The Earl's Defiant Wallflower

by Erica Ridley

  “She is!” Grace chirped, radiant as a new countess. “Your Grace, I present Mrs. Halton. Mama, this is His Grace, the Duke of Lambley.” A firm grip latched onto Jane’s wrist and yanked her to Grace’s side. “And this is Miss Downing, my best friend. She’s as brilliant as she is beautiful.”

  The duke bent over Jane’s fingers. “In that case, I am very pleased to meet you.”

  “As am I.” She refrained from mentioning they’d met on at least ten prior occasions. It wasn’t his fault. Rakes couldn’t be expected to recall the names of all the ladies they’d tupped, much less the face of lowly wallflower.

  “Grace!” squealed a happy female voice. “That is, Lady Carlisle. Do you adore being a countess?”

  “I definitely adore my earl,” Grace answered with a laugh. “Matilda, this is my friend Miss Downing. Jane, I’d like you to meet Miss Kingsley.”

  It seemed churlish to say, I met her when we had our come-out on the same evening, then again when her cousin disappeared at a musicale and Miss Kingsley needed someone to turn the pages, then again when the ladies’ club collected embroidered handkerchiefs for charity, so Jane just sighed and said, “How do you do?”

  As she always, always did.

  Emptiness yawned inside of her. Jane wasn’t just a fixture in Society—she was a fixture. No more memorable than a carpet or a bellpull.

  Grace looped her arm through Jane’s and turned her toward one of the young men. “This is my best friend, Miss Downing. Jane, this is Mr. Fairfax.”

  Another familiar face.

  He touched his lips to the back of Jane’s gloved hand. “Don’t believe everything they write about me in the scandal sheets.”

  She smiled brightly. “So you’re not an incurable rogue addicted to gaming hells and pricy brothels?”

  Grace groaned into her hands.

  Jane blinked back at her innocently.

  As expected, Mr. Fairfax wasn’t listening. His gaze had already been caught by a young lady in an emerald dress, and he was even now disappearing into the crowd without remembering to say good-bye.

  Grace cast Jane a look, but before she could say a word of chastisement she was once again surrounded by well-wishers. “Oh, of course, Lady Grenville! I would love for you to meet my mother. Mama, this is …”

  Jane stepped back into the shadows. She supposed the positive aspect to never being recalled was that she could get away with some truly outlandish behavior. Mr. Fairfax hadn’t been insulted. He’d already forgotten her.

  She let the voices fade to a distant buzz. Her ability to ignore the outside world and live inside her head was key to getting through each boring, endless day. When at home, it let her escape into her books. And when at the Theatre Royal… Well, living inside her head was better than being introduced to the same blank faces time and again.

  Others might not mind. Her brother, Isaac, preferred being invisible. He was boring on purpose, just to keep his name off the Marriage Mart’s most wanted list. He cherished his solitude.

  Jane was the opposite. She often said the most outrageous things she could think of in the hopes of seeing awareness flash for just one second in someone else’s eyes, but it never, ever happened. If there was a boring, harmless way to interpret her boldest insults or double entendres, that’s precisely how her remarks would be taken—and then promptly forgotten. It was as though High Society suffered from total Jane Amnesia. Janenesia.

  “Ladies.” Lord Carlisle proffered one arm to his wife and the other arm to her mother. “It’s time to take our seats.”

  Jane trailed in their wake.

  It wasn’t that her friends had forgotten her. Lord Carlisle possessed two arms and was escorting three women. Besides, Jane was used to walking unnoticed in other people’s shadows.

  When she was younger, she’d thought perhaps her stride was the problem. That maybe she’d copied so much of Isaac’s careful boringness that her very walk made her invisible.

  Easy enough to correct! She’d tried strutting like a peacock. Shimmying like a demimondaine. Swaggering like a dandy. Once, she’d shuffled ploddingly behind her brother with her mouth hanging open as if she were the walking dead intent on eating him alive. At the annual Sheffield Christmastide ball. In front of hundreds of witnesses. At the very least, she’d expected to gain a horrid-but-catchy nickname, like Lady Automaton or even That-Poor-Miss-Downing-What-Do-You-Suppose-Is-Wrong-With-Her?

  Nothing. Not a blink. Complete Janenesia.

  Lord Carlisle paused in front of Ravenwood’s opera box and held back the curtain. Mrs. Halton slipped inside first, followed immediately by Grace. Just as Jane moved forward, Lord Carlisle stepped in behind his wife. The curtain didn’t precisely fall on Jane’s head. She pushed the curtain aside and hurried inside as quickly as possible. The box was dim, but sumptuous. She pushed a few more pins into her displaced curls and settled into an empty seat.

  Of course Carlisle wished to sit next to his wife. They were newly wed. And Jane was a never-will. Even if she could somehow command a man’s attention, with what would she keep it? Her brain was a mark against her, and as for her alleged beauty… Her own papa had always said she was quite pretty—for a plump girl.

  Although the current high-waisted fashions did nothing to hide her plumpness, the billowing tubular midsection gave all women a rounder midsection, so at least she wasn’t the only young lady thus afflicted. Just the only undesirable one.

  The audience rumbled excitedly as the thick red curtain began to part onstage.

  Grace leaned into her husband, her brow furrowed. “He’s not coming?”

  Lord Carlisle slipped her hand in his. “He’ll be here. He would never break his word.”

  Jane kept her voice hushed as she turned toward them. “Who won’t break his word?”

  “An old friend,” Carlisle murmured at the same moment Grace said, “Captain Grey.”

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