Read Online Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] by Dangerous Angels - Free Book Online

said firmly. “Once our girls know the rules and have shown they can abide by them, and once I know they take well to stitching, then perhaps. Until then, it is not so good for them always to be shifting from Papa and Mama to Angelique.”
    “I see.”
    “Go away now, Jenifry. I shall speak with you when Miss Tarrant has gone.”
    Jenifry blanched again, and Letty said quietly, “Perhaps she could select some black ribbons for me, Cousin Charley, while Madame Angelique assists you.”
    Charley said, “That’s an excellent notion. Lady Letitia will need several widths, I think, Angelique. Sash lengths, and for her hats—and black gloves, as you suggested. She requires only one mourning dress, however, to wear the day of the funeral. No one expects to see a child rigged out like a baby raven for months on end, thank heaven, and gray is one of her favorite colors. She will have plenty of suitable outfits if the trimmings are altered.”
    “As you say, mademoiselle. Now, as to yourself, perhaps I might suggest …”
    Charley allowed herself to be drawn away then, but after making her selections and before arranging for payment, she said quietly, “I hope you were not intending to punish Jenifry too harshly merely for coming to ask you a question.”
    “She will be soundly whipped,” Angelique said uncompromisingly. “My girls have strict orders never to enter the shop. She must learn to obey my rules, miss.”
    “Nevertheless, Angelique, I would take it kindly if you were to let her off with a scolding this time. I could not, in good conscience, continue to patronize a shop where a child from Tuscombe Park is harshly used. Much as I should dislike having to travel all the way to Bodmin or St. Austell …” Pointedly, she let her words trail to silence.
    Angelique nodded. “It shall be as you wish, mademoiselle, certainly.”
    Having arranged for delivery the following day of two gowns suitable for deep mourning, and a few accessories, Charley and Letty took their leave.
    “How glad I am that I had this black habit made for me in London,” Charley said. “Now that Kerra has removed the pink epaulettes and piping, and replaced the mother of pearl buttons with jet, it is perfectly suitable. Oh, but how vexatious! Dewy the Baker’s shop is closed now. I wanted to buy you a special Cornish treat.”
    “Thank you, but I don’t feel like enjoying a treat right now, in any event,” Letty said. She remained silent after that until they had left the cobblestones and the resulting clatter of hoofbeats behind them. Then she said fiercely, “I am very grateful to have been born a Deverill, believe me!”
    “I suppose you are thinking of Jenifry. I have known her since she was born, you know. Their cottage is on the edge of the moor near the river. I used to ride up there and play in a pool nearby. In fact, her father, Cubert, taught me to swim.”
    “Papa taught me,” Letty said. “Cousin Charley, do you know that awful woman beats the girls who work for her? Not just when they are naughty but for setting stitches too far apart or for getting a fingerprint on the material. Jenifry says she makes them pick up their skirts behind and takes a switch to their bare legs. If she complains to her husband about them, their punishments are even worse.”
    “Good mercy,” Charley said.
    “Jenifry and Bess are the only ones left to do the work right now, too. There was another girl, but I think she must have run off. I don’t think Jenifry was supposed to tell me about her,” she added thoughtfully. “She kept darting looks at her mistress while we talked, and that was one of the times Angelique looked back. Jenifry didn’t say another word, except about ribbons.”
    “I’m sure it is a hard life,” Charley said, “but if Jenifry learns the business from Angelique, one day she may have a shop of her own. She might even go to a bigger town—even London—and make her fortune. It’s too bad she angered her mistress