Chapter 3
“I
look positively ridiculous.”
Cora stood in front of a full-length mirror, staring at her own reflection balefully.
Her long brown hair and her mesmerizing hazel eyes.
Every few moments, she twisted in one direction or the other, hoping that she would better appreciate how she looked from a different angle, but instead, each new view only made her heart sink lower.
For her part, Matilda looked positively tickled. “Oh, don’t be silly! You look marvelous. All the other girls at the soiree will be envious indeed!”
“Why should they be envious, pray tell?” Cora inquired sourly. “Do they wish to look like some demented seamstress seized a pile of loose lace, balled it up carelessly, and then jabbed a few jeweled pins through it and called it good?”
“Dear sister-in-law, I assure you: What looks haphazard and senseless to you will seem not only intentional but positively brilliant to everyone else assembled. These are the very latest fashions.”
“These so-called ‘latest fashions’ appear, to me, to be horribly impractical,” Cora observed. “How is one supposed to walk around in such a thing?”
“One is not meant to ‘walk around’ in it,” Matilda giggled. “One is meant merely to stand and be seen in it. Or sit and be seen in it, if you find that you can manage to fold your body properly within the confines of it, and without being skewered to death by one of the pins.”
“You’re quite enjoying this, aren’t you, Matilda?”
“As a matter of fact, having myself been through these ordeals and more, I am, immensely. Especially since I am fully convinced that as the evening progresses, once you have gotten used to this attire, you shall have a thoroughly marvelous time. You will forget your general disapproval of these rituals amid the delights of dinner, dancing, and sparkling conversation, and before you know it, you’ll have met some dashing young fellow, and you’ll be in love! ”
“It sounds as though you have it all planned out for me,” Cora grumbled sardonically. “How fortunate I am that the architect of my evening knows my mind better than I do myself.”
“Oh, really, Cora!” Matilda scolded lightly.
“Surely you cannot believe that you are the only girl to feel this way on the night of her debut? But sooner or later, we all come around to it. Except for the few who are disagreeable or appalling-looking enough to end up old maids, and you are neither of those things.”
Cora turned to look directly into Matilda’s eyes, and when she spoke, there was an earnestness to her tone.
“Matilda, if I do decide that I have no desire to marry any of these gentlemen, will you allow Harry to attempt to browbeat me into doing so anyway, or will you stand up to him on my behalf?”
Matilda sighed good-naturedly. “Let us put aside for the moment the fact that you have just plainly asked me to choose between my loyalty to my husband and my treasured friendship with you, which is a perfectly beastly position to put me in, by any estimation. You know Harry. When his mind is set to something, he rarely hears anyone except himself. If he decides to press the point, there will be little I can do to dissuade him. All anyone can do in that instance is show the patience and forbearance of a saint and wait for him to exhaust himself until he eventually moves on to some new area of interest for him.”
“I remain more than slightly astonished that you are so keenly aware of the deficits in his character, yet…”
“I told you,” Matilda reminded her, “I cannot help loving him in spite of it all. Or perhaps even because of it…the way his enthusiasm carries him away, like a little boy with a new toy. The heart wants what it wants, and that’s all there is to it.
Besides, there are times when I feel that I can lend him a bit of quiet guidance here and there to keep him from getting himself into too much trouble or embarrassing himself beyond repair. Not always, but occasionally.”
Cora laughed in spite of herself. “You make it seem as though you are some sort of benevolent fairy, perching on his shoulder and directing him toward a more righteous path.”
“In some ways, I suppose that’s how I like to think of myself,” Matilda affirmed with a smile. “Unfortunately, the corresponding devil which sits on his other shoulder often shouts me down.”
“And which devil is that?”
“Poverty,” she replied softly. “Or at least, the specter of it. He fears that he will lose all he has gained, and so he scrambles for more, more, more. Unfortunately, in doing so, he behaves rather like the dog from the old story, with the bone in his mouth. He sees his reflection in a river, becomes jealous of the bone that ‘other dog’ is holding…”
“...and foolishly drops his own so that he might plunge in and take the other,” Cora finished knowingly. “We heard that story enough times as children. I would think he’d have taken the meaning of it to heart.”
“Men are fiercely prideful creatures,” Matilda pointed out. “It drives them to outlandish behaviors, the likes of which I’m not sure women like us will ever fully understand. But enough of this pontificating! The hour grows late, and the time has come for you to shine at last!”
Cora followed Matilda to the carriage, mentally cataloging all of the woeful fates she would prefer to endure rather than attend this event.
She had made it all the way to Be torn to pieces by a pack of wild animals by the time they arrived at the home of Lady Hepplewhite, where the soiree was to take place.
As they stepped into the foyer and were greeted by the footmen, Cora heard the lilting chamber music emanating from the parlor, and her heart began to pound furiously.
Suddenly, all she could think of was the number of eyes that were about to be upon her.
She had never courted attention in any real way before, and certainly not so much of it at once.
What was she supposed to do? Where was she meant to put her eyes, her hands? What expression should she have frozen upon her face as she strolled into the room? Matilda had taught her none of these particulars, and stupidly, it had not occurred to Cora to ask about them.
Now she was sure to make a fool of herself in front of a room full of the most wealthy and influential people in London.
She was seized with a powerful urge to hitch up her dress, turn, and flee.
Before she could, though, the deep baritone voice from the parlor announced: “Making her debut tonight, Lady Cora Weatherington!”
Well, too late now, it seemed. Best to simply get it over with.
She took a deep breath, stepped into the room, and promptly tripped over the hem of the dress, falling forward.
In the split second before her face connected with the floor (and her reputation suffered a blow it would never be able to fully recover from, perhaps forcing her to disappear from London forever and seek out a new life in the New World, or perhaps someplace more remote like an exotic island), she felt a pair of powerful arms encircle her body, catching her.
“No fear, lass, I’ve got you.”
The voice was rich and warm, with a heavy Scottish burr.
She made sure her feet were firmly under her again, then blinked at her rescuer, vaguely dazed.
The whole thing had taken place in the blink of an eye, but it had been so thoroughly disconcerting that she felt as though the room had been upended.
The stability of the ground had been snatched out from beneath her rudely as though it were little more than a flimsy tablecloth, and an experience such as that was jarring enough to take a few moments to recover from.
The man who had stepped in to interrupt her descent was tall and broad-shouldered.
He was clean-shaven, and he had long red hair that was pulled back with a thin length of leather, emphasizing his high cheekbones and muscular neck.
His eyes were green, and they twinkled with good humor as he met her gaze.
If he was not the most conventionally handsome man she had ever encountered in her life, he was certainly the most immediately arresting.
Something about his presence was earthy and comforting to her, especially since he was surrounded by a group of the stuffy London elite, most of whom seemed amused, bewildered, or downright scandalized by the entire scene.
Perhaps because his arms were still around her.
“Are you all right, my lady?” he asked with an impetuous grin.
Before she could answer, Lord Falsham—a bloated and pompous aristocrat with thin black hair and a monocle cinched over his left eye—waddled over to the Scotsman archly.
“Now see here, my dear fellow! I don’t know how you tartan-wearing blokes comport yourselves out on the moors, but in London, a man doesn’t put his bally hands all over a lady!”
There were laughs and snickers amid the attendees and plenty of snide whispered comments as well. The Scotsman seemed embarrassed, and color crept into his cheeks as he released Cora.
“I apologize,” he murmured to all assembled. “I meant no disrespect, I only wanted to keep her from falling.”
“And so you have,” Falsham grunted. “One needn’t stack one humiliation upon another, eh?”
It was the word humiliation that pushed Cora over the line.
For yes, that was precisely what she felt; her ears and neck were burning, and her chest felt like it was full of angry bees.
This had been a dreadful mistake upon her part, and she regretted the whole affair bitterly.
She should have stood her ground against Harry, and Matilda too.
She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be pressured.
Most of all, she shouldn’t have let herself believe, even for a moment, that she might end up having a good time. For now, she was bitterly disappointed.
She turned and ran from the room. She heard the chorus of gasps behind her and Matilda’s voice calling out to her.
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might even have heard the Scotsman’s voice as well, which somehow made it all the worse since it brought with it an absurd pang to turn back so she might lay eyes on him again.
Could those dancing green eyes somehow salve the hideous wounds her ego had just suffered?
No. She was sure they would not.
As she ran, she noticed that the hem of her dress was becoming caked with the filth of the streets.
She didn’t care. It was a silly costume anyway, just as she had said before.
A lacy and uncomfortable monument to affectation, worn by a woman of modest background, pretending she belonged among high society.
Cora hailed a hackney coach, refusing to let herself cry as it drove her home.
When Cora got home, she went up to her room, tore off the dress, and threw it into the corner. Then she flung herself facedown upon her bed and buried her face in her pillow, hoping that if she kept doing so long enough, she might never have to lift it again to face the world in her shame.
Eventually, she fell asleep, and her dreams gave her a brief respite from her embarrassment. In them, she had entered the room flawlessly and spent the rest of the night dancing with the Scotsman until she was positively dizzy with delight.