#*frances&lucy

[francesackerley]

Continued from here.

Frances traced the delicate curve of her lower lip with her pinky, brushing away a stray smudge of rose. A reply came slowly, lest she disrupt her work. “Are you not an artist? You of all people can appreciate that great art takes time.” 

Her reflection pouted, then smiled. This shade was richer than the last. 

Lucy’s warning only confirmed Frances’s concern. “Better younger than older,” she quipped, for who was inclined to age and let the vitality of youth fade? Nevertheless, she grabbed a nearby handkerchief to wipe off the excess. 

The news was relayed mid-blot. The handkerchief froze against her lip. 

Wide blue-eyes searched the mirror for the joke, but all Frances could see was the healthy flush of Lucy’s cheeks. They said pregnant women had a glow about them.

Frances pulled her gaze away, with it the handkerchief from her mouth. In her hands, lace-trimmed cotton was smeared with the same red that stained her memory. She folded it in half, then in quarters, smaller and smaller until it could be crumpled in her fist. She tugged open a drawer in the dressing table and tossed in the handkerchief, out of sight and out of mind. 

The drawer was shut with more force than was necessary. Frances reached for the charcoal, then thought better of it. Shaking fingers clumsily dipped into the pot of oil instead. “If you were hoping I would congratulate you, you will only be disappointed.”  

@lucyofedinburgh

[francesackerley]

13 July 1799 || Almack’s, Rose Garden

Frances held up a hand to her brow, shading her eyes from high afternoon sun. Without a parasol or bonnet she was left at the mercy of its rays. Her lip jutted out in a small pout in anticipation of the freckles that would undoubtedly spot her nose by the evening. 

Returning inside would allow her to escape the heat, but a brief sojourn outdoors had felt necessary; the whispers of guests were more stifling than the temperature. If she had to fake one more polite smile in response to a remark that Lucy looked ever-so fine on the arm of Prince Sebastian, her cheek might spasm. Her calculated response, oh yes, but haven’t you heard, was meager consolation. 

Speaking of.

Spotless white silk and a shock of red hair caught Frances’s eye. Even outside, she couldn’t escape her. Frances stood up from her perch on the edge of the fountain and tilted back her glass of ratafia, syrupy sweetness sliding down her throat and into an empty stomach. She left the glass behind as she strode up to Lucy with purpose. There was always someone to clean up after her. 

“Miss Needham.” The ‘s’ in Lucy’s prefix was a hiss on Frances’s tongue. Her expression was bright, but that was where the warmth ended. No curtsy, hug or quick kiss to the cheek hello. Only the blue of Frances’s wide eyes and the white of her tight grin flashing in sunlight. “You are an absolute vision in white. Why, you look positively bridal.”

@lucy-needham​

[francesackerley]

[francesackerley]

💌 + what are three things you always carry with you?

Accidentally hit publish before this was ready, ask originally courtesy of @lucy-needham

“A pocket mirror.” Frances snapped said object shut, having just used it to inspect her coiffure, revealing the monogram on the front. It had been a gift from her mother before she returned to the ton. 

“Carrying money is only practical. You never know when it might be needed, and it would be embarrassing to be caught out, or worse, have to borrow.

“Oh, and I suppose my locket ring.” A gold heart at its center, engraved with a forget-me-not set with pearls. She fidgeted with it using her thumb, the inscription on the inside of the band rubbing against her finger. “Pretty, is it not?”

[francesackerley]

[francesackerley]

Send 😍 for a kiss in greeting

Drumlanrig Castle, Selkirkshire, Scotland

It is Drumlanrig at its best. Towering pink sandstone is a welcome sight at the end of the lamplight lit drive. There would be dancing until the wee hours of the morning, but for now the choreography is in the arrival, the rolling line of carriages, the footmen dutifully guiding guests from their coach to the door.  

Silhouetted in the doorway of the entrance hall is a neat line of four, assembled from tallest to shortest. Somewhere further inside the estate the early stirrings of an orchestra can be heard. Suddenly, a high voice rings out as the second smallest in the line breaks rank.

"Lucy!"

Frances darts past several guests waiting to be received. She is not quite as young as when she took her tumble on the beach, but not yet a woman, instead stuck awkwardly in the limbo of adolescence. Her hair is still worn loose, her nose and cheeks still freckled, but there is a change in her demeanor, a conscientiousness that suggests she’s increasingly aware that she is part of the world and liable to be judged for it. 

She temporarily abandons her airs of maturity in favor of an enthusiastic greeting, half a hug and the brush of her lips against Lucy’s cheek. When she pulls away the accusation is immediate, "You did not write to say you would be coming.”

Lucy’s letters are a godsend when the days grow short, the weather miserable and travel difficult. They are like fairytales for a girl anxious for adulthood and isolated in the Scottish countryside. Frances keeps the letters in her nightstand and escapes into stories of dinner parties and balls and life.  

“Mama said Lady Gow only sent her reply last week,” a new voice chimes in at Frances’s elbow. Frances doesn’t bother to repress an eye roll. Frederica, of course, trailing along and sticking her nose in business that isn’t hers. "This is a private conversation for ladies, not for children, Freddie” She says it with such authority as if she is not still considered a child herself, dressed (to her despair) in a simple white dress and velvet green sash. "Go back to mama and tell her I am entertaining our guest."

Frederica reluctantly obliges the command, leaving Frances to take Lucy by the arm and return to their urgent business. "You must tell me everything, everything. Did you see the Queen? Are the fashions so different? Was Minnie Nicolls there? Mama said she saw Minnie's lady's maid leave the seamstress with a box so large, I could have laid in it myself and still had room for Frederica beside me. It can not have been any garment other than a court dress.”

Frances’s cheeks are already ruddy with excitement and the mood strikes her to grant another quick kiss to Lucy’s cheek. “I want to know it all. You have no idea how I have missed you."