Chapter Seven The Potted Plant Revelation #3
"Your goal is to be seen. To be observed. To position yourself as a considerable pawn in the marriage mart."
She stared at him as if he had announced his intention to sprout wings and fly to the moon. "That is the most absurd strategy I have ever heard. How am I to attract a husband if I refuse to dance with eligible men?"
"By making them work for the privilege." He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "You are too available, Miss Bingley. You attend every ball. You accept every invitation. You dance with anyone who asks. And they can sense desperation."
"I am not desperate."
"Then stop behaving as if you are. Scarcity creates value. If you refuse dances tonight, by tomorrow morning you will be the topic of conversation in every drawing room in Mayfair."
"They will say I am rude."
"They will say you are selective."
She studied him, her eyes searching his face for cracks in the logic. "And what of you, Colonel? Will you dance tonight?"
"No. I am your escort. I stand beside you and radiate menace at anyone foolish enough to approach."
"That sounds unutterably dull."
"It is essential."
"For whom?"
"For your reputation."
Miss Bingley opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She glanced past him at the ballroom floor where couples were forming sets for the next dance. Her brother was already partnered with the blue-eyed angel, grinning like he had discovered the secret to eternal happiness.
"Very well." Her eyes were narrowed and her tone laced with scepticism. "I shall defer to your superior judgement, Colonel. Though I reserve the right to inform you when your strategy proves catastrophically flawed."
"I would expect nothing less."
They stood in silence for a moment, watching the dancers. The orchestra struck up a lively country dance. Bingley promptly trod on his partner's foot and apologised with such profuse mortification that the poor girl looked ready to flee.
"Your brother is a disaster," Richard observed.
"He is enthusiastic."
"He is a threat to women's slippers."
Miss Bingley's mouth twitched. "He means well."
"So does a puppy. It does not prevent it from urinating on the carpet."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it, a quick, surprised sound that she immediately tried to smother behind her glove.
Richard glanced down at her, one eyebrow rising. "Was that amusement, Miss Bingley? I was under the impression you found me insufferable."
"I do," she said firmly. "But even insufferable men occasionally say funny things."
"How generous of you to acknowledge it."
"Do not let it inflate your already considerable arrogance, Colonel."
He grinned. "Too late."
They returned their attention to the ballroom. Richard catalogued the available men with a clinical eye, as a tactician assessing enemy forces.
"There." He nodded towards a tall gentleman in puce satin. "Lord Grimsby. Fifteen thousand a year, estate in Stafford, and a nose that could open letters."
Caroline followed his gaze. "Good Lord. It is rather prominent."
"It precedes him into rooms by a full minute. He once sneezed during a Parliamentary session and knocked over a candelabra."
"You are inventing that."
"I am not. I was there. It was magnificent."
She bit her lip, clearly fighting a smile.
Richard continued, warming to his task. "And there, the gentleman in the green waistcoat attempting to hide behind the refreshment table, that is Mr Cornelius Thwaite. Twelve thousand a year, a stutter, and a mortal terror of women in red."
"He appears to be trembling."
"He mistakes you for a fire hazard. Understandable, given your history with colour."
"I am in burgundy, Colonel. Burgundy is perfectly respectable."
"Burgundy is restrained. It is so restrained I barely recognised you. I thought for a moment that you had sent an imposter in your stead."
She glanced up at him, and there was a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes, or maybe annoyance, he could not tell. "You preferred the orange, then?"
"I prefer honesty. The orange was honest."
"The orange was a mistake."
"It was memorable. Which, in a ballroom full of white muslin, is no small feat."
"Well, you were the one who ordered me to be boringly un-orange.
Live with it." She looked away, her gloved fingers smoothing an invisible wrinkle in her skirt.
When she spoke again, her voice was softer.
"Who else, Colonel? What are my options?
I wish to know precisely how dismal the selection truly is. "
Richard obliged, pointing out a parade of inadequate suitors, the widower with seven children and a gambling habit, the poet who wept openly during waltzes, the baron who collected taxidermized rodents and displayed them in his drawing room.
By the end of his recitation, Miss Bingley was laughing, a real laugh, unguarded and bright.
And across the ballroom, half-hidden behind a pillar, the Countess of Matlock observed her second son with the keen eye of a mother who recognised the opening moves of a marital campaign. She did not approach. She simply watched and smiled.