by Kelly Bowen
Aunt Kitty made spinsterhood a pretty business full of delicious secrets and private freedoms. On her, the unmarried state was defined not by the lack of a husband, but by the presence of endless possibilities.
Ada tugged the bell pull twice. “The children are noisy.”
“Happy children generally are.”
“I wasn’t noisy as a child.”
Kitty held up her needlework, an elaborate pastiche of flowers and leaves that brought to mind exotic jungles and wildly colorful birds. “You were also unhappy. Are you happy now?”
What had that to do with raising a king’s ransom in thirty days? “I am content, or I was before Mr. Carruthers involved me in this demented scheme.”
Aunt tucked her embroidery into her work basket, and even her work basket was a cunning little wicker confection with silk roses braided into the handle. “The name is familiar. He’s one of my solicitors, I believe.”
Half the men of business in London handled some part of the family’s vast financial holdings.
“Mr. Carruthers explained the challenge to me,” Ada said. “If I raise the money for St. Jerome’s, then I shall have a manor house of my own.”
Kitty rose, ever graceful. “And if you fail?”
“When I fail, I’ll return to my experiments and my books. I’ll catch up on all my correspondence, I’ll…”
The tea tray arrived, sparing Ada from more babbling. After she’d wasted thirty days trying to raise funds for the orphanage, she’d resume her life. Not a bad life, compared to the inane years spent battling boredom at school, or a childhood that had consisted mostly of avoiding and enduring various governesses.
“Please do pour out,” Aunt said, settling into a wing chair. “Other than noisy children, did St. Jerome’s have anything to recommend it?”
“The architecture is lovely, though the appointments are old-fashioned. The children spend time in the garden on fine days, and they even take lessons out there when the weather obliges.” Would that Ada’s governesses had allowed her even a single hour twice a week to wander out of doors. At least fresh air had been among the offerings at boarding school.
Ada passed Aunt Kitty her tea, then fixed a plate with a tea cake and a square of shortbread.
“And what of the staff at St. Jerome’s?” Kitty asked. “What was their reaction when you proposed to raise money for this venerable institution?”
“I met with the headmaster, who assured me that St. Jerome’s is in want of funds.”
Kitty dipped her shortbread into her tea. “Headmasters can be such dreary people. I hope he wasn’t prone to lecturing. You are the last person to placidly endure a lecture.”
“Lord John doesn’t lecture,” Ada said, pouring her own tea. “He explains. He loves those children, and I do believe they love him.” They should love him, all but little Cora, who would love him in time.
Provided St. Jerome’s could keep its doors open.
Kitty made eating shortbread a sybaritic delight. “Grandfatherly, is he, this Lord John?”
Not exactly. “Devoted to the children, well educated.” Overwhelmed and more than passingly attractive. Not that his looks mattered.
“Does he present well? I mean, no odor of mildew about his wardrobe, no threadbare cuffs?”
“He presents very well,” Ada replied. “His papa is a marquess, and Lord John comports himself like a gentleman.”
“So why not take him with you on these social calls? He knows St. Jerome’s better than anybody, he’s probably danced with half the women you went to school with, and two heads are better than one.”
“Whoever said that never spilled tea all over her new dress.” Or fell on her face, tripped a footman, or provoked a near-shouting match at a formal dinner. Ada wasn’t sure if making calls with Lord John was worse or better than making them on her own.
Probably worse.
Kitty set down her cup and saucer. “Ada, you have spent the past ten minutes pouring out for me, handling some of the finest china in Mayfair, making conversation all the while. You’ve spilled nothing. You’ve broken nothing. You didn’t raise your voice, though I gather the whole business with St. Jerome’s is rather vexing. Take this Lord John fellow with you on one call, and if it ends in disaster, then you needn’t persist. Admit defeat and return to your weather studies or compost heaps or whatever has your fancy these days.”
Such sound, sensible advice, as always. “This is why I came by, because you are always so reasonable. More tea?”
“Please.” Kitty steered the conversation to what various cousins and neighbors were up to, and Ada paid attention as best she could. Compared to the prospect of importuning former schoolmates for money, Great-Aunt Helen’s gouty toe was a less-than compelling topic.
“You’ll see,” Kitty said, as she walked Ada to the door thirty minutes later. “Some polite conversation, a few hints, an earnest fellow by your side, and St. Jerome’s will soon have a full exchequer. Then I will be calling upon you at your country estate.”
She offered Ada the same confiding, we-know-interesting-things smile that had been so fortifying when Ada had been banished to boarding school, and only Kitty had ever come to visit her.
The smile wasn’t as magical now. Ada took her leave, still pre-occupied with the who and the how of these social calls she was supposed to make on behalf of the orphanage. Kitty made asking former acquaintances for money sound so easy, but in this, dear Aunt Kitty was wrong.
Parading around Mayfair in hopes of raising funds for needy children would be even more difficult than getting back on one’s feet after sprawling face-first before half the gossips in Mayfair. Ada had risen, dusted her skirts, and joined in the general laughter, though her knees had smarted for weeks.
And yet, Ada would try. She’d given her word, the children were a worthy cause, and if by some chance she ended up with a home of her own, that would indeed be a wish come true.
“I’ve made a list,” Miss Ada said. “These are women I went to school with, and I would not be mortified to call on them.”
John unfolded the piece of paper she passed across the table in his office. “Six names? You went to school with only six other ladies?” The curriculum must not have focused on penmanship, for Miss Ada’s hand was as bold and plain as any tradesman’s.
She jammed the ever-drooping lock of hair back into her bun. “I went to school at Henderson’s Select Academy, not the most exclusive establishment of its kind, but among the better ones. We did more than parrot French idioms and mince about with books on our heads. Those are the six women I am willing to pay a call on.”
Six names, even if all were moved to charity, would not come anywhere near the sum Miss Ada had been challenged to raise.
“You have a countess on this list. I think I know her.” Lady Barstow had been Miss Elspeth Morrison, making her bow as John had completed his theological studies. “She’s quite shy.”
“She will receive me.”
John had consulted his tattered copy of Debrett’s, and found that Adelicia Beauvais claimed a close connection to a ducal family. She was sufficiently well placed in society that nearly any household in Mayfair should graciously welcome her.
“Miss Ada, is there something I should know regarding the social circles you travel in?”
She searched in her reticule, a voluminous sack sporting cobbler’s last for its drawstrings. “My social circle is quite small. One might even say tiny.”
“Tiny?”
“Miniscule.” More searching. “Microscopic, vanishingly small. I don’t go out much. Socially, that is. I attend lectures, I have been to the theater once or twice, and I do enjoy a good Shakespearean tragedy, provided the villains aren’t overdone.”
She set a pencil and a folded piece of paper on the table. “I have cousins, but I am loath to ask them for money. I thought perhaps you might have some suggestions.” She sent him a hopeful glance then jerked the ties on her reticule closed and took up the pencil
and paper. “I’m prepared to make a list for you.”
“St. Jerome’s has patrons, of course.” At Yuletide, those patrons sometimes sent along a few pounds or a basket of comestibles. “We managed adequately until last year, when one of our most generous benefactors went to his reward. He left us a sizeable bequest, but the family is contesting it.”
Then too, John’s own means had gone toward keeping St. Jerome’s doors open, and the inheritance he’d received upon his majority was all but gone.
Miss Ada rose and studied the shelves along the office’s inside wall. “Contested—because that family begrudges children a safe place to sleep or bowl of warm porridge on a winter morning, children who have lost even the comfort a family to shiver away the winter with. If Chancery is involved, you will never see that money.”
John’s father had said the same thing, more than once, and not unkindly. “Hence, the need for additional funds.”
“You have Lind’s treatise on the prevention of scurvy.”
She made it sound as if John had a treasure map lurking among his books. “Do you have cards, Miss Ada. Calling cards?”
She faced away from him, her nose buried in Lind’s experiments. “I suppose I do.”
“One can’t call on a countess without leaving a card, miss.”
“Scurvy is a terrible illness.”
John walked up beside her, extracted the monograph from her hands, and reshelved it. “Might we save the medical discussion for later, when we’ve addressed St. Jerome’s financial hemorrhaging?”
She smelled good. Grassy with a hint of lemons. Standing this close to her, John realized that she was really quite petite.
And nicely shaped.
“I’m not precisely afraid to make these calls,” she said, “but I have to confess that the prospect of socializing makes me a bit uneasy.”
She was related to a duke. Social calls should be as simple for her as rattling off the Ten Commandments was for him.
“A bit uneasy, Miss Ada?”
“Nervous, might be more accurate.”
The lady seemed uncertain, self-conscious, shy. “Whyever would you be nervous? You are gently bred, articulate, well educated, and well motivated. St. Jerome’s is a deserving cause, and those who have been well blessed have an affirmative—”
She put gentle fingers against his lips. “I’m the problem, my lord. I have a talent—a genius—for social bungling. I gave up trying to fit in well before my come out, and life has been much more peaceful for all as a result.”
She’d given up? What force of nature, what act of God, could have inspired Miss Adelicia Beauvais to give up?
Peering down into slate-blue eyes, John saw banked misery and something else—longing? Loneliness? He could not be sure, though it hurt his heart for her sake.
“You didn’t think I’d expect you to make these calls on your own, did you?” John asked.
He’d expected exactly that. The children kept him busy from dawn to midnight, and entire afternoons spent taking tea and making small talk were not on his schedule.
“You’d come with me?” Miss Ada asked, surveying the books arranged in author-order on his shelves.
“Would you like to have my escort?”
“One doesn’t want to impose, but two heads are better than one, and you present quite well. I, by contrast, generally look like I’ve been dragged backward through a bramble patch in a high wind.”
He turned her gently by the shoulders. Good sturdy shoulders, but delicate too. “Are you quoting somebody?”
She stared at his cravat. “My favorite aunt.”
That’s how her favorite aunt described her? “My father calls me hopelessly idealistic and a waste of good tailoring.”
Miss Ada patted the linen at his throat. “You are a very fine use of good tailoring, in my opinion. Will you pay these calls with me, my lord? I never know what to say, I spill my tea, I trip and stumble and bring up the wrong topics. I talk about compost, which one is not supposed to mention, and I neglect to remark upon the weather, which one is supposed to do, and… I am babbling.”
She was anxious about simple socializing. “Nobody likes asking for money, but many people take pleasure in supporting a worthy cause. To bestow an appreciated kindness feels good, and I believe we are meant to be kind to one another.”
Miss Ada studied him for a curiously long time. “I wish you were right about that. Upon whom do we call first?”
“Lady Barstow,” John said. “My sisters consider her a friend, and she’s sweet-natured, but Miss Ada?”
“You’ll come with me? Truly? You won’t make me do this alone?”
She beamed at him with such feminine benevolence, such… such warm-heartedness, John nearly lost his train of thought.
“An unmarried lady typically does have an escort, and it would be my pleasure to serve you in that capacity. There is one thing, however.”
“No, there is not. There is nothing except my immense relief to know you will be at my side. I’ve never had to ask anybody for money, you see. If I can’t be self-sufficient, I simply do without. Life is easier, and nobody is bothered with my importuning.”
She was still smiling, even as she recited circumstances no well-born lady should be familiar with.
“Perhaps that explains the difficulty,” John said, “because surely straitened circumstances have played a hand in your wardrobe selection.”
Miss Ada’s smile dimmed, then flickered, then winked out. “I am decently covered.”
She was trying for a brisk statement of fact, but John heard the defensiveness lurking in her words.
“You are not dressed to receive callers, much less make calls, not as you deserve to be. I have sisters, and if you have no other plans for the rest of the afternoon, I’d like to introduce you to them.”
Miss Ada bowed her head. “They will fuss at me. They will say I am too short, and too stout, and my hair is mousy, and I need to smile.” She grimaced at him, putting straight white teeth on display. “I am altogether hopeless.”
John fell in love. He was well acquainted with the sensation because it visited him regularly. He fell in love with the sound of a small boy puzzling out new words for the first time, with a fresh pot of tea first thing in the morning, with the laughter of rambunctious children charging into the garden to play knights, Valkyries, buccaneers, and castaways.
This time, he fell in love with the vulnerability and hope in Miss Ada’s eyes, and with the fact that she was trusting him—the marquess’s despair, unfit for the church, behind in his rent, him—to aid her to achieve her objective.
“Nothing is hopeless,” he said, “and my sisters will say you are intelligent, comely, and possessed of a fine feminine figure.”
“They’d lie to you?”
He took her by the hand. “Somebody has been lying to you. Come along, Miss Ada. Time is of the essence, and the fate of St. Jerome’s might well rest on your selection of new bonnets.”
Chapter Three
Ada moved carefully to the mirror to survey the damage wrought by two hours closeted with John’s sisters. New stays, petticoats, underskirts, and lace were an unfamiliar hindrance to her movements, far more confining than the worn versions of the same items she usually donned.
“I rustle when I move,” she said, scowling at the frothy image in the mirror. “I swish when I walk. My clothing never ceases whispering unless I remain as still as a statue.”
Lord John’s sisters were much like him: Tall, confident, and cheerfully determined. The eldest, Lady Thalia, stood smiling behind Ada.
“Your attire whispers of elegance and ladylike self-possession.”
The middle sister, Lady Clio, joined them at the mirror. “Your outfit also whispers of money. Money begets money, Papa says, and he ought to know.”
“We must do something about your shoes,” said the third sister, Lady Polyhymnia.
“Polly is right,” Lady Thalia said. “You can’t attire yourse
lf in the first stare of fashion, and then clomp about in jack boots.”
Ada felt surrounded by titans, though Lord John’s sisters had been named for Greek muses. “My boots add two inches to my height. I refuse to give them up.”
An unreadable look was exchanged over Ada’s head, reminding her that the ways of women had never made sense to her. At school, all the girls had known when to laugh and when to remain silent, while Ada had never learned those cues.
“Your petite stature is an asset,” Lady Thalia said. “Your earnestness and intellect are more formidable for being housed in a delicate temple.”
I am not a temple. Rather than make that retort, Ada considered her reflection. “I look… female.” Her figure was in evidence, though more in a suggestion of curves and contours, rather than a cinched waist and up-thrust bust. The effect was womanly rather than girlish or flirtatious.
“You look feminine,” Lady Polly said. “What if you wore heeled slippers?”
“You won’t clomp,” Lady Thalia added. “But you’ll have an inch or so of added height, enough that none of your hems will have to be taken up, and you can be about your calls immediately.”
A compromise. With these women, compromise was a battle tactic. Ada would surrender her beloved and comfortable half-boots, and a selection of slippers would be presented. Not a one of them would have even an inch of heel, but she’d concede, because one must wear something on one’s feet, and half an inch of heel was better than nothing.
Then too, their ladyships asked so reasonably, so prettily. They seemed genuinely kind, not at all like the conniving minxes Ada had gone to school with.
“Very well,” Ada said, “I will try slippers for a day. If they give me blisters, I get my boots back.”
“Oh, of course,” Lady Clio said. “One cannot waltz with blistered feet. Perish the notion. Let’s show Johnnie your new frock.”
Ada let the mention of waltzing pass, for these good women could not know her dread of mincing around Almack’s. She would leave the marquess’s mansion with boxes of new frocks, or new-to-her frocks most of which were cast-offs of some Waverly cousin or in-law. She would most assuredly not be waltzing.
