Chapter 3
Vix was unhappy with her selection of dresses for the dinner tonight.
Most of her things were still from her life as a student and a governess, starched and prim.
Teddy had offered to have a few new dresses made for her around the time she had returned to London, and she had agreed, at least, to have something to wear to his wedding, but those wouldn’t do for tonight either.
They had been made in winter, and though spring was still only halfway through its turn, it was too warm for either of them.
She sighed and withdrew the best option she saw, a lilac piece with light blue netting on the bodice, and held it against her body thoughtfully.
Mrs. Tolliver had wanted her to wear black at all times, insisting that it would befit her station as a governess.
The lilac had been a compromise, a sort of half mourning for the state of Vix’s dignity as she navigated a life in service.
It might have been acceptable if shades of purple hadn’t flattered her olive skin tone so well.
Once the lilac work dresses had arrived, Mrs. Tolliver had found much to complain about in their presentation, no matter how high the necks and stiff the pleats. She grumbled endlessly that she should have insisted on black, after all.
Vix gave a little twist of her lips as she tossed the dress onto her bed and moved to choose jewelry to go with it.
She had always insisted on lower waists than what was strictly fashionable. She had no care to appear as though the width of her bust was the consistent shape of her entire torso. When she’d expressed this to Teddy’s tailor, Teddy himself had turned red as a plum.
“They’re just breasts, Teddy,” she’d said to him afterward. “Grow up.”
Honestly, if she hadn’t lived through their childhood together, she’d struggle to pair the dainty sensibilities of that very large, very well-dressed man with the brawling street urchin from her memories.
She smiled to herself, glancing in the mirror at her own unlikely metamorphosis as she withdrew a strand of black pearls from her jewelry box.
They had both done well. Very well, in the end.
“Aster,” she said to herself as she began to dress, wracking her brain for all she could remember about the duke and his family line. “Aster, Aster, Aster.”
She glanced, just once, with a frown at the mummified mistletoe that hung off the still-sealed envelope on her chest of drawers, and then went back to her toilette.
House Aster’s ducal seat was in Canterbury, of course. Everyone knew that. It was a large family, with three or four sons and at least two daughters. The duchess was a Swedish noble herself and considered ethereally beautiful, though Vix had never set eyes on her personally.
She had seen the duke once, though. That Christmas she’d spent in Canterbury on school break with her one-time friend.
She made an impatient click of her tongue and stood up, throwing the stack of letters into the top drawer to put them out of her line of sight and slamming it shut, ignoring the little flecks of dried mistletoe that scattered from the force of the motion.
There was no time to get caught up in unfortunate bouts of memory tonight. She had an important task to attend to, after all.
She frowned, unscrewing the top of her rouge, and blinked away the memories of yule logs and cinnamon sticks from half a lifetime ago, though the residual ache in her chest did not dissipate quite so quickly.
She wondered if mail was always going to be such a violent event, now that she’d reached adulthood.
Mercifully, a street performer with a violin began striking up some nonsense shortly thereafter, playing through the chords of sunset while Vix dabbed and brushed and laced and coiled herself into order for the dinner that might determine her very future.
Hannah tapped on her door shortly before she would have emerged anyway, her big blue eyes blinking in what appeared to be entirely earnest hope for the evening ahead when the door swung open.
“You look lovely,” she said immediately, clasping her gloved hands together over her heart. “Absolutely beautiful.”
“Take a breath, sister mine,” Vix said with a smirk, stepping aside so Hannah could enter. “I look well enough.”
Hannah herself looked resplendent, exactly the way Vix wished she could tonight.
She was wearing feather-light mint green, her copper red hair swept into a simple pearl comb over her ear.
Her skin was perfectly pale, glowing in the dusky light, and her petite, pixie-like frame moved easily through the room, perching itself on the foot of Vix’s bed.
“I need new dresses,” Vix said with a little sigh. “Badly.”
“Oh,” said Hannah. “Has Thaddeus not taken you to a modiste? I would be happy to take you to mine if you don’t mind traveling to Clerkenwell.”
“He took me to his tailor, back in December,” Vix said, leaning back against the door with a little half smile. “The man is a genius with fabric, but did not seem accustomed to skirts and bodices. Teddy does his best.”
Hannah gave a fluttering little sigh, her mouth softening into a smile. “He does,” she said, as though it were the most romantic accolade possible. “Doesn’t he?”
Vix blinked. “You are both repulsive.”
It made Hannah laugh. She shook her head and giggled to her heart’s content and then sighed, adjusting the fit of her gloves. “I only came in case you had questions about Mr. Aster before we go to meet him. I know I would, in your place.”
“Questions,” Vix repeated, tilting her head in consideration. “Like how many older brothers he has?”
“Too many to murder,” Hannah replied without pause. “I checked. I’m afraid you will never be duchess, short of something truly horrific.”
“Pity,” said Vix with a shrug. “But not dealbreaking.”
She thought for a moment more, uncertain what she should be asking, in the absence of any forthcoming curiosity. All she could muster was, “Is he pretty?”
Hannah paused, her lashes flickering. “Oh, yes,” she said, as though the matter were gravely serious. “He is extremely pleasing to look upon. He’s got very pale blond hair that’s always in artful disarray and the most enchanting inky-blue eyes. I think he is striking.”
“Striking,” Vix said with a nod. “That is good.”
“He is also very amusing,” Hannah added, her brow wrinkling as though she felt compelled to say it. “I do not know if he is intentionally so, but I find him most entertaining. He is not a man I would feel unsafe being left alone in the company of.”
“Is that so? I do not know that I’ve met many men I could say that of,” Vix said, blinking. “The latter portion, I mean. Plenty are unintentionally amusing.”
“Plenty are,” Hannah agreed. “He makes a bit of a show out of discontent, from what I have observed. He is not happy about the knighting.”
“Not happy about it?” Vix replied, puzzled. “What is there to dislike?”
“You will have to ask him,” Hannah said with a shrug. “All he would tell me was that he didn’t intend to perform his heroism, and therefore should not be rewarded for it.”
“A jest, surely,” Vix replied, glancing at the clock. “Surely.”
“Perhaps,” said Hannah, following the glance to the clock on the wall. “Ah, yes, we should go down. Are you ready?”
“Of course,” Vix said.
Lying was easy these days.
Unfortunately, due to the intimate and impromptu nature of the dinner, it was not being held in a room large enough for Vix to observe at a distance before entering.
The best she could manage was listening for a beat before allowing the door to swing open and reveal her to her brother and the man she had come to assess.
“You tipped him how much?” Teddy had said, in that brief moment before the door had swung open. “Why?”
“Because I like the violin. Why not?” came the answer in a very posh, slightly mocking tone of masculine depth.
“Because now he will never leave that corner, Aster,” Teddy replied with a sigh. “Now I’ve got a permanent violinist busker outside of my club.”
“You’ve got other clubs,” the man replied, and Vix could have sworn she could hear the shrug that accompanied the statement.
In any event, the exact expression of annoyance that she would have imagined on Teddy’s face was indeed manifested in reality once the barrier of beveled cedar had been fully removed, revealing the room to Vix and Vix to the room.
She drew herself up and moved her eyes from her brother to the other man, uncertain what she expected as she did.
She found him looking exactly the way she felt, his own attention drawn to her with a kind of stunned curiosity that was somehow reassuring. It was almost recognition in the face of mutually being at sea, though she knew that made no sense. Solidarity through isolation? No, not that.
She shook her head slightly and forced herself to focus on the man, no matter how he was looking at her. His features, she told herself, were her aim. His expression was irrelevant.
He was indeed pleasant to look upon, and Hannah’s description of his features had been accurate.
He was wearing a deep indigo color that she thought, oddly, rather suited her own lilac. His pale hair was combed but not quite neat, and he looked like he was uncertain whether he should speak or smile at her.
“Hello there,” he said, so suddenly she almost startled. “Are you Miss Beck?”
“Oh, wait for me, I am sorry!” came Hannah’s voice as she hurried into the room from behind Vix, her green skirts in her fists. “My apologies, I was just issuing a final request for dinner. Ah, Mr. Aster. Welcome to our home!”
He gave a lazy, curling smile, those inky blue eyes sliding from Vix over to Hannah. “Mrs. Beck,” he said with a slight bow. “Hannah. How odd to see you outside of your fox den.”
Vix wondered at the slight bristling that needled her spine at the shift in his attention. She turned her head to look at her sister-in-law with a raised brow, awaiting her response to such an insolent and unusual greeting.