Page 36 of An Ill-Made Match

“Just a minute, my lady,” said Martha who was tying the laces. “I’ll be with you presently. Just let me secure this. We don’t want your dress falling off you in mixed company.”

“No indeed,” agreed Eden fervently. “But I’m a little worried that it’s gaping at the front.”

Martha moved around to her front. “Where?” she said. “It’s supposed to be like that…” Then her eye seemed to catch something, and she placed a finger to her lips.

Eden looked down and realized the servant must have noticed the unsightly rash. “What can I do?” she asked despairingly.

“Never fear,” said Martha. “I shall fetch you some rosehip oil. ‘Twill soon soothe it.”

“Really?”

“Don’t move a muscle.” She hurried out of the door and Eden crossed to the small mirrored glass, trying to crouch down to view the offending area. There was far too much of it on display. And it was still blotchy and pink. Eden groaned. The low neckline was not scooped, but began from her half-exposed shoulders, so it wasn’t like she could try and add in a modesty panel of some kind. She turned this way and that trying to catch a glimpse of what the wretched dress looked like on her, but the small rectangle of glass did not allow much of a view.

The door opened again, and Martha held up a small glass vial. “I have it,” she said. “This will soon calm your sensitive skin. You apply it while I arrange your hair,” she suggested, and Eden sat on a low stool.

“As a bride, it might be nice to wear it loose?” suggested Martha, running the comb through Eden’s black hair.

“Certainly not,” said Eden firmly. “I was married some four days ago now.”

“Wedding feasts are known to go on as a long as a sennight,” the maid pointed out.

“Not mine,” retorted Eden, her cheeks pinkening as she remembered the hurried ceremony followed by the subsequent flight of disgrace from Hallam Hall. She shivered slightly.

“It’s nice and sunny outside,” Martha assured her. “A fine day for it.”

Eden looked down and started rubbing the oil into the pink rash across her chest. “How soon before it starts to work?” she asked.

“Depends,” admitted Martha with a shrug, her quick fingers braiding a coronet in Eden’s hair. “It’s different on different folks. But my sister, she swears by it. Her Jed has a great stubbly chin, wreaks havoc on her skin, it does.”

Eden’s face turned redder, realizing Martha knew the cause of her rash. “I see. Thank you, Martha.”

“You can keep it,” the maid continued as Eden set the small bottle down. “Unless he grows his beard out longer, it’ll likely happen again.”

“He said he’ll have a care in future,” Eden rejoined, without thinking.

“Did he, by gods?” Martha sounded impressed. “Well, that’s gentlemanly of him. But I’d take it all the same, if I was you. They have these intentions, the menfolk,” she said complacently. “But then the mood takes ‘em and they’re more beast than man.”

Eden felt her face must be glowing like a beacon by now. “Thank you, Martha, you may be right,” she said in a stifled voice.

“You’m very welcome, my lady.”

**

Fortunately, Gunnilde Payne was hovering at the foot of the stairs waiting for her.

“Oh, don’t you look pretty!” her new friend cried, clapping her hands together with delight.

“I feel rather uncomfortable out of my customary black,” Eden confessed in an undertone. “Are you sure I don’t look a sight?”

“Oh, quite sure!” responded Gunnilde with admiration. “If I looked like that, I would expire of happiness on the spot! You look like a faery princess!”

Eden was a little taken aback at such effusive praise. “That is very kind of you to say,” she ventured uncertainly. A faery princess? She glanced at Gunnilde’s happy face wreathed in smiles, and noted, not for the first time that her friend was a little fanciful.

“Shall you take a little something to break your fast now?” her friend asked, gesturing toward the main hall where even now Eden could hear the murmur of conversation and the clatter of plates and cups.

She shook her head. “I’m not at all hungry.”

“There will be pastries and such brought out in an hour or so, in any case,” Gunnilde said reassuringly and Eden linked her arm through hers. “Shall we go forth?”