The Other Harlow Girl

by Lynn Messina

  “This is your official seven-minute warning,” he said. “The room will open in two minutes, and you will be expected to begin five minutes later. Most speakers find it calming to sit in one of the chairs behind the podium while the rows are filling up, although tonight’s assembly will be much more intimate than our usual events. Trent wanted to come in to give you the customary seven-minute warning, but I asked him to please let me, as the fact that you’re here to receive this warning at all is my fault and I feel I must take this opportunity to apologize one last time for the unconscionable disservice I have done you.”

  The marquess spoke quickly and at length, and his sentences all seemed to run together, as if he wasn’t clear where one ended and the other began. Listening to him chatter, Vinnie realized he was as anxious as she was about her presentation. It was everywhere about him—in the tight pull of his voice, in the rambling way he talked, in the fearful spark in his astonishing aquamarine eyes. The famously composed marquess who had calmly and infuriatingly claimed responsibility for his own unfortunate soaking was nowhere in evidence.

  Nonplussed, Vinnie stared at him as everything fell into place. All at once, she understood why she had been unsettled by him and angered by him and flustered and confused and entertained and compelled.

  It had always been there, just beneath the surface, but she had been too overwhelmed by her response to him to notice, and it was only now that she could feel worry for her flickering off him like candlelight that she could understand her own feelings.

  The realization that she loved him was staggering and terrifying, but it was wonderful, too, for after the debacle of her engagement she had given up on ever finding someone she could trust and respect, let alone love.

  Yet even as she delighted in the relief that Windbourne had not damaged her heart beyond repair, she conceded that he had permanently damaged her prospects. A murderer and a liar with no conscience or allegiance to the country that bore him, he had remade her in his own image, forcing her to brutally end his life and then lie about it to the entire world.

  Nothing could come of anything—her feelings for the marquess, his feelings for her—if she didn’t tell him the truth. Giving another person the power to break her heart was the one thing that scared Vinnie more than making her presentation. It was the one thing grander than this rotunda and its glorious dome and its graceful columns and its two tiers of elegant seats. It was also the one thing that had terrified the Harlow Hoyden and turned the urbane Duke of Trent into a callow youth.

  With a heart swooning with hope and fear and the understanding that she was about to do a remarkably reckless thing but determined not to let that cower her, for she was also about to give a lecture on drainage systems from a podium never before visited by a woman to an audience of cynical men who disapproved of her and the outcome of that was already too unpredictable to bear, so why not take this risk, too, she said, “I killed my fiancé. He was a spy and a traitor and he had tried to kill Emma once, and just as I was saving her from his next attempt, he swung around with a fish knife that he intended to drive into my stomach, so I shot him.”

  Vinnie spoke quickly but calmly with a comforting sense of detachment as if she were watching herself speak from the gallery above. She saw astonishment blaze into Huntly’s eyes, dispelling the anxiety, but whatever else he might feel—and what that would be, she couldn’t imagine—she did not have a chance to find out, for as soon as she said the word shot, the doors to the lecture hall opened and a booming voice announced that the program would begin in five minutes. In walked the twenty-five other members of the British Horticultural Society and Mr. Berry and the esteemed clerk’s wife, whose gracious presence would lend the all-male proceedings the hint of propriety they needed.

  Suddenly, the conversation of serious men filled the room, and Vinnie jumped back, afraid that Huntly might try to address her remarkable confession surrounded by his colleagues. She settled into one of the chairs behind the podium, folded her hands, turned her head down and waited patiently for the program to start. Silently, she reviewed her presentation, grateful to have something to take her mind off Huntly. She didn’t know where he was or what he was doing, for she’d resolved not to look at him again until her lecture was over. The task ahead of her was sufficiently daunting without adding the further challenge of trying to decipher the marquess’s emotions.

  The room grew silent as Trent approached the podium to begin the proceedings. “As you know, it is customary for the sponsoring member of the society to introduce the candidate, but as we are making many breaks with tradition this evening, I requested the privilege, which the Marquess of Huntly graciously acceded,” the duke said smoothly. If he had any concerns about her performance, he did not show it. “I wanted to introduce Miss Lavinia Harlow, not because she is my sister-in-law but because she is among the most resourceful and dedicated horticulturalists I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. She has a vast knowledge of drainage systems, which, I’m convinced, exceeds even that of the great England landscape artist Capability Brown. Miss Harlow is also in the process of inventing an elasticized watering hose employing Mr. Samuel Brill’s method for waterproofing leather shoes. I’m sure it sounds outlandish, but I’ve witnessed her progress over recent months and promise you that any day now each of you will be employing her invention in your gardens and conservatories.”

  If Vinnie had expected to be heartened by the duke’s admiring speech, she was disappointed to discover it had the opposite effect, for the woman he described sounded at once insufferably proficient and intolerably unfeminine. The members of the British Horticultural Society were far too conservative to find such a combination admirable or even bearable.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought defiantly, for there’s nothing I can do about it now. Then she smothered a smile as she realized there had been nothing she could do about it before either. She could not have changed her sex to appease the society even if she had desired to.

  “I could stand up here all evening singing the praises of Miss Harlow,” Trent continued, “but I know that would embarrass her, for she is as modest as she is skilled. For that reason, I will content myself with asking you to please join me in welcoming Miss Lavinia Harlow to the podium.”

  Taking one final deep breath, Vinnie stood up and walked over to Trent. Mr. Berry’s list of protocols, though extensive, did not address how a female speaker should greet her brother-in-law, and she decided to hold out her hand for shaking as she had seen her sister do time and again. It was a bold, masculine gesture, but she figured it was too late to pretend to possess a proper womanly fragility, for a properly fragile woman would not have been there in the first place.

  Trent gave her hand a firm shake, then bent over it as if bowing and said softly in her ear, “Please note the spot of green over Mr. Townshend’s left ear. Though he does not know it, a piece of spinach has attached itself to his person.”

  The absurdity of the statement and the wink that accompanied it brought a smile to her face, and it was with that perfectly composed expression that she took the podium and thanked the honored members of the British Horticultural Society for inviting her to speak.

  “My topic this evening is drainage,” she stated forthrightly with a glance at her notes. She tilted her head down not because she needed to review the material, which she had all but memorized, but because she couldn’t bear to look at the intimidating crowd before her. “Achieving the ideal system of drains had long bedeviled me in the conservatory in my family’s ancestral home and again in my brother’s town house. As all horticulturalists know, ensuring that one’s plants receive the proper amount of water is vital to the successful propagation of any species. Through a series of experimentations, many of which failed, I arrived at a successful method of drainage for both locations.”

  Vinnie paused as she turned the page and forced herself to look up, for burying her nose in the podium seemed cowardly. She was far too nervous to make out individual fa
ces, let alone a leaf of spinach over Mr. Townshend’s left ear, and all she saw was a group of men politely paying attention. She knew full well their courtesy did not stem from respect for her person but rather for themselves and their esteemed institution, but she didn’t mind. Her goal for the evening was singular and simple, for all she hoped to accomplish was to express her ideas cogently without embarrassing herself. As she spoke about the various trials and failures that had led to the perfecting of her own drainage systems, she realized she would meet that objective. She knew her material well and could articulate it in language that was both elegant and basic.

  All the material she covered in her lecture was gathered in her pamphlet, “A Horticulturalist’s Rudimentary Guide to the Implementation of Drainage Systems,” which the British Horticultural Society itself had published. Although their own organization had issued the booklet, none of the members had actually read it, and now that they heard the information it contained, they were surprised to find it helpful. Far from providing rudimentary tips to amateur gardeners, the pamphlet offered highly advanced, relevant advice, and when Vinnie opened her guide to show a graph charting moisture levels, Lord Peter Waldegrave raised a hand to request a personal copy so that he may see the illustration better. Several other members echoed the appeal, and she waited patiently as Mr. Berry handed out twenty-six copies of her book, its widest distribution by far.

  Vinnie resumed her lecture a few minutes later, picking up the discussion of moisture levels exactly where she left off, but she had to stop again almost immediately when Lord Richard Marlton asked her to clarify what she meant by soil density.

  “Soil density is a term I created to describe how compact the soil is,” she explained, instructing her audience to turn to page fourteen, where they would find a chart of varying soil densities.

  Additional questions followed as the society members digested her ideas and delved deeper into her concepts, and by the time she finished her presentation an hour later, she felt more like an Oxford don leading a seminar than a supplicant seeking acceptance.

  The ovation Vinnie received was significantly more enthusiastic than the polite smattering of applause she’d anticipated, and, flushing with delight, she bowed her head as she thanked them for their time and consideration. Without question, she was the modest person Trent had described in his introduction, but who, she wondered, could meet such overwhelming approval head on? It felt too brash or brazen.

  Overcoming her natural reticence, she graciously accepted the well wishes of the many members who approached her to congratulate her on such an edifying lecture. Although she was no longer in danger of fainting, she was still grateful for the extra support the podium provided.

  “Admirably done, Miss Harlow,” the Earl of Moray said as he bowed over her hand. He was a tall, lithe man whose elegant waistcoat did not seem to suffer from having been produced by the second-best tailor in London. “Admirably done indeed.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, sparing him barely a glance as her eyes swept the room for a glimpse of the marquess. The lecture had ended more than fifteen minutes ago, and she had yet to catch sight of him. She had spied him once during her lecture—he was seated to the left in the second row behind Sir Charles Barton—but looking directly at him had caused her to lose her train of thought so she immediately glanced away.

  “I found the lecture to be remarkably informative,” the earl added with an eager smile, “and hope I may call on you to seek further edification.”

  Assuring the earl that she was more than happy to provide all the edification he needed, she turned to respond to another comment from Sir Charles and suddenly Huntly was there, not next to her, not close enough to touch, but within her sights and only a few feet away. Their eyes met, and Vinnie’s heart hitched as she recalled their last exchange, her reckless confession, the way she had all but laid her heart at his feet. She opened her mouth as if to say something to him, then immediately closed it because she didn’t know what she intended to say. Her mind was blank, cleared of all thought by the indecent brightness that glowed in his magnificent blue-green eyes.

  She felt the breathless vertigo of an hour before return and struggled to reply intelligibly to Moray’s next comment—something about promising to call on her at the earliest convenience.

  “Yes, of course, please,” she said absently, bestowing a brief look at him before darting her eyes back to Huntly. He was no longer there. She looked and looked, even standing on her tippy-toes and stretching her neck, but she could not find him. In the space of mere seconds, he’d removed himself entirely from her vicinity.

  She refused to be troubled by the marquess’s abrupt departure, for it could mean one of a hundred things, such as he was thirsty or was called away by an associate, and she determinedly put it out of her mind as Lord Marlton asked her to elaborate on soil porosity, another one of her concepts. While she explained aeration, Trent appeared beside her and gave her hand a crushing squeeze, which she correctly interpreted as the silent version of a triumphant scream. Without pausing in her speech, she turned her head slightly and thanked him with a smile. Marlton, who was reading the glossary in the appendix, did not notice either gesture, nor did Sir Percival Lonsdale, who was looking at the pamphlet over his shoulder.

  Eventually, the crowd dispersed as the members of the club retired to the dining room to have supper, and Mr. Berry, who had been eager to disavow all knowledge of her only two hours before, took the opportunity to reiterate how pleased he was with the depth and usefulness of the pamphlet. As he himself had commissioned the work, Vinnie once again found the untempered surprise in his tone puzzling, but she was nonetheless grateful for his enthusiasm.

  From a seat in the penultimate row, Mrs. Berry coughed discreetly, and her husband, instantly heeding the signal, broke off his conversation to beg her forgiveness for keeping her so late. Vinnie was fairly certain the apology was directed at her, but she couldn’t quite overcome the feeling that it was actually intended for his wife, who clearly did not find society business as engrossing as Mr. Berry.

  Mindful of the service the woman had done her, Vinnie thanked her for kindly chaperoning the event.

  “I don’t mind doing it once,” Mrs. Berry said with a hint of peevishness that clearly indicated she would not make it a regular habit should Vinnie have the impudence to actually become a member.

  As that was unlikely to happen, despite that evening’s success, Vinnie assured the clerk’s wife she would not be called upon to make the sacrifice again. Mrs. Berry harrumphed in response.

  With an anxious glance at his wife, Mr. Berry offered to accompany Miss Harlow to her carriage, a suggestion for which she was grateful, as it had been a long, exhausting day and she was ready to go home. Another few minutes, and she might fall actually asleep on her feet. The thought was amusing because several times during the event she had imagined herself lying on the floor, and she glanced down, wondering if there was something inevitable about the black marble tiles.

  As he guided Vinnie through the building, he reviewed the voting protocol as a courtesy, for, as he mentioned, all society protocols were thoroughly explained to her upon arrival. She did not doubt his veracity, but she had been too anxious to listen his protocols before the presentation and she was too exhausted to hear them now.

  “Our process is more highly evolved than other clubs such as White’s or Brooks’s,” he stated proudly, “for the blackball system is a blunt instrument and the society prefers an apparatus that is more finely tuned. As such, no one individual member gets to decide the fate of a candidate. He must build a coalition of like-minded peers that equals or exceeds twenty percent of the membership, or, as it stand now, six men. If the naysayers fall short of their goal by five percent or less, they are given an opportunity to present their case to the membership in hopes of changing one or two minds. If that happens, recount protocol takes over.”

  Mr. Berry continued to explain the procedures governi
ng the election of new members until they reached the entry hall, and Vinnie, who found the process overly involved and complex, was almost grateful that she would never have to follow the rules herself.

  True to her word, Emma was exactly where she said she would be, and when Vinnie opened the door to the carriage, she found her brother, Roger, had joined them. The coach had been turned into an intimate cardroom, with brandy for the gentlemen and ratafia for the ladies and loo at ha’penny a point. Emma had just declared herself winner of the trick when she noticed Vinnie’s face, which was pale from exhaustion, and she dropped the cards as she reached for her sister.

  “Oh, you poor dear, you look as if you’ve been pulled behind a horse for a week,” Emma said, wrapping her arms around Vinnie as she made room for her on the bench. Sarah caught the wineglass before it spilled and placed it in a basket on the floor. “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat? Mrs. Chater prepared some meat pies and pickled vegetables.”

  The carriage door closed and a few moments later, the vehicle lurched forward. Vinnie rested her head against the cushion, closed her eyes and said, “I would love something to eat, yes. I’m famished.”

  Sarah carefully withdrew the meat pies from the basket and held them up. “I have ham or sausage.”

  With her eyes still closed, Vinnie requested the former and gratefully received the ham. Her brother tried to take the other pie, but his wife tsked in disapproval and reminded him he’d had a proper dinner at his club. She then offered to prepare him a plate of pickled asparagus, to which he responded with a request for additional brandy. Emma said she would like asparagus and brandy, causing Sarah to tsk again.