Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Johanna
Hyde Park was beautiful and incredibly intimidating despite that beauty.
As so many things had been since coming to London.
The engagement announcement had run in the Gazette that morning, and the number of carriages—and passersby on foot—that crowded around the St. Albans landau was massive.
Johanna sat poker-straight beside the duke, a smile on her lips, all while wishing she could hide…
but every eye was on her, watching her every move, and some of them were clearly finding her wanting.
She did not blame them. Especially the young ladies who appeared very disappointed that the duke had been poached from their pool, and by someone they’d never met before.
Johanna felt very much like an animal in the zoo, on display, although the animals could at least do what they wished, and no one would think twice about it.
Johanna knew that one wrong move on her part in front of such an audience and the gossip would be horrendous. Not at all how she wanted to repay the duke and his grandmother for rescuing her.
“Yes, Lady Astrid’s house party,” Lady Stark said, nodding knowingly at another grey-haired woman, who lowered her lorgnette to study Johanna intently over the wire frame.
“They’re neighbors of Falmouth’s, you know.
Matthew came back to London without her, but he could not stop thinking of her, and…
” Lady Stark shrugged as if to say here we are.
“And why did you not properly debut, young lady?” the woman asked. Johanna had already forgotten her name, among the many that had been given to her during introductions, and she hoped she would not be required to use it.
“My mother has been ill,” she said quietly, as Lady Stark had instructed her to.
“Which is why I am currently her chaperone,” Lady Stark said, smoothly sliding back into the conversation. “The rest of the family will be arriving shortly for the wedding, of course.”
And because they could not keep living where they had been. But Johanna could not say that, of course.
According to Lady Stark, she and the Duke of St. Albans had a highly romantic story—love nearly at first sight, the duke languishing without her once he’d returned from the house party, then running off to fetch her when he could not bear to be apart.
“I bet his blasted coin told him to,” one of the young ladies muttered, just loud enough for Johanna to hear, though it was likely out of Lady Stark’s earshot. Especially since she was still talking to the lady with the lorgnette.
Since Johanna was fairly certain the debutante was not wrong, she just pretended not to have heard the remark.
Already she’d noted the duke’s predilection for letting his lucky coin lead his way, and there had been enough sotto voce jests from those around the carriage about whether or not he’d consulted the coin for his bride that she’d realized his habit was mostly common knowledge.
“Your eyes are like pools of violet,” one of the young men said, stepping up to the side of the landau.
He was younger than the duke and very handsome, with floppy blond hair and kind hazel eyes.
Unlike the duke, who wore a jacket of plum with a light-plum waistcoat, the young man was clothed in nearly all black, except the crisp white of his shirt. “Your hair like spun cornsilk.”
“That does not even make sense,” the duke said, suddenly leaning forward and glaring at the young man from across Johanna. “You cannot have pools of violet; flowers are not a liquid.”
The young man frowned back at him, his feathers ruffled from being interrupted.
“It’s poetry, Your Grace, it does not have to be exact,” he said haughtily.
“It should also not be poppycock.” St. Albans made a waving motion at him, dismissing the young man entirely. “Go work on your verse and stop bothering my fiancée.”
Johanna was not particularly bothered, more bemused that Lady Stark had been correct about the poetry, but she did not want her soon-to-be husband to be upset with her, either.
Something about the poet was upsetting him because he was not the genial, smiling figure that she had come to know him for.
“Thank you for the poetry,” she said to the young man, whose face fell as he recognized the dismissal in her voice as well. “But we must be getting on soon, I think. I have an invitation to tea that I should not miss.”
Lady Stark—despite being deep in conversation with one of her friends—had sharp ears. She heard Johanna’s remark and immediately took out her pocket watch to consult.
“Oh, yes, tea. We must be going.”
Despite Lady Stark’s announcement, it took another half hour to untangle themselves from the crowd, and Johanna was very relieved she’d said something.
She had only been trying to rescue the young man from the duke’s displeasure and spare his feelings, but it turned out she had spoken true about needing to leave to make it to Lady Astrid’s in time for tea.
Even with that, she was a few minutes late.
The duke escorted her up to the house, with an explanation that he would take his grandmother home. His hand held on to hers for a moment longer than was quite polite, and she stared up at him as the oddest expression crossed his face.
He really was very handsome. Much more so than the poet in Hyde Park. Even now, when he was being more serious rather than smiling. His dark eyes studied hers, his eyelids drooping for just a moment…
Johanna’s breath caught in her throat. Surely, he was not going to kiss her, standing here on the Blackstones’ stoop, his grandmother watching them from the landau.
The door opened, and the butler was standing there.
“Your Grace,” he said immediately, bowing deeply and breaking the moment. Johanna’s breath left her in a rush of air as the duke nodded, then released her hand.
“I’ll return in a few hours for you,” he said sharply, turning on his heel and hurrying back to the carriage.
The behavior seemed quite unlike him… but then, she did not know him all that well, did she?
“Lady Johanna. Welcome to the London house,” the butler said, leading her in. “The young ladies are having their tea in the conservatory.”
Something about the way he said it as she followed him down the hall made her think that there was probably a group of older ladies with Lady Astrid’s mother, also having tea, elsewhere in the house.
The conservatory was lush with greenery and bright with flowers, the subtle scents wreathing through the air. The path through the potted plants and beds of flowers was a pretty mix of stones that was aesthetically pleasing despite the mix of shapes, sizes, and colors.
Laughter reached Johanna’s ears before she saw the other ladies, and she steeled herself…
before being suffused with relief when they passed by a large fronded plant to find a clearing among the greenery where a table had been set, and she saw the women gathered.
The cream tablecloth had a copper silk runner on it, a large orange and dark-yellow flower arrangement in the center, and piles of small sandwiches, scones, and biscuits on serving platters spread about its surface.
There were six chairs around the table, five of which had an occupant already in them.
Lady Astrid sat directly across from the path’s entrance, so she saw Johanna the moment she appeared.
“Ah, you made it!” she said, getting to her feet and coming around the table with her hands spread out in front of her.
“I am so sorry I am late,” Johanna said, exchanging cheek kisses. The butler had already melted away among the greenery. “I was in Hyde Park with Lady Stark and the duke…”
“Enough said.” Lady Astrid laughed, pulling Johanna’s arm through hers to escort her to the table.
Her red hair was piled loosely on top of her head, several strands having worked their way loose and brushing against the amber and cream stripes of her gown.
The necklace around her throat was a simple amber drop, which matched her earbobs.
“It must have been a Herculean task to escape that in time.”
“It was,” Johanna said fervently, making everyone laugh. Some of the tension that had wound its way around her chest loosened. She recognized all the ladies there, though Lady Astrid made introductions anyway, which helped dispel the initial awkwardness.
Mei, whom she’d met the day before, sat serenely sipping her tea, not at all perturbed to be surrounded by nobility.
The matchmaker was the only one who was not of the ton, but she seemed perfectly comfortable sitting there, clothed in an emerald outfit much like the one she’d been wearing yesterday, but more brightly colored.
Her hair was pulled back into a bun today, held in place with carved wooden sticks that were both simple and lovely.
Baroness Ashfield, who immediately requested that Johanna call her Delilah, was the eldest of the group, though only by a few years.
She was a widow, the younger daughter of an earl, and a stunning beauty.
Her hair was as dark as Johanna’s was light, her eyes a bright amber that became almost golden when the light hit them, and she had a sultry, throaty voice that made Johanna feel positively squeaky in comparison.
The canary-yellow day dress she was wearing made her eyes appear even brighter and lighter and gave her dusky complexion a soft glow.
“I must be Tiffany to you,” the Duchess of Clarence said, right after Delilah made her request for given names.
Another stunning beauty, she was a true English rose, with her hair caught somewhere between blonde and brown, hazel eyes, and a pink-and-cream complexion.
She was garbed in cornflower blue and was even more sumptuously curved than Delilah.