Free Chance the Winds of Fortune by Laurie McBain Page B

rosewood and gilt dressing table that Rhea Claire was sitting, the mirror reflecting burnished golden hair cascading down her back and over her shoulders as her mother’s personal maid brushed it into thick waves.
    â€œAnd what gown will ye be wearin’ today, Lady Rhea Claire?” Canfield asked, expertly winding the long strands into heavy loops.
    â€œI thought I’d wear my pale green brocade,” Rhea replied, handing Canfield a long length of green velvet ribbon and a bunch of artificial flowers to weave into the nearly completed and stylish coiffure that the maid prided herself on knowing how to create.
    â€œI’d be most grieved, m’lady, to see ye soil that pretty gown at the picnic,” Canfield told her with a disapproving look on her thin face. Meanwhile, she eyed a stray curl that refused to stay in place.
    â€œBut that is not until tomorrow, Canfield,” Rhea told her, slipping a delicate, bow-shaped ring, set with diamonds and sapphires, onto her slender finger. It had been a gift to her from her parents on her seventeenth birthday.
    â€œâ€™Tis today,” Canfield corrected her as she marched over to the wardrobe; when she opened it, the colorful selection within was revealed. “Sir Terence and Lady Mary arrived late last night. Most odd, if ye be askin’ me, ’twas,” Canfield remarked with a sniff, not caring for anything that upset her carefully scheduled days.
    Rhea Claire shrugged. “I think it is wonderful that they have already arrived. And I shall still wear my green brocade, Canfield,” Rhea informed her adamantly, for if given an inch Canfield would take a mile. “I am no child to be spilling cocoa down my dress.”
    â€œVery well, m’lady, but I’m sure I don’t know what Her Grace will be sayin’,” Canfield capitulated, noticing the set of her young mistress’s delicately rounded chin. “This décolletage is far too low for a young lady your age. Told the seamstress, I did, but would she listen to me?” Canfield continued in a grievous tone, sniffing contemptuously at the likes of the London seamstress who’d been brought in to make Her Grace’s wardrobe, as well as her daughter’s. “No, she did not. Too busy rolling them bovine eyes of hers at His Grace and ogling Camareigh to sew a proper stitch, her. Hrrmph, told her, I did. But she soon found out, she did…”
    Rhea Claire closed her mind to what would no doubt become one of Canfield’s never-ending monologues, for the woman seemed to have an opinion on everything that went on at Camareigh, or anywhere else for that matter. Rhea Claire hurried into her green brocade, breathing in deeply as Canfield tightened the laces on her corset before fastening the gown snugly around her waist. She frowned slightly as Canfield insisted, under threat of not letting her out of her room, on attaching a modesty piece to the top of the corset, which effectively hid any cleavage that might have attracted an appreciative male eye, or Her Grace’s eye, heaven forbid, thought a worried Canfield. But finally, Rhea was able to escape Canfield’s overzealous ministrations, leaving her contentedly tidying up the bedchamber.
    In the Long Gallery, the narrow, corridor-like room that stretched nearly the length of the east front, Rhea Claire stopped before the family portrait completed just months ago. It hung last in the long line of family portraits commissioned by the Dominicks over the centuries, its ornate gold frame bright against the aged oak paneling of the walls. With a misty landscape in the background, the Dominick family was gathered around the base of a sturdy oak in the foreground. The Duke of Camareigh was leaning against the gnarled trunk, with his youngest son, Andrew, riding his upraised leg, which he was resting on a fallen log. Sitting farther down the makeshift bench, with Andrew’s twin sister Arden on her