Chapter 16
“A man could be taken in by a pretty face, he’d often come out the better in the bargain. If a woman, even a lady, in some cases especially a lady, were to do the same? It spelled the demise of some form of herself.”
Adelaide, Chapter 9
The Pembrooke’s drawing room had been full of suitors for almost a week now; yet none of them had been Fitz, who’d promised to call on her the day after the ball. Oh, how very like him to tell her he would do something and then fail to deliver.
She could barely spare a moment for Fitz in particular, when she’d faced so many other disappointments and rejections already from all the queries she’d sent out for her manuscript. Failure in one regard was disrupting her sleep enough without fixating on a second.
Some of the suitors in her drawing room had been perfectly suitable, amiable, not entirely without charm or merits. Sir Edward included. He had proven a rapt conversationalist and she hadn’t minded his visits and even grown a sort of almost fondness for him.
Yesterday, when he’d called, the post had been brought in, and she’d received yet more rejections from her queries to publishers. Most had been a form reply, one had been outright discourteous.
Then another guest had arrived, a caller for Moria who was a friend of Sir Edward’s, who happened to be an investor in a publishing house.
He was a rather tall, lean man somewhere past thirty with a bland face and a mustache.
Noelle had been hopeful for just such a publishing connection for a moment thinking perhaps Sir Edward had brought him on her behalf.
But then Sir Edward had told the man: “Lady Noelle fancies herself a writer.”
Jasper had frozen in place, shooting his eyes at Noelle whose nostrils flared before concealing her displeasure.
“What have you written, then?” Sir Edward’s friend asked, bored and only mildly interested.
The only thing that softened Noelle’s blow was that her sister had asked Noelle to cover for her, having snuck out the servant’s entrance this time to avoid the man altogether.
The man raised a brow at Noelle expectantly.
She cleared her throat, accepting the flowers that Sir Edward held out for her to accept.
She nodded her thanks and answered the other man.“It’s a romantic novel, it’s called Adelaide.”
“A novel for women, I assume,” Sir Edward’s friend said, taking a biscuit off the tray on the table.
“Naturally,” she answered, biting her tongue. Jasper narrowed his eyes at the other man. Jasper wanted her to be married and settled; but he’d never abide her being treated rudely.
“And you encourage this, my lord?” The Insufferable Mustache said, turning to her brother as though Noelle wasn’t entirely within earshot.
Noelle could barely suppress stamping her foot at the indignity.
The idea that she, a woman nearing 21 years of age, needed her elder brother’s approval in order to put a pen to paper.
For his part, Jasper barely engaged with the other man.
The earl checked his timepiece as though he had somewhere else to be.
Noelle saw his eyes alight on Miss Kelley, sewing across the room with Olivia, Finn tucked at her side as he dozed against her shoulder.
“I don’t see how an intelligent woman is anything to frown upon,” Jasper said off-handedly, making his way across the room as if he needed to escape the two men and the turn of the conversation.
Sir Edward looked at Noelle as if he was waiting for her to speak.
If you think I’m toying with you I will try harder to be more clear, Fitz had said while they’d danced at the ball.
Perhaps he had been merely toying with her. No longer. She wasn’t an object for fascination or entertainment. If the men surrounding her could be oblique and opaque and oppressive, she could turn the tables.
“Do you not agree, Sir Edward?” She registered her voice had taken a tone that was mock sweetness, testing the man to fall into the trap of feigned cowering.
Many pairs of eyes suddenly trained on the man, except for Olivia’s, who bore into Noelle as she bit her lip to stifle a giggle. Pride radiated from Olivia’s face, and it warmed Noelle when she felt full of ire and ice. Until Sir Edward spoke again.
“Of course. The mantle of motherhood and wifedom requires great fortitude and clarity of mind, I rather think.”
Noelle didn’t have time to bite her tongue or think of a challenging retort before Olivia piped up from across the room: “And is that the only use for a woman’s intellect, do you suppose?”
She was idly knitting a blanket Noelle knew was probably for a small calf or a piglet and the other inhabitants of the drawing room had likely mistaken this creation for a baby blanket.
If Olivia weren’t so soft-featured and (intentionally) doe-eyed, one would think her insolent rather than curious.
An intake of breath conveyed that Sir Edward perhaps sensed his error as several pairs of feminine eyes trained upon him. Noelle didn’t bother to engage, best to let the man hang himself with his own rhetorical rope.
“I…. well…that is to say…” he cleared his throat and straightened his lapels, “traditionally, that is the only path…but I know that…more women are relying on their talents and….and intellect to…to provide a means for themselves,” at this Miss Kelley, all red hair and fiery cheeks, clenched her jaw;
“but a lady such as Lady Noelle, for example, has no need for such…constraints.”
It had been painful watching him try to get the words out; but she was sure she wasn’t the only female in the room who had relished his discomfiture while aiming to hide her enjoyment.
“I see,” Noelle said with finality, leaning back in her chair, “What a relief that ladies such as myself are so well-placed to avoid any such…constraints…as you so eloquently put it.”
Jasper’s voice was a warning knell, “Noelle.”
She hastily spooned sugar into her tea and stirred it swiftly, watching the sugar dissolve into the tea like her hopes and dreams into dust.
Jasper continued talking to the other men, but Noelle was no longer listening.
The thought struck her that Fitz might be playing some game with her, or he might care for her; but it was exponentially more diverting than the men in her drawing room.
Her throat went dry as she remembered how Fitz had kissed her, he’d taken his mouth to hers like some kind of hard candy that was meant to be savored.
And where was he, exactly? The lout had left her undefended to the Sir Edwards of the world.
Olivia’s knitting needles moved faster, the sound diverting Noelle’s attention from the grating sound of the mustachio’d man’s droll voice.
Noelle’s palms sweated, her nails pressing into her skin as she held them tightly in her lap to avoid pressing said knitting needle into either of the male visitor’s eye sockets.
She felt so at odds with the rest of her family who could force smiles or pleasantries while, inside her, a rage taunted.
Miss Kelley placed one of the tea cakes she knew Noelle preferred onto her saucer, a comforting smile sent her way.
Had her frustration been obvious or were her feelings echoed by the other woman?
Noelle felt her cheeks against her gloved hand and realized her heat had faded at being somewhat understood.
It reminded her of feeling seen by Fitz and once again, she keenly felt Fitz’s absence.
“Are you all right, princess?”
That afternoon, Lady Noelle paced the checkered stone floor of the garden house, holding one of Olivia’s kittens for company.
A maddeningly smooth voice called out from behind an improbably large plant.
The blond viscount peeked his head around a frond to stare at her in a mixture of awe, curiosity, and concern.
Noelle could feel all of her anger further rising like a column of thick, dark smoke inside of her.
She had worked to marshal her restraint; but as vexed as she was at the current moment, someone might become a casualty of her rhetoric and ire on this day.
And it might very well be one pompous lord with annoyingly perfect hair who called her “princess.”
“Why? Why do you always call me that?” she shot back.
He held up his hands like a war prisoner evading capture.“Did I…disturb you reading or something?”
Noelle wanted to laugh at the fact that his mind had gone to reading as the reason for her vexation, but exhaled deeply.
“But, really, why? Why is it that men like my brother…and you…get to parade around looking debonair and collecting accomplishments you earned on the back of someone else’s efforts?
But women such as myself spend all our time thinking of ways to gain your respect and attention for our ideas and research and creativity and cleverness only to be sent away and called ‘princess’?”
Fitz picked up the kitten who was staring up at her with large eyes. “I can see I have hit a nerve…one that has very little to do with me, apparently…but, really, you think I look debonair?”
A frustrated grunt escaped Noelle. She collapsed onto a marble bench, the bulk of her skirts encircling her, and the handsome young lord sat beside her. He leaned against the expansive summerhouse window. His knee collided with hers and she moved away from him, straightening her skirt.
“All right, perhaps it has something to do with me…”
She leveled him with a stare. He did not evade, or avoid, or make excuses. He nodded, not averting his eyes. “Very well, then; I’ve come to grovel. On my knees, if I must.”
She looked over at his long hands running over the cat’s thick fur. The cat had her eyes closed, making small, contented noises. Really. Was there not a single soul on this wide earth immune to the charms of this dratted man?
“Indeed you shall,” she nodded. “First, I want to know why you call me princess.”
He turned toward her, the cat copying his movement, his gaze both warming and chilling her.
“I’ll tell you…” She waved in front of her in a “please do go on,” maneuver.
He set the reluctant kitten down on the marble floor and reached toward Noelle’s hands resting in her lap; intertwining her twisting fingers with long, steadier ones.