by Ava Stone
"You will do," the woman said in her soft voice with a slight French accent.
Agatha's stomach picked that moment to growl.
Marie laughed. "We will make sure Lady Grace has cakes at tea!"
So there was a Lady Grace.
The maids remanded her back to the footman who took her back to the butler and it seemed like everything was just going round and round. The butler ushered her to a doorway and signaled for her to wait, then knocked lightly and stepped through himself.
"Presenting Miss Agatha Chase."
Realizing that was her cue, she stepped through the doorway into a quite splendid drawing room awash with sunlight. She saw a lone figure on a low sofa across the room and gave an awkward curtsy in that direction.
"No, not at all the thing," a mild voice said. "Do it again. Wait at least a moment after your name is announced before stepping in, hold your chin up, and try to curtsy more elegantly than a newborn foal finding its legs."
Agatha blinked in surprise but stepped back into the hallway.
"Presenting Miss Agatha Chase."
How long was a moment? She waited just long enough to take a deep breath and walked in with her shoulders back and chin held high. She wasn't sure she could improve the curtsy, but more slowly lowered and raised herself as though being careful could save her from the awkwardness of knees and elbows that didn't know where to go.
"Much better," the voice said approvingly. "Join me."
Stepping closer the sun wasn't so much in her eyes and she could finally see Lady Grace Hopewell. An older woman, older even than Agatha's mother would be if she had lived, but possessed of lovely dark gray hair, dancing eyes, and the air of one born to privilege.
"Lady Grace," Agatha murmured while settling onto the chair near her apparent patroness.
The older woman studied her quite baldly. "Your expression bespeaks fortitude," Lady Grace said softly. "Although an excellent thing to have, it is a terrible thing to convey. Every man of our class believes he wants a delicate woman of refinement."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm no wilting violet."
"Nor should you be. You must be like the honeysuckle. Pleasant to look at, sweet, and," Lady Grace leaned forward slightly to emphasize the next word, "indestructible."
The older woman's slight lift to her brow as she settled back hinted that she might be much more formidable than she seemed.
"I'm not sure that I want a husband," Agatha admitted.
"No, you want a roof over your head and food to eat. A husband is simply the surest way to secure those things."
"That sounds... cold."
"All is fair and love and war, my dear."
For a woman of such lovely features and soft voice, Lady Grace counseled like a pragmatic and seasoned veteran.
"You have knowledge of my circumstances?" Agatha asked. It made her feel small to admit her vulnerabilities while sitting across from a woman whose wealth was nearly shouted out by every piece of expensive bric-a-brac in the room, by every servant who hovered in the hallways waiting to do her bidding.
"Only that you have fallen on hard times and are a relative of my dear friend Elaine."
Agatha recognized her deceased aunt's name. "Oh! I didn't realize you knew my family."
"That's why I told His Grace I would be delighted to serve as your sponsor for the Season. We have much to do, but you are a bright, lovely girl. We will have you married before you know it."
Agatha felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. That was precisely what she was afraid of.
Chapter 5
After a week of riding, billiards, drinking, and telling stories from their years apart, Laurence and his friend made their way to London. Clearly, he was using the distraction Tom provided to avoid the crushing weight of his responsibilities. It was odd that commanding men on the open seas, facing peril in the wars, had not seemed nearly as daunting. For him, the mundane was his undoing. It irritated him, made him uncomfortable. He would wonder how Horace had withstood hours of discussion about the health of sheep and price of wool, but it was exactly the sort of conversation he could imagine his brother participating in. Horace had been the very soul of earnest domesticity. It was a wonder, really, that the man hadn't married and produced a passel of children. Perhaps a wife would have kept him at the hearth fires, not carousing with his Town friends and participating in at least one very ill-advised curricle race. Laurence had purposefully not sought out the man who had encouraged Horace to such wicked behavior. It would be difficult not to demand satisfaction from the idiot.
Now they were in Town as all of fashionable London began to fill in preparation for the Season, and Laurence thought that he might be physically ill from all the pretension of the gathered Society. Certainly Horace had been better suited to this life with endless processions of folk seeking to see and be seen. Not that Horace had been particularly inclined to that behavior, but he was far less likely to be annoyed by it. Laurence could just imagine that it was second nature to his older brother to know who deserved merely a nod and who warranted the tipping of a hat, rather than needing to be elbowed by Tom. Yet here he was, making an appearance at the fashionable hour and tipping his hat like an automaton.
"How do you stand this?" he muttered to his friend after they had both acknowledged a passing matron who looked unsettlingly like a hog sewn into a green brocade sausage casing.
"Stand what, old boy?" Tom asked, already turning his grin to the next curricle containing a dandy and young miss. They, apparently, only garnered a nod.
"This. All of this. We should have stayed at the townhouse with the claret."
Tom patted his arm. "What do you mean? You've returned to the fold. This is what we do."
Laurence thought that was one of the most disappointing things he'd ever heard.
"That's it," Lady Grace murmured approvingly while gently fanning herself. "It's best if you continue to look down demurely as you haven't quite mastered the coquettish stare yet."
Agatha's lip quirked in a small smile. "Do I still seem surly?"
The last week had proved a surprisingly exhausting lesson in ladylike comportment. Now they had been introduced at a small ball, Agatha's first, where they were to finally meet the man that Lady Grace had said would be her squire for the coming fortnight. Agatha felt oddly exposed in the white silk and gauze dress. It felt obscene to be out in so little clothes, much less to be introduced to a man while wearing them. She didn't care that her old brown dress would be horridly out of fashion here, she wished she could wear it.
"There's no reason to be surly," Lady Grace assured calmly. "It's not even that we expect you to find a match with the viscount, but he is such a catch that being seen with him raises your own stock, making it that much easier to catch a mate of your own."
Agatha didn't care for the games afoot in the upper class, but if they could secure a better future for herself and her brothers then she should at least try her hand at them. Although, quite honestly, if the duke who supposedly could not be refused were to make his appearance right here and now she would be rightly tempted to tell him exactly how little she thought of all this.
"There they are," Lady Grace said, her voice imbued with an enthusiasm Agatha hadn't expected. "The viscount is with Mr. Hopkins, who will make the introductions. Don't stare. Be pleasant. Remember your manners. Smile, they are coming this way."
Agatha tried to peer from the corner of her eye, a trick that Lady Grace assured her was the proper way to look at someone when it was rude to outright stare, but it seemed a talent that she hadn't quite mastered yet. All she could see was two men strolling in their direction, but nothing of significance about them. Turning her head a bit more she saw that one was fair and one dark. The fair one laughed and slapped his companion on the back while the darker one smirked and rolled his eyes. Which was to be her escort? She wasn't sure which seemed less promising, a man who was too jovial or one who seemed brooding.
Reaching the ladie
s, the fair one bowed. "Lady Grace. How is it you grow more beautiful each time I see you?"
Agatha bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Lady Grace was a handsome woman, but it was doing it a bit brown to flirt with her so. Lady Grace simpered and tapped her fan on the gentleman's shoulder. "Oh, Mr. Hopkins, you are far too kind to an old woman's vanity."
"Perish the thought. You are hardly older than my sister." The pleasantries out of the way, Mr. Hopkins turned to include his friend in the conversation. "Lady Grace, if I may introduce Lord Garner, Viscount of Rothering."
The dark-haired fellow made a pretty enough bow, but still had something of sardonic humor playing at his lips. It was maddening trying to study him from under her lashes and she didn't hear anything else until her sponsor was saying her name. She made a curtsy to the two gentlemen, feeling like little more than a marionette. As instructed, she let Lady Grace carry the conversation as she endeavored to look demur and flutter her lashes. After ten minutes she decided that any man who found such behavior appealing deserved whatever harridan might be hiding behind such a mask.
Without her particular involvement in the conversation it was decided that she would accompany the viscount on a carriage ride on the morrow, and that their parties might most agreeably meet at a musical later in the week. When she stole glances up at him, the viscount had an expression of superiority that quite honestly she would be happy to wipe from his face. But, she reminded herself, this man was simply her path to a better life. She needn't approve of him nor even like him. If Lady Grace was correct, then an association with him would bring other suitors to heel.
Provided, of course, there were to be other suitors.
Chapter 6
Laurence was pleasantly surprised by Miss Chase's beauty, with a radiant complexion and light brown hair with a vibrant tinge of red to it, but it rapidly became clear that beauty was her only positive attribute. She proved to be the same sort of insipid miss that had been among the things to drive him from England. She would have been perfect adorning his rather stodgy brother's arm, but he couldn't imagine anything duller than an evening spent with a woman who wouldn't do more than murmur a few pleasantries. Which was why he nearly thumped Tom as the man proceeded to set forth a course of entertainments that would last them a fortnight. He'd agreed to call upon the woman once, not make over her like a suitor! But he was a man of enough breeding that he merely stood by smiling politely as his friend scheduled out his social calendar, even if it crossed his mind that he should challenge the bastard to pistols.
All the while, the miss in question practiced an enigmatic smile with lowered eyes. Was she to be his punishment for disliking his new duties? Or perhaps the Lord had set her in his path as a warning to how much more dire his situation could be than just being irritated about the duties now incumbent upon him. He must be careful not to give the girl a false impression of his interest. He needed to marry, and perhaps sooner than later, but he wanted his wife to have more to offer than a pretty face and docile nature.
Agatha diligently kept the pleasant expression on her face by considering how she could torture this odious man. Rarely deigning to speak, allowing his companion to make all of his arrangements as though nothing more than a servant, and keeping a gimlet eye on her as though she were a cut of veal on his plate that he decided he didn't have a taste for. Perhaps she would never do any of the things she began planning for him, but simply considering petty revenge kept her from storming off, or worse yet challenging his supercilious behavior on the spot. Her brothers had learned long ago that she gave at least as good as, and often quite a bit better than she got. When Fox put a frog in her bed, she returned the favor by putting a snake in his. A harmless garden snake, of course, but the creature slithering across his toes had led to a lifelong insistence on keeping the sheets untucked at the bottom of the bed. Fox had retaliated with a mess of slimy pond mud in her bed, but then mother had stepped in and forbidden any more pranks. It wasn't until Trouble grew old enough to be devious that the house had been full of mischief again. Now it was she and Fox against their brother, with Timid wisely staying out of all of it. All that pranking meant that she could imagine quite clearly how she would wipe that superior smirk off of Lord Garner's face. Her favorite ideas thus far included tripping him into mud, spreading rumors of his horrid flatulence, and cursing so vehemently in his presence that he might very well pass out from the effrontery. The idea of doing all three in the same day entertained her beyond measure.
It occurred to her that she might rather be home with the drudgery of the laundry.
It was a fine day for a carriage ride, which somewhat made him regret his anticipated company. He arrived at Lady Grace's townhouse as Tom had arranged the night before, and the lovely but vapid girl came straight out to greet him on Lady Grace's heels.
"Miss Chase." Laurence bowed over her hand and was not particularly surprised by her murmured greeting. He wasn't sure he'd heard her say a complete and clear word in their acquaintance.
"Take a care with her reputation," Lady Grace admonished. As though Laurence might want any hint of a scandal that could tie him to the gel.
"Of course, Lady Grace," was all he said in return.
Up she went into the curricle, with a good deal more grace and far less assistance from him than he might have expected. When she'd not muttered a single word in ten minutes despite his cajoling, he finally decided to take advantage of her silence and enjoy the day. If it weren't for the company, the social expectations of nodding to every person of import in the park, and his own creeping dread that this was not only what his life had been reduced to but it was all he had to look forward to... Yes, if it weren't for all that, it would be a fine day indeed.
Agatha glanced at her companion from under her lashes again. She was really becoming quite good at it, she thought, this clandestine observation required of demur ladies. He had settled from his inane chatter and now simply nodded at each passerby, as though he were the prince and not merely a viscount. It was something in his bearing, she thought, as well as the mild sneer that seemed to be his routine expression. His posture was almost rigid, like a carving of a man, rather than a living creature of flesh and bone. She still fancied the idea of seeing him tipped into mud. Would such an event serve to abate that stiffness? Or would he fall straight in like a statue? She had to bite her lip to keep from giggling over the picture that would make, but still gave a sort of snorting huff that made him turn his regard to her.
"Have you had quite enough of this outing?" he inquired.
Oh, if he only knew.
Chapter 7
The silent curricle ride was followed by a silent evening at the musicale, an intensely quiet partnering at a dinner party, and now what promised to be a quiet outing to the museum. With her hand on his arm as they toured the building it occurred to him that she provided the exact level of companionship as though he laid a cloth there instead. Certainly there was more to the girl? He transcended from annoyed to curious. How could anyone be as singularly dull as she seemed to be? It didn't matter, of course, because he would be free of her soon. He'd yet to decide what punishment would be appropriate for Tom, since after making some comment that his favor to the duke was complete the rotter had seemingly vanished from London.
Agatha had been a bit overwhelmed by the wealth and magnificence she had seen thus far in London, but nothing could compare to this. Here in the gallery, with soaring walls and warm spring light, were paintings of true and unbelievable beauty. Nothing in what she now realized to be her quite meager existence had prepared her for such delights. It was difficult not to squeal and giggle, rushing from room to room. Or to stand in rapt admiration for an artist's skill. Examining a detail from a portrait she thought that it wasn't so much that the painter had captured the look of silk, but that it was even better. That it was some ideal, as one would want silk to look, not just how it truly was. Whenever she stood for too long, however, she heard her escort sigh or sh
uffle his feet, and off they would go to the next painting.
The viscount was, in her estimation, something of a bore. Once he stopped chattering on their first curricle ride it was as though he had nothing else of any import to say to her. He arrived for all their appointments, but beyond asking her the most basic questions, left her to her own thoughts. His attitude insinuated that he was doing her a grand favor, which all things considered perhaps he was. But it was far from gracious to act like it. He served, in fact, as a good example of what she didn't want in a suitor. He was arrogant, impatient, and bordered on rude. She was glad that no one expected her to make a match with him, because even contemplating it she could barely keep her tongue.
It was best, she counseled herself, to keep her thoughts to herself. If any of his friends were to ask, he would only be able to report that she was quiet and biddable. Certainly even this man, for all his faults, had to have friends worthy of marriage consideration. Not that she was any more enamored of the plan to marry the first decent man with enough ready cash, but she thought of her brothers, with their threadbare clothes and empty bellies and it made the option far more palatable. Blast, but she would even marry this irritating man if he were to ask her right this minute. It was lowering and infuriating, and kept her tongue firmly cleaved in her mouth, even when he yet again sighed and shuffled his feet.
