Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “I was quite pleased when I saw her mother had accepted my invitation.” Lady Austerley chuckled. “I suspect you are as well. Not that I blame you. She’s a delectable thing.”

  Though he was supposed to be the steady one, Daniel tripped over his feet at the countess’s words. He had not realized his inner thoughts regarding the inarguably delectable Miss Westmore had been so obvious. “I am only interested in her as her recent physician,” he protested. “This is Miss Westmore’s first formal event since she sprained her ankle.”

  “Oh come now,” Lady Austerley chided, patting his arm with her free hand. “There’s no need for such subterfuge. You’ve done nothing but talk about this girl for the space of the last two weeks. You can’t deny you’ve shown far more interest in this particular patient than any of my maids who’ve been flinging themselves at your feet.”

  Beneath the weight of the dowager countess’s smug stare, Daniel felt like fidgeting.

  Either that or bolting.

  But his arm stayed curved around Lady Austerley’s gnarled hand, and his shoes stayed planted on the Persian stair runner. He was hard pressed to deny it. He’d even come prepared, worn his good jacket and taken the time to shave.

  At his uncomfortable silence, Lady Austerley leaned in. “And of course, I would like nothing more than to have you stay, Daniel. But not as my physician. As my friend. This is to be my last event, and I want you to enjoy yourself.”

  “Your last event, hmmm? I’ll admit it’s good to hear you’ve finally decided to take my advice,” he teased, but something in her voice plucked at his worries. “But please, try to avoid any overexcitement tonight. And stay away from the punch. I’ve already picked out a Christmas gift for you, and I refuse to accept that your time is to be shorter than that.”

  “Oh, I think you know very well I’d host another occasion if I could, and probably another after that. I am determined to make the most of the time I have left. But my bones feel heavy tonight, as if they’ve settled into an irrefutable conclusion.” She squeezed his arm, and he imagined he could feel the strength draining out of what must have once been a formidable grip. “So I will enjoy tonight, and when it is over and the punch has all been drunk, I will be grateful for the memory and count my remaining breaths as gifts I do not expect.”

  A lump rose in Daniel’s throat. They had reached the bottom of the stairs now, and the sound of her arriving guests’ voices washed over them. The very loud sound of her guests.

  Had she invited all of London this time?

  He wanted to bundle her back to her bedroom and tuck her into bed. Instead, he leaned over, kissed the paper-thin surface of one cheek, and turned her over to a waiting footman.

  He couldn’t be so callous to deny a dying woman an opportunity to say good-bye on her own terms . . . even if those terms involved importing an expensive soprano from France and wasting her last precious breath on social niceties delivered to people who didn’t deserve them.

  No matter Lady Austerley’s continued decline, and his own complicity in it, he wanted her last days to be happy. He could well imagine a person with so little time left wanting to make the most of it.

  If nothing else, his brief time with Clare showed him that.

  Chapter 20

  It should have been the night that marked Clare’s triumphant return to her Season, her ankle almost fully healed and her future firmly in sight. Instead, with the day’s revelations so fresh in her mind, she felt as though she were stumbling into an adder’s nest.

  Had the faces of acquaintances and friends always been such vague masks, their eyes so hot on her skin? Or was it only that she was more aware of the scrutiny now?

  “It’s dreadfully warm this evening, isn’t it?” Her mother fanned herself. “Shall we start with a glass of punch?”

  Clare eyed the refreshment table on the far side of the room and shifted her weight, testing the strength of her ankle. It still gave her twinges on occasion. No matter her claims of complete recovery, it had ached dreadfully following yesterday’s excursion to see Madame Sylvie. But with no dancing on the schedule tonight, she felt confident enough in its performance for the next few hours.

  Her emotional performance, however, was another matter entirely.

  Her palms felt clammy beneath her gloves, and her stomach was already objecting to the noise and mayhem of the milling crowd. “No, thank you.” She forced herself to smile at her mother. “But do go on ahead.”

  As her mother slipped away, Clare scanned the room, scouting for friend and foe alike. An entire herd of butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach. Had it really only been two weeks since she’d been here? The room looked completely different.

  Or perhaps it was more that she felt completely different.

  Tonight, the chandeliers had been lowered to provide a more intimate setting, and the scent of beeswax candles hung thick in the air. The high-ceilinged ballroom she remembered from her last visit had been repurposed, with row after row of chairs marching their way across the parquet floor. Experience suggested that Sophie and Rose would choose seats near the front, where they could best share the spotlight intended for the evening’s entertainment.

  The question at hand was where should she sit? At least there was no designated wallflower line to contend with tonight. Everyone would be seated.

  And everyone would be watching.

  Clare finally spied Sophie and Rose, holding court over a cluster of fawning gentlemen in one corner of the room. But tonight her feet hesitated to carry her into the thick of it. She could not credit her reluctance for anything but cowardice. After all, her friends had shown her nothing beyond the usual degree of friendly banter in the days before her injury, given her no indication they’d heard or believed a rumor such as the one Geoffrey had revealed so disastrously over this morning’s breakfast table.

  She collected herself in small degrees and pasted a close-mouthed smile on her lips. There was nothing for it but to test the waters, however dark and foreboding they might be.

  Rose saw her first, and whispered in Sophie’s ear. Sophie glanced over.

  And then both friends very clearly and very deliberately turned their backs on her.

  Clare detected a shift in the undercurrent of voices around her, and she knew she was not the only one who had seen it. Her feet froze fast to the parquet floor.

  How could they? They were supposed to be her friends.

  But of course, she knew precisely how they could. She’d watched them do it on any number of occasions. She’d even joined them at times, though the realization of what her victims must have felt shamed her now.

  Her gaze fell upon Sophie’s gaggle of male admirers, wishing naively, perhaps, that one of them would come to her rescue to save her from such a public cut.

  No such rescue came.

  But it was the seeming ambivalence of one very particular gentleman in the group that made the air still in her lungs. Tall and familiar, his chestnut head stood several inches above the nearest competitor, though he was facing away from her and she could not see his face.

  Mr. Alban. He seemed firmly under Sophie’s spell. Anxiety and dismay curled through her stomach. It seemed to have been a busy two weeks.

  She studied her friends’ backs, looking for some flaw she could turn to her advantage. Drat it all, why couldn’t Sophie have worn pink tonight? Instead, she wore a gown in a flattering hue of green, the silk glowing warmly against her olive skin.

  Clare turned away, her cheeks burning. She supposed she ought to be grateful it was only a cut. Sophie, in particular, could be rather brutal in her verbal engagements.

  Still, the evening was young yet. There was still time for hurtful words.

  She headed in the opposite direction, fumbling her way through the crowd, seeking fresher air and kinder smiles. But as she stumbled onto the edge of the ballroom, she nearly tripped over the terrifying visage of Lady Austerley, seated in a chair and holding a vigil over her circus
of a musicale.

  “Running from something, my dear?” The dowager countess raised a wrinkled brow.

  Clare’s feet slowed. Tonight Lady Austerley didn’t much resemble the cantankerous patient Daniel so warmly recounted. Her skin was sallow, her eyes sunken into the already deep planes of her face. Her gray hair had been curled and arranged with care, but she could see through the thin strands to the pale, dull skull shining beneath.

  “Er . . . I was hoping to find you.” A white lie that hurt no one, and one that apparently pleased the older woman enough to kindle a smile. Clare sank into a curtsy, but faltered on the nadir, her ankle threatening to twist from under her. Belatedly, she realized she hadn’t practiced this particular motion with her still-healing ankle.

  It could have used another week of rest, her conscience whispered as she struggled to rise, but she squashed that traitorous thought. She would not let Daniel Merial creep into her thoughts tonight, no matter how difficult the exercise.

  “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “I am pleased you could come, Miss Westmore.” The older woman squinted up at her. “You look well recovered.”

  “I am, thank you.” After a moment’s hesitation, Clare dug into her reticule and pulled out the copy of Cousin Bette she’d brought with her tonight. She’d meant to leave it somewhere inconspicuous but could now see how cowardly that impulse had been. Daniel had implied the dowager countess was lonely and that she would welcome a visit from friends.

  Even returning it by penny post with a brief note of thanks would have been kinder.

  “I wanted to thank you for loaning the book to me.” She held the book out, her fingers sweating in her gloves. “Daniel—I mean, Dr. Merial—mentioned it was one of your favorites.” She held her breath in horror at her disastrous mistake. Had Lady Austerley caught the slip?

  But the countess showed no signs of having registered the use of her personal physician’s given name, and Clare comforted herself with the presumption that perhaps the older woman was a little hard of hearing. “It helped me pass the long, lonely days during my recent injury,” she added, raising her voice, just in case. “I appreciate your kindness more than you know.”

  “It was my pleasure, child.” Lady Austerley winced, and raised a gnarled hand to one ear. “Although given the way my soprano is shaping up, you might have been better off keeping it for another half hour or so. Having something to read during the performance may save your sanity in the end.”

  Clare choked back a surprised laugh. She was beginning to see why Daniel enjoyed this woman.

  The dowager countess smiled up at her. “Tell me, did you enjoy it?”

  Normally, Clare would have avoided any conversation about books in a venue that might be considered public. But for some reason, tonight she did not hesitate. “I found it interesting,” she admitted. “De Balzac is certainly an engaging writer. But I found the degree of drama inside its pages painful to wade through.”

  “Oh?” Lady Austerley lifted the quizzing glass from the shelf of her bosom and peered up at Clare in undisguised interest. “Did you find the scheming of the female characters distasteful, then? Pray don’t tell me you are one of these brainless females who believes women incapable of such strategic maneuvering.”

  Clare bit her lip to hide a smile. “No. I found it neither distasteful nor unbelievable.” She glanced out at the room, with its clusters of whispering and tittering young ladies. Her gaze settled on Lady Sophie, who was leaning toward Mr. Alban with a coquettish smile on her traitorous lips. “A little too close to life, perhaps. After all, one reads to escape their life’s troubles, rather than dwell upon its more disturbing realities.”

  Lady Austerley chuckled, though her bemusement ended on more of a hacking cough. “A bit of a gauntlet, is it tonight? I was always more of a wallflower myself. Of course, that was over a thousand years ago.” The quizzing glass lowered to reveal pupils like black oracles, rimmed in a thin strip of blue. “When our Dr. Merial told me about you, I felt as though I knew you. Something of a kindred spirit, hmmm?”

  Clare cringed to hear the woman’s slight emphasis on Daniel’s name.

  His proper name.

  Clearly, her earlier mistake had not gone unnoticed.

  Worse, the supposition that she could be a kindred spirit with someone who had once been a self-admitted wallflower made her feel off-balance. She’d clawed her way to her position at the top of the social rankings. It had taken a sprained ankle to get her anywhere close to the wallflower line this Season. And yet . . . she couldn’t deny she did indeed feel a sort of kindred spirit in Lady Austerley.

  “Dr. Merial speaks very warmly of you and your family,” the countess went on.

  “Does he?” Clare asked, startled. After the way they had parted yesterday, she might have imagined he had some rather choice words to use when speaking of her. “He has been kind to my family as well.”

  “He is here tonight, you know.” Lady Austerley craned her neck. “Ah, there he is. Helping your mother with the punch. Handsome devil, isn’t he? Easy to pick out in a crowd.”

  Clare whirled around just in time to see Daniel extract a glass from her mother’s hand. Her eyes took him in like a greedy gulp, no matter that she had been the one to so firmly establish the limits of their continued association. In his serviceable coat and necktie, he looked nothing like the fops who were hanging on Sophie’s every word, nothing like the sort of gentleman she was supposed to want. Even Mr. Alban—who was admittedly a bit grander than most, and who should have claimed her immediate and undivided attention—faded into the background.

  “He’s . . . ah . . . that is . . .” Clare floundered, searching for words that could describe what he was to her without giving her emotions away. She hadn’t considered that he might be here. A naive presumption, perhaps, given that she’d met him in this very room, but hadn’t she proven she wasn’t thinking clearly where this man was concerned?

  “It seems he’s appointed himself guardian of my punch bowl.” The older woman sighed. “I suspect he’s a teetotaler, you know. He always refuses my offer of brandy when he comes to read on Saturday afternoons. He claims he needs to remain clear-headed for his experiments and his patients, though it isn’t as if a single glass would fell such a strapping young man.” She chuckled. “Although I suppose I did order the punch to be made a bit strongly tonight.”

  “The punch is laced with spirits?” Clare asked, turning back to the countess. She prayed her mother had limited herself to a glass or two. “Is that really a good idea?”

  Lady Austerley rolled her eyes. “Not you, too, Miss Westmore. I refuse to let you and Dr. Merial conspire against my fun.” She motioned to the footman who was standing at attention behind her chair. “Do go and relieve the doctor of his post, or he will ensure my guests will never have a chance to enjoy the performance tonight.”

  Clare risked another look toward the refreshment table as the footman stepped out, and cringed as she saw her mother stare at the bowl, clearly hesitating.

  “You don’t look much like your mother, do you?” Lady Austerley mused. Clare’s startled gaze swung back just as the older woman asked, not unkindly, “Perhaps you take after your father?”

  “I . . .” Clare felt a rising panic. No, she didn’t take after her father. And there was clearly nothing wrong with the dowager countess’s hearing or her eyesight.

  “Has something upset you, child?” Lady Austerley asked. “You’ve gone quite pale.” She cocked her head. “Should I call Dr. Merial over?”

  Clare swallowed the objection building in her throat. Had she imagined she could do this? The eyes of the crowd, the cut from Sophie and Rose . . . those things she could survive. Even Daniel’s unexpected appearance and her mother’s obsession with the punch were distractions she could overcome.

  But this . . . she wanted to sink to the floor and hug her knees tight against her chest.

  She tried to breathe deeply through her nose, recogn
izing the symptoms she was experiencing now as remarkably similar to those that had sent her pitching from the ballroom two weeks ago.

  You are panicking, nothing more. It is not the end of the world.

  But it was potentially the end of her world.

  She began inching away, determined not to add a public display of hysteria to her expanding list of catastrophes. “No,” she gasped. “I . . . I suppose I just need a bit of quiet.” She lifted a hand to her forehead, and didn’t have to feign its tremor. “Might I beg the direction of the retiring room?”

  The dowager countess clucked in sympathy. “I could probably use a little lie-down myself, but don’t tell Dr. Merial such a thing. I refuse to let him think he is right. ’Tis the first hallway, third door on the right.” She held out the book. “And when you are feeling better, the library is just beyond the next hallway beyond. It is a nice quiet spot, with a settee you can lie down on if you are feeling faint. Perhaps you might return the book there?”

  “Of course. I know it well,” Clare managed to choke out, clasping the book against her chest, as if it might help steady the slamming beat of her heart.

  Too late, she realized that perhaps she had confessed too much.

  Chapter 21

  It was too early in the evening for calamities like ripped hems and spilled glasses of punch, and the retiring room was mercifully empty save a single maid, sitting bored in one corner. Clare shook her head at the servant’s inquiry of assistance and aimed instead for a large oval mirror that had been propped on a table.

  She laid down the book and pulled off her gloves, breathing in the blessed silence in great, needy draughts. But though her physical reaction began to calm, her self-doubts only clamored louder. The silence in the retiring room and the desire to avoid the dangers lurking outside engendered too much in the way of self-reflection.

  What had Lady Austerley seen in the contours of her face?

  What did everyone see in her face?

  She looked into the mirror with distrust. Yesterday, her life had still seemed her own. Her features—while different from Geoffrey’s and Lucy’s, perhaps—had been hers, functional and familiar. It was a face she had once imagined might carry her all the way to a ducal mansion, if only she would remember to hide her teeth behind a half-checked smile.