Chapter 16 #3
The shop assistants were all attending to an older lady with her two daughters, who seemed to be quite demanding customers.
The two young ladies were as alike as Joan had ever seen two people be, slim and petite with shining blonde curls and sky-blue eyes.
Their dresses, lavishly trimmed in the latest fashion, were marvels of striped pink silk and blond lace.
The pair of them looked like an Ackermann’s illustration come to life, and in spite of herself Joan couldn’t keep back a tiny sigh of longing.
As much as she loved her new green gown, and even felt somewhat attractive in it, why couldn’t she have been born looking like one of those dainty angels?
Then any bonnet in the room would have looked lovely on her.
One of the girls looked up and saw her watching. Joan nodded politely and turned back to the straw bonnet, but to her surprise the girl walked right up to her. “Miss Bennet, I believe,” she said. “You’re angling for Viscount Burke, aren’t you?”
Joan blinked at the blunt accusation. “I—what? Er, no, of course not.”
“You’re a fool,” the girl replied. Her voice was surprisingly strident for someone so delicate. “You’re a fool to want him, and you’d be a far sorrier fool if you got him.”
Oh dear. Had this girl set her cap for him?
Joan had never been the focus of another girl’s envy over a gentleman’s attentions.
Although it was somewhat flattering that someone thought her capable of being a rival—and over Lord Burke, no less—she didn’t know what to say.
She glanced around in discomfort, but Abigail was still occupied with persuading Mrs. Townsend to accept the bonnet.
“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t recall making your acquaintance . . .”
“I’m Alice Burke. Lord Burke is my cousin.” A wash of pink stained her cheeks, making her look quite fetching even though her eyes flashed ominously. “And I hate him.”
Ah yes, now she remembered. The Misses Burke were a few years younger than she was, and were considered two of the handsomest young ladies on the marriage mart this year.
Rumor was that their mother had refused to allow them to marry anyone lower than an earl.
They didn’t generally move in the same circles the Bennets preferred, and as they were beautiful, they never languished in the corners of ballrooms, like Joan and the Weston girls did.
Joan knew who they were, but she hadn’t been formally introduced to them.
And nothing about this meeting was making her sorry she hadn’t become acquainted with either Miss Alice Burke or her sister, Kitty.
“How do you do, Miss Burke?” she said brightly.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
” Surely Abigail would notice and come save her—then again, perhaps not.
Abigail, unlike Penelope, was not one to thrust herself into an uncomfortable moment.
“I’m sure your mother would be horrified if she could see the way you’re throwing yourself at him,” went on Miss Burke, as though she hadn’t heard. “My mother can barely speak to him, even though she’s forced to.”
Joan wondered who on earth could possibly think she was throwing herself at Tristan Burke; if anything, she had tried to avoid him. Just her luck that people would form the exact opposite impression. “Oh? Who on earth would force her to speak to him?”
“Pray your father doesn’t die and leave you at the mercy of reprobates.” Miss Burke’s mouth trembled as if she would cry. “Mama’s had to face Lord Burke regularly for several years now, since my father died and that horrid man inherited everything.”
“How dreadful,” said Joan sympathetically.
“I do pray for my father’s continued good health every night, thank you.
” Though if Papa died, leaving Douglas as head of the family, Mother would keep Douglas even more firmly under her thumb.
She wondered if Miss Burke spared any compassion for her cousin, who had lost both his parents at a far younger age.
“It must be so dreadfully difficult for you, unable to go out in society for fear of meeting him.”
Her brow creased in revulsion. “As if we would be cowed by him. He’s the one who ought to avoid us! I’m sure no one wants him about anyway!”
“That would explain why he’s invited everywhere,” Joan murmured.
“He’s a horrible person,” Alice Burke repeated. “I only wanted to warn you.”
She blinked. “Horrible?” It was one thing to dislike a man’s manner, but to think him truly horrible? “How so, Miss Burke?”
“He forced us out of our home, and he won’t let us return. Mama begged him—pleaded with him—and he only laughed and said no. What sort of man does that, Miss Bennet?”
“I thought the roof collapsed on that house.” She frowned a little, racking her brain. She had twitted him about living in Douglas’s house, and he’d said he had no choice, that his house was a ruin. “He can’t even live there himself.”
The other girl sniffed in scorn. “It’s nearly repaired.
My sister and I grew up there—all our memories of our dear papa are there—but he won’t let us return.
I had always dreamed of having my wedding breakfast in the dining room there, but now it shall be utterly impossible.
That’s the sort of man you’ve been dancing with, Miss Bennet. ”
Joan pursed her lips. It was hard to argue that Tristan Burke was a model gentleman.
She could picture him laughing and refusing a request, if it annoyed him.
And she dimly remembered, once upon a time, his declaration that his aunt and cousins hated him, and he hated them.
But this sounded spiteful, and somehow she couldn’t see him stooping to that level.
Why would he? “Thank you for the warning, Miss Burke. You must excuse me, I see my friends beckoning me.” She bobbed slightly and went to join Abigail and Mrs. Townsend.
To conceal the disquieting encounter, she bought the straw bonnet, but fell quiet as they left the shop.
Abigail and Mrs. Townsend chattered happily about the bonnet Abigail had indeed impressed upon her friend, leaving Joan to her thoughts.
Could Tristan Burke have treated his aunt and cousins as cruelly as Miss Burke described?
Joan’s main experience of gentlemen was her brother.
She thought over all the times they had quarreled and snapped at each other, and knew there was a wide gulf between what she thought cruel and what Douglas thought cruel.
Men simply thought differently from ladies.
Miss Burke, with her blonde curls and big blue eyes, was probably utterly unaccustomed to being denied anything by a member of the male sex, let alone something she desperately desired.
And Lord Burke seemed to be less susceptible than most men to female sensibilities.
Still, it would be very rude to laugh in the face of a mother pleading to restore her children to their home, even for him.
Not that he hadn’t laughed in Joan’s face, more than once, and she’d thought him very rude then, even over trifling matters like the note she made Douglas sign.
It only made a sharper contrast to his actions when he came to tea, when he’d been .
. . admiring. Intriguing. Attentive. And the way he’d looked at her, with that heavy-lidded gaze and wicked hint of smile . . .
She said a bad word under her breath. Not even shopping for a new bonnet had succeeded in driving him from her mind. Was it always this way, dealing with gentlemen? In all her dreams of suitors, she’d never guessed that having one could be so frustrating.
It took her several minutes to realize that she had begun to think of him as a suitor.