Passion and Pretense

by Susan Gee Heino

  “How could I visit with you, Lady Worth, when your family is connected to Jason’s?”

  Sarah had thought to shock Phillippa Worth. And she had. But not for the reasons she had imagined. Because while she read surprise in that lady’s eyes, she also recognized not horror, but applause.

  “Yes, my husband’s brother is married to the Duke of Rayne’s sister.” Lady Worth waved her hand in the air again, seemingly waving away anything that she did not consider important. “But that is exactly why you should have accepted my invitation.”

  “Lady Worth, I…” Sarah tried, but suddenly, she felt very tired. The weight of the party, overhearing her parents and sister’s conversation, and now the mad assault on logic and propriety that was Lady Worth being in her library, settled over Sarah and she could no longer stop her shoulders from slumping.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” she asked, already half seated on the settee.

  Lady Worth, to her credit, immediately sat down with Sarah, and in what she must have thought was a sympathetic gesture, patted Sarah’s hand.

  “Would you like me to call for some tea? Or perhaps sherry?” Lady Worth inquired kindly.

  Sarah let out a small, exhausted laugh. “Lady Worth, we are in my house. I should be offering tea to you.”

  “Oh,” she replied, with a smile. “I nearly forgot. And I think this will be simpler if you take to calling me Phillippa, and I, you, Sarah.”

  “What will be simpler?” Sarah asked, hoping to finally understand… anything.

  Lady Worth—Phillippa—regarded her quietly for a moment.

  “It’s too early in the Season for you to be this tired,” she finally observed.

  Sarah thought about denying it, thought about making excuses…but somehow, she couldn’t fight it any longer. She couldn’t pretend to be even and fine. The only thing left to do was admit her failings.

  To give in to gravity’s pull.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Sarah admitted. “Tonight, we had our first party—my mother was so excited to be a hostess again, and it’s my sister’s first Season, and it was just—”

  “Terrible,” Phillippa supplied. At Sarah’s questioning look, Phillippa smiled in bemusement. “Really, you should simply assume that I know everything already. It saves time.”

  “Yes, but how—”

  “At least three of your evening’s attendees were at the Newlins’ ball after your fete. Interestingly, no fewer than five people fought through the crush to rush to my side and let me know—as the only connection to the Duke of Rayne in town—just how unfortunate your supper party was.”

  Sarah started rubbing one of her temples. “Wonderful. Everyone will know.”

  “Oh, I’d expect that it will be in the papers tomorrow.”

  “So all of London thinks I’m a fragile mourner for a missing Duke.”

  “Where did you find that description?” Phillippa peered at her intensely.

  “My…” Not wanting to implicate her sister, Sarah changed tack. “I feel like I’m disappointing my family, most of all. And I don’t know what I could do differently. I smile, and everyone thinks I’m covering my feelings. I frown, and everyone thinks I’m about to break down and cry. I don’t know how to act under such scrutiny. I wish I could just go back to being one of a thousand girls. And not—”

  “‘The Girl Who Lost a Duke’?” Phillippa finished for her.

  Sarah nodded, then turned her gaze to her hands. “My father…I think he’s planning to go back to Portsmouth soon, and perhaps it would be easier—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Phillippa intoned severely, her expression suddenly focused and serious. “Now you listen to me—first of all, do not concern yourself with how your family feels right now. I know it is curious advice, but you have been a dutiful daughter for your entire life. You have never given them reason to be disappointed in you, so do not let them make you feel as such now. Nor should you let the world make you feel as if you are somehow damaged goods. You are no such thing. In fact, when one takes a thorough accounting of your actions, one can only conclude that you have not only done no wrong, you have, in fact, done everything right.”

  “Exactly!” Sarah cried. “I did everything right. Everything. I got top marks from every teacher I had, I learned to play the pianoforte—a little—to sew, to speak French and Latin. I came to London, and only accepted dances from men my mother approved of. And then I met a man who was supposed to be the one I would spend the rest of my life with and I…” Her voice broke, an echo of the seam that still sat along her heart. “I did everything right. And somehow, I still lost.”

  “You lost a battle,” Phillippa agreed. “But the war is long. And the enemy…changeable.”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

  “Public perception,” she said with a smile, “is a tricky thing. The world looks at you now as ‘The Girl Who Lost a Duke.’ You have to change that. Else, no amount of time spent in Portsmouth is going to kill that idea here. In fact, as more time passes, it will be cemented as such. You have to make the world stop looking at you with pity.”

  “How?”

  “First of all, stop looking at yourself with pity. Tell yourself a hundred times a day that it was Jason’s loss, not yours, in ending the engagement. Even if you don’t believe it.” Phillippa gripped Sarah’s hand. “Then, you take London by storm. Be charming, vivacious. Just this side of outrageous. Flirt with appropriate men and dance with inappropriate ones. Be the person every hostess absolutely must have at her party. Put on a mask and save your true feelings for when you are in private. Soon enough, all of London will have forgotten the ‘Girl Who Lost a Duke,’ and instead think the Duke of Rayne utterly mad for having let you escape.”

  “I…I don’t know if I can do all that,” Sarah replied breathlessly.

  “You have to. It is how you survive.” Phillippa’s face suddenly shuttered with old memories. “It is how I did.”

  Sarah looked at the hand gripping hers. Then, she ran her gaze up the elegant dress and stature of the queen of society sitting in her library. But for once, it was not the extravagant dress or the beautiful jewels at her throat that Sarah envied. It was her posture. Her conviction. Her strength. Phillippa Worth was everything a young lady aspired to be. And she knew it.

  “How do I begin?” Sarah asked.

  Phillippa’s eyes lit with anticipation. “We already have.”