless vigor of the German boys. And he was never loquacious at best. Delilah could scarcely bear it.
So Angelique and Delilah went after the drafts the way Gordon, their fat, striped cat, went after mice, because moisture was the cancer of an old building like The Grand Palace on the Thames,and it was one of the few things they currently could control. Mr. Pike, their prized new footman, had been so helpful in that regard. But he, too, needed to be fed, and male servants were taxed.
When the first raindrops finally began to fall it was almost a relief, and Angelique and Delilah looked up alertly at the familiar and portentous sound of Dot scrambling up the stairs and set aside their mending as she burst breathlessly into the room.
“We’ve visitors who would like to let a suite.”
“A suite!” said Delilah. “Well then. What are they like, Dot?”
“She is a lady. And he is a pirate.”
She gazed at them with a look of happy expectation.
Delilah and Angelique exchanged glances.
“Dot,” Angelique began carefully. “Are you certain you aren’t confusing the two of them with the story Mrs. Pariseau read in the sitting room the other night?”
“She is a lady.” Dot, the former worst lady’s maid in the world and current cherished-if-occasionally-bewildering member of the staff, was a trifle indignant. She did know her ladies from her not-ladies. “She talks just like you and Mrs. Durand, elegant, like.” She liltingly imitated them. “Her cloak is good wool, but not in the first stare of fashion. Her shoes are well made but the toes are worn and she has all of her teeth and a nice smile. But she’s very pale and her eyes are like this.” She bracketed her own with her fingersand stretched her lids to illustrate someone who looked as though they’d had a tremendous surprise. “And he is a pirate,” she concluded firmly.
Delilah heard Angelique draw in a long, audible breath. As if she hoped if she sucked in enough air she’d find some nourishing patience somewhere in it, the way a whale took in krill.
Dot fanned out a hand and with the other counted out qualities on her fingers. “He is wearing a gold earring. And I think there's a ruby in it! An earring! I ask you! His hair isthislong”—she pointed to a place below her ear—“and it’s black as a raven’s wing! His teeth are bright. He is enormous.” Enormous was a word she’d lately taken to using as often as possible. “Black as a raven’s wing” she’d absorbed from one of the Horrid novels they’d read aloud in the sitting room at night. “And...” She paused, to heighten the sense of drama. “He has a scar from here”—she slowly drew it with her fingertip along her own face—“to here.”
They had to admit, their potential new guest sounded somewhat piratical. It wasn’t out of the realm of the possible, given that their pristine little boardinghouse was located near the docks. Even pirates had to disembark their ships sometimes.
She paused. “He seems pleasant, however,” she added, dubiously. “Pirates aren’t usually, are they?”
Angelique furrowed her brow. “Hmm. Did you inspect him for parrots, Dot, or wooden limbs?”
“No,” Dot admitted, dejectedly.
“And they’re a married couple?” Delilah wasalready untying her apron and smoothing her skirts in preparation for going downstairs.
“Well... she’s a lady alone with a man late at night and she said ‘we are looking for rooms.’ And I told them we had a suite of rooms available and it was dear, and they said ‘that will do.’”
Dot was hardly entirely naive. But neither Angelique nor Delilah wanted to enlighten her as to the variety of interesting reasons a Lady with a capital “L” might be compelled to take a room with a pirate for just the night. Most of those reasons did notquitealign with their vision for The Grand Palace on the Thames. Every now and then a man brandishing a crumpled, yellowing menu of prurient services would appear at the door and request the Vicar’s Wheelbarrow. He would be sent packing with an admonishment toread the sign. Granted, the building’s past did still haunt the sign in the form of a single word: “rogues,” still faintly visible behind the elegantly lettered “The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Well, we’ll just go and have a chat with them, shall we? Will you bring in tea?” Angelique hung her apron on the hook near the door.
Usually this request prompted Dot to hop delightedly and bolt back down the stairs.
She remained rooted in place.
Angelique’s and Delilah’s eyebrows launched in tandem.
“Before we go down...” Dot took a deep breath. “I’ve something unfortunate to tell you.”
Delilah and Angelique said not a word to each other. Nor did they meet each other’s eyes.
The silent words “Oh, God” throbbed in the air.
“Very well,” Angelique finally ventured.
“It gives me no pleasure to report it,” Dot warned somberly.
“You can tell us anything, Dot,” Delilah said gently as Angelique’s eyes flared a caution at Delilah. In truth, neither of them was certain they could withstand hearing all of Dot’s thoughts. It would be like taking all the medicines in Mr. Delacorte’s case. Hallucinatory. Headache-inducing. One might never be the same after.