Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Mama says I must begin to tap on Society’s door, the better to take my place properly next year.
A year is a long time to stand about on the stoop, Auntie Sorcha.
I’m to accompany Mama to all the best shops, socialize at every opportunity with family, walk frequently in the square, and speak mostly French.
I feel quite out of my depth already, and the Season is barely begun. ”
Sorcha adjusted her mount’s pace to the plodding walk Annette’s chestnut mare had adopted. Annette was no sort of equestrian, but she did make a fetching picture in a forest green riding habit and chocolate-colored toque with two pheasant feathers cocked over one shoulder.
“Coraline wants you to feel confident when next spring comes around,” Sorcha said. “Impatient, even, to make your curtsey and have a look at the available bachelors.”
“They are already looking at me.” Annette shortened her reins, which resulted in the mare tossing her head. “I don’t care to be examined like a heifer brought to the Wednesday market.”
Annette had inherited her mother’s forthright disposition rather than her father’s charm.
She was pretty enough, though her hair was a lustrous golden brown rather than blond, and her eyes were brown instead of blue.
The poor girl had been subjected to years of lemon rinses in an effort to lighten her hair.
The result was a subtle citrus scent rather than the desired pale locks. She had lately taken to drenching herself with attar of roses, an unfortunate combination of aromas. More distinctive than pleasing.
Annette was also a trifle outspoken, as young ladies went. Not a bad thing, but not exactly fashionable either.
“You could look at the young men as if they are the livestock on offer,” Sorcha said. “Then you will get a reputation for boldness, and the fussier specimens will leave you alone.”
Annette smiled wanly. “Mama would put me on bread and water for a fortnight if I behaved like that. You didn’t land a ducal son by being bold, Auntie.”
Land him, as if Barclay had been some magnificent trout.
“I was instructed to aim as high as possible, Annette, because my sisters’ prospects rose and fell with my own.
” The same governess who’d explained that eternal verity had also warned Sorcha that diving first into the waters of matrimony was a thankless and grueling honor.
Choose carefully, if you’re permitted to choose at all. Sorcha still heard those words in MacPhee’s soft, precise Inverness accent.
“Mama is relentless on the topic of prospects,” Annette went on, drumming a heel against the mare’s side. “Mine, the family’s, a husband’s. I might marry the first eligible curate simply to get away from my dear mother. Why won’t this dratted horse settle?”
“Because you are telling her to stop and to go at the same time. Ease up on the reins, Annette. Hold your foot still.”
Annette frowned and gave the mare two inches of rein.
“I wish Mama would ease up on me. If she’s told me once, she’s told me a thousand times.
My grandpapa is an earl, my uncle is a duke.
Chanderton’s earldom can be preserved through the female line.
I must comport myself with the dignity of a queen for the sake of my sisters and my yet-to-be-born children.
None of the interesting bachelors want to marry a queen. ”
More to the point, none of Annette’s peers would want to befriend a young woman conducting herself with what she hoped was regal dignity. That was especially the case if the young lady also happened to be Scottish, not all that pretty, or not so very well dowered.
What would MacPhee advise? “Unfortunately, Annette, your mother is at least half right. If you marry well, your sisters will benefit greatly. If you involve yourself in scandal, they will definitely suffer, and you love your sisters.”
“I do, most of the time. Jessica can be ridiculous, but she’s only eleven. She’s the best rider among us.”
“Marriage does not involve a great deal of horseback riding.” Which was fortunate when a lady had as little skill in the saddle as Annette, but then, the purpose of a hack in the park was to look attractive, not to ride well.
“Did you love Uncle Barclay madly, Auntie?”
Not even a little. Sorcha had tried to like him and could still describe some of his personality as likable.
“I esteemed him insofar as his actions merited my respect. He was a winsome suitor and, because of his age, struck me as serious and poised, unlike the younger men buzzing about my settlements.”
“I hate settlements.” Annette gathered up her reins into fisted hands. “You are absolutely correct that my settlements are more interesting than I am. Papa says Uncle Chandy could do more to help the situation. Mama says that Grandpapa is not much use either.”
Those old fellows were doing Annette a favor. “All the better to ensure you marry somebody who values you for yourself, Annette, and not for your fortune.”
“Marry for love?” Annette snorted inelegantly. “Mama has no patience with that notion. To hear her tell it, I will be valued for my needlepoint, pianoforte, French, and deportment. At least I enjoy the pianoforte, and my French is coming along. My needlepoint is quite good.”
But as for deportment… Annette still had some work to do. “Give a bit on the reins, or your mare will lose all patience with you.”
Annette complied. “Sorry, Cinnamon. I am very cross today. Auntie, what am I to do? I feel as if I’m in a runaway coach plummeting toward a raging river. Mama will thrust me into the arms of some old baron, and he will want children, and… I cannot bear the thought.”
Or, worse, he’d want sons. “I will tell you what my governess told me: In the course of a long and busy day, marital duties might take up a quarter hour after dark. For that quarter hour, you can tolerate your husband’s attentions, knowing that conception necessitates your fortitude, and that your security and continued place in Society will depend upon having children. ”
Would Mr. Huxley call that a sermon? Sorcha had certainly sounded preachy to her own ears.
“Auntie, I don’t even like children.”
Probably because Annette was still, in some regards, childish herself.
“You will like your own children. For a time, anyway. In the later years of the marriage, you will have more independence, if all goes well.” If all did not go well, Annette might spend the later years of the marriage immured in an asylum for discarded wives.
Barclay had rattled that sword only once and then looked as if he’d horrified even himself.
“Auntie, I am afraid. I am afraid I will be yoked to some awful old viscount with cold hands and fetid breath. He will dwell all year-round in a mildewed manor in Little Hogtrot, Backwardshire. My sisters will write to me out of pity, and his lordship will live forever while I bear him one daughter after another and lose what looks I have. He won’t die until I am thirty-two at least, and he will leave me and my dozens of daughters penniless. ”
She was drumming her heel against the mare’s side again, and the horse switched her tail in response.
Sorcha chose her words carefully, trying to balance honesty with reassurance.
“You are right to be worried, Annette. Marriage is mortally serious business, and most of us get only one chance to decide. The Church will not allow a marriage if the bride is unwilling.” Sorcha’s older brother had told her that, may he be forever blessed.
“This is well-established canon law, and you must not forget it. Remind your mother that you cannot be coerced. Remind the bachelors, if you must. You will have a place as my companion if needs must.”
Making that offer risked all manner of family upheaval, but nobody had offered Sorcha any such haven. Go to Mayfair and marry well.
“Mama will never speak to me if I fail to find a good husband.”
“And you will never be permitted to speak to your mother, your sisters, or me if you find a bad husband.” Barclay had become increasingly possessive as the marriage had progressed, probably worried that Sorcha would play him false.
She hadn’t been remotely tempted.
“You are telling me that the decision is mine. Why don’t I believe—drat this mare.”
“Stop kicking her. Stop hauling back on the reins. You are making that horse feel exactly as the prospect of next Season makes you feel. Harried and restrained and given a most unhappy job that you cannot avoid.”
“Oh.” Annette gave the reins forward and sat quietly in the saddle. “Poor Cinnamon.”
Poor Annette, though if Sorcha could manage it, Annette would meet plenty of decent young fellows who had the maturity to look beyond a young lady’s settlements. Annette was in good health, well connected, and—within the limits of her years and disposition—mostly sensible.
“The duchess will lend a hand,” Sorcha said. “You will have good options, Annette, and thus your sisters will too.”
An idea emerged into Sorcha’s awareness, an idea that had been percolating through her awareness since Bernard Huxley had instructed her on the finer points of a simple card trick.
He’d offered a precise, organized explanation for how to manipulate the deck and demonstrated the game with deft movements of his elegant hands.
The whole time Sorcha had been watching and listening and pretending to focus on the cards, she’d instead been focused on the vicar-turned-merchant-turned-guardian.
He was far shrewder than he let on, shrewd enough not to emphasize aristocratic good looks, a protean intellect, and an unceasing appetite for challenges.
Bernard Huxley was becoming an ally, almost a friend. Sorcha allowed the emerging idea to bloom in her imagination: He’d be a generous and inventive lover.