Chapter Text
Well, thought Edith with a disapproving sniff, Cora Delacourt was a hussy and there was no denying it.
Cora had been flaunting those irritatingly perfect breasts around all weekend. If they were held in place by anything more substantial than hopes and wishes it was more than Edith hoped for herself and she was quite sure that Cora's collar was getting lower and her cleavage growing deeper with every hour. Edith had no doubt whatsoever that Cora knew exactly what she was doing, leaning over with that little pout she made when she was trying to be enticing, and almost spilling them both right into the lap of that detestable Lord Pomeray. And he wasn’t the only one. Oh no. Cora wasn’t limiting herself to one target. She would swear to it that Cora had flirted with every man here. She must be on the prowl for a husband. Edith knitted furiously, the needles stabbing through the wool of the shawl she was making.
What was undoubtedly the most infuriating thing about the whole business was that Cora had seen Edith looking. From Cora’s raised eyebrow and pert little smile, Edith was sure that Cora had quite mistakenly thought she was taking in the view rather than (as was obviously the case) staring in shock and disapproval at such indiscretion.
Cora had never been discrete. They’d only crossed over for one year at Miss Salmon’s finishing academy for young ladies but Edith couldn’t help remembering the older girl. She’d been a tearaway then as well. A fact that Edith steadfastly refused to smile at reminiscently. If she wasn’t sneaking off to meet God knew who after hours, stealing treats from the pantry and organising elicit midnight feasts and getting into all sorts of misadventures whenever they trooped into the village for weekly church, Cora was holding court with a group of the older girls and setting the whole room alight with her bewitching smile. Although that, of course, was nonsense. One did not set rooms on fire with facial expressions. Smiles had no magical powers. It was all a matter of muscles and nerves and teeth and lips and quite physical things. It was a most illogical figure of speech. Edith stabbed at her knitting. Exasperated she realised that she’d thrown a stitch and looked up to glare malevolently at the cause of her distraction. Just at that moment, Cora raised her head and met her eye. A smile flickered barely across her face. Insufferable woman.
Perhaps no-one else would have been able to see it but Edith had spent many misbegotten hours gazing shyly and surreptitiously at that face and there wasn’t an expression she wasn’t familiar with. She’d deny it, of course, if questioned. She’d even make a damn good go at denying it to herself. She pointedly looked away and turned her attention to her knitting.
‘It looks dead,’ came a laughing voice from beside her moments later. The faint smell of lavender and thyme filled Edith’s nostrils.
‘What?’ said Edith, her tone exasperated. She had no idea why, or even how, Cora had suddenly materialised beside her and she certainly had no idea what she was talking about. She was also suddenly, alarmingly aware that companions who had been generously invited to accompany their mistresses to Christmas house parties were really not supposed to glare at invited guests.
‘Whatever that monstrosity is that you’re making, Edith,’ said Cora lightly, running her hand over the alarming mix of green, orange, red and purple blobs on the shawl in Edith’s lap. ‘I’m sure even a boar wouldn’t take that much stabbing to take down.’
‘Oh, so you remember my name, do you?’
Edith was annoyed with herself as soon as the words left her mouth. She’d been piqued and, although she wouldn’t admit it, hurt when Cora had first arrived at the house party, blanked her and allowed herself to be introduced as to a perfect stranger complete with limpid and indifferent handshake. She’d expected at least the niceties of civil disinterest for a former schoolfellow. When she had received nothing of the sort, she’d responded in kind with the schooled indifference of the hired companion and faded into the background. She’d be damned if she let Cora know she cared in the slightest that she was unremembered or, even worse, deemed no longer worthy of recognition. Well, that’s what she’d promised herself as she had fumed in her bed that night. But here she was, as soon as she opened her mouth to talk to Cora, wearing her feelings pinned to her sleeve in colours as bright, vibrant and frankly embarrassing as those of the hideous shawl.
She watched a shadow of what half-seemed apology cross Cora’s face but her mouth was still smiling, ‘Of course. I’ve been introduced to you at least five times already.’
She left a pause, leaving space for a reciprocating smile but Edith’s moment of weakness had passed and she gazed back, her face shut and schooled into a mask of positively bovine indifference.
Cora sighed a little and rolled her eyes. Edith thought that was a bit rich. She wasn’t the one flaunting herself around house parties, ignoring old friends and throwing her charms at everyone within sight. ‘Of course, I remember you, Edith. How am I forget my partner in crime on that notable night of the great pie robbery or my second in that dashed dancing duel of honour with whatever that sniff-necked girl’s name was…’ Her face crinkled in the effort to remember. Edith offered no help. ‘The thing is, Edith, the story I’ve given doesn’t include any time at Miss Salmon’s.’
Edith put her knitting down on her lap. Curiosity had always been her besetting sin. Well, one of them. Her mind offered her the intoxicating picture of Cora leaning over her as she had done with Lord Pomeray, closing the distance, touching those soft lips to hers as her own hands rose to free those perfect breasts… She shook her head. Not the time! She could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks and hoped that Cora wouldn’t notice. She pointed brusquely to a chair next to her own.
‘Won’t you be seated?’ She met Cora’s eyes, which looked all too speculative for her liking as they took in Edith’s face. She harrumphed. ‘You can’t really expect me to not want an explanation after that, can you. I think, dear Miss Trimble, that I have been very forbearing so far.’
Cora took her seat. She chuckled. ‘Yes, rather thought it was all blown out of the water when I arrived and saw you standing like a mouse in the shadows. But you took the Miss Harriet Trimble like a champ and I remembered that you’d always been a true heart. Thought I’d risk it and not cut and run quite yet.’
‘I’m flattered.’
Cora laughed. ‘No, you’re not but no matter. Look, I can’t talk to you now. I have to go and throw these charms in the odious Pomeray’s face again.’
‘And it wouldn’t do to be seen hobnobbing with the help,’ interjected Edith, a little bitterly. Screw discretion and dignity.
Cora looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘I don’t know what you think I want Pomeray for, love, but it’s not social-climbing. I assure you. I’d rather no-one asked inconvenient questions about how we know each other. And walls do proverbially have ears you know. Look, come to my room tonight. West wing. Second room on the right. I don’t expect any visitors this evening and I can offer a little explanation.’
Edith was undecided for all of a second. The life she led was filled with a complete absence not only of excitement but of anything whatsoever in the remote region of interesting. Scandalous women with obvious secrets and midnight assignations were a far too tempting diversion. She nodded and Cora smiled in response. Standing up, she took a piece of the shawl between thumb and forefinger, letting her thumb casually rest against Edith’s own. She leaned over, as if to inspect it, and with a laugh rippling through her voice. ‘My dear, before I go, you really must explain this.’ Before Edith could reply, Cora had leaned in closer and her lips almost touching Edith’s ear, she whispered, ‘I always thought you had impeccable taste.’
Edith gulped. She concentrated on the shawl, pointedly ignoring the tempting vision hovering so close. Daydreams coming half to life was really a little much for a rainy afternoon with no warning. ‘Mrs Hardthrastle,’ she said. ‘She designed it. I’m making it.’ She was proud of herself. She thought her tone had definitely been somewhere in the remote region of normal.
Edith felt Cora’s ready smile against her ear and then Cora was standing up and she was freed from the haze of warmth and lavender and longing that had briefly enclosed her. Cora raised her voice so as to be heard now, ‘So clever. Mrs Hardthrastle really does have an excellent eye for these things. I must ask her to design something for me!’ With a trilling laugh, she turned away and returned to the thick of the party, doing an excellent impression of a society lady who’d taken pity on a drab of a companion and was happy to escape. Edith almost believed it herself.