Page 25 of The Countess Caper

“Sour cabbage.”

Summer blanched. Tessa blanched right back. They grinned at each other. But the headache powder and the fresh air helped enormously, and Tessa felt nearly well when they started down the street toward the dressmaker’s shop.

Until they saw Mrs. Harris coming toward them, with her tight ringlets and tighter mouth, pursed to disapprove. She wore a day dress that was far too formal and frilly for the warm autumn air and the general mud and dust of a village main street.

Summer groaned. “Not her.”

Mrs. Harris noticed them instantly, as evidenced by the straightening of her posture when she saw Summer and the pinch of her mouth when she spotted Tessa.

“I could very easily throw up my accounts on her very shiny shoes,” Summer muttered. “Just say the word.”

“You’re a duke’s daughter. She’d probably thank you for it.”

Tessa was only a viscount’s daughter and far too scandalous for Fox Hollow. For Mrs. Harris specifically, it had to be said. Her brother’s wife’s cousin had worked at Magpie House for a week and come back with stories about too many ladies and bellies too big for borrowed dresses. They had started hiring family members who could be trusted after that, and making sure the women were hidden away when outside servants had to be brought in. But Mrs. Harris had a long memory and an even longer nose. She had appointed herself the arbiter of good taste and decorum of the village.

“Ladies,” she said. She sniffed in Tessa’s direction.

Tessa smiled. She always smiled. It drove Mrs. Harris to distraction, and at any rate, Tessa could not afford to be seen as any more troublesome than she already was. This, at least, she had been trained for. And she needed to keep her credit at the shops. Mrs. Harris knew everyone in the village, and she liked to wield her presumed power like a hammer. She sniffed again.

Summer’s expression was one of genteel distaste. Subtly devastating. “That is a most unpleasant sound. Are you ill, Mrs. Harris?” she asked. The cameo around her throat hung on a velvet ribbon, a single bright diamond at its crown. Her dress cost more than Mrs. Harris’s entire wardrobe. She might not realize it, but Mrs. Harris certainly did. “Pray, do you have need of a handkerchief?”

Mrs. Harris abruptly stopped scowling suspiciously at Tessa. Her neck flushed. “Oh! No, beg your pardon, Lady Summer.” She touched her nose surreptitiously. She glared at Tessa, trying to regain her mantle of composure. “Fox Hollow has a reputation to uphold, you know, Miss Kilkenny.”

Tessa sighed. Not another lecture. Even her governess had never been as obsessed with propriety. Honestly, Mrs. Harris expected the king himself to visit Fox Hollow.

“That’s Lady Tessa,” Summer corrected her, tone steely.

“Of course, of course. But it’s only I’ve heard about Marigold having her baby.”

“She did,” Tessa replied. “A girl.”

“And where’s her husband, then? You said he was on his way, and that was months ago. Surely he’ll come now.”

“I’m afraid he cannot.”

“I knew it!” Mrs. Harris crowed, smug and all but shaking with her need to spread the gossip. She motioned to her friend and fellow gossip, Miss Tottenham, who was even now hanging out of her second-floor window, pretending to shake out a rug but clearly trying to hear every word.

“We can’t have women like her,” Mrs. Harris continued, raising her voice. “It’s not proper.” She turned to Miss Tottenham, who had all but thrown herself from her house and lunged across the street. Her apron fluttered behind her. “Marigold’s gone and had her baby,” Mrs. Harris announced. “A bastard. As we suspected.”

Miss Tottenham’s gasp was entirely expected and pure theatrics.

Tessa might have laughed, but they could not afford this kind of scrutiny. Someday a gentleman would come riding through the village searching for a woman who did not want to be found, and Mrs. Harris would send him directly to Magpie House. Tessa would not have it.

“She is not a bastard,” she said through her teeth. “She’s a baby.”

“Where’s the father, then? Where’s this husband?” Mrs. Harris demanded.

“Dead,” Tessa said bluntly.

“A likely story.”

“His body was only just recovered,” Tessa elaborated. She thought of the broken emu, of too much wine, of a safe house where such things were safe. “Without his head. Bloated by the sea. It was quite gruesome.”

Mrs. Harris recoiled. “Goodness!”

Tessa was wondering how many grisly details she might conjure up when Summer added, “He was fighting the French.” She lowered her voice as if the French might be lurking behind the next fence post. “Terribly heroic. And tragic.”

“Oh, I see.”