by Eloisa James
Josie’s eyes widened. “Where shall we eat breakfast?”
Lady Griselda waved her hand in the air. “Breakfast should be taken in one’s own chambers. One mustn’t allow gentlemen to become too accustomed to seeing you any time of the day that they wish. Darling”—for that was what she called her brother—“Darling, do take Rafe out to some sort of male pursuit, won’t you? Find a rabbit and tree it, or something of that nature.”
The Earl of Mayne, Tess was happy to note, had a great deal of solid affection for his sister. He leaned over the back of the settee and tweaked one of her curls. “Planning on corrupting poor Miss Essex and her sisters with a great deal of nonsense about what ladies should and shouldn’t do, are you?”
“I have a small amount of expertise in that area,” Lady Griselda said loftily. “And if I am to bring these ladies into society, I shall naturally give them the benefit of my experience.”
“And I am sure it will be a most instructive occasion,” Rafe put in. He was inclined to laugh at Lady Griselda as well, Tess noticed. She didn’t seem to mind, though, but treated him with the same familiarity as her own brother. “Perhaps we should stay, Mayne, and make certain that we are not maligned in our absence.”
“Be off with the two of you,” she said roundly. “And no smirking on your part, Your Grace. I’ll have you know that as soon as I’ve married off my own brother, I shall be thinking of you.”
“My optimism is unmarred,” Rafe said, escaping out the door. “Threaten as you wish, Grissie, your brother’s reached a ripe old age without marriage!”
Lady Griselda waited until the door shut behind Mayne before she turned to the sisters. The most important, of course, was Tess. The woman who showed every sign of making her marriage-shy brother actually step up to the altar. She was lovely, even wearing bombazine. Truly lovely.
Griselda felt a smile curl on her lips. Things couldn’t be better. “Now,” she said, “we can talk.” She sat up. Griselda made it a point to sit up straight as rarely as possible, since her figure showed to its best advantage on a slight incline, but that particular rule—like so many others in life—only had pertinence when there were gentlemen in the room.
“We are most grateful that you agreed to chaperone us,” Tess ventured, eyeing Lady Griselda rather nervously. Mayne’s sister was quite intimidating, if the truth be known. Tess could tell that Annabel was memorizing every single aspect of Griselda’s appearance, from the tiny ribbons on her slippers to the matching ribbons adorning her ringlets.
“It is my pleasure,” Griselda replied. “In all truth.” Then she smiled at Tess, and it was as if that china shepherdess came to vivid life. “I had almost lost hope that my darling brother would marry, and now I have hopes in that direction.”
Tess could feel her cheeks warming and would have protested that Mayne had said nothing to her, but Annabel intervened.
“We are naturally delighted to think that Tess may have attracted the attention of the earl,” she said.
“Annabel!” Tess protested.
“I much prefer plain speaking,” Griselda said. “In fact, in order for me to launch the four of you onto the marriage market, we shall have to be ruthlessly clear about certain facts among us. Four husbands are not easy to acquire in one fell swoop, even if we include my brother amongst the four. Although, you may be a little young, my dear.” She turned to Josie. “Do forgive me for not knowing your age. Are you out of the schoolroom?”
“No,” Josie said quickly. “I’m not. Our guardian has hired a governess, who should arrive tomorrow morning.”
Tess opened her mouth, and then thought twice of it. If Josie wasn’t ready to be launched onto the season, then who was she to insist that her little sister do so? She was only fifteen, after all.
“Good,” Griselda said briskly. “Because I don’t mind telling you, dearest, that with your figure, the gentlemen are going to line up in droves pawing at the door. ’Twould be best for your sisters if we fire them off on the market without your competition.”
Josie blinked incredulously. “I’m fat,” she finally said.
“No, you are not,” Griselda stated with utmost confidence. “Believe me, gentlemen see slim and think scrawny. Scrawny is most unattractive. Thank goodness, that is not a fault that we share!” She gracefully reclined back against the settee. “Tell me, Juliet—is it Juliet?”
“Josephine, actually, but I am called Josie within the family.”
“We are family now,” Griselda said with a twinkle. “Now, Josie dearest, would you call me fat by any stretch of the imagination?”
“No, certainly not,” Josie gasped. Griselda’s body had the sultry curves of a Renaissance gentlewoman, those luscious curves that used to be nursed and enhanced by Renaissance clothing, designed to swoon to a narrow waist, and then blossom (with the help of starched petticoats) to rounded hips. Of course, these days clothing was designed to hang on a slim form as if a woman had no more curves than a tree.
“I suppose one could be foolish enough to call me plump,” Griselda said, looking still only at Josie. “But I assure you that no gentleman in the world would agree with such a brainless assessment.” There was a sultry look in her eyes that showed she understood precisely how potent curves could be and that she wouldn’t trade one of her lush curves for a moment.
Tess truly liked Griselda now.
Griselda gave a mesmerized Josie one final smile and straightened again. “So,” she said briskly, “Josie would like to wait for a year before entering the season. Who’s next in age after Josie? I am guessing that you are, Miss Imogen. How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Please, you must call me Imogen as well.”
“As long as you all address me as Griselda,” she said unperturbed. “Not Grissie, if you please. My brother addresses me by that paltry diminutive, and it always makes me feel like a frizzled curl.”
“I am twenty,” Imogen said, “and I have no wish to go on the season either.”
Griselda raised one eyebrow. “Now that might pose a problem, my dear. You are not precisely a spring chicken, you know.”
But Imogen was unoffended. “Since I don’t intend to marry, I would consider entering the season with the pretense of being eligible for marriage a falsehood.”
“And why, pray, do you not intend to marry?”
Imogen raised her chin. “I have given my heart away.”
“Ah,” Griselda said. “You lucky child. I seem to be quite unable to do that myself, although I regularly try to encourage the practice. In the end, you know, they’re just men, aren’t they?”
Tess choked, and Annabel giggled outright, but Imogen’s chin just went higher. “It was no hardship to give my heart to Draven. I love him!”
“And does this Draven return your feelings?” Griselda inquired.
“Lord Maitland is promised in marriage,” Tess put in, trying to head off the question of his feelings for Imogen.
“Maitland? Maitland?” Griselda said. “Do you mean Draven Maitland?”
Imogen nodded.
Griselda eyed her and clearly almost said something, but rethought it. “A predicament,” she said at last. “I do adore a social problem. Something to sink my teeth into. Now the problem here is twofold.”
Imogen waited, eyes wide.
Griselda said, “You do remember that I advocated utter honesty among us, darling? Because otherwise how am I to launch you on the season and chaperone you, etc., etc.?”
Imogen nodded. She was sitting bolt upright on the sofa, looking as if she were about to face the Inquisition.
“The truth of the matter is that Draven Maitland is, by all accounts, something of a hellion. Unlikely to make a good husband, due to an addiction to the track and—” Griselda coughed delicately—“although this may well be odious gossip and not true, slightly less intelligent than what one might hope in a husband. The former characteristic is naturally more difficult. A lack of intelligence in a man is no
t always a fault, after all. But am I incorrect in thinking that he spends a good portion of his day at the racetrack?”
“No,” Imogen said reluctantly.
“That speaks for itself, doesn’t it?” Griselda said. “My, how boring I find all that talk of fetlocks and furlongs and all the rest of it. Mind you,” she said to Tess, “my brother can talk up quite a dust storm when he wishes, and all over that stable of his.”
“I don’t mind talk of horses,” Tess replied, somewhat untruthfully. “My father was just the same.”
“Your father,” Griselda said, and stopped again. “Well, sometime you’re going to have to explain him to me. You do know that your dowries are horseflesh, do you not?”
Tess nodded.
Imogen said, “The fact that you consider Draven to be an objectionable spouse due to his—his racing and his—well, I think he’s remarkably intelligent—that is beside the point because he is betrothed!”
“Yes,” Griselda said thoughtfully. “So I’ve heard.” She turned to Annabel. “Have you a man hiding in the wings as well?”
“Absolutely not,” said Annabel with a huge grin. She had clearly recognized a kindred spirit. “I am open to suggestion, although I have decided that I should like a title.”
“This is the very first time I have chaperoned anyone onto the market, darling, but I might as well confess that I would take it extremely badly if one of you were to marry a plain mister.” Griselda and Annabel exchanged looks of perfect understanding.
“Now,” she said, turning to Tess, “I don’t want you to think that merely because my brother is utterly enchanted with you that I am not your advocate if you wish to refuse him. I am the first to admit that Mayne is not everyone’s blue-eyed boy. In fact, ever since he was jilted last spring—”
She stopped abruptly, looking as if she’d swallowed a spider.
That probably happened quite often to Griselda, Tess thought. Her tongue rattled on ahead of her mind. “Jilted?” she asked. “Was the earl betrothed, then?”
Griselda cast a glance at Josie. “Ah, no. And the past hardly signifies, given that he’s on the point of declaring himself to you, darling.”
“Of course,” Tess murmured. She couldn’t decide whether it made Mayne more attractive or less, to think of another woman rejecting him. A married woman, it appeared, from Griselda’s discomfiture. Probably less attractive.
“Now the question is,” Griselda said, “what about Felton? I mean, here he is in the house. One couldn’t pray for a better opportunity—and believe me, there are ladies all over England praying for just that opportunity.”
Annabel said, “Opportunity?”
“My darling, surely you have been told who Felton is?”
They all blinked at her.
“You haven’t? Oh my. He’s better than titled.” Griselda turned to Annabel. “Over two thousand pounds a year in rents, and that’s only the land. There are those who say that he owns the greater part of Bond Street, which is to say nothing of his holdings in stocks. He plays the market.”
“Oh,” Annabel said, light dawning in her eyes.
“Precisely.” Griselda nodded. “Here is Felton, providentially to hand. He may be a mere gentleman, but he has the most exquisite manners of anyone under a duke—and believe me, dears, his manners are far more polished than our royal dukes. It would make me extremely happy to see both you and Tess well away before we dealt with the little problem of Imogen and Lord Maitland.”
“There’s no way to deal with my feelings for Draven,” Imogen said half-angrily. She was the only sister who seemed untouched by Griselda’s charm. “I feel the way I feel, and I will not marry anyone other than Draven. And since he doesn’t wish to marry me, I shall remain unmarried.”
Griselda cast her a cool look that made Imogen’s back stiffen even more. “In that case, our only request would be that you not stand in the way of your sisters.”
“I can assure you that I would never stand in their way!” Imogen said rather wildly.
“Excellent. I would ask you to reconsider your notion of declining a season. If you are less than a success, then there will be no further questions should you eschew the season next year. But if you simply don’t attend, everyone will be curious.”
Imogen opened her mouth, but Griselda held up a magisterial hand.
“When the ton is curious, their imaginations grow quite fertile. As soon as they discover the Essex sisters are marriageable young women, they would wonder mightily at the absence of one of you. Wonder leads to speculation, and before you know it, you’ll be known as the sister with one leg. Or an attribute even less attractive.”
Imogen seemed struck by this.
Griselda turned back to Annabel. “Now, as to you, I think we are in agreement as to Mr. Felton’s superb qualifications for matrimony?”
Annabel’s mouth curved. “Absolutely.”
“Felton is rather extraordinary,” Griselda said meditatively. “There are those who accuse him of all sorts of hard-hearted dealings in business. Certainly he has never maintained a gentlemanly distance from the markets, a fact that his mother has never been able to forgive him for.”
“What do you mean?” Tess asked.
Griselda shrugged. “One hears rumors. His mother is very sensitive to matters of consequence, because she married below herself; she is the daughter of an earl, but he is merely a baron’s third son, or some such. I suppose she’d prefer her son was not so flamboyantly successful at commerce.” Her mouth curved. “There’s not a woman in London who agrees with her.”
“They’re estranged because he plays the markets?” Annabel said. “Are his parents so wealthy, then?”
“Oh, they’re well enough off, with a large estate in the country,” Griselda said. “I think the real crux of the disharmony must be Felton’s financial dealings, but I never heard the right of it. I did hear a rumor that he declines to share his ill-gotten gains with his family, so that might be it.”
She looked directly at Annabel. “None of that matters a pin. A man who won’t speak to his mother, after all, is a man who comes without a mother-in-law, and you may take that from me, m’dear: ’tis a marvelous piece of luck.”
To Tess, it sounded quite sad, but when she opened her mouth to ask another question, Griselda cut her off. “Why, they practically live next door and never speak. It’s quite amusing, in its own way. But enough of that lamentable family.”
“I think we are fairly well set,” Annabel said. “Tess shall quite possibly marry your brother Mayne. I shall quite possibly marry Mr. Felton, if he is in the least amenable. I shall make a concerted effort to inform him of my intentions, beginning this very afternoon at the races.”
Griselda looked at her thoughtfully. “If you don’t mind my saying so, darling, I shall look forward to it. One is never too old to learn from a master.”
“A high compliment indeed,” Annabel said, grinning at her. “Although quite unwarranted, I assure you.”
“Lord Maitland and his mother are joining us for the races,” Imogen broke in with her usual lack of attention to the subject of conversation. “Apparently Miss Pythian-Adams will follow in a carriage, as she doesn’t ride.” Her lips curled.
“Neither do I,” said Griselda, unperturbed by Imogen’s scornful eyes. “I have always found bouncing around on the tail of a horse enveloped in a cloud of dust more than tedious. Plus, horses invariably have yellow teeth. I loathe yellow teeth. My father-in-law had them, and I lived in fear that poor, poor Willoughby’s teeth would yellow before my very eyes. Perhaps it was fortunate that he died before it came to that.”
“Was your husband named Willoughby?” Tess asked, with some fascination.
Griselda nodded. “It’s been ten years since he died. Naturally, I miss him more every day. But enough of that unsavory subject. I shall enact my chaperonage to the best of my ability, meaning that I will attempt to leave you unchaperoned on every possible occasion and let you both effect
the business without fuss. And I shall arrange for waltzing. There is nothing like the marked impropriety of clasping a lady to his breast to encourage a reluctant male into the path of virtue. By which I mean marriage, of course,” she added, probably because Tess, for one, was likely looking bewildered.
She turned a sharp eye on Imogen. “The only way to extract a man from an undesirable engagement is to play a very chilly game indeed. Do you understand me?”
Imogen nodded.
Griselda rose to her feet. “I am quite looking forward to the next fortnight or so. I’m not sure which will be the more delightful: to watch my brother court a lovely young woman or see the elusive Mr. Felton ensnared whilst I am there and able to make a full report to all the dowagers in London who have tried to match him to their daughters.”
She paused in thought with her fingers to her lips, presenting a magnificent picture of elegant womanhood from the blushing rose on her bonnet to the silken toes of her slippers.
“Mr. Felton,” she decided, turning toward the door. “One’s family must always take second place, alas, to an on-dit such as this. Luckily, I brought a great quantity of stationery with me.”
Annabel took Tess’s arm as they left the room, and whispered, “I hope you know what a responsibility you have escaped by allowing yourself to be courted by Mayne. I am apparently going to launch a courtship in which a simple kiss is likely to be broadcast to all of London.”
“Mr. Felton is not the sort of gentleman who will kiss you without asking for one’s hand in marriage,” Tess said.