Nellie sniffed, but buttoned her lip.
Alathea shooed the others off, then headed up the stairs, Nellie on her heels, lighting her way.
"So what happened?" Nellie hissed as they reached the gallery.
"Shh!" Alathea gestured down the corridor. Nellie grumbled but held her tongue as they passed Alathea's parents' rooms, then Mary's and Alice's, eventually reaching her room at the corridor's end.
Nellie shut the door behind them. Alathea untied her cloak, then let it fall-Nellie caught it as she stepped away.
"So now, my fine miss-you're not going to tell me he didn't see through your disguise?"
"Of course he didn't-I told you he wouldn't." He wouldn't have kissed her if he had. Sinking onto her dressing table stool, Alathea pulled pins from her hair, freeing the thick mass from the unaccustomed chignon. She normally wore her hair in a knot on the top of her head with the strands about her face puffed to form a living frame. It was an old-fashioned style but it suited her. The chignon had suited her, too, but the unusual style had pulled her hair in different directions-her scalp hurt.
Nellie came to help, frowning as she searched out pins in the silky soft mass. "I can't believe after all the years you two spent rollin' about the fields that he wouldn't simply look at you, veil and cloak or no, and instantly know you."
"You forget-despite the years we spent 'rollin' about the fields,' Rupert has barely seen me for over a decade. Just the odd meeting here and there."
"He didn't recognize your voice?"
"No. My tone was quite different." She'd spoken as she would to Augusta, her tone warm and low, not tart and waspish as when she normally spoke with him. Except for those few breathless moments… but she didn't think he'd ever heard her breathless before. She couldn't recall ever feeling so nervous and skittish before. With a sigh, she let her head tip back as her hair finally fell loose. "You're not giving me sufficient credit. I'm a very good actress, after all."
Nellie humphed but didn't argue. She started to brush Alathea's long hair.
Closing her eyes, Alathea relaxed. She excelled at charades; she could think herself into a part very well, as long as she understood the character. In this case, that was easy. "I kept to the truth as far as possible-he truly thinks I'm a countess."
Nellie humphed. "I still can't see why you couldn't simply write him a nice letter, asking him to look into this company for you."
"Because I would have had to sign it 'Alathea Morwellan.'"
"He would have done it, I'm sure."
"Oh, he wouldn't have refused, but what he would have done was refer it to his agent-that Mr. Montague. Without telling Rupert why it's so desperately needful to prove this company a fraud, it wouldn't have seemed important-important enough to stir him personally to action."
"I can't see why you don't just tell him-"
"No!" Eyes opening, Alathea straightened. For an instant, the lines between mistress and maid were clear-there in the matriarchal light in Alathea's eyes, in her stern exp
ression, and in the suddenly wary look in Nellie's face.
Alathea let her expression ease; she hesitated, but Nellie was the only one with whom she dared discuss her plans, the only one who knew them all. The only one she trusted with them all. While she suspected that meant she was trusting the entire little band downstairs, as the others never presumed to mention it, she could live with that. She had to talk to someone. Drawing in a breath, she settled on the stool. "Believe it or not, Nellie, I still have my pride." She shut her eyes as Nellie resumed her brushing. "Sometimes, I think it's all I truly have left. I won't risk it by telling even him all. No one knows just how close to ruin we came-what depth of ruin we now face."
"He'd be sympathetic, I should think. He wouldn't noise it abroad."
"That's not the point. Not with him. I don't think you can imagine, Nellie, just how rich the Cynsters are. Even I have trouble assimilating the sums I know he regularly deals with."
"Can't see why it matters, meself."
Alathea felt the familiar tugs as Nellie started braiding her hair. "Let's just say that while I can cope with fraudulent companies and imminent disaster, the one thing I really don't think I could face is pity."
His pity.
Nellie sighed. "Ah, well, if that's the way it must be…" Alathea sensed her fatalistic shrug. After a moment, Nellie asked, "But how'd you get him to agree to help if'n you didn't tell him about the family all but being rolled up if that wretched company asks for their money?"
"That-Alathea opened her eyes-"was the main point of my masquerade. I did tell him. All of it. I could hardly expect him to help without knowing the details, and he certainly wouldn't have helped if there hadn't been a real family and a real threat. He's never been easy to stir to action, but he is a Cynster and they always respond to certain prods. He had to be convinced of both the family and the threat, but the way I told it, it's the countess's family. I cast my father as my dead husband, with me as the countess, his second wife, and all the children as my stepchildren, instead of my stepbrothers and stepsisters. Serena I made into a cousin."
She paused, remembering.
"What happened?"