Chapter 3
After Michael’s abrupt departure, Claire was ushered out the front door with all due civility. She stood on the stoop feeling as if she were a half-drowned shipwreck survivor who’d just been washed upon a foreign shore. She struggled to catch her breath as she blinked distractedly at the sunshine.
It took several moments before she realized she was lingering at a single gentleman’s door in full view of whoever might be passing by.
This was a fashionable neighborhood, full of the peers she’d face in a ballroom in only a short time.
She steeled her spine, opened her parasol, and pointed herself toward home.
What had just happened?
When Claire had arrived at his house, she’d been in charge, in control. And then somehow…she hadn’t been. She flushed and increased her pace, remembering those few charged moments when he’d pretended to seduce her.
It had certainly been pretend on his end. It had only served to prove how susceptible she was to such a force. It had taken him but moments before Claire had been ready to allow him to remove her glove.
There had been one moment where she’d been so drawn in by his words, by the emotions coursing through her body, that if he’d wanted, he could have kissed her…
Thank goodness the butler had interrupted when he had. The entire experience had just proved what she’d always thought of rakes. They were dangerous, especially to someone with limited experience, like herself.
Claire slipped in her front door to find the house in a rare state of silence. With three of her sisters at home, preparing for the Season—the other four were in Paris with their governess and chaperones—their house was typically busier than a carriage station on a Friday afternoon.
The statue in the entryway gazed at her own reflection in the gilt mirror opposite, as she always did.
Claire had mocked her brother William for needing to display his wealth with massive statuary, but privately, Claire liked the Grecian lady.
She had a sad expression around her eyes, as if she’d already lived through hardship in her young years.
Claire could relate. Though her own skin was flawless and her appearance every inch the pampered noble lady, there was knowledge in her heart of how quickly things could go wrong.
As she passed the front parlor, a low voice caught her ear. Claire paused out of sight behind one of the large ferns near the archway and frowned. Was there a gentleman in the house?
The rasping voice murmured, “Your eyes are the stars. Your face is the moon. I’ve never loved someone the way I love you.”
“I’ll not be able to take this exercise seriously if the poetry is terrible,” Claire’s sister Margaret replied archly.
“You must manage your expectations. Your beaux might not have any experience writing verse,” her other sister, Beatrice, replied in a normal tone.
“Very well. Continue, and I’ll do my best to be affected.”
“You are luminous. Radiant. Your skin is as smooth as velvet.” Beatrice’s voice canted low once more. “I love you most ardently.”
“Thank you,” Margaret said solemnly. “I feel appropriately similar. You may meet with my brother in the morning and ask for my hand.”
“I will,” Beatrice crooned in a husky octave. “But first, please leave me with a token to seal our affection. Just one kiss, my beloved…”
“This is going to be exceedingly difficult to explain to our brother,” Claire said, emerging from behind the plant.
Both of her sisters jolted, their eyes comically wide.
Claire blinked at Beatrice, who wore a paper mustache affixed to her upper lip.
Both of them wore fine day dresses that suited their different shapes and coloring.
Margaret was a short, voluptuous blonde.
Beatrice’s form was light and lovely, her hair the classic Preston ash brown.
“Claire.” Beatrice frowned; her paper mustache listed dangerously with the motion. “How long have you been sneaking about?”
“Long enough to be confused, that’s for certain.” Claire yanked off her gloves and tossed them on a side table.
“We were practicing,” Margaret said stoutly, raising her chin. “For the Season.”
“What precisely were you practicing?”
“Saying no to our suitors, of course,” Margaret said, plopping down on the sofa and jostling Beatrice, who narrowed her eyes in annoyance. Margaret didn’t seem to notice. “We’re running through different scenarios in order to prepare ourselves.”
“I hardly think that Beatrice’s ridiculous sonnets are adequate preparation,” Claire said. “I think you’d be much more affected if a man you loved wanted to kiss you.”
Claire’s thoughts jerked erratically to the brief interlude she’d shared with Michael only half an hour prior before she yanked them away again.
“We thought it prudent to rehearse possible social interactions, the way one might practice a dance,” Beatrice explained.
Claire leaned forward and lifted the teapot; it was mostly empty and barely warm. She frowned toward the doorway. “Your sister, charming as she might be, isn’t going to woo you with the same fervor as a real man.”
Margaret sighed and slumped against the cushions, her great quantity of blonde hair fluttering. “Then whatever is the point of practicing?”
“There isn’t one, I’m afraid, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Claire said tartly. She crossed and pulled the bell to order more tea. “After all, you’ll have to make a man fall in love with you before you got to that part.”
“You’re terrible, Claire.” Beatrice jutted her chin. “Why shouldn’t a gentleman fall in love with either of us? Or both of us?”
“Heaven help this household if the same gentleman falls in love with both of you.”
Beatrice gave her a withering stare. “You know what I mean. Stop being purposefully obtuse.”
Claire sighed. “Any gentleman would be lucky to have either of you. My only point in saying that practicing is pointless is that you cannot possibly plan for what any given man might say to you.”
“That hardly helps my nerves—the idea that they might say anything,” Margaret moaned.
“Just be yourself. If you pretend to be other than you are, your husband will be terribly disappointed after you’ve wed. You’ll never be able to maintain whatever facade you’ve chosen indefinitely.”
“Is that your plan for the upcoming Season?” Beatrice asked, her eyes narrowed. “To be honest and open about who you are?”
“Of course,” Claire lied.
It wouldn’t do to tell them that the rules that applied to them didn’t apply to her, not any longer.
Her sisters could dally on the marriage mart—their proverbial clocks would start as soon as they were presented.
Claire’s clock had four years on it already.
She couldn’t risk entering the Season without a plan.
“Then you’re sure to remain unmarried,” Beatrice muttered.
A small barb of hurt lodged in Claire’s gut before she could swat it away. Things had been different between her and Beatrice as of late. The usual sisterly banter had taken on a new, honed edge.
Margaret swatted at Beatrice. “That’s unkind. Claire’s just as pretty as you are. I’m the one who’s probably going to be a spinster, but I’ve already made peace with it.”
Margaret was shorter and fuller-figured than her sisters. Of the ten Preston siblings, she was also one of only two blondes. Her curvaceous frame and light hair set Margaret apart, and she felt the difference keenly.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Claire said. “There’s no accounting for taste. If I learned only one thing from my first Season, it’s that you cannot guess at the outset who’ll find a match, and who won’t.”
“Except for Lily,” Beatrice said.
“Except for Lily,” Claire repeated with a nod.
It was a small island of agreement the three of them shared—that Lily was the sweetest and most beautiful of the eldest Preston sisters. If no gentleman in England was smart enough to fall in love with Lily her first Season, in Claire’s opinion, the future of the entire country was doomed.
A maid set a new tea tray upon the low table and cleared the other. Claire poured herself a cup. She sighed in gratitude when she found it to be just slightly shy of scalding.
“Rachel says I should just do as she does when it comes to the gentlemen,” Margaret said, her mouth already half-full of biscuit.
“What tactic is she going to take?” Beatrice asked.
“If they ask her to dance, she plans on hissing at them like a wounded badger.”
Claire shook her head. “Rachel Warrington has made it very clear she doesn’t wish to marry. If you feel the same, by all means, follow her advice.”
“I don’t, which how I ended up here, with Lord Beatrice.”
“Don’t use that tone,” Beatrice said. “You thought it was a fine idea until Claire got home.”
Beatrice’s paper mustache detached and fluttered into her teacup; she fished it out with dripping fingers.
“You have plenty of time.” Claire patted Margaret’s knee. “If no gentleman appreciates what a catch you are in this first Season, there’s always next. There’s no pressure at all.”
If Claire intended her words to be soothing, they had the opposite effect.
Margaret sat up straight, her eyes wide.
“No pressure? No pressure? There are already going to be four of us Prestons out this Season. And William has told us that he’ll call the rest of our sisters home from Paris so that they might be presented next year.
If none of us marry this Season, there will be eight of us, Claire. ”
“I can do the maths,” she said, sipping her tea calmly.
“Have you ever heard of eight young ladies from the same family descending a ballroom staircase? We’ll look like a flock of sheep coming down a hillside. William might as well invest in a pair of herding dogs to keep us all in line!”
Claire chuckled. “It’s a wonder you weren’t the one wearing the fake mustache, with that level of drama.”
“I’m serious.” Margaret slapped the sofa cushion for emphasis. “Some of us have to find husbands this Season or our family will be labeled as ridiculous.”
“Lily is sure to be courted widely; Beatrice, too.” Beatrice blinked up as if surprised that Claire would think as much; Claire ignored her and continued, “And I wouldn’t be surprised if you yourself had a line of suitors out the door.”
Margaret narrowed her eyes as if deciding whether Claire was mocking her. “I think not.”
“I don’t think you appreciate the service your new gowns have done you.”
Though Dahlia Warrington’s designs had accentuated each of the Preston ladies’ beauty, it was Margaret who’d undergone the greatest transformation. Suddenly, her curves were highlighted perfectly, turning what had once appeared stout and boxy into a nearly hedonistic shape.
“It’s true.” Beatrice nodded. “I think Dahlia was right—that every modiste you’d seen before had done you a grave insult.”
“I hardly think a bit of new silk is going to fool any gentleman worth having,” Margaret mumbled.
Claire frowned and opened her mouth to respond, but Beatrice asked, “Where were you this afternoon, anyway?”
“Shopping,” Claire said.
“For what?”
“An accessory to help me snare a husband.” That was as close to the truth as Claire dared to venture. If Beatrice caught wind of Claire’s plans, she’d be relentless.
“I hardly think a new hat will make the difference,” Margaret said, selecting a jam biscuit from the tea tray. “Oh, I wish it would just start already! I detest all this waiting about.”
“I hate to disappoint, but there is more waiting during a Season than before it.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You wait for gentlemen to notice you. You wait for them to ask you to dance. Then you wait at home, hoping they’ll call, or hoping they won’t, depending.”
Margaret blinked and chewed her biscuit.
“Don’t make it sound so dreadful,” Beatrice chided.
“Your first Season’s experience was doubtless different than ours will be.
Richard wasn’t nearly as involved with your prospects as William is.
As far as brothers go, you can’t fault William for his devotion.
He even went so far as to convince Miss Warrington to design gowns for us. ”
William was a little too attentive, in Claire’s opinion—it had been difficult to slip from the house this afternoon without him knowing. Granted, Miss Warrington was proving to be a wonderful distraction—at least the lady had some use besides her sketching skills.
“What are you frowning about?” Beatrice asked.
“Nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. You make that same expression every time someone brings Miss Warrington up. And you’ve been awfully rude to her, besides. Why don’t you like her?”
A flash of a moonlit garden entered Claire’s mind before she reflexively shunted it away.
That was the night of Claire’s great disillusionment, and she’d spent more time ruminating on that single evening than she had on any other period of time in her life—including that detestable broom closet she desperately tried not to remember.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claire rose serenely from the sofa. “Excuse me, I have much to do.”
Such as bracing herself before she had tea with Michael and his family tomorrow.