Always the Bluestocking

by Murdoch, Emily E K

  Patrick swallowed. So much had occurred in such a short time, where should he start? How could he encapsulate the whirlwind that was Miss Mariah Wynn with mere words?

  “I do not entirely know where to begin,” he said.

  Chester grinned. “I always think the best stories start like that. Try ‘Once upon a time,’ or ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ That ought to get you going.”

  Patrick frowned. “If you are just going to tease me, you blaggards, I will send you all home! I do not have to take that sort of tone from you, Chester.”

  “We are in earnest,” Orrinshire said quietly. He was always the peacekeeper of the group, even when they had been students. He would do anything for a quiet life, even if that meant sacrificing his own desires and wishes. “Come on, Donal. Tell us all about it.”

  He glared at Larnwick for good measure, who smiled more genially. “Truthfully, it pains me to see you so low, my friend. We came here tonight, with no notice, because a letter from you begged us to come to your side. What has happened?”

  Patrick looked around the room at his three friends. There were few people he could call on at a moment’s notice, and who would drop whatever engagements they had already made for the evening because he asked them.

  “It all started,” he said heavily, “at a wedding.”

  Orrinshire groaned. “Ye gods, do not remind me! The damned wedding is only a few months away, and I am utterly stuck with it. How does one escape a wedding?”

  Chester nudged him. “We are not here to listen to your sob story, Orrinshire. It is Donal’s turn for a little sympathy.”

  “And you have been complaining about that wedding for what seems like forever,” Larnwick cut in. “Why not do something about it, if you are so opposed?”

  Patrick grinned wryly at the sight of Orrinshire’s despondent face. “Perhaps an arranged marriage for me is not the worst idea in the world. It would certainly have prevented me from getting myself in this mess.”

  Orrinshire held his gaze as he said, “I do not believe there is anything more despicable than an arranged marriage. If I am ever blessed with a son, I would never put him through such a terrible thing, and that is the truth of it. ’Tis only the great respect I have for my mother and a few financial issues that I am going through with it at all—but,” and he cleared his throat, “this is not what we are here to talk about. What is her name?”

  Patrick shifted in his seat. Speaking her name aloud here, with his friends, would change this forever. It would cease to be a secret between them, something glorious and painful into something that was shared openly. Was he ready for the censure his friends may inflict on him?

  “Mariah,” he said. “Mariah Wynn.”

  Larnwick’s eyes widened. “The bluestocking?” Now it was his turn to receive a forceful nudge from Chester, but he protested, “Well, she is!”

  “She is indeed,” Patrick agreed, “but she is also…so much more than that. More than I thought any woman could be. More than a woman should be.”

  Orrinshire shook his head. “Please do not tell me, Donal, that you have entirely ruined any hope of an attachment with Miss Wynn. It will make my life rather uncomfortable, you know, and I hate any sort of discomfort.”

  This was not the response that Patrick had expected. “Your–your life? I did not know that you were acquainted with her!”

  The idea that Orrinshire had a passing understanding of Mariah—if anyone could understand her—lit a small flame of hope in his heart. Perhaps he could explain her to him.

  “Yes, her brother is an acquaintance of my cousin,” Orrinshire said with a wry smile. “And a family friend of mine is acquainted with her. I met them at Viscount Wynn’s only a few weeks ago—you were there, remember? You know how it is, you end up mixing in the same circles. Very bookish, very clever. I do not think I am the only one who thinks she could have made something of herself.”

  “If she had been a gentleman, she would have done,” Larnwick interjected.

  “And that,” Patrick sighed, “is precisely the problem. How different her life would have been if she had been born a gentleman. She is desperate for an education, the education of a gentleman—it is how we met, and almost every one of our encounters has been colored with it.”

  “She must understand, though,” Chester said slowly, “that is not the way of the world. You cannot simply wish the world away, or demand that it changes to suit your desires. Where would we all be if that could be true?”

  “And yet, change does happen, albeit slowly,” Larnwick added. “Once, a king ruled this land, and no one else had any say over the matter. Laws could be done and undone without heed of the people. Now we have Parliament, and the law is a matter of process.”

  “But that took hundreds of years! You cannot expect the world to change that quickly, it is simply not possible,” countered Orrinshire.

  The debate continued without the need for Patrick to interject, and he was glad of it. They could see, too, the difficulty that Mariah and others like her faced.

  “I never had you down as a bluestocking yourself, Donal,” Chester said with a smile. “How did you manage to get mixed up with Miss Wynn?”

  Patrick shrugged. “It happened, I know not how, and I found I could not leave her alone. I was drawn to her, like a moth to the flame. The more I knew of her, the more I wanted to know of her.”

  “I can see your fiery tempers having quite an interesting conversation,” Chester said. “So why are you sitting here, tail between your legs?”

  “In the end—well, I did not support her how she wanted. How I probably should have.” It pained Patrick to say the words aloud. To speak them made them even more true. Irrefutable. Unforgettable.

  No one else had spoken, and Patrick looked around at his friends. Orrinshire and Larnwick exchanged a glance.

  It was Chester who eventually broke the silence. “You fool.”

  It was not the response he had expected. “I am no such thing! Why so harsh when you do not even know the details?”

  “I heard about your bluestocking dinner,” Chester said.

  The entire room turned to stare.

  Orrinshire repeated, “Bluestocking dinner?”

  Patrick’s skin had gone cold. They had been so careful, kept it to a select group of people. Who had broken the secret?

  “Oh, do not look like that, you fool,” Chester said with a laugh. “You honestly think you can keep a secret here in Oxford? I am impressed that you were even able to pull it together before the world knew, and afterward, someone told their father, who told the club where I was. I must say, I was impressed. Over twelve bluestockings all in one place, and you lived to tell the tale!”

  “They are not like that,” Patrick snarled. The headiness of the wine was wearing off.

  “I do not doubt it,” Orrinshire said quickly, his peacekeeping talent resurfacing. “But Donal, you had evidence from that dinner of all the impressive things that women could do, that they could learn, how they could contribute to science. Did that not sway your perceptions of bluestockings?”

  Patrick hesitated. The truth, were he to speak it, was shameful. But if he did not say it now, what was the point in having his friends here to counsel him?

  “Yes,” he managed, “but I still did not think of Mariah in that way.”

  Larnwick shook his head. “What does the woman have to do to impress you?”

  “I was—I am impressed!” Patrick said hastily. “It is just…well, most of the bluestockings I have ever met were just women unable to find a husband. But Mariah…she is beautiful, damnit, and the intelligence in her eyes gives it a sparkle that…and her fury! By God, no one could ever be in any doubt if Mariah were displeased with them.”

  A smile had crept over his face, but it disappeared as soon as Chester spoke. “Did you consider her as a wife, then?”

  Patrick swallowed. “No. Perhaps. Not with any level of seriousness, not until…well.”

  N
o further words needed to be spoken. Orrinshire shook his head, Chester took a large draught of wine, and Larnwick swore softly under his breath.

  “You have put yourself in a corner, and no mistake,” Chester said. “By what I can see, you truly care for the woman, but you disagree with one of the core tenants of her life—and you’ve ruined her reputation if that news ever gets out, and you know it will.”

  “If I offered her marriage now, she would refuse it,” Patrick said grimly. “She made that perfectly clear. She has no desire to be my wife.”

  “Wife?” Orrinshire almost spat out the word, but Patrick could see that it was in irritation and not anger. “Do you want a mere wife or a companion for life? I can tell you now, they are vastly different. I should know, I am stuck with the former.”

  Chester shifted in his chair and frowned. “What is the difference?”

  “A companion for life, or a wife,” mused Orrinshire. “They sound so similar, and yet in my experience, I know which I would want. One is something chosen for you, and the other something you choose. One frees you, gives you the opportunity to be yourself, to be more yourself than you ever thought you could be. The other forces you to stick with what society wants, with what society says you should do, think, feel.”

  The room went silent after these words. Something moved uncomfortably in Patrick’s stomach. He knew what Orrinshire meant.

  Orrinshire had not taken his eyes away. “If you ask me, you had the opportunity for a companion for life who would have married you, gone through life at your side, and been by all accounts your better self. But you lost that. You lost her. You lost Mariah.”

  The discomfort became nausea in Patrick’s insides. Why had it taken a rather wine-filled evening with his friends to see?

  He had something truly incredible with Mariah—a meeting of minds, not necessarily of opinions, but was that not something even more beautiful? They had disagreed, learned, taught each other.

  He had not known the value of what he had until it was too late. Mariah had walked, ran away from him today. If there had been any hope of reconciliation, it had taken flight with her.

  “Well,” came Larnwick’s voice, “I can see by the look on your face you have finally worked it out.”

  “Pass me a drink,” Patrick said heavily. “I have no need for brains this evening. It appears that after all my blustering, all my big words, I was the stupid and uneducated one.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mariah sipped the scalding liquid and wished she had refused Priscilla’s invitation. Miss Seton was good company, and she had no reason to dislike her, but all she wanted was to be alone.

  “It is dandelion,” Priscilla said with a smile. “I asked Cook to find it especially, she knows how much I like it and one cannot usually procure it outside of London. But I told her, I said whatever the expense…”

  The sound washed over Mariah, and she made sure to nod at the right times, raise an eyebrow of surprise when necessary, and appear to her hostess that she was paying attention.

  Taking tea was one of the things young ladies did, Mariah knew that, and that was one of the reasons she despised doing it so much. A gentleman was just as likely as a lady to enjoy tea. Why could gentlemen not take tea? Why could they not sit inside while ladies went outside, hunting, shooting, chasing dogs up and down woodland with laughter ringing in their ears?

  It was all so damned unfair. Mariah smiled at the word she would never say in public for risk of being thought unseemly. Society censured her very words, and yet she danced to its tune. Was she not doing exactly what was expected of her as a young lady—and wasn’t that why her blood boiled?

  She should not have come. She should have continued doing what she had done every day this week, which was sit at home and feel pain and anger seep through her bones.

  “It finally arrived today, you know, all covered in gold leaf. The best engraving, I think.”

  Mariah was shaken from her thoughts by Priscilla’s words. “They engraved the tea?”

  Priscilla stared in astonishment. “Tea? Mariah, I stopped speaking about tea five minutes ago.”

  Cheeks flushed, Mariah took another sip from her cup to avoid her friend’s glare.

  “No, I was speaking of the invitation—Charles’s wedding invitation,” Priscilla said, her voice wavering as she put her cup and saucer down. “I must admit, I did not think it would arrive for a while, there was so much confusion over whether the wedding would go ahead, and then I thought, I may not be invited. But no, it is to be in a few months, and…”

  Mariah did not have the energy nor the desire to keep her attention on Priscilla’s words. Another wedding. Another woman giving herself to a gentleman, handing over all her goods, her worldly possessions, and losing her identity in his.

  What a strange place the world was.

  She had been quite happy keeping to her rooms but someone—she suspected Priscilla, though she would never ask, as her friend would deny it—had written to her brother. A letter had arrived, formal as he always was, and demanded that she make at least one social visit each week to ensure she left the house.

  Mariah snorted as she finished her cup. Who would have thought her brother—Edward!—would strongarm her through a letter! But then, they had been on such poor terms for so long, the thought that he cared enough to make such a demand was enough to secure her obedience.

  Priscilla’s chatter about her friend and his wedding continued without any sign of abatement, and Mariah tried to prevent her eyes glazing over.

  How was this better than staying at home? Instead of keeping to her rooms and allowing herself to wallow in misery, she was in Miss Seton’s home, wallowing silently.

  “Do not you think?”

  Mariah jolted herself from her reverie, and instinctively said, “Yes, of course.”

  It had not been the right thing to say. Priscilla frowned. “You were not listening, were you?”

  Mariah swallowed. She had attended…sort of. “You said that Charles had become distant with each passing week, and so that’s why you believed you might not be invited to the wedding, but it had arrived after all. You said that you did not know much of the bride, but that you hoped to meet her before the wedding day itself.”

  Priscilla blinked and then smiled. “Well, then. Yes, I think it would be better if she and I met before she…she married Charles. My mother thinks it a strange idea, but the more I think on it…”

  Her friend was mollified, but Mariah knew she really must pay more attention.

  “More tea?”

  Mariah nodded and held out her cup as Priscilla poured liquid. “So she is not a childhood acquaintance of the Duke of Orrinshire, then? I know you and he were practically raised together.”

  Was that a flush on Priscilla’s cheeks?

  “Not exactly, more like neighbors. It just seems very strange to think he will be wedding someone I do not know,” her friend said as she poured her own tea. “And really, an arranged marriage! Quite barbaric if you ask me.”

  Mariah laughed despite her personal misery. “Until a few weeks ago, I think I would have considered it barbaric, too. But do not royalty still arrange marriages almost at the cradle?”

  “Yes, but Charles is—I mean, the Duke of Orrinshire is hardly royalty.”

  “Not far off, though,” Mariah said thoughtfully. “How is it much different from young ladies coming out, being introduced to the right people, and mamas in the background having their little conversations? I would say that most marriages are arranged, one way or another. And you know, there are some benefits.”

  There was an astonished gasp from Priscilla. “What can you possibly think is the benefit of an arranged marriage?”

  “Well, the guarantee of a husband,” said Mariah blandly. She looked around the room; it was opulent but not gaudy. There was wealth in the Seton family and had been for generations. “If you do not wed, you can continue to live in the manner to which you have become accust
omed. Not every lady is so lucky. For some, a husband is the only security that she can hope for.”

  This made Priscilla think for a moment. Then she said, “Because we cannot work for a living, you mean?”

  “Not if we wish to remain in polite society,” Mariah said darkly. “I must admit, I have thought of it more these last few days. The guarantee of a husband, some respectability, someone to order books for the library? I could think of worse things.”

  The memory of her argument with Patrick forced its way through her mind, much as she wished to forget it. Had she been too harsh—or perhaps, not harsh enough?

  It had been impossible in that fleeting moment of anger and shame to do anything but speak directly from the heart. Had she said too much? Why had she completely broken…well, she was not entirely sure what to call the strange wonderfulness they had experienced together.

  Was it love? Was it envy, foolishness, desire? A wonderful mix of all?

  Patrick should have supported her. He should have known she needed his support, and yet he did not give her any at all. She had needed him in the debate and outside the Bodleian Library, and he had just…allowed everything to happen. When she had needed him, as a woman, as a friend, as a lover, what had he done? Nothing.

  “I am not completely stupid, you know.”

  Mariah started in her chair, spilling hot tea over the cup and into her saucer. “What?”

  Priscilla was glaring. “I know you are not listening to me, and I think I know exactly why. Tell me—”

  Mariah was saved, at least in the short term, by the entrance of a footman with a cake on a silver stand.

  “Ah, Edwards, I did wonder,” Priscilla said sternly. “Please remember that cake is to be served with tea in the future.”

  The footman was a young man, almost a boy, really. He pinked and nodded before placing the cake on its tray beside his mistress. He bowed low and left the room without saying a word.