Read Online The Alchemist's Daughter by Eileen Kernaghan - Free Book Online Page B

tugging at the edges of Alice’s mouth, was quickly suppressed. “The cook did speak of it to the head gardener,” she admitted, “and I couldn’t help but overhear.”
    â€œIndeed,” said Sidonie. “Well, no doubt I will soon be the subject of merriment for three counties round.”
    The little servant gave her a puzzled glance.
    â€œI meant,” said Sidonie, “for being so foolish, as to be taken in by a rogue’s trick.”
    â€œOh never say you are foolish, mistress,” protested Alice. “My own aunt on my mother’s side, who is a woman of great sense and good judgment, once gave a shilling she could ill afford out of pity for a clapperdudgeon, who had rubbed ratsbane into his own flesh so as to cover himself all over with fearsome sores . . . and here is your chamber, mistress,” she added, scarcely pausing for breath.
    The bedroom was filled with a delicious confusion of smells. Lavender-scented steam rose from a large wooden tub set before the hearth. Applewood crackled on the fire and on a low chest, musk burned in a censer.
    â€œYour bath is ready,” said Alice, “and I have set your night-things out.”
    Sidonie undressed to her smock and handed Alice her mud-stained, dusty garments. She picked up a ball of rosemary-scented soap, dropped her smock to the floor, and sank into the bathwater with a sigh of content. She felt as pampered as a queen.
    While Sidonie scrubbed away the grime of her journey, Alice busied herself arranging tooth-cloth and soap on the enamelled washstand, and silver-backed ivory combs on a chest. Then she helped Sidonie wash her hair.
    Sidonie leaned back against the side of the tub and gazed curiously around the room, much of which was taken up by a four-poster bed with a fringed valance and a painted headboard, across which nymphs and shepherds frolicked in a summer wood. The silk coverlet was periwinkle blue, and the hangings, edged with silver embroidery, were the deeper blue of the evening sky. The chamber was furnished as well with an ebony and silver writing table, two chairs covered in rose damask, a low chest inlaid with pearl and another with marquetry, and a rosewood chest of drawers. This was a bedchamber fit for a princess of the realm, not plain Sidonie Quince of Charing Cross.
    â€œCome, mistress, the water is growing cool.” Alice had set out a linen towel, a pair of house-slippers, a clean smock embroidered in coloured silks, and a velvet-lined blue silk dressing gown trimmed with silver lace. “If you are finished bathing I will dry your hair and comb it for you.”
    Sidonie, slippered and smock-clad, sat down obediently beside the fire. What luxury is this , she thought, as Alice rubbed her hair with a towel and patiently combed the tangles out. She tried to imagine such attentions at the hands of sharp-tongued, slapdash Emma.
    â€œIs the household in mourning still?” asked Sidonie by way of conversation, while Alice struggled with an obstinate knot.
    â€œIndeed yes, mistress. Alas, poor Lady Mary, it is not twelve months since Sir Philip was slain in the Netherlands. She lost her mother, her father and her brother all in the span of a year.” The tangle was at last subdued and Alice waved her comb in triumph. “Such a high-spirited lady she was, and she and her brother as close as peas in a pod, and now she is so weighed down by grief that all the light has gone out of her face.”
    â€œThen surely, Alice . . . she may not look kindly on unexpected guests.”
    â€œOh, fie, mistress, you must not worry on that account. Wilton House is always full of friends, and relatives, and visitors, and all manner of guests. They are often as not two score at table, and it is hard to tell who is family and who is not.” She gave a small cluck of satisfaction. “There, now you are properly combed, do you put on your dressing gown, and I will go see if cook has your