His Lady in Breeches

II. Many Months Ago

Many months ago...

Eustace Theobald, Lord of the Theobald estate, was not happy.

He looked over at his daughter with his light grey eyes, his expression disappointed and confused all the same.

The daughter did not share his blonde hair, although the same light grey globes were strikingly similar. Apart from that, there was none of the man that the black-haired woman had acquired.

Eustace Theobald's blonde wife was sitting beside her husband, staring at Maxine with helplessness. There was none from the woman that Maxine had inherited because Rachel Theobald was not her mother.

She was a bastard.

And that very fact was the reason why she was standing before her father and his wife.

"Must we always debate about this every year?" her father asked.

Maxine tried not to roll her eyes but she knew Rachel Theobald saw it, causing her stepmother to sigh and her shoulders to sag. The woman was, in all essence, a mother to her. She raised Maxine like she did her two sons and although Maxine knew the woman did it out of the goodness of her heart and nothing else, she could still not find it in herself to call Rachel Theobald mother.

"Must I always have to insist and point out the reasons why I choose not to join the party?" she asked her father as a rejoinder.

"You can join and not introduce yourself if you so wish, dear," Rachel Theobald said, giving her a smile.

"And what would you have me do? Offer a different name?"

"And how different is that from your yearly attempts to dress as one of the service people during the party?" her father inquired.

She shrugged. "I enjoy it—that is the difference, father."

Eustace Theobald closed his eyes in frustration, eliciting a groan from his throat. "You cannot forever hide in your chambers, Maxie—"

"Of course, I can," she interjected. "And it is not as though I hide for the entirety of the year! I merely choose not to be seen. There is a difference."

Her stepmother sighed once more before she spoke. "We do desire to present you to society, Maxie, dear. We do not believe that you ought to—"

"I have no place in society," she snapped at them. "You very well know how they could be." Slanting her eyes toward her father, she added, "They would never see you the same way they do now should they find out. I do not wish to inconvenience all of you."

"We have talked about this, Maxine," her father said, voice stern and slowly losing patience.

"And my answer remains the same." She whirled around to walk out of the parlor, her long black hair moving along as she did so. "Mayhap you ought to try next year. I might change my mind."

She heard her father's loud groan before she closed the door behind her with a smile.

Done. The customary annual argument before the weekend party had come to pass.

Maxine immediately set the matter aside for next year in the darkest corners of her mind.

In three days' time, the Theobald weekend party shall start.

As she walked back to her secret bedchamber, Maxine was in deep thought.

What should she be this time?

She hurried her steps, eager to go and find a costume.

Most of the women who would be in attendance would be hunting for husbands, chat with friends from all corners of the Town, and gossip.