by Julia Quinn
“I won’t be in attendance.”
“Lady Danbury doesn’t plan to invite you?” Susan burst out, clearly outraged. “Well, I never! You may be her companion, but you are also the daughter of a baronet, and thus—”
“Of course she will invite me,” Elizabeth replied evenly. “But I shall refuse.”
“But why?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer for a moment, just stood there watching the egg whites turn opaque. “Susan,” she finally said, “look at me.”
Susan looked at her. “And?”
Elizabeth grabbed a handful of the faded green fabric of her dress and shook. “How can I go to a fancy house party dressed as I am? I may be desperate, but I have my pride.”
“We shall cross the bridge of your clothing when we get to it,” Susan decided firmly. “It shouldn’t matter, anyway. Not if your future mate cannot see the room beyond your face.”
“If I hear that phrase one more time—”
“In the meantime,” Susan interrupted, “we must sharpen your skills.”
Elizabeth fought the urge to smash the yolks.
“Didn’t you say there was a new overseer at Lady Danbury’s?”
“I said no such thing!”
“You didn’t? Oh. Well, then, it must have been Fanny Brinkley, who must have heard it from her maid, who must have heard from—”
“Get to the point, Susan,” Elizabeth ground out.
“Why don’t you practice on him? Unless he’s horribly repulsive, of course.”
“He’s not repulsive,” Elizabeth mumbled. Her cheeks started to burn, and she kept her face down so that Susan wouldn’t see her blush. Lady Danbury’s new estate manager was far from repulsive. In fact, he was just about the most handsome man she’d ever seen. And his smile had done the strangest things to her insides.
Too bad he didn’t have buckets of money.
“Good!” Susan said with an excited clap of her hands. “All you have to do is make him fall in love with you.”
Elizabeth flipped the eggs. “And then what? Susan, he’s an estate manager. He isn’t going to have enough money to send Lucas to Eton.”
“Silly, you aren’t going to marry him. Just practice upon him.”
“This sounds rather coldhearted,” Elizabeth said, frowning.
“Well, you haven’t anyone else upon whom to test your skills. Now, listen carefully. I picked out several rules with which to start.”
“Rules? I thought they were edicts.”
“Edicts, rules, it all amounts to the same thing. Now, then—”
“Jane! Lucas!” Elizabeth called out. “Breakfast is ready.”
“As I was saying, I think we should begin with edicts two, three, and five.”
“What about four?”
Susan had the grace to blush. “That one, ah, concerns dressing in the first stare of fashion.”
Elizabeth just barely resisted the urge to fling a fried egg at her.
“Actually”—Susan frowned—“you might want to begin all the way at number eight.”
Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t have said a word, but some devil inside forced her to ask, “And what is that?”
Susan read: “‘Your charm must appear effortless.’”
“My charm must appear effortless? What the devil does that me—Ow!”
“I think,” Susan said in an annoyingly bland voice, “it might mean that you’re not meant to wave your arms about so that your hand smacks the tabletop.”
If looks could have killed, Susan would have been bleeding profusely from the forehead.
Susan stuck her nose in the air. “I can only speak the truth,” she sniffed.
Elizabeth continued glaring as she sucked on the back of her hand, as if pressing her lips to the spot were actually going to make it stop hurting. “Jane! Lucas!” she called again, this time practically yelling. “Hurry, now! Breakfast will get cold!”
Jane came skipping into the kitchen and sat down. The Hotchkiss family had long ago dispensed with serving a formal morning meal in the dining room. Breakfast was always served in the kitchen. Besides, in the winter, everyone liked to sit near the stove. And in summer—well, habits were hard to break, Elizabeth supposed.
Elizabeth smiled at her youngest sister. “You look a touch untidy this morning, Jane.”
“That’s because somebody locked me out of my room last night,” Jane said with a mutinous glare toward Susan. “I haven’t even had a chance to brush my hair.”
“You could have used Lizzie’s brush,” Susan replied.
“I like my brush,” Jane shot back. “It’s silver.”
Not real silver, Elizabeth thought wryly, or she would have had to sell it off already.
“It still works just the same,” Susan returned.
Elizabeth put a halt to the bickering by yelling, “Lucas!”
“Have we any milk?” Jane asked.
“I’m afraid not, dear,” Elizabeth replied, sliding an egg onto a plate. “Just enough for tea.”
Susan slapped a piece of bread on Jane’s plate and said to Elizabeth, “About Edict Number Two…”
“Not now,” Elizabeth hissed, with a pointed look toward Jane, who, thankfully, was too busy poking her finger into the bread to take notice of her older sisters.
“My toast is raw,” Jane said.
Elizabeth didn’t even have time to yell at Susan for forgetting to make the toast before Lucas came bounding in.
“Good morning!” he said cheerfully.
“You seem especially chipper,” Elizabeth said, tousling his hair before serving him breakfast.
“I’m going fishing today with Tommy Fairmount and his father.” Lucas gobbled three-quarters of his egg before adding, “We shall eat well tonight!”
“That’s wonderful, dear,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at the small clock on the counter, then said, “I must be off. You lot will make certain the kitchen gets cleaned?”
Lucas nodded. “I shall supervise.”
“You shall help.”
“That, too,” he grumbled. “May I have another egg?”
Elizabeth’s own stomach growled in sympathy. “We haven’t any extras,” she said.
Jane looked at her suspiciously. “You didn’t eat anything, Lizzie.”
“I eat breakfast with Lady Danbury,” Elizabeth lied.
“Have mine.” Jane pushed what was left of her breakfast—two bites of egg and a wad of bread so mangled that Elizabeth would have had to have been far, far hungrier even to sniff at it—across the table.
“You finish it, Janie,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll eat at Lady Danbury’s. I promise.”
“I shall have to catch a very big fish,” she heard Lucas whisper to Jane.
And that was the final straw. Elizabeth had been resisting this husband hunt; she hated how mercenary she felt for even considering it. But no more. What kind of world was it when eight-year-old boys worried about catching fish, not because of sport, but because they worried about filling their sisters’ stomachs?
Elizabeth threw her shoulders back and marched to the door. “Susan,” she said sharply, “a word with you?”
Jane and Lucas exchanged glances. “She’s going to get it because she forgot to cook the toast,” Jane whispered.
“Raw toast,” Lucas said grimly, shaking his head. “It goes against the very nature of man.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she walked outside. Where did he come up with these things?
When they were safely out of earshot, she turned to Susan and said, “First of all, I want no mention of this—this husband hunt in front of the children.”
Susan held up Mrs. Seeton’s book. “Then you’re going to follow her advice?”
“I don’t see how I have any choice,” Elizabeth muttered. “Just tell me those rules.”
Chapter 3
Elizabeth was muttering to herself as she entered Danbury House that morning. Truth be told, she’d been muttering to herself the entire
walk over. She had promised Susan that she would try to practice Mrs. Seeton’s edicts on Lady Danbury’s new estate manager, but she didn’t see how she could do this without immediately breaking Edict Number Two:
NEVER SEEK OUT A MAN. ALWAYS FORCE HIM TO COME TO YOU.
Elizabeth supposed that was one rule she was going to have to break. She also wondered how to reconcile Edicts Three and Five, which were:
YOU MUST NEVER BE RUDE. A HIGHBORN GENTLEMAN NEEDS A LADY WHO IS THE EPITOME OF GRACE, DIGNITY, AND GOOD MANNERS.
And:
NEVER SPEAK TO A MAN FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES. IF YOU END THE CONVERSATION, HE WILL FANTASIZE OVER WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE SAID NEXT.
EXCUSE YOURSELF AND DISAPPEAR TO THE LADIES’ RETIRING ROOM IF YOU MUST. HIS FASCINATION WITH YOU WILL GROW IF HE THINKS YOU HAVE OTHER MATRIMONIAL POSSIBILITIES.
This was where Elizabeth was really confused. It seemed to her that even if she excused herself, it was rather rude to leave a conversation after only five minutes. And according to Mrs. Seeton, a highborn man needed a lady who was never rude.
And that didn’t even begin to include all of the other rules Susan had yelled at her as she left the house that morning. Be charming. Be sweet. Let the man talk. Don’t let on if you’re smarter than he is.
With all this nonsense to worry about, Elizabeth was rapidly warming to the idea of remaining Miss Hotchkiss, aging spinster, indefinitely.
When she entered Danbury House, she proceeded immediately to the drawing room, as was her habit. Sure enough, Lady Danbury was there, sitting in her favorite chair, scribbling out some sort of correspondence and muttering to herself as she did so. Malcolm was lazing on a wide windowsill. He opened one eye, judged Elizabeth unworthy of his attention, and went back to sleep.
“Good morning, Lady Danbury,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head. “Would you like me to do that for you?” Lady Danbury suffered from achy joints, and Elizabeth frequently wrote out her correspondence for her.
But Lady Danbury just shoved the paper into a drawer. “No, no, not at all. My fingers feel quite the thing this morning.” She flexed her hands and jabbed them in the air at Elizabeth, like a witch casting some sort of spell. “See?”
“I’m glad you’re feeling so well,” Elizabeth replied hesitantly, wondering if she’d just been hexed.
“Yes, yes, a very fine day. Very fine indeed. Provided, of course, you don’t go and start reading to me from the Bible again.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Actually, there is something you can do for me.”
Elizabeth raised her blond brows in question.
“I need to see my new estate manager. He is working in an office adjoining the stables. Could you fetch him for me?”
Elizabeth managed to keep her jaw from falling open at the very last minute. Brilliant! She was going to get to see the new estate manager and she wasn’t going to have to break Edict Number Two doing it.
Well, technically she supposed that she still was seeking him out, but it couldn’t really count if she’d been ordered to do so by her employer.
“Elizabeth!” Lady Danbury said loudly.
Elizabeth blinked. “Yes?”
“Pay attention when I speak to you. It is quite unlike you to daydream.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help but grimace at the irony. She hadn’t daydreamed in five years. She’d once dreamed of love, and marriage, and of going to the theater, and of traveling to France. But all of that had stopped when her father died and her new responsibilities made it obvious that her secret thoughts were mere pipe dreams, destined never to come true. “I’m terribly sorry, my lady,” she said.
Lady Danbury’s lips twisted in such a way that Elizabeth knew she wasn’t truly annoyed. “Just fetch him,” Lady D said.
“At once,” Elizabeth said with a nod.
“He has brown hair and brown eyes and is quite tall. Just so you know of whom I’m speaking.”
“Oh, I met Mr. Siddons yesterday. I bumped into him while I was leaving for home.”
“Did you?” Lady Danbury looked perplexed. “He didn’t mention anything.”
Elizabeth cocked her head in puzzlement. “Was there any reason he should have done? I’m not likely to have any effect upon his employment here.”
“No. No, I suppose not.” Lady Danbury wrinkled her mouth again, as if she were considering some great, unsolved philosophical problem. “Off with you, then. I shall require your company once I’m through with J—er, Mr. Siddons. Oh, and while I am consulting with him, you may bring me my embroidery.”
Elizabeth fought back a groan. Lady Danbury’s idea of embroidering consisted of watching Elizabeth embroider and giving her copious instruction and supervision as she did so. And Elizabeth hated to embroider. She did more than enough sewing at home, what with all the clothing that needed mending.
“The green pillowcase, I think, not the yellow one,” Lady Danbury added.
Elizabeth nodded distractedly and backed out the door. “Be unique,” she whispered to herself, “but not too unique.” She gave her head a shake. The day she figured out what that meant would be the day a man walked on the moon.
In other words, never.
By the time she reached the stable area, she had repeated the rules to herself at least ten times each and was so bleary-headed with it all that she would have gladly pushed Mrs. Seeton off of a bridge had the lady in question been in the region.
Of course there were no bridges in the region, either, but Elizabeth preferred to overlook that point.
The estate manager’s office was housed in a small building directly to the left of the stables. It was a three-room cottage with a heavy stone chimney and thatched roof. The front door opened to a small sitting room, with a bedroom and office to the back.
The building had a neat and tidy appearance to it, which Elizabeth supposed made sense, since estate managers tended to be concerned with good upkeep of buildings. She stood outside the door for about a minute, taking a few deep breaths and reminding herself that she was a reasonably attractive and personable young woman. There was no reason that this man—whom she really wasn’t that interested in, when it came right down to it—should scorn her.
Funny, Elizabeth thought wryly, how she’d never been nervous about meeting new people before. It was all the fault of this blasted husband hunt and that double-blasted book.
“I could strangle Mrs. Seeton,” she muttered to herself as she raised her hand to knock. “In fact, I could do so quite cheerfully.”
The door wasn’t properly latched, and it swung open a few inches as Elizabeth knocked. She called out, “Mr. Siddons? Are you present? Mr. Siddons?”
No answer.
She pushed the door open a few more inches and stuck her head in. “Mr. Siddons?”
Now what was she to do? He clearly was not at home. She sighed, letting her left shoulder lean against the door-frame as her head slid forward into the room. She supposed she was going to have to go hunt him down, and heaven knew where he might be. It was a large estate, and she wasn’t particularly excited about the prospect of hiking the length of it looking for the errant Mr. Siddons, even if she needed him desperately to practice Mrs. Seeton’s edicts.
While she was standing there procrastinating, she let her eyes skim over the contents of the room. She’d been inside the small cottage before and knew which items belonged to the Lady Danbury. It didn’t look as if Mr. Siddons had brought many belongings with him. Just a small bag in the corner, and—
She gasped. A little red book. Sitting right there on the end table. How on earth had Mr. Siddons obtained a copy of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS? She couldn’t imagine that it was the sort of thing displayed in gentlemen’s bookshops. Her mouth hung open in surprise as she strode across the room and snatched up the book.
ESSAYS by Francis Bacon?
Elizabeth shut her eyes and cursed herself. Dear Lord, she was growing obsessed. Thinking she saw that stupid little boo
k around every corner. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered, swinging around to put the book back down on the table. “Mrs. Seeton does not know everything. You have to stop—Ow!”
She howled as her right hand connected with the brass lantern sitting on the table. Still clutching the book in her left hand, she shook her right from the wrist, trying to ward off the stinging pain. “Oh oh oh oh oh!” she grunted. This was worse than a stubbed toe, and the Lord knew she had more than enough experience with those.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I am the clumsiest girl in all England, the biggest nodcock in all Britain—”
Crunch.
Her head snapped up. What was that? It sounded like a foot scraping against loose pebbles. And there were pebbles right outside the estate manager’s cottage.
“Who’s there?” she called out, her voice sounding rather strident to her ears.
No answer.
Elizabeth shivered—a bad sign, considering that it had been unseasonably warm all month. She had never been much of a believer in intuition, but something was definitely wrong here.
And she feared that she was the one who would suffer the consequences.
James had spent the morning riding through the estate. He knew it from top to bottom, of course; as a child he’d spent more time here at Danbury House than he had at his own Riverdale Castle. But if he was to keep up his charade as the new estate manager, he needed to inspect the grounds.
It was a hot day, however, and by the time he finished his three-hour ride, his brow was wet with perspiration and his linen shirt was sticking to his skin. A bath would have been perfect, but in his guise as estate manager he didn’t have access to the Danbury House servants to fill a tub, and so he was looking forward to a cool washcloth dipped in the basin of water he’d left in his bedroom.
He hadn’t expected to find the front door to his cottage wide open.
He adjusted his gait to make his footsteps as quiet as possible and crept up to the door. Peering in, he saw the back of a woman. Aunt Agatha’s companion, if her pale blond hair and small frame were any indication.