An Inconvenient Beauty

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “The same way I know whom you’ve chosen. I get the logic—really, I do—but she’s not what you need.”

  The noise of the crowd ebbed and swelled around them as Griffith narrowed his eyes at the other duke. “You’re bluffing,” he finally said. “You want me to say the woman I’ve settled on because you don’t know who it is.”

  “Oh, I know. But mark my words—she’s not the woman for you. You don’t need someone as boring as you think you are. And trust me, old friend, she will bore you.”

  Miranda chose that moment to come bounding to her husband’s side, wide smile and flushed cheeks indicating how much she’d enjoyed her set of dances.

  Griffith nodded to his sister, marveling, as he often did, that the same shade of blond hair and green eyes that he saw in the mirror each morning looked so different in a feminine face. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

  She frowned at her husband. “This is a terrible time for you to suddenly become incapable of keeping a secret.”

  “Revealing my potential heir was a strategic move, I assure you.” Ryland took his wife’s hand and looped it through his elbow, pulling her closer against his side.

  Her smile returned. “Oh, really?”

  Griffith wanted to groan, but that would have given Miranda too much satisfaction. A man of eight and twenty should not feel the need to squirm when his little sister stared at him, even if her expression held the intensity of every headmaster he’d ever had, combined.

  “Pray tell, then, who were we discussing when I arrived?” Miranda bounced on her toes in anticipation.

  It didn’t matter now whether Ryland pulled the right name out of the crowd. Whomever he mentioned would become Miranda’s new best friend as she did everything in her power to help him marry the woman she thought he wanted. There would be no stopping her.

  Ryland grinned as he joined Miranda in staring Griffith’s direction. “Miss Frederica St. Claire.”

  Chapter 2

  “I do wish you’d come last night. You could have taken your first bow along with everyone else. I think half of London chose the ball as their first event of the Season.”

  Miss Isabella Breckenridge shrugged her shoulders as she looked across the room at her cousin perched on the edge of the bed, inspecting the fans lying on top of Isabella’s unpacked trunk. “That ball or the next one, I don’t see as it matters. I’m sure to make a better impression when I’m not covered in road dust.”

  “As if you could make a bad impression.” Miss Frederica St. Claire rose from her chair and fluttered a fan in Bella’s direction with a lopsided grin. “You would have been the belle of the ball.”

  Bella groaned at her cousin’s play on words before giving in to the desire to chuckle at the joke. “I don’t know how you always know how to make me laugh. I think you were born ridiculous.”

  As opposed to Isabella, who had, according to everyone she’d ever met, been born with perfection. She could go the rest of her life without hearing another compliment about the excellent tilt and color of her eyes or the splendid way her high cheekbones framed her face or even how nicely proportioned her ears and shoulders were. Unfortunately, she was about to embark on her first London Season, where she wasn’t likely to hear anything but increasingly absurd and disturbing compliments about such things.

  Maybe she could turn it into her own lotteria game and keep a list of all the features commented on. If she collected her entire face, she’d buy herself a new hat. Maybe even one with a veil. She could bring them back into fashion. Of course, that would require that she have money of her own, and while her uncle would agree to buy her a new hat, he’d likely balk at the idea of a veil.

  A scoff escaped Isabella’s decidedly less symmetrical cousin as she dropped back onto the bed. Frederica had yet to dress for the day and had a comfortable grey wool dressing gown wrapped around her, but a mass of curls already perched atop her head. The thick dark locks threatened to spill out of their confinement no matter how tightly her maid pinned them. “No, I made myself ridiculous. If I didn’t look for the levity in the situation I’d be forced to walk around glum and gloomy like my father does. And I really don’t think a dark frown is going to distract anyone from noticing my nose.”

  Bella smiled at her cousin in the mirror. “It’s not that bad.” Although it was. It truly was.

  While Frederica had spent three months on Isabella’s family farm every year for ten years when they were children, it had been another ten years since Isabella had actually seen her cousin. During those years Freddie’s unfortunate nose had shrunk in Bella’s mind. Seeing her yesterday had been a bit of a start.

  Freddie groaned. “You’re lying to be kind. That’s a good skill to have. It makes an evening with pompous windbags so much easier.”

  “And how do you really feel about the society men?” Isabella frowned at a container of fine powder before using a puff to lightly dust the milled starch across her own coiffure. Back home she’d have simply twisted her hair into a plain bun with a few curls to frame her face, but that wasn’t going to do for a Season in London. And even though she’d waited until the eleventh hour to make the decision, she’d finally chosen to give this challenge her best effort. The starch had been a last-minute purchase, and she hoped it would do what she needed it to do.

  “Who said I was talking about the men? The matrons are just as bad.” Frederica lifted her head and frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “Removing the red, or at least making it less noticeable.” Isabella turned her head, checking all angles to ensure that her hair looked blond and the hints of red were limited as much as possible. She didn’t want it to be too obvious that she’d powdered her hair, but blond was certainly more popular when it didn’t look as if it came from someone distantly related to the lowland Scots. Which she was. Her father’s mother had grown up there, and Isabella had spent more than one fine spring dancing through a field of heather.

  Not this spring, though. This year she would be taking her turns in London, doing her best to attract as many well-connected, titled gentlemen as possible. The fate of her family depended upon it.

  “As if you need to be any more beautiful. Their faces are going to melt off as it is.” Frederica took the powder puff and dabbed lightly at the back of Isabella’s head. “I can’t wait to see Lady Alethea’s face when she meets you. She’s already declared to everyone that she intends to be the most popular girl of the Season.”

  Any other time and Isabella would wish Lady Alethea the best of luck and leave her to it, but not this year. This year Isabella’s very future was riding on her popularity.

  Perhaps her perfect nose would finally be good for something.

  Frederica leaned over and propped her head on Isabella’s shoulder, looking in the mirror as she wrapped her cousin in a hug. “I’ve missed you. Letters simply aren’t the same.”

  “No.” Isabella tilted her head into Frederica’s and squeezed her hands. “They aren’t. Though I’m thankful for those letters. And that your father was willing to frank the postage on them. I could never have paid for them.”

  Frederica’s nose crinkled. “It was the least he could do after refusing to let me visit you anymore.”

  Isabella stood in order to hug her cousin properly. “But I’m here now, and getting to see you every day for a few months is the only bright spot in this entire situation. So we’ll make the most of it.”

  “That we will.” Frederica smiled, looking quite pretty despite her large nose. Hers was a unique beauty, unappreciated by most of London, which was probably why she was venturing out on her fourth Season.

  “And we’ll start today,” Isabella said decisively. “Go finish getting ready. We’re going to take London by storm.”

  A short laugh burst from Frederica’s chest as she moved toward the door. “You are, maybe. You forget—I’ve been down this road before. I doubt my entrance will be anything more than a morning mist.”

  Frederica wen
t to her own room to dress for the day, leaving Isabella to inspect every inch of her appearance for her first steps in Town. With her hair done, her head weighed down with all the jewelry she owned, and her new dress fitted to perfection, there was no reason to stay in her room—aside from the fact that leaving it would mean she really had agreed to Uncle Percy’s demands. Demands that made her feel a little ill and a lot detestable.

  Her uncle had been unhappy that the travel delay had made Isabella miss last night’s ball, but he’d be downright angry if he knew she’d done it on purpose. She’d stayed behind at Uncle Percy’s country estate for two weeks to wait on the completion of her wardrobe. What Uncle Percy didn’t know was that the clothing had been delivered a week ahead of schedule. Isabella had spent the rest of the time asking herself if she truly meant to follow his plan. Was she really going to gamble her family’s future on a straight nose and a creamy complexion?

  Apparently she was, because two days ago she’d set her mind away from debating the merits of the endeavor and focused instead on how to make the absurd plan a success. It was going to take more than a pretty face and a sweet smile. She couldn’t be the only beautiful woman in London. Society’s curiosity, however, could make even a plain girl the center of attention. Imagine what it could do for her.

  Today, and for as many moments as possible until her uncle took her to her first formal event, she was going to be seen. Seen, but not heard, or at least not introduced. Freddie didn’t know it yet, but they were going to go for rides, visit shops, and drink tea until everyone who was at all out and about in London had a chance to see Isabella looking better than she’d ever looked before. She’d taken lessons from a traveling singer and a group of actors and learned discreet tricks, not only for powdering her hair, but for lightening the appearance of her lightly tanned country-girl skin and making her eyes appear even larger and her lashes fuller.

  Her thick locks didn’t really require any hairpieces to achieve a full and fashionable coiffure, but she’d obtained some anyway, in a light blond that would further distract from the red in her hair. They itched, but nothing about the next few months was going to be comfortable, so what did a little false hair matter?

  The sun was shining and a light breeze whisked through the streets as Isabella and Frederica stepped out of the house with their maids and turned toward Bond Street.

  Frederica sighed. “This isn’t going to work, you know.”

  Isabella clapped a hand on top of her bonnet and tilted her head up toward the sun, soaking in the warmth after the chill of her uncle’s house, only part of which was due to the drafts and his stinginess with the coal. “Whyever not? I’ve been reading your letters, and you’ve assured me that, despite approaching your fourth Season in Town, you haven’t made a lot of friends. You don’t really know anyone.”

  Freddie sighed. “That is true. But I know everyone. More to the point, everyone knows me. It’s rather hard to forget meeting me, even if they can’t manage to look further than my nose. They’re going to request introductions.”

  “Only the women. The men will have to wait until we approach them, and they’re the only ones I care about.” Isabella adjusted the strings of her gold silk reticule. “Besides, if we look involved enough, even the women will think twice before approaching us. We’ll simply have to stay very active in whatever we choose to do.”

  Freddie shook her head and sighed. “If that is what you want to do, we’ll do it. It’s your first day in London, after all.”

  Bella hooked her arm through Freddie’s, the bright yellow of her spencer providing quite a contrast to the burnt orange of her cousin’s.

  A small smile tilted up one side of Freddie’s mouth. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you’re a year older than me. You don’t look it, you know.”

  “Praise God.” Isabella closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pang of guilt that the casual praise caused her. It felt wrong to praise God while planning to do something that was less than upright and possibly could be considered sinful. “Can you imagine if people knew I was taking my first bows at twenty-four? I’d be shuffled off to the side of the ballroom without a second glance. Uncle Percy has decided to tell everyone I’m nineteen. I can pass for it readily enough, so I’ve decided not to correct anyone, though I won’t speak the lie.”

  Frederica frowned. “I don’t like this.”

  That made two of them, but Bella didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted to save her family from near ruin. As a woman, her options were limited, but as the oldest of five siblings, she felt a certain responsibility to help. Marriage would have made the most sense, but her father’s devastating injury almost five years ago had necessitated delaying her debut a year. Not that it would have been much of a debut. Everyone in their village already knew her, and there weren’t funds or time to spend a full Season in one of the larger cities, but they’d been planning to spend a few weeks here and there. Mother had even been considering a short trip to London. But with her father trapped in bed, waiting to see if his leg would heal well enough to avoid amputation, leaving wasn’t an option.

  That yearlong delay had turned into two and then three, and by the time anyone noticed, Isabella had been practically running the family farm. Whichever local boys hadn’t been terrified of her near legendary beauty had been scared off by her family’s situation. No one wanted to saddle himself with a wife whose relations were on the verge of desperation, especially when none of them had the means to solve her family’s problems.

  Problems she’d become all too familiar with in the past few years. Their situation was dire. Her father did all he could on his poorly healed leg, but that wasn’t much. Her mother did all she could to help her father. That left four children stringing along behind Isabella, staring into a future that looked downright bleak if the family farm didn’t find a way to thrive again.

  And Isabella was out of ideas. The only way left was to take Uncle Percy’s offer. So she had, telling herself she’d eventually quiet all the voices in her head telling her it was a bad idea.

  Quieting the voice outside her head might prove a bit easier. She gave Frederica a smile that she hoped was reassuring and confident. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see. One Season of dancing around with your cousin from the north, and then I’ll disappear. No one will ever see me again, and any dust I stir up will settle without your being any worse off than you were before.”

  “But what will you do if you actually fall in love?” Frederica gripped Isabella’s arm tighter. “Not all the men in London are awful, you know. You could meet someone you genuinely like, and then what will you do?”

  The very idea that Isabella would find enough in common with a London aristocrat to fall in love was rather laughable. While it was true Isabella’s interaction with aristocratic men was limited to Uncle Percy, a neighboring baron, her village’s ancient hermit viscount, and one very distant viewing of the Duke of Northumberland, she’d read the papers. Though they were nearly two weeks old by the time they circulated through the women of the village, time didn’t really matter when one wasn’t an intimate part of the happenings anyway. Her life was so far removed from the antics of the men in those articles, she was confident that walking away would be the one guaranteed success of this entire plan.

  It was hard to remember that her mother had come from a life like the one described on the pages, a life filled with parties and lace instead of sheep and quilting by the fire. Bella reached one gloved hand up to rub her neck, where her mother’s topaz-and-seed-pearl earrings were brushing against her skin. The kid leather felt equally foreign. “I don’t see that happening. As much as I adore you, Freddie, I don’t think this life would ever be able to hold much appeal for me.”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt.” Frederica frowned. “You’ve no idea what it’s like to love someone and lose them.”

  Bella looked into Freddie’s eyes, trying to convey comfort and sympathy without hugging her tight like she wanted
to. A comforting embrace would be too out of place on the busy street, but the fact that Freddie was still pining for her lost love, whom she’d lost to the war more than two years ago, made Isabella more determined than ever to keep her heart away from all of her interactions this Season.

  “I’m not worried.” It was probably the only thing about the upcoming months that Isabella wasn’t worried about. “I’ll have a fine time this Season”—that part was a lie—“and then I can return home with a bit of polish and find a nice landed gentleman to settle down with.”

  Though she still didn’t look convinced, Frederica dropped the subject and turned to the nearby milliner’s window to discuss the merits of the bonnets on display. Isabella faced the window, but her attention wasn’t on the plumes and ribbons. She watched the reflection. More than one person slowed to get a better look in her direction before whispering something to their companion.

  Whispers were good. The more attention she got, the more access Uncle Percy had to the people he wanted to influence. She was bait in a trap, and while she tried very hard not to think about the fact that the bait was often eaten, even in a successful trap, it was difficult to convince herself that all would be well in a few short months. Her family would have the money they needed, her brothers would have a future, and she would be free to make their farm the best one in the county again.

  The breeze carried pieces of a nearby conversation to her ears. A conversation centered on who she was and whether or not she intended to socialize this year.

  Isabella hid her smile of success. While most of the time she didn’t give a thought to her straight nose or wide-set eyes, she was grateful for them today. They were getting the job done.

  Chapter 3

  On a normal day, a large group of people gathered excitedly around a single thing wouldn’t have merited Griffith’s interest. After all, if the thing were actually important beyond its inflated social significance, he would learn about it soon enough. Most things were usually forgotten within a week, and he had better things to do than clutter up his thoughts with the latest furor to catch society’s interest.