Chapter Two #2
He stepped closer. “What, you haven’t finished it yet?”
“No.” She frowned. “I’ve barely had a chance to start it, thanks to my mother. She’s keen to marry me off to the nearest suitor and insists on escorting me to every tea party and dinner in the vicinity.”
Did his eyes take on a hunted look? “She sounds like a very caring and enterprising mother.”
“It’s tiring.” She allowed her shoulders to droop a little.
He smiled. “So why do I find you here, alone, surrounded by books?”
Because they are my only friends, she thought, then mentally berated herself. Aside from Isobel, she mentally added. Sibyl raised her chin and said simply, “None of the men out there are readers. Or if they are, they do not read for pleasure.”
He cocked his head. “Maybe they have more important things to be dealing with and have no chance to read for the sheer amusement of it.”
She looked at him. “Do you mean to say what they are doing is more important? Just because I am a young woman, and cannot work?”
He gave a half-shrug. “There are some who would agree with me, but that is not what I meant. Not more important, just busier.”
Her blood began to pound. “And just what is it that you do, Mr.…?”
He bowed and quit the room. A moment later, he returned with the hostess, Mrs. Amelia Sprout, who tittered behind her white lace fan and said, “Miss Clifton, I have a gentleman here who is pleased to make your acquaintance. Mr. Neville Heyter, I have the honor of introducing Miss Sibyl Clifton, of London.”
He bowed, she curtsied. The proper introduction made, their hostess beckoned Sibyl forward.
“My dear, if I had known you had gotten lost, I would have made sure you were not left alone. No one here ever enters the library; it’s always full of old books.
I cannot stand the dusty things, but my dear husband likes them. ”
Sibyl repressed a grin and satisfied herself with seeing Mr. Heyter’s slight smile.
She did not like his raised eyebrow. It was thick, bushy, and quizzical.
And also a challenge. Did she agree with her hostess or reveal herself to be a reader?
To be generally accepted by their hostess would do well to further her mission to find an eligible man to marry, but it wouldn’t be true to herself.
“I find I rather like libraries, Mrs. Sprout, especially those full of dusty, old books. They are charming in their way.”
The hostess sneezed. “Do you? How singular. I can see why your mama is so despairing of your prospects. Well, come with me. Let us see what we can do to change your fortune. Some young ladies like to leave these things to providence, but I find that sometimes love needs a helping hand.”
Mr. Heyter snorted behind them. Sibyl glanced over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at him.
His mouth dropped open, but then quirked in a smile. She felt relief and allowed Mrs. Sprout to steer her away to a much more congenial conversation.
They returned to the main parlor, where men and women were talking. And try as she might, she attempted to make polite conversation with the young gentlemen present, but as she had no great insights into hunting or shooting grouse or pheasant, she felt at a loss and had little to say.
She spied Mr. Heyter across the room. He, curse him, was quickly surrounded by two and sometimes three pretty young ladies, who seemed to laugh at everything he said. As she glanced over, they made eye contact, and his mouth quirked in a slight smile.
She looked away and wondered if he was laughing at her. She glanced back. He raised a glass of wine to her and then returned to his pretty, lady companions.
Mr. Neville Heyter looked across the room. He’d followed his hostess to escort the young woman back to the general party, where her pretty face had gained her the attention of two gentlemen, he noted with idle curiosity.
At first, the young woman, Miss Clifton, had looked pleased at the attention, but then the conversation seemed to falter, and soon the men left her alone. Fools.
She sat, perched on the edge of Mrs. Sprout’s brown brocade sofa, taking in the general sights as men and women chatted in small groups. The fact that she sat alone made her seem either singular, undesirable, or dull. He wondered what she was thinking.
He watched her. There was something about her. He knew Miss Clifton would rather have been back in the library, reading. But there was a time and place to read, and that was not now. At the moment, it was time to be social. It was—
A hand touched his arm. Miss Kate Harvey, who giggled, her blue eyes full of mischief. “And just who is that?”
“Beg your pardon?” He snapped out of his reverie.
“That young woman. The pale one, with a face like she’s eaten a lemon, sitting alone in the corner. You’ve been staring at her for the past five minutes,” Miss Harvey teased.
“I have not.”
“You have,” she said pointedly. “I’m beginning to feel jealous. Who is she?”
“Nobody.”
“Jolly good.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, the coquette. It was a touch too silly for his taste, but he didn’t mind the attention. He listened with half an ear as Miss Harvey led the conversation about… He didn’t really listen. Her voice droned like bumblebees in summer.
But as pleasant as she was, Miss Harvey didn’t have the spark of intelligence that Miss Clifton held.
Indeed, he wondered if Miss Harvey had ever read a book in her life.
And while it was too late to correct her, Miss Clifton did not have a face like a lemon.
Perhaps he’d go to the Lyon’s Den later for some entertainment.
Sibyl climbed into her family’s carriage a short while later with a sigh, followed by her mother.
Mrs. Clifton had stood close by the rest of the evening, chatting gaily with the hostess.
But after one man after another had seemed to tire of Sibyl’s attempts at conversation, she had known that her mother would be disappointed.
The carriage rolled away down a London street, and her mother, wearing a cloak of midnight blue, let out a small, whiny noise of exasperation. “I do not know what is wrong with you, Sibyl. You are pretty. You wear a fine dress. You smiled, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mama.” Sibyl massaged her jaw. “Too much.”
Mrs. Clifton pounded her fist on her knee. “And yet nothing. It’s like as soon as the men start talking to you, they lose interest. I cannot fathom why.”
Feeling listless, Sibyl looked out the window into the darkness. “Maybe because I am not interesting.”
“Balderdash. Of course you are. Anyone who reads fairy tales and storybooks must be interesting because they wish to entertain themselves. You are no different from anyone else. And Lord help me, but reading pamphlets and books meant to improve oneself, I find utterly boring. They’re enough to put me to sleep.
” She paused. “You take after me, you know.”
“What?”
“The reading of fairy tales. It’s how I know. I used to love to read such tales as a child and later as a young woman, until I met your father.” Her mother’s voice changed, its tone fond and a touch wistful. “And then my fairy tale came true.” She sighed.
Sibyl snorted and tried not to laugh. She did love her mother, but the woman was prone to exaggeration and had a flair for dramatics.
“But why did you leave the party earlier? I saw you return with Mrs. Sprout, who said she’d found you lurking in the library. Is that true?”
“I wanted a moment to myself,” Sibyl said. “I wasn’t lurking.”
“I know. But why go off by yourself when there are young bachelors to be met? The poor woman thought you had gotten lost, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. Although… there was one young man present who caught my eye. Quite handsome.”
“Who was that?” Sibyl asked.
“I don’t know his name. I would have enquired, but he was surrounded by young women, and I can’t imagine I’d get a word in. He seemed very popular with the ladies. Handsome chap in green.”
Sibyl knew exactly which young man her mother meant. Mr. Heyter, it seemed, had caught her mother’s eye too. She said nothing, however.
“Well, never mind. There will be other parties. Speaking of which, we received a note before we left. Isobel has invited you to tea tomorrow. The invitation arrived as we were leaving. I know you’ll go, so do get some sleep. You don’t want to be drinking tea with dark circles beneath your eyes.”
Sibyl nodded. “Yes, Mama.” She looked out the window.
That was one thing her mother cared about. Whenever she left their townhouse, she wanted to be sure that she and her girls always looked their best. “If you were to die in a carriage accident tomorrow, I want the papers to say that at least you died looking beautiful.”
Phrased like that, it seemed like quite a shallow concept. But Sibyl understood the meaning behind it. Her mother simply wanted her and her sisters to present the best face to the world they could, and at times, it seemed, a woman’s armor was her beauty.
The fairy tales Sibyl read gave no such indication.
There, life and romance were simple things.
A prince might rescue a princess, and they would marry.
But there was no mention of life after that, or what happened next.
Did they go on adventures together? Sibyl didn’t know.
But it was beguiling, that idea. That one would find a person they liked above all else and would spend the rest of their lives together. She wished she might be so lucky.
The next day, she woke up late, for she had stayed up until the early hours reading. She fell asleep almost instantly after blowing out her candle that had burned low and still had a ways to read before she would finish her book. She did so want to know how it ended.