An Inconvenient Beauty

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  He really should have waited until he could have gotten Miranda alone.

  “I called on Miss St. Claire this afternoon.”

  Georgina arched a thin eyebrow. Trent was right. The skeptical expression was arrogant and annoying. “To see after her welfare?”

  “In part.” Griffith adjusted the cuffs of his perfectly tailored coat. “I had arranged to take her for a walk.”

  Silence crept across the room for several heartbeats. Miranda cleared her throat. “Arranged?”

  “Yes.” He looked around at the faces displaying various levels of curiosity. “I’ve been by to visit her twice and tried to greet her at several functions this week, but there were always so many people about. So I contacted her father to make sure she would be available.”

  He fell silent again as some of the ladies shifted in their seats and two of them gave a series of small coughs. Had he done something wrong? Men went for walks with the women they were courting. He knew this to be true, even if he’d never done it before.

  Miranda groaned and sliced a hand through the air palm up. “And was she? Available to go for a walk with you?”

  “Of course.” Hadn’t he just said he arranged it with her father? Griffith looked around the circle, his confidence suddenly bolstered. What was he worried about? If Miss St. Claire wasn’t amenable to his suit, she never would have left the house with him. A calm peace allowed his heart rate to quiet and his back to relax farther into the sofa. “She brought her cousin along as well.”

  Two gasps, a high-pitched “Eeep,” and a quickly smothered laugh answered his statement.

  Georgina, who had surprisingly been the one trying not to laugh, looked down at her toes to gain composure before meeting his eyes once more. “Maid too?”

  “Of course.” Griffith frowned. Why wouldn’t they bring the maids? His sisters had taken their maids everywhere. “They both brought their maid.”

  Another round of sighs and groans circled the room.

  “Please tell me she didn’t turn an ankle. No one can ever effectively fake turning an ankle. They’re too afraid of falling to make it look real enough.” Amelia shook her head, causing the short brown curls at her neck to slowly sway in commiserating disappointment.

  “No. Her strength gave out on Bond Street. She believes she’s coming down with an illness and the walk overexerted her.” Some of Griffith’s earlier peace and confidence began to waver as he looked at four amused female faces. “She fainted on me last week. I should have known her constitution was delicate right now and avoided such a vigorous outing.”

  Three sets of eyes cast their gaze to the ceiling. Only Adelaide looked a bit sympathetic—probably because she hadn’t been with this group of women long enough to become comfortable with censuring a duke. She and Trent had only been married a year, and they’d spent a great deal of that year at their estate in Suffolk.

  Her smile was a bit sad as she cleared her throat. “Did she turn back?”

  “No,” Griffith said slowly, a thread of worry winding its way through his memory of the afternoon. “She asked to rest in a coffee shop.”

  “Oh.” Miranda sat up straighter, eyes wide. “Well, that is good, actually. I’ve never understood why more courting couples don’t go to coffee shops. The conversation is ever so much closer. Did you have a good visit?”

  This had been a bad idea. He’d come to get Miranda’s advice on how to most quickly win over Miss St. Claire, and instead he was dissecting a mere walk as if it were the latest measure to come before Parliament. “She insisted I continue my walk, actually, and return for her on the way back.”

  Amelia’s head jerked back. “By yourself?”

  Georgina wiggled her fingers at the other ladies. “No, no. With the cousin.” One side of Georgina’s lips tweaked in amusement. “Do remember Miss Breckenridge was there.”

  Griffith frowned, his thick brows lowering until he could see them in the edges of his vision. “Yes. Miss Breckenridge had been intent on seeing the trees in Berkeley Square, and Miss St. Claire was very distraught at being the reason her cousin would have to wait.”

  “Trees?” Amelia bit her lips together.

  “Are they that remarkable? I’ve never paid them much attention.” Adelaide looked around the room as if she’d missed something.

  Miranda snorted. “That’s because you’re paying too much attention to Trent’s ridiculous ice confection from Gunter’s whenever you go to the square.”

  “I didn’t know Miss St. Claire had that in her. Brava.” Georgina gave three slow claps. “Rather clever workings for someone I’ve always thought a bit light in the head.”

  “Georgina, that’s a terrible thing to say,” Amelia cried. Then she bit her lip. “Griffith is a wonderful man, but if her affections are elsewhere . . .”

  “Griffith is a duke,” Georgina responded, “and if her affections lie elsewhere, the man has been deplorably slow in returning them and she needs to secure herself another future post haste.”

  Griffith cleared his throat. “I believe there was an officer. He died in the war.”

  Miranda swung her head around to stare at him with open mouth. “And you wish to compete with the memory of a dead man? My dear brother, I’m not sure even your perfect ducalness can overcome that.”

  “Ducalness isn’t a word,” Adelaide murmured.

  “Everyone knew what I meant, though, so it should count.” Miranda sniffed. “Besides, making up words should be a duchess’s privilege.”

  Georgina frowned. “You don’t get to declare duchess privilege just to get out of admitting you’re wrong.”

  “I’m happy to admit I’m wrong. Ducalness is not a word.” Miranda crossed her arms. “But it should be.”

  “I think Griffith is more interested in peace and practicality.” Adelaide cocked her head to the side, her enormous blue eyes seeming to stare straight through Griffith from behind her spectacles. “I would think that of her as well, which makes the push toward the cousin interesting. Especially considering how much attention Miss Breckenridge has already garnered.”

  “Her collection does not yet include a duke,” Amelia pointed out.

  Miranda was shaking her head so hard the sofa shifted. “Griffith is absolutely looking for love over peace and practicality. He wouldn’t dare break with family tradition on this one.”

  Griffith looked around the group as Georgina and Miranda fell into an argument about the merits of love matches over practical ones, ironic given that Georgina’s marriage was the most impractical one in the room. When had he lost control of the situation? Had he ever had it? He now had a better understanding of Ryland’s insistence on always being somewhere other than the house on Tuesday afternoons, when the ladies traditionally gathered for tea whenever they were all in Town. Apparently they didn’t limit themselves to Tuesdays. If only they were as committed to tradition and routine as Griffith was, he would be having a quiet conversation with Miranda instead of watching the downward spiral of his family’s composure.

  “Just because you’re jealous doesn’t mean she’s mercenary.” Miranda leaned forward to toss the verbal dagger at her sister.

  Amelia and Adelaide sat silent, looking back and forth at the sisters as the verbal battle waged.

  “I’ve nothing to be jealous of, Miranda. And I only said the fortune of her beauty increased the chances of her being mercenary. She asked Griffith to take her to see trees!”

  Griffith cleared his throat. “Her interest in the trees was quite genuine.”

  All eyes in the room turned his way as if the ladies had forgotten he was there. Miranda often told him he was the size of a mountain, so he was rather amazed at the possibility.

  Now that he had their rapt attention, he felt the need to defend his statement and defend Miss Breckenridge. “She took a piece of the bark home.”

  More staring, with an occasional quizzical glance at their own fingers.

  Griffith shifted in his seat. “I pulled it
off for her.”

  A slow smile stretched across Georgina’s lips. “You like her.”

  Miranda narrowed her eyes and leaned in, as if she could smell the truth in his cologne. “You do.”

  The women in his family had lost their collective minds. He had to get this conversation back on course. “Yes, I like Miss St. Claire. However, while I had intended to conduct this courtship via casual outings, she is obviously of too delicate a condition for such a plan, so I was hoping you would have suggestions for how I could make this courtship happen in a method that is both expedient and effective.”

  An uncomfortable moment of silence ensued, and Griffith feared the women had no intention of following his conversational lead. Finally, Miranda cleared her throat.

  “You approached her at a ball and she fainted—correct?” Miranda held up a single finger as if she were preparing to count.

  Amelia nodded. “It was authentic. I was there. Miss Breckenridge assisted Griffith with getting Miss St. Claire out of the room.”

  Miranda held up a second finger. “And you went to her house?”

  “Er, yes.” Griffith shifted. “I had tea with her and Miss Breckenridge until she left to go see about finding me a cinnamon biscuit from the kitchens.”

  “I saw you both at Mrs. Crenshaw’s card party. You sat down to whist with her.” Adelaide sat a bit taller with a smile, as if she was glad to be helping. Then her lips fell into a frown. “But then she pled a headache and Miss Breckenridge took her place.”

  “Yes.” Griffith rubbed his finger along his thumb, knowing this was why they only allowed men in Parliament. The women were rehashing everything but being of no help whatsoever.

  “My first suggestion would be that you ask Miss Breckenridge to dance,” Georgina said with a lift of one shoulder.

  Adelaide came to Griffith’s rescue by asking the question he didn’t really want to voice. “How would that help him woo Miss St. Claire?”

  “It wouldn’t.” Miranda scoffed.

  “No, but it would declare his intentions toward Miss Breckenridge, and many of her horde of admirers would scatter. Not all, of course, but enough to make them less of a nuisance. As we have already stated, Griffith is a duke, and most men aren’t going to want to compete with such a quality.”

  Griffith sighed. “But I don’t want to woo Miss Breckenridge.”

  “Yes, you do,” four voices said at the same time.

  “Dismissing part of the crowd should give you enough time to come to that conclusion yourself.” Georgina used a finger to pick through the biscuits remaining on a small plate before selecting a ginger one.

  “You might as well,” Miranda said, snagging one of the biscuits Georgina had passed on. “Unless you’ve decided you actually do want a loveless marriage. Because Miss St. Claire is most certainly not interested.”

  The hinges of her bedchamber door emitted a soft squeak, pulling Isabella from the edges of sleep. A light rustling preceded a dip in the mattress, and Isabella shifted to the side to allow Frederica to snuggle in under the covers.

  “I didn’t get a chance to ask you earlier.” Freddie angled her body so their heads shared a pillow, just like they’d done on those summer nights so many years ago. “How were the trees?”

  Bella laughed and turned on her side to face Freddie. Sleep still tugged at her consciousness but she didn’t want to miss these precious moments. Everything had been so strained since she came to London, but here, in the dark, she could pretend she was home, that things had never gone wrong.

  “The trees were nice,” Bella murmured sleepily. She gave a tired laugh. “The company was nice too.”

  “Handsome.”

  Bella smiled as her eyes drifted shut. “Yes.”

  Sleep had almost taken Isabella when Frederica spoke up once more. “Do you ever wonder?”

  “Wonder what?” Isabella turned her head and yawned into the pillow. She was managing to stay awake, but opening her eyes again was impossible.

  “What it would have been like? If things had been different? If this were really your first Season, our first Season?”

  When they’d been thirteen they started making plans, dreaming of spending their first Season together. Isabella hadn’t thought of those late-night conversations in years. Life had taken those dreams and blown them away like so much dust, trampling them under the death of Freddie’s mother and brother and her father’s subsequent refusal to allow her to visit a remote area without access to proper medical care. Burying them under a rock slide so much like the one that had crushed Isabella’s father’s leg.

  “We’d have danced.”

  Frederica sighed. “You would have, anyway. And we’d have spent nights just like this, talking about all the men we’d met and whether or not they were worthy of our attentions.”

  Isabella eased one eyelid open, seeing for the first time what she’d never seen in Freddie’s letters. She had been lonely. No one had taken the place of confidante that Isabella was supposed to have held.

  “Lord Vernham trips over his feet whenever he has to cross the square in a quadrille.”

  Freddie’s head jerked to face Isabella. “He does not.”

  Isabella nodded and snuggled deeper into the covers, cocooning their heads like they’d done as children. “Not always when he has to go left, but every time he has to go right. He trips.”

  “I heard Lord Ivonbrook has the breath of a horse, but I’ve never been close enough to him to verify. Is it true?” Freddie’s wide smile was interrupted by a yawn of her own.

  Isabella laughed as her eyes slid shut once more. She wasn’t going to be able to hold off sleep much longer. “Absolutely not. Or if he does, he uses tooth powder liberally to mask it. No, I’m afraid his physical appeal is genuine and thorough.”

  “Is he the most handsome man you’ve danced with?”

  “I don’t know.” Isabella sighed. “I try not to think about it. What about you? Who is the most handsome man you’ve ever danced with?”

  Silence fell between them for a moment. Long enough for the darkness to creep along the edges of Isabella’s mind.

  “Lord Trent Hawthorne danced with me once,” Freddie said quietly. “Before he was married, of course. He was nice too.”

  “Handsome and nice,” Isabella mumbled. “A dangerous and rare combination.”

  One his brother shared. She couldn’t imagine any of the other men taking a woman they hadn’t intended to go walking with on an outing to see trees. But the duke hadn’t made her feel like an interloper or an obligation, even though he had to find the whole thing frustrating.

  “I probably should have said Arthur, shouldn’t I?” Freddie grumbled.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Bella whispered, thankful her cousin had interrupted Bella’s line of thinking. “Good night, Freddie.”

  “Good night, Bella.”

  Isabella drifted off to sleep, snuggled close to her cousin, dreaming they were running through the fields of Northumberland once more, with Arthur, the duke, and an enormous purple hedgehog running alongside.

  Chapter 12

  The days fell into a routine. Eventually Isabella stopped trying to remember what day it was or how long she’d been away from home. When things got too bad, she’d slip into Frederica’s bed at night, talking nonsense about the day or sharing memories from simpler years. Over the past four weeks they’d come to know each other as they never could have when they were younger.

  They developed secret signals to save each other from intolerable situations at parties and balls. Of course, Isabella never used hers, due to the fact that every situation was currently uncomfortable, but Freddie called on Isabella when she was trying to avoid the Duke of Riverton without appearing obvious about it, while at the same time trying to use him as a distraction for Uncle Percy so she could visit with a reluctant but cooperative Arthur.

  While those weeks had brought peace to Freddie and Bella’s friendship, they had brought agitatio
n to Uncle Percy. The debates were dragging on longer than he’d anticipated. Raised voices coming from his study had become a regular occurrence, though Isabella had never heard him quite as unhappy as he seemed now, as she made her way down the corridor to take the stairs down to breakfast.

  He hadn’t even been this loud when Mr. Emerson brought word that the College of Physicians had stepped in and required more changes to the Apothecary Act, delaying the vote even more. Last week Uncle Percy had been forced to spread yet another enticing lie about Isabella to keep the men from sending their attentions elsewhere. Isabella wasn’t entirely sure what the lie had been, but it had something to do with a lucrative mine on a piece of dowry property. While his other lies had been twists and stretches of the truth, this one had been an outright fabrication.

  The masses of men had eaten it up like ambrosia.

  Isabella continued toward the stairs, trying not to listen to the yelling from the study. When the door flew open, though, and a footman scurried through it, there was no missing the words “. . . worthless half-Scot can’t even do this right.”

  The footman saw Isabella in the corridor and gave her a look of sympathy before he charged on down the passage.

  Whatever her uncle was yelling about obviously had to do with her.

  “And those worthless physicians think they can have whatever they want. Obviously they aren’t seeing what really needs to be done here! Sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”

  Well, at least that part of it had nothing to do with her.

  She continued down the stairs, trying not to care. She was doing exactly what Uncle Percy had asked of her. It wasn’t her fault that the process was taking too long.

  In the breakfast room, the sympathetic glances continued. Coming from Frederica, though, it caused a lot more concern.

  “What has happened?”

  Freddie frowned. “A lot of nonsense, if you ask me. Jealousy is the cause, I’m certain.”