The next few days became a flurry of party organisation.

With the house almost decorated except for a few minor adjustments that had to be made, I had decided to hide out in the kitchen with Mrs Baker and help her to prepare the sweets. She had been baking almost non-stop for several days but there was still a fair amount to do and she needed all the help she could get. I had learnt a lot about baking various things from both Miss Jenkins and Mrs Baker, but I only agreed to help with the small sweets.

On the morning of the twenty-third, I ended up spending it with my elbows in various doughs for biscuits or tarts. James and Christopher had started to set-up the rest of decorations upstairs, including a table that would house all of the sweets. I could hear them arguing over the placement of something from the kitchen and I couldn't help but roll my eyes slightly.

"Can those two do anything without arguing?" Mrs Baker asked as she stirred the lemon curd on the stove.

"Apparently not. They always find something to argue over."

"It might just be the last-minute panic for the party. It's always chaos the morning of."

"Hm, I remember what it was like for Matilda Ealing's birthday party. Rooms I had never set foot in needed dusting and I thought the kitchen table would collapse under the weight of all the food."

"I think we're teetering on the edge of a collapsing table."

Mrs Baker gestured to the pile of sweets and cakes and laughed to herself, turning back to the collection of pots she had going on the stove. I turned my attention to the array of plates that littered the table in the centre of the room. There were plates of biscuits, cake slices, tarts and countless other sweet treats to keep people occupied throughout the evening. We had been baked a Christmas cake with white marzipan and red icing that read 'Merry Christmas' along the top.

I felt as though we may have gone a little overboard with the baking seeing as we were not expecting that many people. Outside of the immediate family, he had invited Aunt Molly and her two daughters, the Ealing's, Winnie and her father and he had even extended the invitation to Lady Thatcher to thank her for inviting us to her ball. Suzanna, Lucy, Mathias and Tommy were also supposed to attend as well as Esther, Mrs Jenkins and Samuel. We had baked enough sweets for about fifty people, but the party would never exceed that number as we didn't actually know that many people.

James and Christopher's voices continued to travel down to the kitchen as I finished the last of the biscuit dough and placed it into the oven for Mrs Baker to removed later. After washing my hands of the flour and dough, I jogged up the few steps and back down the hallway to the drawing-room.

Garland had been draped over the fireplace and the candles on the ceiling had been lit, basking the room in a warm glow. Outside was dark, with the cloud casting a shadow over everything and making the entire house seem a lot darker than it should have been. James had decided they were snow clouds which meant it would only be a matter of time before the streets were covered in snow. I hoped it would snow before the party, but luck had never been in my favour and James might have been wrong.

"Are you done in the kitchen?" James asked when he saw me standing in the doorway.

"Uh-huh. The last of the biscuits have gone in the oven and Mrs Baker is finishing up the curd and jam for the pastry. It should set in time."

"Excellent. The table in the corner is for the sweets when they're ready to come up. Other than that, I think we're almost set."

"Almost?"

"You know me, I always end up forgetting something or another. I'll remember what it is right before everyone arrives and there will be a last-minute panic. It's a standard for me." He laughed.

"True."

"If you're really done, Kitty had run a bath for you upstairs if you want to start getting yourself sorted. It will take a few hours for your hair to dry anyway."

"Alright."

James gave me a light shove in my back, and I left the drawing-room. I climbed the stairs and walked past my own room and to the washroom next to James and Kitty's room. The door had been left partially open and when I stepped inside, I was hit with a wave of steam streaming off the bathwater. Kitty had left a towel hanging near the sink and the water looked as though it would take off several layers of skin as a form of cleaning.

I removed my dress and unpinned my hair, leaving the dress off the floor and the hairpins along the edge of the sink before I stepped into the water. The water was hot against my skin, but it was a comfortable hot, not a searing hot that would have forced me to jump out of the bath and wait for it to cool down. I slumped back against the edge of the bath, sinking under the water and allowing for it to flow over me, stopping short of covering my face.

One of the things I had missed the most at the factory had been baths. Mother had always been insistent that we bathed regularly, although the boys had never been to keen on the idea. At the factory, baths didn't exist. Instead, we washed a torn piece of bed sheet and a bucket of water, but it did little to remove the layers of grime that clung to us day in and day out. My first bath at the Ealing's had been a blessing I didn't know I needed, but it did a lot to make me feel a little more human. There was something comforting in bathing.

The water washed over me in small waves as I sunk a little further, taking a breath and submerging my entire face before coming back up. I wiped the excess water from my face and grabbed a small bar of lavender-scented soap that Kitty had left out for me. It filled the entire bathroom with the scent as I worked it into a lather and started to remove the flour and oil that had stayed on my arms and fingertips even after washing them downstairs.

After washing myself and my hair with the soap, I climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around me, running it through my hair to try and speed up the drying process. I pulled on my housecoat and left the bathroom, walking the short distance to my own room where my dress had been laid out on the bed. The green ribbon that Winnie had given me several weeks before was curled up on my dresser.

I took the towel off my hair and lightly rubbed it to try and dry it, but I knew it would take more than that. After taking a seat in front of my mirror, I ran the comb through my hair as best I could so it would dry a little faster – a trick Mother had taught me. A light knock came from the door.

"Come in," I said, placing the comb on the table in front of me. The door squeaked open and Suzanna's head peered around.

"Are you decent?" she asked, smiling slightly.

"Yes." I rolled my eyes.

"Good." She pushed open the door. "We thought we would come over early, to see if you needed any help with anything."

"Where are the boys?"

"Downstairs. They are helping move the furniture downstairs, something about it being a man's job."

"Mathias only has one arm, how much use could he be?"

"I said that," Lucy said.

The girls sat down on the edge of the bed, narrowing avoiding the dress. They had both dressed in the dresses they had worn to the ball with both of them having decided to pin their hair up. Since leaving the factory, Suzanna and Lucy had done rather good for themselves with both of them securing positions as nursery maids with well-off families. After spending so long in the factory looking after young children, including myself at one point, they had become rather good at it.

It had been eight months since the factory had been exposed for what it really was and so much had changed over that time. The factory still loomed over us in our dreams and throughout London, but we had all moved away from it as best we could. I didn't want the factory to become the only thing people knew me from, the definitive identifier for who I was as a person.

I looked in the mirror in front of me, watching Suzanna and Lucy as they started to smack each other with the cushions from the end of my bed. Part of me wished that Isabel would walk through that door and join us. She'd have the tailored-made dress she had always wanted and been able to attend a party for the first time in seven years. This had been what she wanted more than anything and she wasn't going to be with us to enjoy it. She should have been there, but the foreman took that away from her.

"Mrs Ealing isn't going to be here, right?" Lucy asked.

"No. Neither is Matilda, it will be Robert, the twins and Doctor Ealing," I said.

"Excellent. I don't know if I could stand the glares for the entire evening."

"You must be glad Robert is going to be here," Suzanna said. Even from the mirror, I could see a little glint in her eye and a smile tugging at her mouth. I knew Lucy must have told her about our conversation during the ball.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't."

"So you admit it? You actually like Robert more than a friend? What made you change your mind?"

"Something Kitty said. We were talking the other day about the carriage accident, and she said that I shouldn't let fear control my life. She had been right."

After my conversation with Kitty the day of the coach accident, she had made me realise that I couldn't let Mrs Ealing ruin my life anymore. She had been the reason why I was so scared to admit that I liked Robert. If it hadn't had been for the conversation Kitty and I had had the day before the ball, I doubt I would have realised that I did like him.

I had decided that I needed to tell Robert the truth, much like he did when he wrote that letter. My writing skills were not as eloquent as his home so I stood no chance in getting my feelings across that way, but I had hoped the gift of the cufflinks would go along way on their own. Mother once said that her and Father had started courting after he had gifted her a hair ribbon and I had my hopes that the cufflinks would work the same way.

All I had to do was find a time to give it to him, but I knew that would be difficult as James wanted me to be around the party for the entire evening and not run off and hide. I had considered talking to Kitty to see if she could cover for me, but I didn't want anyone to know what I had planned just in case James found out and he tried to talk me out of it. He still saw me as the seven-year-old that had the left the house all those years ago and never returned.

I wished Isabel was around, she'd have the best advice about what to do.

"What do you think Isabel would do if she were here?" I asked, throwing the question out into the room.

"Probably worrying about you not being ready. I mean, you're not dressed, your hair isn't done. You're a nightmare," Lucy said, laughing.

"Or downstairs bossing the boys and your brothers about," Suzanna said.

"She'd be a nightmare."

"I wish she was here, though. If anyone deserves to go to this party, it's her. Parties were always her dream, the thing she wanted to attend more than anything. She should be here," I said.

"She should, and it's not fair that she isn't." Suzanna paused. "Why don't we light one of the coloured candles downstairs for her? We can put it on the mantlepiece."

"That's a good idea. It'll have to be the red one, red was her favourite colour," Lucy added.

"I'll speak to James when we go back downstairs, I'm sure he won't mind."

"In that case, you need to get dressed."

Suzanna patted the dress and I nodded, knowing I couldn't spend the rest of the evening in housecoat despite how fun that would be. I stood up from the desk, grabbing the dress from the bed and changing into it. Back at the Ealing house, I never would have dressed in front of Esther owing to the scars on my back that I knew would lead to a flurry of questions from her. Lucy and Suzanna had already seen them; privacy didn't exist in the factory.

Once changed, I returned to my seat in front of the mirror and grabbed the brush, running it through my hair and trying to untangle the curls a little. It was still a little damp, but not enough for anyone to really notice. I brushed the front of my hair back and tied the ribbon to keep it in place, before pulling the brush through it again to smooth it out a little more. Winnie had been right; the ribbon matched the dress perfectly.

I stood up from the chair and ran my fingers over the skirt of the dress, tracing the silver embellishments with my fingers. When James had first suggested he make a dress for me to wear to the party, I was apprehensive. He had already made me a lot of dresses to fill out my wardrobe and an extra one just seemed like too much on top of it. James wouldn't take no for an answer and once he found the green fabric at the market, I couldn't change his mind.

"You look adorable," Lucy said, pushing herself off the bed and looking at me.

"I'm not adorable."

"Yes, you are. Like a little Christmas tree." I stuck my tongue out at her."

"Come on, it's a bad look if one of the hosts doesn't attend the party on time," Suzanna said.

After slipping on a pair of shoes – James wouldn't let me wear my boots – and securing the clasp of Mother's locket, the three of us slipped from the room and down the stairs. In the drawing-room, James helped correct Mathias' suit-jacket and tie, dusting it off slightly and correcting the collar. The jackets were not the same as the ones they had worn to the ball, both Mathias and Tommy had changed their minds about accepting a gift from James and had allowed him to make them one each. It had been a tight deadline, but James had managed it.

The assortment of cakes, tarts and biscuits that Mrs Baker and I had made over the past few days. Seeing it all spread out on the table made me realise just how much we had baked in such a short period of time. It looked as though the legs of the table were about to collapse from under the table. Tommy appeared to have started lightening the load though; he had jam all over his face and didn't appear to notice. I caught him trying to shovel a shortbread biscuit into his mouth.

"Did I do good or did I do good?" James asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and looking at the dress.

"You did good," I admitted.

"Finally! She admits it! After weeks of trying to get me to stop making it, she admits that it wasn't a bad idea! I win."

"No one likes a bragger, sweetie," Kitty said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

"James?"

"Yes, Rosie-Posie?"

"Can we light the red candle on the mantlepiece? We wanted to do something for Isabel, and it seemed like the best thing."

"That's a lovely idea. Do you want me to light it or do you want to do it yourself?"

"I want to do it."

James nodded and crossed to a cabinet in the far corner of the room. He opened the door and started digging inside before pulling out a small box of matches and handing them to me. Although I had lit the fireplaces at the Ealing's, I hadn't touched a match voluntarily since. My hands shook slightly as I pulled a match out of the box and held it up to the side to strike it. In truth, I didn't think I would ever want to hold a match again. It reminded me all too much of the fire – both the one that led to my dismissal and the one that led to Isabel's death all those months ago.

This was a time to push down that fear and do something for her.

I took a breath and struck the match along the side of the box, a flame sparking up at the end of it. It danced in the light and I quickly placed it onto the wick of the candle until it caught. When the wick started to burn and the candle wax melt slightly, I shook my hand to extinguish the match and then handed it and the box back over to James. He took them and placed a light hand on my shoulder, smiling at me.

"If anyone asks, you can tell them all about Isabel, and it will be like a part of her is still here," he said.

"Do you think she would like it?"

"Of course, she would. I think she would be proud of you.

"Definitely," Suzanna added.

"Right, I think we're ready to get this party started!"

With that, there was a knock at the door and James went to answer it.

~~~

A/N - I'm so sorry this is a day late! In truth, I forgot yesterday was Tuesday and only remembered at like 1am, right before I went to bed. Sorry about that! In my defence, I've been really busy recently so it's a tad overwhelming. I'm also still not sure on this prequel. I'm going to start writing it and see what happens.

Anyway, we have three chapters left of TAG before Rosie's main story is over! A little sad, to be honest!

I want your predictions for the final few chapters! Go! Tell me!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to LegendaryGalaxy3 for voting on TSG! I hoped you enjoyed :)

First Published - August 19th, 2020