by Lynn Messina
“How very broad-minded of him,” the duchess said with an ironic grin. “I’m sure Vinnie appreciates his forbearance.”
Having followed Miss Harlow’s candidacy, which had caused quite a stir after a wager was placed in the betting book at Brooks’s that she would not succeed in her goal, Agatha knew how ardently the Duchess of Trent supported her sister’s cause and wasn’t at all surprised by the archness in her tone. That the other Harlow girl needed her twin’s ardent support was not in doubt, for the young woman had scandalized the ton with her determination to win entrée into the masculine domain. A more modest lady would have immediately declined the invitation, which had clearly been issued as a joke, but Vinnie Harlow used it as an opportunity to achieve her true goal: nabbing a husband. Everyone knew she was dangling after Felix Dryden, Marquess of Huntly, the famous naturalist who had recently returned from a two-year expedition to the South Seas. Her pursuit of such an eligible bachelor—he had wealth, good looks and a quick wit—would be unremarkable save for the fact that she had only just emerged from deep mourning for her fiancé, Sir Waldo Windbourne. The flagrant lack of respect for a man whose life had been tragically cut short offended all proper feeling.
Ordinarily, Agatha’s supply of proper feeling ran short, a circumstance her mother frequently deplored as unnatural, but on the matter of Miss Lavinia Harlow and her hoydenish sister, she had a substantial surplus. She couldn’t say why exactly the behavior of the two girls affronted her so much, but there was something about them that set her teeth on edge.
To be fair, Agatha had never actually paid much heed to Vinnie, for she had always seemed like the sensible twin, complying with the strictures of society without complaint like any proper young lady. But her zealous resolve to gain membership to the British Horticultural Society proved she was cut from the same cloth as her sister.
“Oh, but I do appreciate his forbearance,” Miss Harlow insisted now with so much humility Agatha had little recourse but to doubt her sincerity. “I did not expect to gain admittance to such a prestigious organization and fully anticipate there will be a period of adjustment for everyone. I’m grateful for all the support I can get.”
Just as Miss Harlow uttered the word support, reinforcements arrived in the form of Sir Charles Burton and the Earl of Moray, two members of the horticultural society who appeared to require no period of adjustment in accepting a woman among their ranks. The earl, in particular, seemed delighted with the turn of events and pledged to guide Miss Harlow through her first meeting, which would coincide with an exciting lecture from an American naturalist who would arrive from New York on the morrow.
Sir Charles applauded his friend’s generous offer and urged Miss Harlow to accept it. “We in the society take much pride in our protocols, of which we have dozens to provide order and efficiency. I don’t doubt a young lady such as yourself might get confused trying to follow all of the rules, and Moray can be relied upon to ably translate complex ideas into simple terms. I will also be on hand to help make your first meeting a pleasant experience.”
“I cannot imagine a more gracious offer,” Miss Harlow said. “Of course I’m happy to accept. Thank you.”
“Naturally, my sister is pleased to return the favor, for she’s quite adept at understanding complex ideas, as well. Just this afternoon, in fact, she perfected her invention of the Brill Method Improvised Elasticized Hose,” the duchess explained. Then she looked at the two peers with bright blue eyes wide with innocent curiosity. “What devices have you gentlemen recently invented?”
Sir Charles coughed awkwardly while the earl pulled out his fob and pointed to a knot securing the red-and-gold ribbon to his watch. “This bow is of my own creation. I call it the Moray Maneuver. If you like, I shall demonstrate it for you.”
The duchess was saved from responding by the arrival of Mr. Edward Abingdon, yet another member of the British Horticultural Society who felt compelled to assure Miss Harlow of her welcome.
Observing the scene, Agatha couldn’t decide if she was amused or disgusted. It was embarrassing to witness so many accomplished gentlemen—Mr. Abingdon, for example, was a noted whipster—making a cake of themselves over an assertive female who had elbowed her way into their private club. What flattery! What fawning! What absurd currying of favor!
Truly, she’d never seen anything like it.
At the same time, however, there was something irrefutably hilarious about watching her father’s beloved and esteemed institution devolve into a miniature marriage mart for the use and benefit of Miss Lavinia Harlow. The British Horticultural Society was clearly prime husband-hunting ground, and Agatha could not entirely blame Miss Harlow for working so tirelessly to gain entry into it. She was, after all, four-and-twenty years old and had already lost one fiancé to an unfortunate accident—suffocated by his own corset, if the rumors were to be believed. A woman of her advanced years could not have many options left, especially if she had scholarly interests such as inventing things. Yet now, suddenly, her life was rife with possibilities, for if she failed to catch the Marquess of Huntly, the Earl of Moray seemed happy to impale himself on the hook.
If Lady Bolingbroke had realized the society’s potential for securing a spouse, she would have petitioned for her daughter’s inclusion years ago.
Agatha’s gaze sharpened as an image took form in her mind. She pictured the society’s stately lecture hall, where the great Sir Joseph Banks himself once gave a presentation on the uses of eucalyptus, redecorated to look like Almack’s. Amid the crystal chandeliers, large wall mirrors and orchestra, she envisioned the twenty-six members of the society tripping over each other to sign Miss Harlow’s dance card.
She would call the tableau the British Wedding Society.
No, she thought, shaking her head. The cadence wasn’t right. The title of the drawing had to sound more like the organization it was ridiculing. Perhaps the British Matrimony Society. It was a vast improvement, no question, but it still fell short of capturing the rhythm. She closed her eyes for a moment, the image so clear in her head she felt as if she could touch it, and saw the perfect name write itself along the bottom of the picture: the British Matrimonial Society.
“You can’t do it, my dear.”
The male voice, suspiciously close to her right ear, startled Agatha, and her eyes flew open. Standing beside her was a blond gentleman dressed in the first stare of fashion—exquisitely cut coat, elaborately tied cravat, lavishly embroidered waistcoat, pristinely pressed pantaloons without a hint of wrinkle. Every aspect of his appearance, from the slope of his pocket flap to the gleam of his Hessians, spoke of a keen attention to detail and hours spent before a looking glass inspecting the results.
Agatha, who could not imagine taking that much care with her toilette—or, in fact, any care—looked at him in shock, her heart tripping in fear that he’d discovered her secret.
Impossible, she told herself. This tall stranger with the amused brown eyes could know her secret. Nobody knew it—not her father, not her mother, not even the estimable Mrs. Biddle, who owned the print shop in St. James’s Street. Only her lady’s maid, Ellen, knew her alter ego was a famous caricaturist, and she certainly had not told this preening dandy.
Assuring herself that she had nothing to fear, however, did little to calm her nerves, and she felt an almost irrepressible impulse to deny his assertion. Yes, I can do it, she wanted to shout. But to admit such a thing would be absolute madness, for she didn’t know what she was claiming to be able to do. A far better response would be to deny that there was anything to deny: I didn’t say I could do anything. That was risky, too, though, because denying that there was anything to deny could have the unfortunate effect of implying confirmation—confirmation of what, she didn’t know, which was just as bad.
Completely in the dark and unable to think of a reply, Agatha found herself speechless for the first time in her life.
“It’s an appallingly dressed crowd, I know,” the gentleman sai
d, “but you can’t simply close your eyes because it hurts to look at the world. I’ve tried on repeated occasions—most recently when the Count de Fézensac arrived at Viscount Morton’s ball sporting a chartreuse-and lilac-striped waistcoat with sequined buttons—and I always wind up walking into a drum table. Better to steadfastly face the truth head on: Few of one’s acquaintance own any claim to sartorial elegance. That might seem too excruciating a fact to swallow, but I assure you it’s less painful than a bruised shin.”
As grateful as she was to finally know the topic under discussion—she wasn’t accustomed to ignorance and did not relish the sensation—Agatha still had no idea what he was talking about. The gentleman’s conversation was too absurd to digest (drum tables? bruised shins?), and she continued to stare at him with her black eyes wide with confusion.
“There are a few bright spots and perhaps it would help if you focused your attention on those,” he announced, warming to his theme. “My coat, for example, with its delicate windowpane design. Note how small and uniform the pattern is. It provides a soupçon of ornamentation, just enough to entertain the eye without knocking it over. Needless to say, I would ordinarily feel mortification at offering a compliment to my own person, but the coat and, in fact, my entire ensemble are the work of my tailor, not myself, so the only compliment is to my having the good sense to find the right one.”
Agatha knew from experience that the best way to bring an end to an unwelcome exchange was to say something cutting, a skill that came as naturally to her as breathing, but as she looked at the gentleman in his delicately patterned topcoat, she couldn’t think of a single set-down. The more he chattered about ridiculously inconsequential things, the slower her mind worked. She did not know to what to attribute the effect, other than being unaccustomed to someone talking so long in her presence. Usually by now the other person had curled under her withering gaze.
Perhaps my gaze isn’t withering enough.
With that thought came another, and she said sternly, “You cannot knock over an eye. You can poke it or blind it, but you cannot knock it over as if it were a chair or a small child.”
As far as famous Lady Agatha conversation-ending ripostes went, it was hardly up to her usual standards, but it gave the gentleman enough pause to halt his rambling monologue.
He tilted his head to the side, then conceded with a nod. “You are correct,” he said. “Of course you are. The number of abuses one can afflict on the eye are limited and do not extend much beyond pokes and blindings. I suppose you can roll an eye, but a roll is not a knock, and regardless, it can be done only by oneself. I beg your pardon for not choosing my words more carefully, but I’m afraid I always get a bit beside myself when discussing topcoat ornamentation. I hope you can forgive the excess.”
His expression was entirely sincere—he even managed to draw his eyebrows together in a show of contrition—but Agatha could not suppress the feeling that he was making fun of her. Nobody apologized so effusively for what was merely a turn of speech.
Determined to end the conversation once and for all, she said, “No, I cannot.” The brusque refusal of an apology was one of Lady Agony’s most reliable tactics: The rudeness was so abrupt and unexpected, the apologist either retreated in stunned silence or stood mutely while Agatha walked away.
Not this gentleman. No, this dandy with the expertly tailored topcoat and the excessively sincere apology simply laughed and said, “Right you are. It was an unforgivable offense.”
Now he was mocking her outright!
If there was one thing Lady Agatha Bolingbroke did not know how to be, it was a figure of fun, and she stood there, teetering between anger and embarrassment, unsure which emotion she felt more strongly.
Anger, she thought decisively, as the hot flush of embarrassment washed over her cheeks.
The moment clearly called for a scathing insult, something caustic and biting that would send him scurrying back to his dressing room, where he belonged. But she saw the amusement on his face and realized he didn’t have the gravity of mind to take anything seriously, let alone recognize when an insult had been heaped on his head. He was a fop, a frippery fellow with his mind firmly planted in his wardrobe, and nothing she could say would give her the upper hand.
Lady Agatha dearly treasured having the upper hand.
Even if she couldn’t put him in his place with an acerbic retort, she could at least make her displeasure known. She was, after all, the daughter of an esteemed peer and the guest of the Duchess of Trent. Surely, she deserved better treatment than to be laughed at by a cavalier coxcomb with more hair than wit.
Protesting, however, would only earn her another overly effusive apology.
Before she could decide on a response, the gentleman took her hand in his own and raised it to his lips for the briefest of kisses. “My dear Lady Agatha,” he said gravely, “it has been a pleasure.”
Astonished by the blatancy of the lie, for nobody had ever uttered anything remotely similar to her, she exclaimed, “No, it hasn’t.”
Once again, he laughed, his deep, rich baritone ringing with pure humor, and Agatha found herself oddly struck by the warmth in his bright brown eyes. She ordered herself to turn away but could not.
“You’re right,” he agreed easily. “It’s been dreadfully dull and you should apologize for forcing me to endure such an unpleasant experience.”
His playful tone stunned her—nobody teased Lady Agony!—and she stared in silent amazement as he stepped past her to pay his respects to her mother. He inquired after Lady Bolingbroke’s health and asked a series of questions about her fondness for Shakespeare, after which he had an equally sensible conversation with Miss Harlow. He responded to her questions with perfectly reasonable answers that made no reference to windowpane patterns or chartreuse waistcoats.
Observing the lively scene—the easy way Miss Harlow and the gentleman conversed with each other—made Agatha feel strangely unsettled, as if something worthwhile was happening and she was deprived of the opportunity to enjoy it. The notion was absurd, of course. The only thing she’d been deprived of that evening was the pleasure of not foisting her presence on complete strangers. It was her mother’s fault that she was standing by herself in a crowded theater box with an awkward sense of not belonging.
“We should allow these ladies to get settled before the performance starts,” Mr. Abingdon announced to his friend, who was smiling at something Miss Harlow said.
The earl, who had been cut out of his conversation with Miss Harlow, immediately seconded this idea and suggested that Mr. Abingdon and his friend leave at once. Unfortunately, Sir Charles also agreed that the ladies should be given a few minutes to settle and insisted they make their good-byes.
As soon as the gentlemen left the box, Agatha turned to her mother and asked, “Who was the man who accompanied Mr. Abingdon?”
Although Lady Bolingbroke took great pride in her vast knowledge of the beau monde, she was too distracted by the events across the way to recite her usual assortment of facts such as lineage, current address and estate value as well as snippets of gossip she deemed relevant or accurate. Instead, she raised her opera glasses, leaned forward in her seat and supplied her daughter with only a name: Viscount Addleson. Then she said with curious excitement, “Mr. Carpenter has been joined by two ladies. The woman in the blue turban is vaguely familiar and is most probably his aunt Calliope Redburne, whose husband is the ambassador to Russia. But I’ve never seen the younger one before. Her brown curls are very pretty, and her eyebrows arch charmingly. She must be his cousin.”
Agatha didn’t give a fig about Mr. Carpenter or his relations, but she knew better than to inquire further about the viscount. Even with her attention drawn elsewhere, Lady Bolingbroke would immediately recognize an indication of interest on her daughter’s part and pounce. Viscount Addleson would suddenly find himself invited to tea and rides in Hyde Park and intimate dinners at home with the family. It had happened before with
poor Mr. Sutherland, whose only crime had been to have extraordinarily symmetrical features, a fact Agatha had the shortsightedness to observe in the presence of her mother.
Two years had passed since Mr. Sutherland hopped a boat to India to escape her mother’s invitations—at least, that was how Agatha thought of his unexpected, seemingly unplanned journey—but recalling the horror still made her shudder.
Having learned from her mistakes, Agatha gaped at Lady Bolingbroke in surprised fascination. “Charmingly arched eyebrow? I must see that. May I?” she asked, holding her hand out for the glasses, which her mother surrendered with great reluctance.
Although Agatha saw nothing remarkable in the arch of the young woman’s eyebrows, she devoted several minutes to praising first it, then the curve of her chin. While she spoke, she scanned the theater looking for the viscount, who was seated several rows to Mr. Carpenter’s left. The two boxes were close enough in proximity that she could examine Addleson without raising either her mother’s or her subject’s suspicion.
Now that he wasn’t prattling nonsensically about clothes or blatantly mocking her, Agatha could appreciate his aesthetic qualities—the broad swath of his shoulders, the straight line of his nose, the deep rose of his generous lips. He wore his blond hair calculatingly disheveled in a perfect approximation of the windswept style.
He was not handsome—at least, not in the classical way of Mr. Sutherland, whose physical perfection made her want to place him in a variety of tableaux. If the gentleman had been willing and society permissive, she would have leaned him against a fireplace, stood him before a ruin and sat him upon a horse in full regalia.
