Chapter 2
“Surely some man has caught your eye,” Violet wheedled.
Dorothy Montford sighed, leaning against the wall and trying to appear casual.
There was nothing more frustrating than being a wallflower and somehow still finding yourself pestered by people.
It was the worst of both worlds. “You know I’m not looking for that sort of thing,” she said.
“You know I’ve always been more than happy as I am—unmarried. I’m not looking for romance.”
“Well, nor was I, until I found it,” Violet said. “These things have a way of sneaking up on you.”
“Not on me,” Dorothy said firmly. “I’m not like you, Violet.
Nor you, Agnes,” she added for the sake of her other friend, who had so far refrained from comment.
“I know that you each changed your mind about marriage when you met your husbands—and you know how happy I am for the both of you. But that isn’t going to be my story. ”
“You can’t know that,” Agnes murmured, finally interjecting. “You can’t know what will happen until it does, Dorothy.”
“When you say things like that, you sound as though you’re perfectly happy with the idea of having no control over the course of your life,” Dorothy said.
“I can know what will happen to me, because I have the power to choose what I do. I won’t wake up one day and find myself married to a man.
That’s the kind of thing a lady has to take an active part in. ”
Her friends looked at one another.
Dorothy was becoming too familiar with that knowing glance. They shared it every time this conversation came up. It meant, how are we going to manage Dorothy?
She didn’t want to be managed. She was pleased her friends had found love. They seemed happy. But now they had devoted themselves to trying to fix Dorothy. As if she was broken!
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, turning away.
“Where are you going?” Violet asked, starting after her.
“To the library,” Dorothy said.
“Oh, Dorothy, no,” Agnes said. “I know you, you’ll hole up in there for the remainder of the party.”
“No, I won’t,” Dorothy assured her. “I just want to see it. You know I always like to see the library at every estate we’re invited to.”
She gave her friends pointed looks. There was a time the three of them had been the same in this regard. In the old days, Agnes would have been the first to suggest an escape to the library to break up the party a bit.
But those days were gone.
She murmured her apologies and moved away from her friends before they could try again to stop her.
They would, of course. They remained her dear friends now that they were married, but they seemed unable to socialize without trying to push Dorothy toward marriage.
It was as if they thought her story was incomplete unless she finished it in the same way the two of them had.
Well, it isn’t. I’m the author of my own fate, and I’ll live as I please—and never mind what those two think about it.
She approached the library, but just as she was reaching out for the door handle, the sound of a loud laugh made her draw back in surprise.
“No, I think it’s a fairly exhaustive list,” a gentleman’s voice said from within. “This is nearly every unmarried woman in the ton.”
Dorothy drew back, startled.
Someone was making a list of every unmarried woman in the ton?
She would be on such a list. They’d have included her name.
“Nearly,” another voice spoke. “Certainly all the ones I think are suitable for you to consider…I left off a few spinsters, of course, but there wouldn't be much point in pursuing someone like that when so many young ladies are vying for your attention.”
But what was the purpose of this list? Why would a man do such a thing? Unless he was…plotting conquests, perhaps…but no. No well-bred gentlemen would sit around doing that in the middle of a party. She must have misunderstood.
Even so, she couldn’t rid herself of the squirming discomfort at the pit of her stomach.
She felt as though she had nearly walked in on something obscene.
Suddenly, she found herself wishing she had remained in the ballroom, that she had never come near the library.
She wouldn’t have chosen to hear this sort of talk if the decision had been up to her.
It made her shiver to think that she was on these men’s list.
Well, whatever they’re planning, I just won’t have anything to do with it, she told herself firmly. They could write her name down all they wanted, but nobody could force her to be involved in any schemes. Her friends were certainly learning that.
But as she turned and hurried away from the library, she couldn’t help wondering who the men she had overheard were. Scoundrels, no doubt…but who?
Perhaps that question was what led her to pause and conceal herself within the drapes over a nearby window. The library door opened a moment later.
“There’s no one out here,” a voice said.
“I thought you said you’d heard something?”
“I did hear something. But whoever it was, they’re gone now. They must have run off.”
“Or you imagined it.” A laugh. “Come on, let’s go and get some drinks while there are drinks left to get.”
The men walked off down the hall.
Dorothy peered out from behind her curtain, but she didn’t recognize them from behind. She’d waited too long. With a sigh, she slipped into the library. Might as well get a look at it while she was here.
As she stepped into the room, she frowned. There was a piece of paper sitting on the floor. Surely not…
But her instinct turned out to be right.
As she drew closer, she saw that it was a list of ladies’ names.
Those careless fools had simply dropped it on the floor and left it here!
Had they actually managed to leave it behind accidentally, or was this some sort of intentional trap—a part of their scheme?
She picked up the piece of paper. There at the top was a heading: “Potential Brides for Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel?
Dorothy only knew one Nathaniel. He was the Duke of Henshaw and a close friend of Agnes’ and Violet’s husbands. But while she’d grown to like Gabriel and Jonathan, she had never felt any particular fondness for Nathaniel. She had never spent much time with him.
Apparently he’s the sort of man who would do something like this!
She scanned the list, shaking her head at his audacity.
There were notes on the list in addition to the names.
Notes about ladies’ looks. This one had too many freckles, according to Nathaniel, and another had a big nose.
Not all the notes were unpleasant. Some were complimentary—pretty eyes or nice smile. But they were all about people’s looks.
When she came to the bottom, her eyes went wide.
Her name wasn’t on it! He had listed so many ladies—virtually all who were available to marry. But he hadn’t included her! Not that she wished to marry Nathaniel, of course. The idea was laughable. But even so…who was he to leave her out like this?
Before she had time to think about what she was doing, she had folded the list and tucked it into her pocket.
He thinks he can dismiss me so casually? I’ll teach him a lesson. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way.
“Aren’t you going to come and look?” Dorothy’s eldest sister, Honora, waved the scandal sheet in her direction.
Dorothy didn’t look up from her book, though she wasn’t taking in the words. She didn’t want her sisters to see how interested she was in the day’s scandals—how eager she was to see their responses.
Abigail snatched the paper from Honora’s hand. Though she was the middle child of the three, and usually the most even-tempered, nothing excited her like a bit of gossip. “I wonder if anything good happened at the ball last night,” she said keenly.
“Not that our own sister would have told us if it had,” Honora lamented. “Dorothy never wants to gossip.”
It wasn’t strictly true—Dorothy did enjoy a bit of gossip now and then. But she wasn’t nearly as interested in it as her sisters were.
“Dorothy probably wouldn’t even know if something juicy had happened,” Abigail pointed out, returning to the settee with the paper in her hand. “She’s such a wallflower.”
“Which means she’d have been ideally placed to notice,” Honora countered. “An observer like our Dorothy sees everything. She’s never too preoccupied with her own affairs. She’d have been the first one to recognize an interesting story.”
Honora was more right than she could have realized. Dorothy’s heart beat faster as her sisters peered over the scandal sheet together.
Abigail gasped. “Look at this!” She pointed. “The Duke of Henshaw has made a list of potential brides for himself. He actually wrote it down and let people look at it!”
“My goodness,” Honora murmured. “I didn’t know he was looking for a bride at all.”
“He’ll have a task finding one now that this is out,” Abigail said. “There will be those who are excited by this news, but I think many debutantes will be shocked to know he’s like this—open to marrying almost anyone. Look how long this list is! He’s written down dozens of names here!”
“Mmm,” Dorothy murmured. “That’s a real shame.”
Her sisters looked up at her. Both their eyes were narrowed.
“You don’t seem shocked at this,” Honora observed.
“No, no, it’s very shocking. Appalling behavior.”
“Dorothy, did you have something to do with this?” Honora pressed her. “Were you the one who reported this?”
“It’s fantastic if you were,” Abigail told her. “A gentleman who thinks himself entitled to any lady he wants—as if he were purchasing her at auction—ought to be held to account for his mindset. You’ve done everyone a service by warning them what kind of man he really is!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dorothy said, though she couldn’t keep her lips from curving up in a smile. “I didn’t do anything.”
“All right, you don’t have to admit it,” Honora said. “But I know you, Dorothy. You’d be exactly the sort of person to find out about gossip like this, and I believe you were the one to send it in.”
Dorothy turned an unread page in her book and smiled.
The door to the sitting room opened. The housekeeper, Mrs. Banks, came in and looked around the room, smiling at the sisters. “Here again, Lady Honora? Lady Abigail?”
“We wanted to see how last night’s ball had gone for Dorothy,” Abigail said. “If she might finally have found love.”
Dorothy felt her cheeks grow hot. Her sisters were kind to care so deeply for her prospects.
She was the last to be unmarried in her family, though both Honora and Abigail had lost their husbands to illness a few years prior.
They had homes and staff of their own now, and between their grief and their duties, it would have been easy—and understandable—for them to put her a bit farther from their minds.
“Well, it’s just as well,” Mrs. Banks said. “A guest has just arrived. Mulligan will be showing him in momentarily, and I thought it best to come in and let you know.”
“A guest?” Abigail repeated, sitting up straighter. She folded the scandal sheet and tucked it away. “Someone to see Dorothy?”
“A suitor from last night!” Honora clasped her hands together. “Dorothy, you sly creature, you have been keeping secrets!”
Dorothy shook her head, frowning. “I don’t think it can be someone for me.” She hadn’t danced with anyone last night.
“He says he’s here for you, Lady Dorothy,” Mrs. Banks told her.
“Who does?”
“His Grace, the Duke of Henshaw.”
Abigail and Honora looked at Dorothy with wide eyes, but before anyone could say anything more, the door opened once more, and Mulligan, the butler, ushered Nathaniel into the room.