Chapter 2 #2
She thought of London now, of its broad streets and narrower minds, of its brilliance and its rot.
She had arrived less than a fortnight ago, and already she felt as if she lived in a theatre where the audience applauded their own reflection.
The houses were grand, the manners polished, the conversations carefully arranged so that no one might accidentally say what they meant unless it was fashionable to mean it.
And yet beneath it all was motion, restless and impatient like the Thames itself.
Pamphlets were passed from hand to hand.
There were dinners where men spoke of corn laws and wages as if the nation were a set of ledgers; there were drawing rooms where women spoke of charity whilst husbands spoke of votes, and there were salons—true salons, not merely parties—where ideas moved faster than paper could contain them.
In Manchester she had belonged to some social reform groups, but they were nothing like those she might find here.
Francesca wished to return there. She wished to sit in a room where no one would look at her and see merely an heiress to barter. She wished to speak of reform, not as an ornament to conversation but as a necessity.
She had been taught by her father, as he would a son, to read accounts as carefully as she read books.
He had taken her through his papers, his leases, his correspondence with the mill overseers, and he had explained, patiently, how one ill-considered regulation could ruin a harvest, how one dishonest foreman could cut corners and cost lives, how men could be bought with less than a day’s wages.
He had believed, perhaps foolishly, that if she understood the mechanisms of their world, she might resist being crushed beneath them.
After his death, those mechanisms had become honed. He had been gone scarcely a year when ‘gentlemen’ began pretending to care very much for her opinion.
Sir Percival, with his affection and his authority, had swept in like a benevolent storm, declaring himself—as uncle and godfather—her guardian.
Francesca did not resent him for it. He was acting upon her parent’s wishes. He had been kind, but kindness and control were often cousins, and Francesca had never been able to accept control with gratitude.
Still, she could not accuse Sir Percival of indifference.
He had told her, with a sort of weary honesty, that she must go through the Season because the world required it of her.
It was the price of being respectable and safe.
It was, in the blunt language of men, the price of protecting her fortune from those who would seize it.
“And yet,” Francesca had said, “if the price of safety is surrender, is it safety at all?”
Sir Percival had looked at her for a long moment and replied, “It is what your parents wished for you.”
She had hated him for it in that moment and loved him for it the next.
Now she was to dine at Lord Upton’s grand mansion, and she could already predict the conversation.
She would be praised for her fortitude, pitied for her losses, admired for her ‘spirit’, and examined for her suitability.
She would be asked whether she enjoyed London.
She might be urged to dance. She would be introduced to gentlemen whose smiles would be too quick and whose eyes would be too calculating.
If Kendall were here, she thought, he would have said that gentlemen courted estates before they courted women, and that she must make them speak to her mind before she permitted them to admire her face.
Downstairs, she saw Sir Percival waiting for her.
His face softened when he saw her, and for an instant Francesca felt that old, uncomfortable tug of affection.
He was her mother’s brother and had been her father’s friend.
He had been present at their funerals. He had held her hand when she had been too numb to hold her own composure.
He came to her at once. “Francesca,” he said, and there was warmth under his firmness. “You look well.”
“I am presentable,” she replied, which was the truth she could tolerate.
Sir Percival’s mouth twitched. “We shall take that as a triumph.”
Inside the carriage, Francesca sat upright and arranged her cloak as if she were preparing armour.
They approached Upton Place, and Francesca felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of the evening’s performance. The house was handsome, polished, and entirely certain of its own importance.
Upton Place stood in a quiet London square that conveyed consequence without ostentation, the sort of address that announced its owner’s rank through restraint rather than display.
The facade was of warm, honeyed masonry, softened by age and mullioned windows, their pale stone surrounds carved with modest classical detail.
A wrought-iron balcony traced the first floor, more decorative than useful, while the front door—painted a dignified black and flanked by lanterns—opened onto a shallow set of steps worn smooth by generations of measured arrivals.
Their carriage arrived with punctuality.
The footmen opened the carriage door and she descended the steps, feeling the strange sensation of being observed even before she entered.
The street was lively with the movement of carriages and the clatter of hooves on stone.
London did not sleep; it merely altered its tempo between day and night.
Francesca stepped down and lifted her chin. She would enter like the owner of her own life, even if everyone present intended to convince her otherwise.
In the hall she was received by Lady Upton herself, radiant in a gown of mauve sarcenet, and a parure of rubies that might be worth her dowry. Lady Upton kissed Francesca’s cheek with maternal warmth.
“My dear Miss Vale,” she said, “how very glad I am you could come. We are all so eager to have you amongst us.”
Francesca smiled with measured civility. “You are very kind, Lady Upton. I am most obliged.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Upton replied, as if kindness were a gift she bestowed without calculation. “You must consider us your friends in Town.”
Francesca allowed herself to be led into the drawing room, where a small constellation of guests stood in clusters, each group murmuring as if the very walls might carry secrets to rival houses.
Francesca permitted her gaze to travel over them with swift appraisal.
She saw titled women whose smiles held practised charm; she saw gentlemen with fashionable whiskers and convictions; she saw an older gentleman with the unmistakable air of Parliament, his voice already in command even when he spoke quietly.
Before she could answer, Lady Upton turned. “Ah! There is Arch.”
Francesca’s spine stiffened before she could persuade it otherwise.
Arch Manners stood near the window, half turned away from the room as if he would have preferred to be anywhere else, which was at least one thing they had in common.
He was larger than she remembered, or perhaps she had simply been smaller then.
His dark hair was brushed into order with obvious reluctance, and his expression carried the sort of restrained impatience that suggested he was a man obliged to submit to other people’s plans.
His eyes, when they alighted upon Francesca, were very blue and very direct. She had the absurd thought that he looked dangerous.
He bowed properly, which annoyed her, because she preferred to find something to fault him for. “Miss Vale,” he said civilly.
“Major Manners,” she replied, giving him the title with the precision of a pin.
A flicker crossed his face; she could not tell whether it was amusement or irritation.
“You remember me, then,” he remarked.
“I think the anomaly is more that you remember me.” She tried to keep the tartness from her voice, but was certain she did not succeed.
“One does not oft forget someone who abhors a man in uniform,” he rejoined with a knowing smile, as if, perhaps, she had merely been a misguided youth.
“Oh, you must be mistaken, my boy. Francesca knows to respect the King’s Men,” their godfather interjected. Sir Percival’s gaze moved between them with an air of anticipatory dread, as if he expected sparks and might need to extinguish them.
Lady Upton, oblivious or pretending so to be, smiled brightly. “How charming! You must reacquaint yourselves. I am sure you will have much to say to one another.”
Francesca wondered what Lady Upton imagined they had in common, besides a mutual acquaintance and an equal dislike of being managed.
“Indeed,” Francesca said sweetly, and meant nothing by it.
The butler announced dinner, and the company began to move towards the dining room like the tide. Francesca found herself placed, by Lady Upton’s careful arrangement, in the seat most visible to the room, with Sir Percival on one side and Arch Manners on the other.
It was, Francesca thought with humour, the social equivalent of being flanked by guards.
She sat with calm composure, though her mind was already working. A dining-table was a battlefield of sorts, and she had survived worse.
The first courses were served and the ritualistic conversation began, light and polished, as if nothing in England were more urgent than the quality of soup or the turn of the weather.
Francesca listened, answered when addressed and smiled when required.
She did not speak of the mill, of the tenants, of the men who worked sixteen hours a day for wages that could scarcely feed a family, because to speak of such things at dinner was considered vulgar.
“I suppose you must resign yourself to my company as my mother informs me that my assistance will be required to escort you for the Season.”
“You are to be of assistance for the Season,” she repeated coolly, meeting his gaze.
His inclination of the head was precise, almost self-mocking. “So I have been informed, though assistance is a term of generous elasticity.”
It was, she thought, an uncommonly civil way of acknowledging interference. “It sounds as though you are already resigned.”
“A poorly attempted endeavour to disguise myself, it seems,” he said, then added, with a faint edge of amusement, “I have little doubt you were cajoled, just as I was. I see your uncle and my mother for what they are.”
“Indeed. Though I hope you will not hold me immediately culpable for crimes I have not yet committed.” Against her will, the corner of her mouth lifted. She did not trust that reaction and smothered it at once. “You speak as if you expect me to be belligerent.”
“Experience suggests that young ladies with strong opinions rarely lack a prosecutorial spirit,” he replied.
She laughed then, a short sound she had not meant to give him, and recovered herself quickly. “If you refer to my opinions of soldiers, they are founded upon experience, not whim.”
“Indeed?” he asked mildly. “Then may I inquire what grievance the entire profession has earned?”
She studied him for a moment, searching for mockery and finding none. That, too, unsettled her.
“A regiment was stationed near my home,” she said at last. “They treated the land as though it were theirs by conquest rather than lease. They bullied tenants. They attempted to coerce my father into arrangements that would have ruined him. One thought he had the right… they assumed authority belonged to them simply because they wore uniforms.”
He did not interrupt her, which earned him a small mark in his favour, though she resented the fact.
“I gather,” he said evenly, “that someone in uniform has treated you yourself poorly.”
“Poorly,” she echoed.
“Thus we are all,” he continued, with infuriating calm, “to be tarnished by one man’s actions?”
Her temper stirred. “If a tailor produces one inferior coat, would you expect the next to be better?”
“Yet I believe you do not swear off coats entirely,” he replied.
She drew a breath, annoyed at the neatness of it. “I object to power unchecked.”
“As do I,” he said quietly. “I would beg you to give other soldiers a chance.”
That stopped her. She looked at him again, really looked at him this time, beyond the agreeable cut of his coat and the irritating steadiness of his manner. There was something there she had not expected: restraint, perhaps, or an understanding hard won.
He regarded her for a moment longer, then said, in a tone that suggested idle curiosity rather than inquiry, “May I ask what you intend to do with your opinions this Season, Miss Vale? Will they remain confined, or do you mean to give them wider exercise?”
She considered him. “If by exercise you mean politics, reform, and the occasional salon where such matters are discussed without fear of impropriety, then yes. However, I have promised our godfather that I will comport myself with restraint when in Society.”
“Then I must hope,” he replied lightly, though his gaze was anything but, “that when you attend these assemblies, you will permit your newly appointed escort to observe how revolution is conducted over tea.”
“You may yet surprise me, Major Manners,” she said.