Chapter 3
Clarissa faced her half brother with a bright, determined smile.
It was also an incredibly unnatural smile. She'd been practicing it for three days. It was pleasant, polite and, most importantly, her mouth was closed. "How are you, Lord Alderton?"
She clamped her mouth shut again and waited for his response.
The smile John gave her was kind, but weary. "Again?"
Mrs. Lennox, her brother's second cousin and Clarissa's chaperone for the evening, was seated across from them in the carriage. She did not sigh or roll her eyes. Oh no, the older woman was far too dignified for that. But her lips thinned in a way that communicated much the same thing.
Clarissa nodded, widening her eyes as a prompt for John to play his part.
She did not trust herself to speak. Speaking was what had gotten her into this mess.
Not the mess with Edmund specifically, though speaking had certainly not helped there.
But the larger, more fundamental mess of being Clarissa Whitfield.
A woman whose mouth had been operating independently of her brain since the age of four.
"I'm well, thank you," John said dryly. "And you?"
Clarissa drew in a breath. "I am also well."
That was it. Stop right there. She clamped her jaw shut against the tide of words pressing up behind her teeth.
Words about how she was not, in fact, well.
And about how this carriage was too warm, and how her gown itched at the collar, and about how she'd rather be back at John's country estate reading bedtime stories with her niece Lucy than riding toward a ballroom full of strangers who would look at her and see a young lady who'd been thrown over.
Twice.
Clarissa should have expected that her brief and unofficial engagement to Lord Blackwood would be the talk of the ton.
Engagements, even brief and unofficial ones, between a marquess and an earl's daughter tended to stir up gossip.
But Mrs. Lennox had kindly informed her just the other day that somehow word had spread about her even more humiliating rejection by Edmund.
Why anyone in London cared about the personal life of a countryside vicar, she did not know. But she supposed a second humiliation for an earl's daughter was reason enough to gossip.
So, yes. There was plenty Clarissa could say about her current state. But she said none of it. She sat with her hands folded and her lips sealed as a silence stretched through the carriage.
John watched her. Mrs. Lennox watched her.
When nearly a full minute passed without her blurting out some random exclamation, Clarissa beamed.
Mrs. Lennox gave in to a small, exasperated shake of her head. But John laughed. "There. You did it. All your practice has paid off."
She bit her lip to keep from ruining it.
Clarissa's tendency to speak at length and without sufficient forethought was not merely unladylike, her mother had assured her before she'd returned to London. It was the single greatest impediment to securing a suitable match.
Young men did not want wives who talked more than they did. Young men wanted composure and poise.
She could do that. If it meant securing a husband and starting a family—not to mention appeasing her parents—then she could certainly do that.
She peeked out the window as the carriage rolled to a stop. The manor they stopped in front of was overflowing with guests. They waited in line at the doorway and spilled out onto the side veranda.
Even from here, she could hear the music and the laughter.
And the urge to turn to John and prattle on about it all was almost more than she could bear. But for tonight, she would keep all her thoughts and opinions to herself, even if it killed her.
As if John could read her mind, he said, "I don't know why you have this sudden urge to change your personality, my dear. You know those of us who love you, adore you exactly as you are."
Clarissa turned in her seat to flash him a smile.
He'd been nearly eight when their father had remarried after his mother had passed away.
They shared their father's dark hair and eyes, but in temperament they were nothing alike.
John did not need to rehearse calm composure.
He'd simply always had it. But despite their differences, he'd always been her most supportive ally.
Even now, he was so kind to her. But the truth was—he was lying.
Oh, certainly, his daughter Lucy might enjoy her high-spirited aunt. And he himself loved her enough as a sister to overlook her faults. But she could not expect the same from a man who meant to marry her.
She'd learned that well enough from Edmund. She used to think he liked her exactly as she was. He used to call her passionate and enthusiastic. He'd also called her silly, but he'd smiled when he'd said it and she'd thought it was a fond smile.
But the woman he'd chosen instead was quiet and composed. If that didn't tell her how he really felt, then she didn't know what did.
A footman opened the door and Hartington House stood before them, blazing with light from every window.
"Chin up," Mrs. Lennox murmured as they walked up the drive. "And remember, don't fidget."
Clarissa nodded. No talking. No fidgeting. Just smile and nod. This was the new and improved Clarissa, making her entrance into good society.
She could do this. Of course she could.
The ballroom was bright and warm. And if people turned their heads when she passed, and glances lingered, and whispers followed, well—Clarissa kept her closed-mouthed smile firmly in place.
She was an earl's daughter. And her brother was by her side. And besides all that, new and improved Clarissa had a plan. Find a sensible, steady, thoroughly unexciting husband—and then go home.
The first hour passed with relative ease. She danced with a pleasant, forgettable baron. Then she joined a conversation with a matron who asked about her father's estate. She managed to keep her sentences short and her smile polite.
New Clarissa was performing admirably well. She was almost smug when she rejoined her brother a little while later and he handed her a punch.
"Did I tell you I had a letter from Lucy?" he asked.
"No!" Clarissa forgot her new and improved self for a moment. "How is she? Is she well? Did you tell her I bought her a book of fairy tales? Oh, I do think she'll like it. Did she— Oh, no. She wouldn't have. But go on, what did she say?"
John chuckled when Clarissa winced and made a show of clamping her lips shut.
"Actually, she asked if you'd send her another of your stories," John said.
Clarissa beamed with pleasure. "I do adore your daughter. You know that, don't you?"
"The feeling is mutual," he said.
And no one adored Lucy more than he. This much went without saying. In fact, it was because of Lucy that he was here.
Like Clarissa, he far preferred the country to London. But his daughter was nearly ten, motherless for two years, and beginning to need things a father couldn't provide.
And so John was here to find her a mother.
"How's your evening going?" she asked. "Any progress on your end?"
"I don't know, Clarissa." He shook his head and nodded toward a cluster of young ladies nearby. "Trying to find someone who could love Lucy the way Eleanor did, the way you and I do…"
She bit her lip as she eyed her brother. He was handsome and titled, with a decent income to his name. Any lady would be lucky to be chosen by him. But she did not envy him such a weighty decision.
She followed his gaze to the ladies clustered nearby.
Clarissa recognized Lady Arabella at the center of the group. She wasn't closely acquainted, but everyone knew Lady Arabella. She was absurdly stunning with black, shiny locks and the sort of too-perfect beauty that was wildly intimidating.
With her lips curled up in a mysterious smile and her chin lifted high like a queen, the young lady seemed to be holding court with her entourage. And Clarissa understood her brother's weary expression.
Nothing about that young lady or those around her said “maternal.” And in those gowns with this lighting, it was nearly impossible to imagine any of them content in a quiet parlor in the countryside.
John echoed her thoughts. "Can you imagine any of these ladies reading fairy tales and hunting for mushrooms back home?"
Clarissa screwed her lips to one side to stop a veritable torrent of words. All about how lucky any woman would be to have John for a husband, not to mention Lucy as a daughter. But as loud laughter came from the group he'd nodded to—
She had to concede to his point.
"There could be one among them who'd love nothing more," she offered.
And this was true. But how to know?
Everyone here was playing a part. Including her. And John, for that matter. And if that was the case, how did one know who was actually kind? Or who had the same sort of saintly patience Lucy's mother Eleanor had had?
One didn't know. That was the answer.
Clarissa had loved her sister-in-law dearly and understood better than anyone just how difficult John's mission was. To find anyone who might replace Eleanor seemed to be a Herculean feat indeed.
"I'll make a deal with you," Clarissa said. "If we both fail on our missions this Season, I'll become a spinster aunt, and the three of us will live quite happily in the country for the rest of our days."
John's lips curved up in a smile as he lifted his glass to clink against hers. "You have a deal. Though, I think you may be underestimating your own appeal."
She tilted her head to the side. Was she? "I suppose an earl's daughter is quite a coup."
He gave her a wry look. "That's not what I meant."
She smiled to make him feel better. He was trying to bolster her confidence, and she appreciated it. "All I need is to find one sensible, suitable gentleman. It cannot be that difficult."
"Do you know…" John's smile grew as he lifted his glass to someone behind her. "I think what you need before all that is to find some friends here in London."