Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Directly she returned, Aurora asked the butler whether Lady Wentworth was down yet. On being informed that, yes, she was taking tea in her morning room, Aurora made her way there, scratching softly on the door before she pushed it open and entered.
A look at her windblown hair and the dress she was wearing caused Lady W to choke, splutter wildly for a moment, and set down her teacup with a clatter.
“Aurora! Whatever have you been doing? You look an utter disgrace. If your father saw you right now, he would say I have completely failed in my duty as your chaperone. Have you learned nothing these past few weeks, girl? Now, I am not one to trumpet my own child over everyone else, but can you not at least try to take a page from Millicent’s book?
Decorum. A pale and serene countenance. You are altogether too, too flushed. With exertion! Most unbecoming!”
Aurora kept trying to get a word in. Once her ladyship was completely out of breath, she was able to succeed.
“Lady Wentworth,” she said. “I have, in the last hour, been informed the Duke of Selkirk will be calling on Lord Wentworth. This afternoon. I wanted to ensure Lord Wentworth was to be in.”
“In? Of course he will be in. This is excellent news, truly excellent. Though—” here she fixed Aurora with a surprisingly shrewd look, “However did you hear of it? Are you completely sure this is to happen?”
“Yes, Lady Wentworth. I chanced upon the Duke in the park this morning. I was accompanied by a maid, as was proper, Lady Wentworth,” as she saw her ladyship’s lips were starting to quiver again.
She left Lucy’s name out of it; no need to drag her directly into the conversation.
“So, you see, he informed me himself. No better source,” she couldn’t resist adding.
“Yes. Well.” Her chaperone picked up the bell sitting on the tiny table next to the sofa and rang it.
She instructed the footman who answered it to please inform Lord Wentworth’s man that Lord Raeburn, the Duke of Selkirk was to call on him this afternoon.
Most assuredly, this was an appointment he could not miss.
As the man left, she turned her sights back on her charge.
“Aurora, you must set yourself to rights. Get Hyacinth to attend to you immediately. We shall remain at home this afternoon. Yes. That is a must. I shall write to your mother. I am sure she will be very pleased by this turn of events. Hmm? Unless it is best I should wait until the conclusion of the interview itself.”
Leaving Lady Wentworth to have a hearty chew over this social conundrum, Aurora happily made her way upstairs.
She saw Lucy peering out from behind the green baize door down to the servants’ wing and gave her a smile she felt stretch from ear to ear.
With an answering smile of her own, Lucy bobbed a curtsy and disappeared below-stairs.
Continuing up the stairs, she paused outside Missie’s door.
Aurora needed to take a moment to compose herself.
The morning had been an emotional and fast-moving whirl.
She was not exactly sure what she felt. But she was certain of one thing: she needed to tell Missie first before she heard about it from Hyacinth. Or, even worse, Lady Wentworth.
She took a deep breath. Her friend had changed these past few weeks.
A hard, cutting note had crept into Missie’s voice more and more frequently when she spoke to Aurora—that is, when she spoke to her.
Most of the time now she ignored her, pointedly dismissed her almost to the edge of rudeness, or only directed daggered looks her way.
The mask was held fast in place now, and not even for her best friend would she lower it.
If they were still best friends.
Aurora felt dreadfully on her own. But there was no escaping this duty. Regardless of what Missie’s feelings now were, Aurora would continue to treat her as a friend as long as she was able.
She scratched on the door and went in at the response of, “Come.” Missie was seated at her dressing table, while Hyacinth carefully arranged the short curls that now encircled her head.
Hyacinth’s mouth settled into its usual tight line when she saw what Aurora was wearing, though it was no longer as rigid as when Aurora had first arrived.
Missie shot a disdainful glance at her in the glass.
“Aurora! You look a perfect hobbledehoy! Or worse! Were you out in public like that?”
“It was a bit windy today, Missie. That does not signify. I have come to tell you that the Duke of Selkirk is to call on Lord Wentworth this afternoon. I—I presumed you would want to know.” Aurora stammered because the look Missie sent her was one of pure hatred.
She whirled around and glared at Aurora.
“So, it is to be Lord Raeburn, the Duke of Selkirk, is it?” she hissed, almost spitting out the work duke. “You have done well for yourself. You will have his title, and he will have your money. He is only marrying you for your money, you know.”
The fragile kernel of happiness Aurora was carrying inside her from the park began to crack. “Well, I know he doesn’t love me, but—”
“Doesn’t love you? Doesn’t love you? Of course he doesn’t love you!
How could a man like that possibly love someone like you?
All you do is prate about Homer and the glories of the Tower of London.
Why, you’re practically a bluestocking. Breeding will out, it is clear.
No gentleman of consequence, no gentleman of the Ton could possibly love someone like you.
You have no air—you have no graces. Oh, stop fussing with my hair, Hyacinth.
Leave it. I shall call you before we are to depart so you can adjust my gown. ”
“Very good, Miss Wentworth,” said Hyacinth, dropping a curtsy and reluctantly leaving the room.
Once the door had shut again, Aurora replied to the woman she had once called her friend. “How can you speak so, Missie? How can you be so cruel?”
At that, Missie rounded on her once again.
“How can I? I can tell you why. If I had money, if Papa had not gambled it away, then I would be the one the Duke of Selkirk would be meeting Papa about, to ask for my hand. You must have seen the way he looks at me, Aurora. He loves me. You know it is so. He would have wed me, except for circumstances. He is marrying you for your money, pure and simple. He doesn’t care a whit about you.
“I should have known what type of chit you were when you turned up at Miss Fielding’s, fairly reeking of the manufactory floor.
Did you never wonder we kept peering at you, to see if you had cotton wool in your hair or dirty oil on your hands from the works?
And with only lessons from your hopelessly deficient mother and excessive time spent in your father’s library as your sole teachers.
Shocking! Your proficiencies, for mercy’s sake, were in absolutely useless subjects like Greek, Latin, and—oh, what was it?
Yes. Mathematics. Mathematics! How we all laughed at you.
You woefully lacked any proper skills in Drawing or Dancing, and la!
Absolutely no French. We all found you to be quite uneducated. ”
Aurora swallowed hard at the sheer spitefulness. This was not the person she believed she knew. Why was Missie jealous of her? “But what about the Duke of Galloway?” she finally sputtered.
“What about the Duke of Galloway?”
“Do you not care for him? He attends to you so faithfully. On top of which, he is terribly eligible. I thought—”
“Thought what? Oh, you’re a little fool. You see nothing!”
Missie turned back to her glass, pinching her cheeks to bring color to them which, for once, they already had. Her eyes began to fill, and she bit her lower lip to stop any tears from falling. A frozen silence filled the room.
Finally, Aurora found she was able to let out the breath she did not realize she was holding and turned to leave. She was almost certain she heard, though, before the door shut, the passionate whisper, “He’s mine! He’s mine!” And then Aurora was out in the hall and running toward her room.