Chapter 1
Chapter One
“Ihave not always been a lady, as some of you know,” Emily Sterling said with the utmost ease, sipping from a teacup with a spray of pink roses painted on the side. “It has only come about very recently, and I am still learning all that it entails.”
The four other unmarried young women sitting in Mrs. Frederickson’s sitting room all stared at her, two with their own cups stopped midway to their mouths and one with a sandwich pressed to her lips. For a long moment, the patter of raindrops against the window was the only sound heard.
Of course, Emily meant that her status had undergone a recent elevation as she changed from a humble gentleman’s daughter to an earl’s.
Because of her father’s unexpected inheritance of a title.
Yet something about how she said it had gone amiss, if the wide eyes of the women around her were indicative of how they received her words.
Botheration. Growing up on her family’s farm, without any expectation that she would be more than a squire’s wife if luck favored her, had not eased Emily’s entry into Society at all.
“Not that it is all that different from before,” she hastened to add, lowering her cup to its saucer with a soft clash that made her wince.
She had to restrain herself from looking for a possible chip in the fragile dish.
“It is only that there is so much a lady does not do, you see, that I am accustomed to doing.”
Two of the other women, nineteen in age and barely out in Society, exchanged a glance and smiles that conveyed more smugness than amusement. At five-and-twenty, Emily ought to have had more experience than the two of them.
“What sort of things do you find give you the most trouble, Lady Emily?” The hostess’s daughter, Miss Hannah Frederickson, asked with a cheeriness the question itself did not merit.
“Perhaps we could offer some advice. Or commiseration. I know that I have found myself frustrated by more than one instance of behaving helpless in a circumstance that I should rather see to myself.”
Emily wanted to give Miss Frederickson an enormous smile but had been told quite recently that showing too much enthusiasm was crass, she settled for keeping her lips tightly pressed together and widening her eyes. Which made her feel silly, but it seemed a good alternative.
“Yesterday, I saw a fine tabby cat walking through an alleyway, with four little kittens trailing behind her. They were right next to a bakery, so I went inside to get a sausage roll. Then went out to feed them. You see, I needed to pass the time waiting for my sister-in-law, Lady Juniper Sterling, to come out of the bookshop across the road. But a woman named Mrs. Henry Rothingham saw me, and she gave me a stern correction.”
One of the nineteen-year-olds covered her mouth, but not before Emily heard the younger lady giggle.
At five and twenty, Emily had thought herself well versed in navigating the world.
Certainly, she had never struggled in social situations before her father’s rise in rank.
Country manners were different, the society she had moved in before humbler.
She hadn’t ever interacted with nobility before that letter arrived that changed their whole fortune.
Since then, however, she questioned every step she took.
Every ribbon she admired. Every curl in her hair.
Examining each of her actions and being to determine whether others would find her socially adequate.
“Feeding poor waifs that are not brushed and bathed, sitting on velvet cushions at home, is simply not done.” Miss Frederickson sounded sympathetic, and that was the best Emily could hope for of late.
She could do without admiration and praise, but what she longed for in that moment was a single day, just one, in which no one corrected her at all.
Making friends in York was proving difficult, as it had been in London.
The conversation moved along to other things, such as gowns for upcoming assemblies and musicales. Some of the young ladies had ordered several new things for the upcoming Race Week, a staple in York’s social world. They talked of bangles, hairpins, ribbons, and slippers with great enthusiasm.
Emily quietly listened, inwardly keeping notes of what the other ladies said sounded lovely versus what they scoffed at as trite or unsophisticated. Frankly, she found the whole of it exhausting. But it wasn’t as overwhelming as trying to keep abreast of London fashion, appetites, and gossip.
She had spent most of her spring and early summer in London, in what had felt like a trial by fire, thrown into the world of wealth and nobility because her father had not wanted to wait even a moment before seizing his place as an earl.
Not because he wanted wealth or grandeur, of course. He was likely seated in his London library at that very moment, stubbornly insisting on wearing his favorite suit of clothes from before his elevation, and letting her two eldest brothers handle everything of importance.
Father wanted the best life offered for his children’s sake, and for their mother, not for himself.
But that had meant a distinct lack of interest in making certain they were all properly educated about the world their titles pulled them into.
Without his youngest son, John Sterling, whose experience serving a duke’s family gave him insight into that world, they would have made a great mess of things.
Or an even greater one than they already had.
“York will be better for Emily,” her brother had told the family. “It is far more forgiving than London, in terms of missteps. Juniper and I will host her for a few months. My wife can chaperone and instruct Emily on proper behavior.”
Thus, Emily had been bundled up in a carriage and sent to live with her brother and sister-in-law not long after their wedding. And seated, at that moment, with young ladies who knew far more about proper etiquette than Emily could guess at when left to her own devices.
As the gathering dispersed, and Emily waited in the foyer of the large house for her brother’s carriage to arrive, she found herself rehearsing some of the things she had learned.
Chartreuse was a lively color that was worn by the garish.
Tiny dogs in laps were adorable but not socially acceptable outside of one’s own home.
Gentlemen who wore brown jackets at dinner were suspect of being careless with the importance of fashion.
Beadwork would likely lead to poor eyesight and the horror of spectacles—someone’s mother’s brother’s apothecary had said so.
Unless, of course, such a pastime was enjoyed by a duke’s daughter, in which case it was something to be praised rather than cautioned against.
On and on the list went.
Feeding hungry kittens felt more in keeping with what Emily wished to do with her time than worrying about everything else. Yet she had learned, painfully, how little it took for a harmless misstep to become a character-damaging story eagerly passed from person to person.
By the time Emily’s brother, called Jack by the family, handed her into the carriage, her head swirled with all the details of the seemingly innocuous afternoon gathering.
“You look as though you wish to spend the rest of the afternoon abusing the gardens,” Jack said, voice mild and expression as calm as ever.
His years in service to the Duke of Montfort had rendered him the ability to always appear stoic, whether he was met with little discomforts or enormous misfortune. It almost wasn’t fair.
“Pulling weeds when one has a great deal on one’s mind is not abusive to flowerbeds.
” Emily folded her hands delicately in her lap.
“Although I have had it confirmed today that the removal of unwanted growth is best left to the gardener.” She sighed.
“Lest a lady damage her skin by unwittingly touching a bramble.”
Jack’s eyebrows raised. That was the only thing in his expression that betrayed any of his thoughts on the matter. “How did you receive this piece of advice?”
“Poorly,” she muttered, looking out the window at the passing countryside.
“How do they expect a woman to modulate her feelings at all times, everywhere she goes, if she is never allowed to express them anywhere?” She tugged at the strings of her reticule.
“What am I to do, Jack? I cannot even sit on my hands to keep them still. It is uncouth. I have to keep them politely folded in my lap. No fidgeting at all.”
At this moment, she saw him bite the inside of one cheek. If he had been sitting next to her rather than across, she would have missed it completely.
“Are you amused by this?” she asked, accusatory tone slipping out. “You must understand how patently unfair it is to throw a thousand rules at a woman at one time.”
“You never complained about it in London,” he pointed out, but his eyes glimmered with humor rather than annoyance. “It is almost refreshing to see you finally expressing your concerns.”
“You were managing our entire family in London,” she said, looking out the window again. “I had no wish to add to the weight you carried with my own minor concerns. And I had the companion you hired for us. Or social tutor. Or whatever you want to call Mrs. Regan.”
The formidable woman had saved the ladies of the household many times. Mother, both of Emily’s sisters-in-law, and herself, had relied upon the woman’s guidance. Mrs. Regan was still in London helping the others.
“A former governess turned etiquette instructor is how she styles herself at present.” Jack’s demeanor changed somewhat, his eyebrows drawing together as he leaned toward her. “Emily. I thought you were gliding through all this as serenely as a Hyde Park swan.”