Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  Beside them, Clare’s slim shoulders stiffened.

  He wasn’t surprised by Maggie’s offer. She had been tossing him none-too-subtle smiles all afternoon. Worse, with Clare’s rejection so firmly felt, it was hard to remember why he ought to avoid such an invitation. Still, he was not quite the scoundrel she had once accused him of being, and he would not use one woman for the purpose of inspiring envy in another.

  He unpried the maid’s fingers. “I’m afraid I promised to spend tomorrow afternoon visiting with Lady Austerley.”

  “Isn’t tomorrow her musicale?” Clare asked sharply.

  Daniel gritted his teeth. “I suppose. But I always read to her Saturday afternoons.” And he was determined to keep this appointment and try one last time to talk the dowager countess out of her folly.

  Maggie’s face fell. “Oh.” She chewed on her lower lip, which was rather full and inviting, though he perversely preferred the pair just beyond, which at the moment were firmed in stern disapproval. “Perhaps next week, then?” the maid countered.

  “Dr. Merial will not be returning next week, Maggie.” Clare’s eyes met Daniel’s over the maid’s head. “I believe I’ve proven my ankle is healed enough now to no longer require a doctor’s care. That was always the agreement, wasn’t it?”

  “But . . . we can see him again.” Geoffrey’s voice rang out, hurt and petulant. “Can’t we?”

  “Geoffrey and I were just saying we ought to take Dr. Merial to Ascot,” Lucy added. “He clearly knows a great deal about horses. Why, with his expertise, I’ve no doubt we can finally pick a winner this year.”

  Daniel’s chest tightened to hear of their plan. Hadn’t he known it would come to this? They were trying to sidestep their sister’s wishes, and so he would have to be the strong one here and insist on a permanent good-bye.

  “I am afraid it is impossible. My duties call, and I’ve neglected them enough as it is.” He shook his head. “And you know as well as I they would not permit someone like me at Ascot.”

  “But you’d be with us,” Geoffrey protested. “Attending as our guest. They’d never need know you’re not a proper gentleman.”

  “At least, they needn’t if you would wear a hat,” Lucy added.

  Daniel tugged a hand through his hair. “They would know.” Hat or no, the strands were too dark and thick to pass for anything but exotic. His features might be pleasing to most women’s eyes, but they were not aristocratic features. “Do you want to know why I know something of horses, Geoffrey?” At the boy’s eager nod, he tossed himself over the edge of this cliff he’d been pretending he could scale. It scarcely mattered anymore whether Clare thought well of him or not, after all. And this bit of truth could only hurry along the necessary good-bye. “My father was a horse trader, and Roma at that.”

  Geoffrey’s eyes widened. “Gor! A Gypsy horse trader?”

  “Yes.” Daniel knew the boy meant no insult, and so he didn’t react as he might have if one of his peers had muttered the words. “He was well-respected, and dealt with gentlemen of means, but he was a horse trader nonetheless.”

  Lucy’s expression was suddenly sympathetic. “You said your father was a horse trader?”

  “He died ten years ago,” Daniel admitted, “after suffering a crushed leg in a fall from a horse.”

  “But . . . a crushed leg doesn’t usually kill someone, does it?” Geoffrey interjected, a puzzled frown on his face.

  “It does if the attempt to remove it goes awry,” Daniel answered quietly.

  They stared at him in a harsh mixture of horror and sympathy. In fact, his father had died during a hastily attempted surgery to remove said crushed leg. Daniel had only been eighteen, untrained and unschooled, his fingers shaking with dread as he helped hold his father down beneath the bone saw. But the damned doctor who was called in—if indeed the man had ever been credentialed by a licensing board—had proven too inexperienced and far too slow. In the end the blood loss and pain had proven too much for his father’s aging heart.

  “I blamed myself, of course. If the surgery could have gone faster, or my father had been rendered insensible first—” He broke off the thought in mid-sentence.

  Surprisingly, it was Clare who spoke first. “You sound as though you miss him.”

  He wanted to grab hold of the sympathy in her voice and shake it. Hard. Rattle her bones and show her that she might be the daughter of a viscount, but the same emotions, the same universal needs, ran through their veins.

  Instead, he nodded. “I do. His death left me . . . unsettled.” He hesitated, but it was a story only partially told, and Geoffrey and Lucy were staring upon him as if they had no idea who he was. Indeed, they hadn’t the faintest notion.

  “Though I was supposed to take over my father’s business, I decided to study medicine instead. I initially established a practice in Yorkshire,” he explained, “but I had always wondered if my father might have lived if there had been a way to safely administer an anesthetic. And so I came to London six months ago, determined to create a device that could deliver drugs like ether and chloroform safely.”

  “So you’re not just a doctor?” Geoffrey exclaimed. “You’re a Gypsy tinker, too?”

  Daniel smiled grimly. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” He could not deny his upbringing, his heritage, had given him a certain set of skills and an innate understanding of how things worked. Most doctors were incapable of possessing the knowledge of how to assemble a device as complicated as his anesthetic regulator. He ran a hand over his hair once more, forcing the midnight black strands he’d inherited from his father back into proper place. “So you see, I am my father’s son. Dressing me in a top hat and sneaking me into Ascot won’t change that.”

  Maggie clutched at his arm. “Well I, for one, think you’re very handsome for a Gypsy.”

  “You misunderstand me.” He once again disentangled himself from the maid’s tenacious grasp. “I don’t resent my father’s physical influence or my place in life. My father taught me to work hard for the respect I intend to earn, and there is no shame in that. But such things are not accepted among the ton.”

  Clare’s face had gone pink beneath the shade of her bonnet. Perhaps she’d been comforting herself that if she’d sunk so low, she’d at least committed her sin with a gentleman physician, someone from a respectable stratum of Society. No doubt the horror of kissing the son of a Gypsy horse trader was only now beginning to sink in.

  “But no one objected to us coming with you to Chelsea today,” Geoffrey protested, though he sounded less sure of himself.

  “You were able to come to Chelsea with me today because your presence in my world raises far fewer eyebrows than my presence does in yours.” Daniel thought back on that moment at Lady Austerley’s ball when he’d acknowledged Lord Hastings and was roundly snubbed for the effort. “It would be another matter entirely at Ascot,” he finished.

  A small, discontented silence fell across their group as they ground to a halt in front of the town house. The dead quiet of the street felt as rough as glass paper to his already bruised ego. It wasn’t as though he had ever had any right to entertain the thought this could proceed beyond a heady flirtation, or a stolen kiss. She was a viscount’s daughter, and he was naught but her doctor. He was supposed to be logical, methodical, practical. His head and his heart should never have been turned by a fashionable—if swollen—ankle.

  But somehow these heady weeks of seeing her had stripped the sense from him, and he needed to find his way back to sanity now.

  Daniel glanced at Clare, seeking some small sign of encouragement that he was doing the right thing. But as his eyes met hers, she looked away.

  Clearly, her good-byes had already been made.

  “I won’t forget any of you,” he told them. “But your sister is correct. This must be good-bye.” He turned to Lucy. “Next year you are going to give the gentlemen in London something to think about. I think you are going to do brilliantly.”r />
  She inclined her head, a sad smile playing about lips. “As a wise man once encouraged me, I shall endeavor to be myself, Dr. Merial.”

  He turned to Geoffrey next. “You, my young friend, are bound for great things. Never forget that. But make your future count. Find one thing you are passionate about and pursue it, head on. And keep up with your Latin.” He grinned down at the lad. “You’re doing remarkably well.”

  Geoffrey scowled a long second, and then stretched out a hand. “Amicitiae nostrae memoriam spero sempiternam fore.”

  I hope the memory of our friendship will be everlasting.

  Daniel clasped it and forced himself to smile. “As do I.”

  But unfortunately a memory was all he could be.

  May 19, 1848

  Dear Diary,

  It seems important to tell the truth to oneself.

  Or, barring that, to tell the truth to one’s diary.

  As glorious—and dreadful—as today was, I cannot permit myself to dally any longer. Tomorrow’s musicale marks my return to the Season, and my receipt there will set the stage for the remainder of the year. There can be no acceptable outcome but to turn Mr. Alban’s head squarely back in my direction, and if I can coax him into a kiss, preferably one as stirring as the one I shared with Daniel, it would probably bode well for an immediate proposal.

  But if I am being honest (and what is a diary for, but a time for abject truth?), the musicale—or, God help me, kisses from future dukes—are not foremost on my mind.

  I’ve been raised to believe that finding a husband was a matter of title and fortune, and any decision to be made on the matter centered mainly on the pattern of seed pearls to be used on my gown. I was led to believe that choosing well would ensure my future happiness.

  But Mother and Father do not seem very happy.

  And I can’t help but fear that a proposal from Alban might win me a similar fate.

  Chapter 18

  Where do you think Father is?” Geoffrey scowled up from his breakfast plate. It was the second time he’d asked the question since sitting down to the table, and he’d gone from worried to angry over the course of buttering his bread.

  “I don’t know.” Clare lifted her coffee cup to her lips, wishing she knew some way to improve the boy’s mood. Since Dr. Merial’s departure yesterday, Geoffrey had descended into a self-absorbed sulk. “As I’ve already said.”

  Lucy swallowed a bite of sausage, having noticeably moved on from her obsession with saving the blameless animals of London. “Perhaps,” she said, waving her fork in the air, “he is visiting a brothel or some such establishment. According to Maggie and some of the other maids I have spoken with, the nicer ones offer overnight accommodations.”

  Clare choked on her mouthful of coffee.

  Even Geoffrey—usually a fount of offensive phrases—gasped.

  Lucy, however, took another bite of sausage.

  “It would be highly inappropriate for us to speculate.” Clare glared at her sister. Ever since their encounter with Handsome Meg, Lucy had been asking the most outrageous questions imaginable. The animals of London might now be safe, but it was clear the prostitutes needed to have a care. But despite her resolve to follow her own sage advice, Clare’s thoughts pulled insistently in a similar direction. “And do not let Mother hear you say such things,” she warned, gripping the handle of her cup.

  “As if she would ever rise from bed in time to listen.” Lucy shrugged. “Wherever he is, it isn’t like Father to miss breakfast. Should we be worried?”

  Clare stared down at her cup. It admittedly wasn’t like their father to be gone from breakfast. He was already missing from much of their day—and much of their lives—but mornings were a time that had always seemed sacred. Today was the first she could recall where Father had not made an appearance, and a whisper of hurt curled around her heart.

  They had so little of him as it was.

  But their father’s whereabouts were not at the top of her list of worries. She felt wrung out, exhausted and heart sick. Last night had been rendered almost sleepless, her dreams chased by intrusions that involved a dangerous degree of kissing. She’d told Daniel good-bye, as any girl in her precarious position must. But her subconscious was proving more difficult to convince than she’d imagined, and this morning she’d awakened in twisted, damp sheets, her heart pounding with the echo of loss.

  “Lucy, I . . . I can’t think about Father right now.” Clare wrapped her fingers around her cup and wondered if she ought to try to eat something more substantial to settle her jumping stomach. “Not with the musicale looming.”

  A small lie that hurt no one. She should be thinking about tonight’s musicale and the need to turn Alban’s head thoroughly in her direction.

  “You aren’t looking forward to tonight?” Lucy asked, cocking her head. “I thought you were excited. You even had a new gown made for the occasion, didn’t you?”

  Clare hid the retort that sprang to mind behind another robust sip of coffee—which she had liberally and rebelliously sweetened this morning. Yes, she had a beautiful new gown. The modiste had delivered it last night, and it cost twice what it should have, on account of the rush. But despite its beauty and extravagance, she couldn’t even find the wherewithal to be glad it was hanging upstairs in her room.

  “I don’t know what to expect,” she decided on as the safest and truest answer. She studied the swirl of drink in the bottom of her cup. Perhaps she should have had tea this morning. Then, at least, there would have been leaves she could pretend to read. “I have missed two weeks of the Season. Much can happen in that space of time, and I am not sure everyone will welcome my return.”

  Or indeed whether she wished to go back herself. How had two weeks of gnashing her teeth over her injury turned into this feeling of dread?

  “You refer to your friends, I presume?” Lucy frowned. “They don’t strike me as being very kind. I overheard them talking the day they came to visit. I think you need to have a care where they are concerned.”

  Clare straightened in her chair, her chest feeling tight. “What did they say?” She was more than willing to overlook the fact Lucy had been eavesdropping if it could give her some insight into what she faced this evening.

  Lucy shrugged. “Oh, just the usual mean-spirited sort of things. They sounded envious of Mr. Alban’s interest in you. But it was how they said it that bothered me. Harpish shrews, if you ask me.”

  Clare tried to relax against the back of her chair, though her muscles still felt coiled tight. This was nothing new, nothing she hadn’t already considered. “Thank you for telling me,” she said tightly. “It is always helpful to know if people are talking about you, and to sort out if there could be ill-feelings behind the gossip. You cannot imagine what a gauntlet it is, to walk into a room and have everyone stare at you. You suspect your hair is coming down or you’ve something stuck in your teeth.”

  Lucy grimaced. “If you are trying to convince me that next year is something I should look forward to, you might want to change your tactics.”

  Clare hid a smile. It was good to hear her sister had shifted from the idea of “if” she had a Season to “when” she had one.

  “It isn’t that terrible,” she offered in what she hoped was a reassuring tone.

  Except, of course, it was.

  She ran her tongue over the slight crookedness of her tooth, recalling the fresh fear she had felt at the start of her first Season as she’d stepped into the ballroom and a hundred heads turned in her direction. She’d felt almost paralyzed, wondering whether her smile would reveal something that might spell her social downfall.

  She’d survived it, even triumphed, of a fashion, once she aligned herself with the likes of Sophie and Rose. But it took a good deal of fortitude to be so aware of what you stood to lose, meanwhile pretending you didn’t care a whit.

  Clare lifted her coffee cup again, then stilled as she realized Geoffrey had quite an odd expression on his f
ace, as if his milk had gone sour. “Don’t worry.” She smiled reassuringly at him. “You’ve some years yet. And it isn’t nearly as difficult for the gentlemen.”

  “I don’t care about what may happen to me.” He frowned. “But did you mean it? About needing to know if someone was speaking poorly of you?”

  Clare felt a sudden shift in her pulse. “Yes. You cannot plan a competent defense against an unheard and unknown enemy.”

  “And you would want to know? If someone said something about our family?”

  Her senses prickled in alarm. “If you’ve heard something, then yes.”

  He met her gaze hesitantly. “Then you should know there is talk in other corners as well.”

  Clare’s immediate instinct was to dismiss her brother’s words and his notion of “corners.” Whatever talk Geoffrey thought he was privy to, he was only thirteen years old. How much could he have heard in the isolated halls of Eton? But something in his expression made her stomach tilt sideways. He was neither making his usual kind of joke nor seeking to ruffle her ire. In fact, he looked close to tossing his breakfast back onto his plate.

  “Go on,” she said tightly.

  “Well, there’s this boy at school, you see. Peter. He’s an insufferable snob. Lord Peter, he makes us call him, even though we’ll all be bloody lords eventually.” Geoffrey shifted in his seat. “Anyway, he said some terrible things about our family. I was angry with him for spreading such lies, so that’s why I did it.”

  Lucy leaned forward. “Does this have anything to do with your expulsion?”

  He nodded, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I knew I couldn’t call him out on it, because that would only make the rumor spread faster and I just wanted it to go away. And I can admit I’m not the most accomplished person when it comes to swords and knives and such.”

  Foreboding rippled through Clare’s stomach. Call someone out? Swords and knives? She’d wanted the details of Geoffrey’s hijinks, to be sure, but this was far more alarming than she’d imagined.