Page 18 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

“You still plan to accompany us to Devon after Christmas?”

“Naturally.” The painting opportunities at the Thornhills’ remote cliffside abbey were too plentiful to miss. Teddy intended to devote the entirety of the visit to working on his seascapes.

Afterward, he, Laura, and Alex were slated to travel back to London together, where they would spend the next several weeks visiting Tom and Jenny Finchley before boarding a steamer to Calais.

“I’ll stay with you in Half Moon Street while I make my arrangements,” he said. “I’ll speak to Laura then, before the two of you return to France.”

Alex’s expression was dubious. “After which you expect she’ll be content to just…leave you here alone?”

Teddy forced a smile. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have Jennings.”

The manservant chose that moment to emerge from the dressing room. He had Teddy’s easel in hand. “Here it is.”

“Splendid,” Teddy said. “You may carry it down, along with the rest of these supplies. Then you may come back for my chair.”

“And then for you, sir?”

Teddy repressed a burst of impatience. By God, how he’d come to loathe his dependence! The fact that his body couldn’t keep pace with the vigorousness of his mind. The fact that, absent his chair, he was wholly reliant on those around him. On Jennings. On Alex. On any servant strong enough to convey Teddy’s uncooperative body from one place to another.

Try as he might, yearn as he did, freedom seemed to be forever just out of his reach. Freedom of movement. Freedom to make his own decisions. Freedom to paint the lady he longed to paint.

But no longer.

Henceforth, he was determined to take hold of the helm and steer his own course.

“Yes, Jennings,” he said levelly. “And then for me.”

Stella sat on the tufted velvet bench in front of the carved mahogany dressing table in her room as Anne’s French lady’s maid, Jeanette, combed out her hair. Anne had been generous enough to lend Jeanette’s services to Stella before the Christmas Eve dance tonight, just as she had before the ball two nights before. Unlike Anne, Stella didn’t have a maid of her own. When at home with her brother, she relied on one of the housemaids to assist her with her toilette.

“Mon dieu,” Jeanette muttered as she attempted to get a blunt-toothed tortoiseshell comb through Stella’s unusually sticky locks.

Unbound, Stella’s hair reached nearly to her waist. It was normally thick and glossy, and shining with good health. If not for its natural gray color, it would have been considered her crowning glory. But not today. Not even with its new golden auburn hue.

Stella met the maid’s frustrated eyes in the dressing table mirror. “Is it dreadfully tangled?”

“It’s the bandoline, miss,” Jeanette said. The maid had used the clear liquid gum solution to set Stella’s coiffure on the night of the opening ball. It had left an unfortunate residue behind that had only worsened over the passing days.

There was but one way to be rid of it.

“Have we time to wash my hair before dinner?” Stella asked. “And, more importantly, to dry it?”

Jeanette looked at the mantel clock with a frown, appearing to perform a swift mental calculation. She nodded. “Yes, miss. Shall I call for hot water?”

“If you please,” Stella said.

In the ordinary course of events, she washed her hair but rarely. It wasn’t often necessary. Neither was it convenient. Washing one’s hair in a basin was a tedious business that took more time than a young lady could spare during the season. Indeed, it had been many weeks since Stella’s hair had last seen soap and water. But not ten minutes later, she stood in front of the wash basin, head bent over the bowl, while the maid lathered her wet hair with a bar of lilac perfumed toilet soap.

When Jeanette was finished, she rinsed the suds with warm water from the pitcher.

Stella raised a hand to her head. Her hair was still sticky. “Another good soaping, I think,” she suggested.

“Yes, miss.” Jeanette added another liberal application of toilet soap. This time she scrubbed twice as long.

Stella squeezed her eyes shut to protect them from the stinging lather. She was relieved when she felt the next deluge of warm water cascade over her hair. Until she heard Jeanette’s gasp of horror.

“Oh, miss! I didn’t mean to!” the maid cried, backing away. “I was only doing what you told me!”

Stella jerked her head up in swift alarm. “What is it? What’s happened?”