The Substitute Countess by Lyn Stone

person I was last week, yesterday, this morning!” she declared. “The very same as I was when dressed wrongly, without rouged lips and rice powder!”
    She raked at the curls so carefully wrought by Miranda’s maid, tearing the pins away, loosening her hair even as she loosed her temper. “Do not judge me by the way I look, Jack Worth!”
    “Everyone else will,” he replied. “I was only reacting the way they are likely to do. As for me, I liked you very well the way you were last week, giving a set down to that Spanish snake. I liked how you weathered the voyage without complaint and how gently you dealt with my mother. Even the huge crowds at the theatre never bothered you. However, you were not the same last evening or this morning, and I confess I did not like you that way.”
    Laurel snapped around to face him again. “And what way would that be?”
    “Subservient. Timid. Intimidated.”
    “Behaving as I was taught!” she exclaimed. “‘The meek shall inherit the earth!’”
    He scoffed. “Six by two feet of it, for certain, and probably claim that sooner than the strong! If you intend to greet every stranger you meet in that manner, you might as well have donned a habit and stayed with the nuns!”
    Much to her horror, Laurel burst into tears. She dashed from the parlor, ran to the stairs, up to her room and slammed the door. She leaned against it. Damn the man!
    No one had ever made her cry. No one, not even Orencio! The entire day had been so incredibly strange. Never had her feelings swung so rapidly from one extreme to the next, fear to elation, bright expectation to hopelessness, humility to overconfidence. And now, this unexpected and unreasonable anger had flared.
    Suddenly she felt deflated and exhausted, yet her nerves were thrumming so that she could hardly be still. For once, she quite understood Jack’s unnerving energy.
    Betty came out of the dressing room and stopped short. “Milady, are you unwell?”
    Laurel nodded and pushed away from the door. “Please go.” She so wished to be alone, to further examine what was wrong with her to allow such rapid changes in her emotions. The sisters would be aghast at how she was neglecting her training.
    True, it had always proved a struggle to be as they demanded, but she thought she had mastered their teachings. Well, first Orencio and now Jack certainly had sent whatever serenity she had acquired flying to the four winds.
    “Chamomile tea, that’s what’s called for. I’ll just go and bring it up,” Betty announced.
    “Wait. Unlace me first,” Laurel ordered. “I cannot stand this corset a moment longer!”
    “Oh, yes, ma’am!” The little maid scurried over and began to unbutton the back of the rose gown. “We shall have you out of this in no time at all! Will you be dressing for supper in a while?” She laid the gown aside and began undoing the laces at the back of the new, stiff undergarment.
    “No supper, just the tea. Then I will go to bed for the night.”
    “It’s not quite dark yet, ma’am! Are you ill?”
    “In a manner of speaking,” Laurel admitted with a heavy sigh. She rubbed her abdomen where there must be red furrows on her skin caused by the dratted corset’s boning.
    “Aha,” said Betty in a knowing tone. “Let’s get you into your nightgown then and I’ll fetch you the tea and some comfits. Me mum always says that perks a lady up at the off times.”
    Laurel shook her head and released another deep sigh now that she could breathe normally. “Well, today certainly qualifies as one of my off times. ”
    * * *
    Jack returned from trying to walk off his frustration and confusion. He still couldn’t figure what on earth had happened to Laurel to turn her so contentious all of a sudden.
    He had never had a woman resent his calling her beautiful before. What had she expected after going to all that trouble to change her appearance? Damn it all, she was a beauty. He had suspected she could be.
    A nice frock