Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “By the looks of things, it seems as though he found you,” Sophie said smugly. She reached out a hand and lifted the coil of hair lying across Clare’s shoulder—hair she hadn’t even realized had come down. “I wonder if Lady Austerley will still think so highly of her lauded doctor when she is told what mischief he has been up to with her guests?”

  A memory stabbed at Clare then, of Daniel’s hand, cupping the back of her head, hairpins flying. She jerked away from Sophie’s hand and tried in vain to tuck her hair back in place.

  “Perhaps someone should tell your mother,” Sophie said next.

  “Or the authorities,” Rose added gleefully.

  Clare’s gut clenched. Because now they weren’t just threatening to destroy her.

  They were threatening to ruin Daniel as well.

  She somehow found the courage to laugh as though she didn’t care. “Feel free to tell my mother and Lady Austerley whatever you wish. Dr. Merial is naught but my family’s physician, and he was only checking on my ankle’s progress tonight, with both of their blessings.”

  “Progress?” Sophie scoffed. “Is that what you would call it?”

  Clare schooled her smile into the sort of sneer Sophie herself would have been proud to claim. She had learned a great deal during her first Season as she had stood in the shadow cast by her friend’s brilliance. And this moment called for her finest performance.

  “It occurs to me that neither of you have such a handy excuse as a sprained ankle to have sought him out in the library. Perchance you harbor such an interest in Dr. Merial’s activities because you fancy him yourself?” She tapped a glove finger against her lips, as if thinking of the most delicious secret imaginable. “I wonder what your parents would think—and what your many besotted admirers would imagine—if they knew how you followed him about?”

  “But . . . we don’t follow him about!” Rose protested.

  “All that matters is whether they believe you might.” Clare paused, letting the tension settle between them. “That is the thing about rumors, after all. They do not have to be true, as long as someone believes them.”

  Rose grew even paler than usual. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” Clare stepped closer, enjoying the turnabout more than she should. She had never lied so well, but the beauty of this performance lay not in the details of the lie, but in pieces she could claim as truth. “To my recollection, you were both quite besotted with him that day in my drawing room.”

  “No one would believe such a thing, not coming from someone like you,” Sophie sneered. “Your reputation is not what it was last Season.”

  No, it wasn’t. They’d made sure of it, hadn’t they? “You think no one would believe the rumors I would spin?” Clare smiled slowly, as if their ruin mattered not a whit to her. And in this moment she wasn’t sure it did. She felt powerful, holding their burgeoning fear in her hands.

  This is what it feels like, she willed them to understand.

  She could ruin them, so easily.

  And some small meanness inside her whispered it would be only fair.

  She recalled how Sophie and Rose had emerged from the hallway behind her, intent on mischief. They’d missed the spotlight and the music in order to do their worst. But in their desire to ruin her, they had neglected an important fact, and Clare found she was not above exploiting it. She turned Sophie’s classic smile back on her now. “Have you considered that your absence from the musicale has likely been noticed by most of the guests in attendance?”

  Sophie frowned, but Clare was not yet through. “I, at least, have a medical reason to see Dr. Merial. Lady Austerley and my mother even asked him to check in on me. But you both lack such an excuse, and your obsession with the man suggests perhaps some personal interest.” She offered a soft, calculated laugh. “Although, I suppose I can understand why. Dr. Merial is quite handsome, handsome enough to tempt even the most wellborn of ladies to seek a bit of higher learning in a library. But the thing you fail to realize is that he’s nothing but the son of a Gypsy horse trader.” She let her false smile stretch wider, not even caring if her crooked tooth showed. “I am appalled you would set your sights so low, simply out of sordid curiosity.”

  She steeled herself for the expected denials. Waited, too, for her own regrets to settle. It didn’t feel good to demean Daniel in such a way, but surely it was all justified, if only his reputation as a proper and trustworthy physician could be preserved. She’d felt the passion in his voice when he’d spoken of his experiments. His work was important, not only for him, but for the world. If she’d destroyed that tonight with her carelessness, she’d never forgive herself.

  But the expected protests never came, and Clare became aware that perhaps her former friend’s wide, worry-filled eyes were not even focused on her.

  She turned slowly, to see Daniel standing not ten feet away.

  Gone was the easy laugh that had so often greeted her in the drawing room. Gone, too, was the stark look of need that had chased her from the library not ten minutes ago. In that moment, he looked a handsome stranger, the chiseled planes of his jaw edged by some mysterious sculptor’s hands.

  There was no doubt he’d seen her, and not only the physical pieces of her person. She’d just given him a glimpse into her soul, shown him what she was capable of. She could be every bit as brutal as Sophie. She’d proven it, on any number of past occasions, through her withheld objections to their cruelty, if not her outright agreement with their antics.

  I am not like them, her conscience wanted to scream.

  But of course she was.

  The scramble of slippers on the floor behind her told her Sophie and Rose were executing a hasty retreat. She exhaled in relief. She had silenced them—for now. Called their bluff. Won Daniel a temporary reprieve from the mean-spirited gossip they had planned to distribute amidst the crowd like alms to the poor.

  But at what cost to them both?

  She opened her mouth, prepared to apologize to him now that their audience had flown, unsure of how much he had heard. But before she could, he turned from her.

  Oh, God. What had she done?

  And more to the point, what else could she have done?

  She watched him walk away, the rigid line of his shoulders conveying a message more powerful than any words. She held herself in check as the distance between them widened, her hands clenched in her skirts. It was the only way to keep from to sinking to the floor and weeping in frustration as his departure became utterly clear.

  “Is everything . . . all right?”

  Clare looked up, and her heart shrank in her chest. “Oh,” she gasped. “Mr. Alban.”

  She looked around wildly. The crowd was thinning, drifting, leaving. It occurred to her that perhaps the future Duke of Harrington had come to drive the point home, to finish what Sophie and Rose had started but were now too frightened to finish. An attack dog, summoned to do their bidding. He’d certainly seemed held captive by their smiles earlier this evening, when he’d refused to save her from their cut. “I am just . . . just . . .” She clapped a gloved hand over her quivering, blabbering mouth.

  And then tears started to fall in earnest.

  “Come now,” he said, his voice gruff. “You’ll have them saying I’ve made you cry next.”

  “Next?” Clare peered up at him through tear-clogged eyes.

  The handsome jaw she had once admired from across the space of a waltz hardened. “Your friends have been stirring mischief, I’m afraid. I can’t abide gossip, and those two are among the most polished professionals I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.”

  Clare swiped at her eyes. “You mean . . . you don’t believe them?”

  He reached inside his coat, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. “It is more that I am sorry others do. I did not realize my interest would be so obvious. Or that their response would be so vicious.”

  Interest? Obvious? If he believed them—which she couldn�
�t help but notice he’d neither confirmed nor refuted—how could either of those things still be reasonably true?

  Clare took the square of fabric he offered, scarcely knowing what else to do. It was plain white, embroidered about the edges in a scalloped blue thread. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. No matter her running nose, she couldn’t blow her nose in it.

  It was a future duke’s handkerchief.

  She could scarcely bring herself to touch it wearing elbow-length gloves.

  It hit her then, the impossibility of this dream she had harbored since the start of the Season. Even should her origins prove more definable than Sophie’s rumors implied, the hint of them was the death knell for any chance of a match between her and someone like Mr. Alban.

  Whether or not he believed them, others might. The wife of a duke must be beyond question. She couldn’t in good conscience marry him knowing she would be naught but a liability about Alban’s handsome, titled neck.

  But if she was honest, that was not the only reason for this impossibility. The handkerchief he’d given her smelled of bay rum and leather, echoes of a life of privilege. They were scents she should be dreaming of, but which gave her no shivers at all.

  In contrast, her glove—the one she had earlier clapped to her mouth—had smelled of soap and starch and Daniel.

  And she wanted only to raise it to her nose again.

  She held the handkerchief back out. “Mr. Alban, I appreciate your kindness. But I am afraid, in the matter of your stated interest, I cannot—”

  “Clare!” Her mother’s screech prematurely struck down that thought.

  Clare turned to see her mother staggering toward her. She was dragging Mr. Meeks by the arm, and with a last, final lurch, deposited the bewildered man squarely in between Clare and Alban. “Have you heard the glorious news, Mr. Alban?” she wheezed. “Mr. Meeks has asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage. Her father and I have every hope for a splendid match.”

  Alban looked between Clare and her mother. “I . . . er . . . no, I had not heard.”

  Clare glared at her mother. “That was last Season,” she hissed, her cheeks as hot as a branding iron. Was her mother so drunk she’d forgotten? But no . . . Mother didn’t look as she had on either of the two prior occasions when Clare had seen her in her cups. In fact, she looked steadier—and more determined—than she had in months.

  “But she . . . ah . . . did not accept, by my recollection.” Poor Meeks looked as though he wanted to shrink into the floor. Clearly, he’d not been privy to her mother’s script. He mopped the top of his balding head with his hand, then darted a nervous glance toward Clare’s mother. “Perhaps I should ask again?”

  Mother flapped her hands with enthusiasm, as if it was now just a matter of drawing up the contract. “Yes, yes, of course. Come along, Mr. Alban, and let us leave them to their very important discussion.”

  “No.” Clare snarled the word.

  Everyone froze, looking at her.

  She shook her head, and that coil of hair that had proven so damning earlier flopped down on her shoulder. It had given up, it seemed.

  She refused to do the same.

  No matter her prior plotting, Clare understood now that a future with Mr. Alban was impossible. Indeed, it was close to an unconscionable thought. He was kind, even familiar. But he engendered nothing by way of a romantic interest, and she could see now that he never had. But that did not mean she thought Mr. Meeks engendered it, either.

  “I’ve a better idea,” she ground out, even as she turned toward the door. “I am going home.” And perhaps, if she were lucky, she would sprain both ankles climbing up into the coach, and might never have to come out again.

  DANIEL PAID THE cab driver with his last few pennies and stepped into the sullen silence of his rooms. Even the crickets were quiet, perhaps sensing his black mood. He removed his hat and dragged both hands through his hair, but something felt wrong.

  Christ. He was still wearing his evening gloves.

  He ripped them off and flung them against a wall, and the slap of noise caused the frogs to splash awkwardly in their bowls. No matter Lady Austerley’s meddling, he was through attending balls and musicales. He was beginning to wonder if the dowager countess’s condition didn’t possibly tip over into derangement, because she appeared to harbor a faith in him that went far beyond that of her more lucid peers. It wasn’t as though wearing gloves had ever made a difference or turned him into a gentleman in the eyes of the ton.

  He had been pretending to be something—someone—he was not.

  Tonight, finally, he’d seen the futility in it. How stupid he had been in hoping for more. In hoping for her. The words he’d overheard Clare tell her friends might have merely been echoes of his own stated reservations, but they held a far different significance coming from her own lips. He thought back to the library, to the way she had touched him. He was a fool to even think she might respect him as a man, rather than a handsome toy to be brought out, played with, and then put away for another day.

  His skin itched with resentment beneath the trappings of his best clothes, which still fell so short of her expectations. He felt desperate to expend his anger and energy into something productive. But if that something was not Clare—as he had imprudently, briefly hoped tonight—then what else was there?

  He began to bump about in the darkness, feeling for the lantern he’d left on the table. He struck a match, but a sudden knock on the door sent him jumping before he could set it to the wick. He burned his finger and nearly dropped the thing.

  “Dr. Merial.” A soft scratch trailed against the door. “Are you awake?”

  “Oh, damn it all to hell,” he snarled beneath his breath, letting the match gutter out.

  Mrs. Calbert.

  He stood silent in the darkness, willing her to move on. It was after midnight. She should be asleep in bed. Her own bed.

  And he was far too irritated to deal with her tonight.

  The scratching came again, but he ruthlessly ignored it. If Mrs. Calbert was in need of a physician for some legitimate medical complaint, she ought to have enough sense to knock louder. And if she was in need of something else, she was going to have to bloody well knock on another tenant’s door.

  Finally, the shuffling outside his door ceased and he dared to light the lamp. His amorous landlady was becoming a problem he didn’t want to think about, and he wondered if a firm word—or a well-placed suggestion of venereal disease—might dissuade her. He placed the lamp on the table, and the light fell over an array of papers, scribbled notes and haphazardly organized thoughts. He sat down heavily in his chair and thumbed through the mess of last night’s frenzied experiments—prophetic, he supposed, for the mess of his life. There was hope there, to be sure.

  But there was also regret. Missed starts and wasted potential.

  He tossed the notes aside. Ah, God, Clare.

  He lowered his head into his hands. What a muck of an evening it had been. Was it possible to want someone so much, when the wanting itself had the power to destroy them both? He’d been raised to believe love was possible. Important, even. He’d found it by chance, and lost it tonight by design. In his heart, he understood it was the right thing for Clare.

  But that didn’t mean he was bound to enjoy the process.

  The anesthetic regulator lay on its side, mocking him. He reached out and picked up the brass mask, running a finger along its velvet lining. Too finely made for frogs, but then, it had been fashioned to use on humans. He was so close to proving his theories correct . . .

  And yet tonight he’d neglected to finish the experiment, choosing to go to a bloody musicale instead. Not at the request of a dying countess, but because of the mere hope of encountering a pair of hazel eyes and damnably kissable lips.

  More fool he.

  He turned the mask over in his hand, remembering the excitement he’d felt describing his findings to Lady Austerley. What in the hell was he doing, gallivanting a
bout London, stealing kisses from a woman who thought herself far above him? Six months ago he’d left behind a dependable practice, people he cared about. He’d been possessed of a grand idea, and he’d taken the miserable position at St. Bart’s because the Royal College would never give credence to a paper written by a poor country doctor.

  He’d sacrificed everything to see this through.

  And now he needed to complete his damned experiment.

  Daniel picked up his notes again, running over his prior observations, sorting out the last necessary steps. He could see it unfold before him, a few hours of work, at most. Grimly, he picked up his pen. His father had died, and there was no changing it.

  But others could still be saved, if he could only get his head refocused.

  Chapter 25

  One would think an advantage of lying wide-awake, staring at the ceiling and mentally reliving the terrible events of the prior evening, would at least ensure some punctuality for breakfast. But Clare had drifted off to a fitful sleep just before dawn, and barely managed to pull herself from bed when she heard the clock in the hallway strike nine.

  As she trudged into the dining room, her siblings’ banter and the scents of toast and herring washed over her. Geoffrey and Lucy were leaning over their plates, arguing industriously with Father, who—perhaps in a bid to make up for yesterday’s shortcomings—looked clean-shaven and neat this morning.

  Everything was back to normal, it seemed.

  Everything, that was, except her.

  Clare sank into her chair and numbly accepted the cup of coffee a servant pressed into her hand. Out the dining room window she could see a gray, dreary morning brewing. It was the sort of weather that prompted one to wear a cloak over their summer walking dress. Not that she was brave enough to walk about Hyde Park today, weather or no.

  Not after the damage Sophie had wrought last night.

  She took a long sip from her cup, then looked up to realize three pairs of eyes—each markedly and agonizingly different from her own—were staring at her.