Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  Clare hesitated, unable to see the cause for panic. After all, she was a bastard child living under this roof. And if disastrous mistakes had been made on both sides, it seemed a little compassion was going to be necessary to set things to rights. “I would imagine,” she said softly, “if Father just learned of her existence, he would want to make amends for being absent in her life.”

  But Mother stubbornly shook her head. “It is too much. We would not be received.”

  Clare raised a brow. “I am not sure I mind, truth be told. The Season holds less interest for me this year than I had hoped.” She thought back to last night’s whispers. The stares.

  The cut.

  “Oh, I am not so worried for you.” Mother waved a dismissive hand. “You’ve friends enough among the ton to survive it. But Lucy has not even had the benefit of a chance at a Season yet. This could very well destroy her meager chances for a suitable match, before she has a chance to even come out. We must be careful of appearances, for her sake.”

  Given that Lucy had just this morning loudly bemoaned the very idea of marriage, Clare wasn’t sure the argument held water. And to hear the word “suitable” again grated every bit as much upon her nerves as the last time her mother had uttered it.

  “If you are so worried about appearances,” she pointed out, “why did you risk an indiscretion in Lady Austerley’s library? If someone had discovered you, it would have been every bit as damaging as this.”

  Her mother raised a hand to her temple, and Clare could see that it trembled. “Please . . . try to understand. No matter our rocky start, your father and I had finally reached an accord in our marriage. Possibly, even, found a measure of strong affection. But the appearance of this girl has destroyed all of that. He was clearly unfaithful to me, at least in the beginning, and my vanity was wounded by his confession. I . . . I am afraid that night at the ball I sought the wrong sort of comfort. I admit, there was a part of me that felt justified in hurting your father, but my mind had been muddled by the champagne I had consumed. I did not think of how I might also be hurting you.” She winced. “And for what it’s worth, I have already apologized to your father. I realize, now, that discretion is paramount to preserve our family’s reputation.”

  Though it was gratifying to hear that this, at least, was no longer a secret she needed to guard from Father, Clare remained worried. Her mother had good reason to be concerned about the damage that could be done by gossip, but Lucy’s reputation was largely a future concern. In contrast, Sophie’s malicious gossip had already spread, and the knowledge of what people already knew—or thought they knew—tilted in.

  “I am afraid,” Clare said slowly, “that discretion in matters of our family’s private affairs is now out of our hands. There are already rumors circulating on the matter of my legitimacy.” She swallowed. “Or rather, my illegitimacy. And it is a stretch to imagine my ‘friends’ might carry me through it, when they are the ones who have fueled the gossip from the start.”

  “But, how?” her mother gasped. “How would they know? I’ve never told a soul.”

  “I don’t know,” Clare admitted. “But Lady Sophie is at the center of it, and she did her worst last night, I am afraid.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then her mother stood up and began to pace in a small circle. “Then you are truly out of time, Clare. Can’t you see?” She threw up her hands. “You must seize the opportunities you have, before they disappear. Mr. Meeks will have you, I think, even with the rumors.”

  Clare shook her head, more sure of this than anything else. “I can understand wanting to see me settled, but how could you think to force me to the same unhappy circumstance of a marriage that you and Father have had? How could you force me to repeat your mistakes?” She rose slowly, straightening to her full height. “I do not want to merely reach an accord in my own marriage, Mother. I do not want to settle for the worst and hope for something tolerable. How could you encourage me to marry a man I do not love, when that very thing has caused so many problems in your own life?”

  Her mother stopped her pacing and frowned. “Do you love someone, then?”

  For Clare, the pieces settled into place, a perfect, terrifying fit. She didn’t know if she loved Daniel, but she at least knew that what she felt for him was different. Perhaps not yet different enough to toss her on a coach to Gretna. Perhaps not yet even enough to give up the promise of five thousand pounds a year.

  But different enough to at least say no to the easy answer Mr. Meeks presented.

  In suffering this fall from grace, it occurred to Clare that she now had a choice. She had been thrown to the bottom of this well, but she was gamely treading water, refusing to drown. Surely fate was by now wrung out with trying—and failing—to shove her under. She needn’t marry anyone she didn’t wish, her future and her dowry be damned.

  Moreover she had a new sister, one whose blood was not of her own, but one who deserved to know the love of a father.

  “I cannot yet say if what I feel is love.” Clare took a deep breath. “But I intend to find out.”

  “But . . . who is it?” her mother pressed, looking stricken. “Is it someone I know?”

  But Clare only shook her head. Her mother wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets. “I am not yet ready to say. But if I were asked my opinion on the matter of this girl, the one who has caused so much discord between you and Father, I would say let Father bring the young woman here. Let her know her family.”

  There was already one bastard child living under the roof of Cardwell House.

  What was one more, in the grand scheme of things?

  May 21, 1848

  Dear Diary,

  Dicere quae puduit, scribere jussit amor.

  What I am ashamed to say, love compels me to write.

  It sounds like something Daniel would say, and I cannot tell whether the fact brings me more comfort or distress. The difficulty is that I am not entirely certain I understand what love is. It is clear my parents have not provided the example, and in truth, I cannot think of a single member of the ton whose marriage does. Last night Daniel told me I was someone he believed he could come to love, and I was too afraid to accept the gift of such regard.

  But if love is a puzzle I need to unravel, I suspect simply scratching down words in my diary is not going to suffice.

  Chapter 26

  As Clare knocked on what seemed like her hundredth Smithfield door, it occurred to her that evening was beginning to settle in with earnest. The thought sent a frisson of fear through her. She pulled her wet cloak tighter about her shoulders and held her breath to avoid breathing in the sour ammonia smell wafting from the nearby alley. The wet wool—a byproduct of an unfortunate late afternoon thundershower—did little to ward off the encroaching chill of night. Worse, the shadows stretched around her, taunting her with long fingers.

  She’d naively imagined that when Daniel said he lived in Smithfield, she had a navigable point of reference. But the rookeries of Aldersgate Street were a complicated tangle of tenement houses and side streets that had apparently escaped the notice of London’s cartographers. Her walking map, purchased on Bond Street and no doubt intended for wealthy foreign tourists, held little sway amidst these twisted alleys, if indeed she still had it to consult.

  But it had unfortunately disappeared along with her reticule, neatly nipped within the first quarter hour of her arrival in Smithfield. The dainty ribbon handle—so fashionable in Mayfair—had proven an astonishingly easy mark here. Gone, too, was the fifteen shillings the bag had held, insurance for a return hackney should she be unsuccessful in finding Daniel.

  Which was looking more and more like a distinct possibility.

  After no luck searching for him at St. Bartholomew’s hospital, she’d spent the past few hours knocking on random doors. More often than not the doors that opened sheltered haggard young women with squalling babies on their hips, or grizzled souls too bent and haggard to venture out onto the
streets. None did more than crack open the door and peer out with suspicion.

  Her latest attempt appeared to be faring little better. She knocked again, growing desperate enough to consider trying the latch on the door, if need be. But the door—which appeared to have once been painted a cheerful red but had long since faded to a nauseating pink—finally opened. A woman of middling years peered out, and with her, a puff of air escaped, liberally laced with the smell of rising bread. She dusted her flour-covered hands on her skirt. “May I help you?”

  Clare breathed a sigh of relief, and not only because the homey scents provided a welcome counterbalance to the stench from the nearby alley.

  Here, at last, was someone reasonable, offering her a proper greeting.

  “Oh yes, thank you. I am ever so glad you opened the door.”

  “Well, I don’t have any rooms to let at the present, and I don’t take on female boarders,” the woman said. “Too much trouble.”

  “You mistake my inquiry, Mrs. . . . ?”

  “Calbert.”

  “Ah. Well, good evening, Mrs. Calbert, I am looking for someone who told me he rents a room in this area. His name is Dr. Daniel Merial, and he told me he lives on Aldersgate Street. I’ve tried nearly every other door, with no luck.” Clare smiled in what she hoped was a trustworthy fashion. “Does he perchance live here?”

  The woman’s gaze narrowed, skating over Clare’s sodden cloak to her bedraggled hem, hovering a moment on her muddied silk slippers. She frowned. “What business does someone like you have with Dr. Merial?”

  Clare’s smile faltered. “It is a private matter.”

  “Well, the charity ward is three blocks east.” The door began to inch closed.

  Clare abandoned her Society smile—which was clearly not serving her well in this neighborhood—and shoved her left foot into the jam. “I am not his patient, if that is your worry,” she gasped as the door connected with her thin-soled slipper.

  Although, perhaps a broken foot would return her to that blessed state.

  Ironically, St. Bartholomew’s was the one landmark in Smithfield she was sure of, given that it rose like a fortress above the squalid neighborhood, and given that she’d started her search for Daniel there this very afternoon. But according to the authorities she’d spoken to, he didn’t work on Sundays. And that meant she had no idea where he might be.

  The offending door began to open again. “I cannot say that I know him,” Mrs. Calbert snarled. Before Clare could protest further, the churlish woman brought her heel down on the top of her foot. As Clare reared back in pain and surprise, she added nastily, “And if I did, you can bet I wouldn’t approve of visiting ladies, either.”

  The door slammed closed.

  Clare stood in the gathering twilight, her mouth open, toes curled in agony.

  “Psssssst.”

  She whirled around, her heart crawling up her throat. She saw naught but an empty sidewalk, but nonetheless edged away from the unseen voice, the crumbling mortar of the building’s wall at her back. The gas lamps had not yet been lit, if indeed there was a lamplighter in London brave enough to walk these streets. She peered from side to side, searching for danger.

  Why would a footpad be trying to catch her attention? Surely they could just brain her over the head, drag her into the shadows, and—

  “Here. In the alley, miss.”

  Clare closed her eyes and shook her head. No matter how nicely a footpad asked—no matter, even, if said footpad was female, as this one clearly was—she was not about to blindly follow their invitation to a dark, murderous rendezvous.

  “I know the man you seek.”

  Clare’s eyes opened to see a woman shuffle ghostlike from the alley, her hand raised in greeting. She blinked in surprise through the twilight. “Meg!”

  The apparition cackled. “Oh, aye. You remember me, eh?”

  “Of course. I met you with Dr. Merial, in Chelsea.” Clare smiled nervously, though she still kept close to the wall, as if it might offer her some security against the unknown dangers of Smithfield—which apparently included slamming doors and ghosts in alleys. “Handsome Meg, isn’t it?”

  Meg smiled, revealing a large gap where teeth ought to have gone. “A spanking good memory, to go along with such a pretty face. No wonder Dr. Merial’s smitten.”

  Clare stepped forward at his name. “Do you know where he lives?”

  “He lets a room from Mrs. Calbert.” Meg pointed behind Clare’s shoulder with a gnarled hands. “Second door to the left.”

  Clare looked behind her suspiciously. Several closed doors waited, a bit further down the street. She’d overlooked them at first, thinking them little more than side doors to sculleries and such. But then, she’d presumed this building was a single home. Now that Meg had pointed it out, she could see the rooms had been subdivided as individual living quarters.

  “But . . . Mrs. Calbert said she didn’t know him,” she said in confusion.

  “It’s more that she doesn’t want you to know him. Catch my drift, dearie?” Meg turned and began to amble down the street. “Just don’t let her find you out, hear?” the woman called over her shoulder. “There’s a woman I wouldn’t want to cross.”

  As Meg turned a corner and disappeared from view, Clare shook off her surprise. She knocked on the indicated door, then waited with her heart in her throat. It seemed like only seconds before it swung open. The wave of air that reached out to greet her this time did not smell of freshly baked bread, or worse, a fetid alley. Instead, the strong, sweet scent she’d always identified with Daniel greeted her like an old friend.

  He looked tired and disheveled, as though he’d been up for days, but he was still so impossibly perfect she wanted to collapse in relief.

  THE SIGHT OF Clare on his doorstep was like an old wound, freshly torn open. The last time Daniel had seen her, she’d been standing beneath the bright lights of Lady Austerley’s ballroom, regaling her friends with tales of his Roma heritage, her voice smug and confident as she delivered the damning words. But in her bedraggled bonnet and soaked dress, tonight she looked as much a Gypsy as he.

  “May I come in?” Even her voice seemed sharp as a scalpel.

  He nodded, stepping aside for her entry, then turned around just in time to see Clare’s cloak hit the floor in a sodden heap. Her gloves were peeled off next, followed by her bonnet. The frogs announced their approval of the disrobing process by splashing about in their bowls, but then fell uncharacteristically still as she began to unpin her hair.

  No doubt they were as awed as he.

  She squeezed the water from the released tresses, and drops fell onto his floor with a soft patter. The sound finally brought him around. He disentangled his frozen limbs and shut the door, then pulled a blanket off his bed, as much for his sanity as her health.

  “For God’s sake, Clare.” He held it out. “You are soaked through.”

  “I was caught out in the rainstorm.” She took the blanket from him, and as her cold hand brushed against his, a curl of heat unfolded in his gut. But he ruthlessly ignored the urge to take her in his arms and warm her up the fastest way possible. Because the storm had come through around six o’clock. It was now closer to eight. His mind clacked through the math and arrived at an unpalatable conclusion.

  “You’ve been wandering about Smithfield for two hours?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Four. The rainstorm hit about two hours into my search for you, I should think. That was after my purse was stolen, of course.” She tossed her still-damp hair over one shoulder, and he tried very, very hard not to notice it fell to her waist. Her very damp waist, the fabric of her wet dress plastered against her curves. “I tried to wait out the rain in the coffeehouse on Giltspur Steet, but they turned me away.” She held the blanket back to him. “They insisted I buy something, you see, and I was quite unable to do so without any money.”

  Daniel took the blanket back with numb fingers. Bloody hell. She’d spent four hours in
Smithfield? Six months ago a man had been gutted in broad daylight, not two blocks away from that very coffeehouse. Mrs. Calbert’s husband had known the streets—and the dangers—as well as anyone, and it had still not been enough to keep him safe.

  How was a woman so delicately fashioned still standing? Still breathing?

  But of course, he knew by now she was stronger than she seemed.

  “Why do something so foolish?” he demanded gruffly. His fingers gripped the coarse wool of the blanket, now damp from its brush with her body. “I would have come to you, if you’d only sent a note.”

  She hesitated. “I wasn’t sure. Not after the way things ended between us last night.”

  Daniel’s heart contracted around her explanation. He felt like smashing something. She’d been robbed, on account of him. Refused entry to a common coffeehouse. Soaked to the bone. It was a wonder she wasn’t bleeding to death in an alley somewhere.

  Instead, she was here. Dripping wet and beginning to shiver—though whether from cold or residual shock, it was difficult to tell.

  Fighting back a snarl of anger, he tossed the blanket back onto the bed, then snatched a cup from his sideboard—unfortunately chipped, though it was ostensibly the finest piece of china he owned—and poured her a finger from the bottle he kept there. He held it out to her. “As I said last night, Smithfield is no place for a lady.”

  “I had hoped that perhaps you at least lived on a safe street.” She accepted the cup with both hands, and when he saw her fingers were shaking, he cursed his haste in not warming the drink up first. “I have discovered, however, you are not prone to exaggeration.” She took a cautious sip, then wrinkled her nose. “This is terrible brandy.”

  “That is because it is whisky.”

  Her eyes widened. “Lady Austerley told me you were a teetotaler.”