Chapter 1
“Atoast to Maria, the bravest woman in London!”
Evelina Burville raised the toast and was echoed enthusiastically by all the women of the Corset Chronicle Club.
The object of their praise blushed at the attention.
Maria had brown hair and eyes, a heart-shaped face with a button nose and a smattering of freckles.
She smiled, a charming expression which illuminated her face and drew attention to her delicately curved lips.
“I think you love hyperbole a little too much, Evelina,” she said.
“Nonsense. This is no place for false modesty,” Anna Madden, Duchess of Wutherton said, deep brown eyes sparkling.
“Not false, Anna. It was hardly a triumph, I simply gave the man the freedom he’d already taken,” Maria replied.
Though Anna and Evelina, as a duchess and dowager countess respectively, outranked Maria, there was a standing rule in the Corset Chronicles Club that rank not be recognized. All members were women and of equal status.
“Merely, realistic,” Maria continued. “I do not see what was so brave in what I did. My father does not see bravery. He thinks I have insulted him and the Marquess of Landsdowne both, as well as harming myself.”
“You protected yourself against two men who were determined to rule your destiny!” Anna said with passion. “It is long past time that men understood that women are not property to be disposed of as they see fit.”
Theodora, Evelina’s sister, nodded in agreement.
“The Marquess of Landsdowne was a philanderer and a liar. It would have been harder and braver of me by far to go through with the marriage simply to please my father,” Maria said.
“Now, I am free. But I thank you, my sisters, for the praise. It bolsters my heart to know that you support my decision.”
And I will need all the moral support I can find to face my father once he has tried to drown his anger in wine. I have faced his anger when sober, but later will have to face it when he’s drunk.
She finished the last mouthful of the biting brandy that Evelina had served them all.
“Now that we have concluded our toast and managed our friend’s undue modesty. I should like to hear the story of how she escaped the adulterous clutches of the Marquess of Landsdowne!” Anna proclaimed, “Maria, the floor is yours.”
The other two women echoed her sentiments, clapping for Maria.
Maria thought of all the times in the last few weeks that she had been reluctant to share stories of her time with her betrothed. Reluctant because of her fear that they would see through to the heart of the matter, that he was entirely unsuitable for her. For any woman actually.
She thought of the balls and society events at which he had been, in his words, appreciating the aesthetics of the other beautiful women.
Or of the times that he had vanished from her sight, even failing to meet her at an appointed time and place, later presenting her with an excuse that she had accepted.
I should have sent him away at the first excuse. Should have seen right through it, but I think I wanted to feel… something. Expected to feel something.
She had felt embarrassed that she had not seen through him. Now she felt nothing but the lifting of an immense weight. A liberation.
“Well, I had suspected for a short time that something was amiss. He had seemed reluctant at times to meet with me. At first, the reasons seemed plausible. He said that his estates required his attention and that he needed to spend a week in the country addressing his accounts. Or he said that family affairs had called him away, that I wouldn’t want him to ignore the needs of his family, would I? ”
The gathered ladies laughed as Maria slipped into a competent imitation of Landsdowne’s Yorkshire accent and low, husky voice. It was a skill she had discovered in her childhood and enjoyed making them all laugh with it.
“He was supposed to be coming to tea and bringing his mother with him. The staff and I spent all morning ensuring that everything was perfect for his arrival. Mrs. Fogarty slaved over an exquisite cake, making it three-tiered with lemon curd filling and frosting. I made certain that we had his favorite blend of tea and foxgloves decorating the drawing room because they are his favorite flower. I spent the entire morning in a state of distress, fretful that I might miss some small detail! And after all that fretting and difficult work, he sent a note. A note!”
They all looked suitably disapproving. Maria calmed herself. Telling the story aroused her ire all over again, and she was determined that he would not elicit any more negative emotions from her.
“He sent a note,” she continued, “to cry off, saying that his mother was ill. But I knew that was untrue—I had spent the previous evening with her myself! I say, do you think a cup of tea could be rustled up? This brandy has quite dried out my mouth.”
Evelina reached for a delicate silver bell and gave it a tinkle. A servant promptly entered the room, and tea was requested.
“Where was I?” Maria asked, “Oh yes. So, I decided to go to Landsdowne House and have it out with him once and for all.”
Evelina and Anna cheered, and Maria beamed in response, enjoying their attention and approval both.
“When I got there, do you know what I found?” she asked.
“I can imagine, but do go on,” Evelina said.
“Suffice to say, he was not alone, and his mother was neither ill nor in residence. I do not know who she was, but neither she nor he were particularly apologetic.” Maria said.
“Oh my, did you catch them…you know?” Theodora sounded horrified.
“Not quite. But… on the way,” Maria said.
“Oh my! Oh my! Men are truly brutes!” Theodora said, shaking her head.
“Some are,” Evelina agreed.
“The worst of them are,” Anna said.
“But is there an ideal man?” Maria wondered. “I am beginning to think that there is not. Unless one might be made. Fashioned into the right shape by a woman’s hand.”
“Now that is an idea!” Evelina said, sipping her wine.
“Speaking of the worst of men, has anyone heard the latest rumors about the Phantom?” Anna asked in a tone that suggested she was moving the conversation to a far more salacious topic.
“Oh please, Anna, let us not indulge in gossip and sensationalism. The purpose of this club is, after all, to discuss the finer points of literature and art. Not the gutter press,” Evelina chided.
“And to be free to talk without the restrictions imposed on us by men,” Theodora added, “and I think gossip and rumor fit that description.”
“Well said,” Anna said.
Maria laughed, enjoying the banter between them. It was the perfect tonic for her worries. The openness of their conversation was a liberation that she had come to look forward to and even depend upon.
When one tastes true freedom, one comes to depend upon it and misses it when it is not there.
“What is it you have heard about the poor Phantom?” she asked.
“Poor nothing!” Anna said. “If you had read half of what I have! The latest is that he only comes out of the house at night and that people passing too near to Winterleigh have gone missing, never to be seen again!”
“Those are just stories, nothing more,” Maria said skeptically.
“These stories come from somewhere!” Anna protested.
“From fevered imaginations,” Theodora said firmly, “which are fueled by romantic fiction. You should read more academic work, Anna.”
Maria’s features softened. “Behind all these dreadful rumors, there remains a real man. I’d sooner trust a reclusive duke than a charming scoundrel, any day.”
Anna sighed dramatically. “Is that truly all we’re left to choose from? Unfaithful scoundrels and murdering dukes?”
“First of all, Anna, you’re already married,” Evelina said, arching an eyebrow. “And secondly, as founder of the Corset Chronicles, I hereby exercise my right to end this dreadful discussion about phantoms and disappearances.”
“Well, to make a rather obvious change of subject, I am personally glad that we no longer have to continue with this facade of pretending Landsdowne was handsome,” Theodora said as Anna floundered.
Evelina barked a laugh, tossing her head.
“Hear, hear!” she roared.
“I am rather offended. I thought he was quite handsome, actually,” Maria replied.
“He looked like a boy!” Evelina said. “A man of his age should not look so fresh-faced. He should have something of the world about him.”
“He was fine featured,” Maria said.
“A mustache would have made all the difference,” Evelina added.
“I do not think he could grow one. I think he tried, but all he got was… peach fuzz,” Maria said to uproarious laughter from the other women.
She joined in, appreciating the feeling of camaraderie. Her engagement to the Marquess of Landsdowne had been drawing her away from her friends, she realized. Who knew how far that would have gone had she married him?
I suppose he was a little too delicately featured at that. A touch of the rogue would not have done any harm.
The tea was brought in. A cup of Earl Grey, black and hot, was poured for Maria. She sipped it appreciatively.
“Who else but a woman knows how a man should be shaped?” Anna said. “Who else has the sense to know?”
“And who but we know the pitfalls to avoid?” Evelina said.
“We are not the only women to have been unlucky in love,” Maria protested.
“Far from it, and I dispute the notion of unlucky. We have chosen poorly,” Anna said, “but we probably should not blame the rogues we have saddled ourselves with for being rogues. Rather ourselves for believing they could be anything else.”
“My thoughts exactly. I have no desire to be wed after hearing your accounts of it,” Theodora said.
The meeting of the Corset Chronicles Club meandered on through the evening, eventually reaching its inevitable finish as the clock struck ten. As the women bade each other farewell, Maria found a sense of dread growing within her.
“Father will doubtless have some opinions to share when I return home. In vino veritas, as they say. I shall have to defend my actions all over again and mollify him,” she said.
“You know that you can come here at any time of the day or night if you need sanctuary,” Evelina said, hugging her.
Maria left Thornwall House in one of Evelina’s traps to take her across London from its northern boundary to its western side to Sunspire Manor, just beyond Belgravia.
That was the house of the Earl of Sunspire, where she and her father lived.
As the conveyance rattled its way through the darkened streets, she thought of freedom and if there truly was any hope of finding a handsome, kind, and noble husband or if all men were inherently flawed.
For some reason—perhaps the absorbing shadows all around her—she found herself thinking of Winterleigh and the Phantom that legend said haunted that place.
Maria became lost in thought about the mysterious man, drifting on the edge of sleep on the tides of dreams about a sinister figure, face hooded and shadowed, following her.
Wakefulness arrived suddenly and violently. The carriage came to a halt, and Maria began to stir. She heard raised voices inside, followed by the screech of broken glass.
The shards showered outward from the house, glittering in the moonlight like falling stars, and something large and heavy landed on the trap’s roof, cracking the wood with the force of its impact. Maria jolted, her heart thundering in her chest.
Father was already drunk.