Free Unknown by Yennhi Nguyen

fixed for blunt, by the way? You’re prospering?”
    “Of course, Uncle Edward,” Gideon lied. “How are you feeling?”
    “Oh, never worse, m’boy, never worse,” was the cheerful reply. “The doctor should be by a little later with my simple and some gossip, however.”
    “Has he managed to marry off the last of his daughters, sir?”
    “I think she was hoping to have a crack at you, Gideon. But the curate nurtures hopes regarding her which are not entirely unwelcome, or so I hear.”
    Gideon laughed. Life, and the game of marriage, was simpler here in the country than in the ton; he felt a brief pang of what if… ? But if one intended to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, one didn’t marry the doctor’s daughter.
    “So, m’boy, will you be staying for a time or is it right back to London for you?”
    “I thought I’d stay for a few days, sir. Kilmartin will be joining me tomorrow—we thought we’d get in some shooting and what-have-you before the season begins in earnest.” If he were careful, his uncle would never know Lily or her sister was even under his roof.
    “What a shame,” Uncle Edward teased. “I know I’m a demanding old sod, Gideon. I am happy to have your company.”
    Demanding , Gideon thought with affectionate exasperation, did not begin to describe it. “I am always glad to see you, Uncle Edward. I’m at your service.”
     
     
    Their chamber, like the bath, like the rest of the house, made Lily feel almost angry: what gave anything the right to be so grand?
    A thick carpet, patterned in twining green vines and faded pink roses, sprawled on the floor; Lily slipped her feet out of her borrowed slippers and curled her toes into it, reveling in its undreamed-of softness. A pink velvet tufted chair sat before a little writing desk; she’d arranged her books upon the desk, and she decided they looked well enough there. A great oaken wardrobe stood against one wall— empty, as far as she knew, for they’d taken her clothes away along with Alice’s—and a dainty dressing table sat opposite it. And a fire, clean and smokeless, crackled cheerily in a fireplace. This was a marvel: she’d always had to do battle with the fireplace in their room at Mrs. Smythe’s. Old Smokey, she and Alice called it.
    In the round mirror over the dressing table Lily saw a girl, big-eyed with the strangeness of her surroundings, swimming in Mrs. Plunkett’s borrowed nightdress. Her shining, newly clean hair seemed much… well, larger than usual. As though ecstatic to be free of grime, it waved with wild abandon about her face and down her back.
    Alice flung herself on the bed; Lily sank down next to her. Not surprisingly, the bed turned out to be deliriously comfortable, too, so they spent a moment oohing and ahhing together over it.
    Alice was wearing what appeared to be a little boy’s shirt as a night rail. Lily took the hem of it between her fingers and rubbed it wonderingly; the shirt was so fine she knew she could have gotten more than a penny for it from Mrs. Bandycross, a fence in St. Giles who specialized in such things. She snuggled down under the blankets next to Alice, and the blankets, unsurprisingly, were heavy and smooth, of good wool.
    “ ‘Tis very quiet here,” Alice mused, wrinkling her nose. “But I might like to stay forever, anyhow. Do you think Mrs. Smythe will give our room away?”
    “I paid her for it through the month, so she’d best not if she knows what is good for her,” Lily said with more bravado than confidence.
    “If she does give it away, perhaps Mr. Cole will make her give it back to us. Perhaps he will give her a good whacking.”
    “A good whacking ?” Lily turned to her sister. “More likely he will simply smile and Mrs. Smythe will swoon like a great… great… ”
    “Cow.”
    “Cows don’t swoon, Alice.”
    “They would if they saw Mr. Cole.”
    Lily was not inclined to disagree with her.
    “He looks like your prince, Lily. He has dark hair and