Chapter 4
Joan soon regretted her hot-tempered exit from the bookshop.
Tristan Burke was a boor, but that was no reason to let him spoil her rare independent outing.
She’d stormed out of the shop in high dudgeon, only to spy one of her mother’s dearest friends strolling down the pavement directly toward her.
All thought of soothing her temper with a visit to her favorite bonnet shop vanished.
Her only hope was to head directly home and, if confronted about being seen here, claim she’d only taken a slight detour to see if Howell’s had any new printed silks displayed in the window.
Heart racing, she ducked her head a little and walked as briskly as she dared to the next street, where she darted around the corner toward home.
By the time she reached South Audley Street, her irritation had blossomed into full bitterness.
What business was it of Lord Burke’s whether Douglas went to the Malcolm ball?
Her brother, no doubt, had put him up to following her, which was utterly unfair of him.
She had only asked for the signed promise to tweak his nose; if he’d asked nicely, even apologized for yelling at her, she would have given it back.
It had only been a small token she could hold over his head against some future favor she might ask of him, and her brother should have known that.
Now, though, she was giving that paper to her mother, and she wasted no time in doing so. “Douglas will be at the Malcolm ball tomorrow evening, just as you wished,” she told Lady Bennet when she found her mother writing letters in the morning room. “In fact, he was eager to go.”
“Indeed?” Her mother’s eyebrows went up.
“Oh, yes.” With a flourish she took his signed note from her reticule. “He even wrote it down.”
Lady Bennet still looked suspicious as she read the note, but she only nodded. “Very good. Thank you, Joan. You must have a persuasive way with him.”
She smiled vindictively. “Yes, I must.”
“I’ve told Janet to press your new blue gown for the ball. Ackermann’s had the most charming hairstyle in the latest issue; would you care to try it? Janet could manage your hair as well if we begin early.”
Joan looked at the magazine her mother held out to her.
The illustration showed a young lady, slim and demure, with her hair drawn into a smooth coronet of braids on her crown, secured by a small tiara and ornamented with a graceful ostrich plume, with clusters of curls framing her face.
It looked delicate and beautiful, and she thought she would give her most valued possession to look like that. “Oh, it’s lovely.”
Her mother beamed. “Isn’t it? And it’s very fashionable.” Fashion was very important to Lady Bennet.
On the other hand . . . Joan studied the illustration more closely.
The young lady it showed certainly was very beautiful in her net-trimmed dress and sleek coif, but she was also a great deal more petite than Joan.
More than once she had enthusiastically agreed to some new fashion, only to discover with dismay that it never quite suited her.
Plumes, for instance. They only seemed to emphasize her height.
There were few things more lowering to a girl’s pride than watching the eyes of a gentleman climb up and up and up her figure, as if he were surveying some monstrous .
“Perhaps without the plume,” she murmured.
“You don’t like it?” Her mother frowned and looked at the illustration.
“It might make me look even taller.”
Lady Bennet turned the magazine from side to side as she pondered the seriousness of that possibility.
Joan’s height had always been a matter of concern.
Unlike her petite mother, she could look her father in the eye, and was only a few inches shorter than her brother.
“Perhaps if Janet puts it in at an angle, like this one. You need something to frame your features.”
“Perhaps a few more ringlets?”
“Well, there’s only one way to know. You must try it and see.”
“Yes.” Joan cheered up a bit as she gazed at the illustration. How wonderful it would be to look so elegant. Her new blue dress was similar in style to this one; perhaps combined with the hairstyle it would render all of her elegant.
She gave the illustrated beauty a slight nod.
A new hairstyle and a new gown probably wouldn’t keep her from spending the evening at the side of the room with the other unmarried and unwanted ladies, but it was worth a try.
It would give her something to talk about with her friends, especially since she wouldn’t even have the pleasure of discussing 50 Ways to Sin with them, thanks to Lord Boorish Burke.
Her main hope for entertainment would probably be Douglas, who might well arrive thoroughly foxed and bent on being outrageous.
“Do you really think Douglas will marry Felicity Drummond?” she asked on impulse.
Her mother turned her head aside and coughed, touching her lips with her handkerchief.
“What’s that, dear? Oh. It would be a very good match, and it’s time he took a wife.
Felicity is a lovely girl with good connections and a pretty dowry.
And he’s shown no interest in other young ladies; there’s no reason he wouldn’t be happy enough with her.
” Her attention had already returned to her letter. “Do you disapprove?”
Joan thought of reminding her mother how dreadful Felicity’s mother was.
She thought of asking why Douglas ought to get married now, when he was still as wild and untamed as a bear and obviously had no inclination to marry.
It wasn’t as though he needed a wife’s dowry or had expressed a desire to start a family or even any boredom with his current life—which, to Joan’s eyes, seemed to consist mainly of drinking, gambling, and carrying on with actresses and tavern wenches.
If not for his devotion to sport, he would likely be a fat, gouty fellow by now.
But then, it didn’t really matter. Once Mother made up her mind, there was no changing it. At least this time it was Douglas’s future in the crucible and not hers. “No,” she said. “Felicity is lovely.”
“Good.” Lady Bennet cleared her throat and put down her pen. She touched her throat and coughed again. “Ring for Mrs. Hudson, would you, dear? I feel in need of some tea.”
Joan got up and rang the bell. She slipped out the door when the housekeeper arrived, and went up to her room since there was nowhere else to go, taking the copy of Ackermann’s with her.
She settled onto the chaise near the window and opened the magazine.
She skipped the more earnest and scholarly sections about housewifery and history, meant to improve her mind, and read the stories and poems. Idly she flipped through the description of a recent exhibition of paintings.
She would have liked to attend such an exhibit, if only she could have.
Her mother approved of music but not picture viewing, where any number of immodest scenes might be portrayed under the guise of mythology.
Joan had never quite grasped why it was so terrible to see a man’s naked chest, even an imaginary, idealized man’s chest, when she would be expected to allow a husband all sorts of liberties with her own, naked person.
Her cousin Mariah, married almost two years now, had told her all about a wife’s duty—although in Mariah’s telling it was the most pleasant duty one could imagine, with nothing dreadful about it.
Joan was quite sure Mariah saw her husband’s bare chest on a regular basis, and was routinely ravished in every thrilling way.
She must be, since she was due to have her first child in a few weeks.
If Mariah weren’t her dearest cousin and most intimate confidant, Joan would have been wild with jealousy.
As it was, the only male chest, flesh or painted, she had seen was Tristan Burke’s.
True, she had rather enjoyed it, which lent some weight to her mother’s concern that it was indecently titillating, but it had hardly led to ruin.
If anything, it only showed her how dramatically separate a gentleman’s person and his personality were.
Lord Burke might have a very intriguing chest, but the rest of him was obnoxious.
She picked up the magazine again and paged through it to the fashion plates.
Gold, he said. What did Lord Boor know about ladies’ fashions?
She would never have admitted it aloud, but the thought of a deep gold gown sounded rather appealing.
She did like rich colors, even if her mother deemed them inappropriate for an unmarried lady.
If she ever managed to get a husband, the first thing she would order would be a gown of pure scarlet, just because she loved red.
But tomorrow evening, she was going to look elegant in blue. Pale blue, true, but with a very fine fall of lace at the neckline. And her hair—her one truly beautiful feature—would be winsome and charming, just like the young lady in Ackermann’s.
She almost hoped Lord Boor would be there to gape in awe.