Chapter 1 #2
Granted, it was a small streak, just a slight need that popped up from time to time to go out and live her life and not care about silly things like decorum and perfect posture and whether or not she should snort or roll her eyes.
That was when she would go out with her childhood friends, Tommy, Charlie, and Lenore, for a few hours.
They would skip rocks in the park, or dance in the rain, or catch snowflakes on their tongues, completely free from the expectations society had placed upon them.
And then, once she’d satisfied her need for adventure, once she’d allowed herself those few blissful moments of freedom, Calliope would resume her role as the proper high-society daughter for a few more weeks—months, even—without feeling as though she were completely wasting her life in stuffy drawing rooms and rib-cracking corsets.
She could feel that familiar willfulness rising up in her now and knew from experience that if she did not get away from Lord Wellesby soon, she was likely to do something she would very much regret.
Not because she cared what a single person in this room thought of her, but because she would have to hear her mother lecture her about it for months afterward.
And because, if she were being entirely honest with herself, for all of the ways she resented the life that was being thrust upon her, Calliope couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in her mother’s eyes whenever she failed to live up to her expectations.
Please, just finish the dance without another word, Calliope silently begged the viscount as they twirled about the room. For both our sakes.
But the viscount’s sickly sweet smile grew, and she knew whatever he planned to say next would be impossible to ignore.
“Have you found him yet?”
Calliope closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Found whom, Your Lordship?”
“Come now, Miss Hart,” he said. “You do not have to play coy with me. I know why you are here. Why any American heiress of a marriageable age comes here.”
She gritted her teeth. “And why is that?”
“You are here to find a husband,” he pronounced in a rather bored voice, as if he’d witnessed this phenomenon so many times now, it had become monotonous.
“Someone to give you a title, to make you feel more important than you actually are, because no matter how much money you and your cowboy cousins accrue, the one thing you cannot buy outside of marriage is a respectable lineage.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do not know what you mean, sir.”
“Yes, you do. I only hope you know you are barking up the wrong tree with me. Pleasing as your visage is to behold, you will never be good enough to join our ranks. You do see that, don’t you?”
One bar of music more. Don’t give in. Don’t retaliate. Just let him say his spiteful words and hold your tongue.
“I don’t know why you all don’t just go back to where you came from,” he continued, his overly spiced cologne mixing with the brandy and cigars on his breath in such a noxious way as to make her stomach turn. “Surely your marriage prospects would be better there, amongst your own kind.”
Decorum. Maintain decorum.
A spark lighting in his gaze, the viscount leaned close enough for her to feel his hot breath against her ear. “It is funny, though.”
She sighed. It was clear he would not let her leave the circle of his arms without responding, and even though she knew it would not lead anywhere good, etiquette prompted her to ask, “What is?”
He smirked. “How the oldest profession can disguise itself in jewels and furs, but it really is no different from those who ply their trade on the streets, is it?”
Calliope’s jaw dropped.
“Do I shock you?” he asked, the arrogance in his tone thick enough to grease a wheel. “I thought Americans were above such shock, living on the frontier as you do.”
Calliope’s lips twitched into a smile that boded very ill indeed.
“No, sir,” she replied, her tone turning honey sweet. “You do not shock me. Although your logic is flawed.”
He arched a brow. “How so?”
“It seems to me that if anyone is wrapped up in jewels and furs in order to practice the world’s oldest profession, it would be your countrymen, Your Lordship.
My fellow heiresses and I have enough capital to care for the next ten generations of our descendants, whereas most of you will die with no legacy to speak of if you do not—how did you put it? Ply your trade?”
The viscount gaped at her.
Their steps slowed as the music ended. Calliope applauded the quartet along with the rest of the couples whilst Lord Wellesby sputtered his indignation, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tried to think of what to say.
“And for your information,” she said, turning back to the viscount and offering her hand in farewell, “Manhattan is far more advanced than London, and its people much kinder. If anyone needs a lesson on refinement, Lord Wellesby, it is most definitely not me and my friends, but you and yours.”
He glared at her, but with the entire room staring, he could do nothing but press his lips to her gloved knuckles and bow respectfully. “Miss Hart.”
She smiled back at him as if nothing were amiss. “Lord Wellesby.”
And with that, she turned on her heel, grabbed her third champagne flute of the night from a passing footman, and strode away, her heart pounding in her ears, though no one would be able to tell from her practiced smile and easy gait.
It was not until she’d returned to the ridiculously large fern that she allowed herself to crumple, pressing her hand to her chest and forcing herself to inhale deeply.
She wished she could say she’d never met anyone so narcissistic and insufferable in all her life, but the viscount was no different from any other titled gentlemen she’d met since her mother had forced her onto an ocean liner three months ago in order to take her husband-hunting across the Atlantic.
Certainly, some were more tactful than the smarmy Lord Wellesby, only insinuating their disdain for Calliope and the other American heiresses who had washed upon their shores, but still.
The message was clear: Even the ones who needed American money to save their estates hated the idea of marrying the daughters of industry titans to get it.
She could only hope the viscount would be too ashamed of his actions—and of how precisely her words had cut him down to size—to spread her retort throughout the ballroom.
For if Calliope had any recurring sins, speaking her mind when she shouldn’t most definitely topped the list, and her mother would never let her hear the end of it if her outburst did anything to spoil her campaign for a titled son-in-law to join their ranks before the Season was through.