“I don’t know that I’m liking this plan so far, when do we get to the fun part?”
“I don’t know, it sounds like fun to me.” Louisa and Virtue nodded to each other while Eleanor and Minerva tried to ignore them.
“When your name is on everyone’s lips, then, and only then, you cause a scandal so outrageous that not a single man will look in your direction, not even the rakes will think of marrying you. Everyone, except us of course, will give you the cut direct and you will be finished socially.”
“What?”
“What, what?” Minerva stared back at her in confusion.
“What would the scandal be?”
“That is the part I haven’t worked out yet.”
“Oh blast Minerva, I thought you had an actual plan. So far all you’ve got is me trussed up like a goose and dancing with every available man. I might think my mother put you up to this.”
“But what if you ended up with a very wrong man? Someone so unsuitable that your mother would be more than happy to send you off to the country in lieu of you risking the family name?”
Eleanor’s smile brightened. “That might do nicely. But who? We have all known perfectly awful rakes who fall for a girl and in the space of a season completely remake themselves into the perfect suitor. With my luck...”
“Point well taken. Yes, it would need to be someone reprehensible and old enough to be stuck in his ways.”
“Ew, not too old. You may have to kiss him, at least once. Besides if he is old, your parents may not care that he is awful since he’d be dead soon. And if it all goes badly you could end up married to him after all.” Louisa didn’t talk a lot but when she did she made sense.
“So we need someone unsuitable,” Virtue ticked off the qualities on her fingers. “Older so as to be set in his ways but not too old that he’ll be decrepit-”
“He should be handsome!” They all turned to stare at Louisa again. “Well, you are going to have to spend time with him. You should at least be able to pretend to be attracted to him and it never hurts for a man to have a well turned leg.” Now they were staring with their mouths open. It seemed quiet and shy didn’t mean she didn’t see what was in front of her.
“I wouldn’t mind playing this game with someone good to look at.” Which made Eleanor think the whole thing through a little further. “He should be in on it.”
“What? No, that will ruin everything. He’ll feel the need to save you from yourself and give you up to your mother or worse, Ozzie.” Virtue gave a little shiver as if being made fun of by her demon brother were the worst thing the girl could think of.
Eleanor thought about it and suddenly smiled. “I have the perfect man. He’d need only act the rake, which would suit my purpose. He is so dour and staid no one would believe him of the lie. He has publicly sworn never to marry. He finds women boring, empty-headed ninnies, and has said so openly and repeatedly. He attends balls and dinners less than Ozzie so no one really knows him which will give him an air of mystery and danger. In short, Rothwell. ”
“Who is Rothwell?” Minerva asked.
“Simeon Rothwell, Duke of Northford. Virtue, you’ve met him a few times. He was at Eton with Oswald. He is a stuffed shirt of the first order, been at it long enough that there is virtually no chance of him being anything else, handsome, and he and Ozzie have an ongoing war of pranks. I think he would be more than happy to enact a plan to make me un-marriageable. If we can figure out a way to embarrass Ozzie in the process he may even pay me to help.” She was quite pleased with herself.
“I remember him, I thought he was slightly terrifying. All dark glares and scowls, and his shoulders were unfashionably broad. I swear the man was built to pull a plow not dance a waltz.”
“Ah, but you haven’t seen him stripped to the waist.” The girls all stared at Eleanor. “It wasn’t as if I undressed him myself! I just happened to ride up at the perfect moment to see him half naked.
All the girls squealed with laughter loud enough to bring down the house.
Ozzie chose that unfortunate moment to limp past the parlor. “You lot sound like a bunch of washer women.” He tossed off as he tried to escape.
He was covered in grease, as usual, with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. “Ozzie, playing with your toys again?” She watched the red move from the edge of his neckcloth to his forehead. He hated her calling his contraptions toys but inventions was too strong a word for mechanicals that never worked or worse, blew up at the slightest provocation.
“Eleanor, there is no reason to mock something you don’t have the capacity to understand. It is probably best that...”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him and was about to put him in his place when she saw him stop and swallow visibly. She followed his stare and found Virtue. Who was staring right back at him. Virtue saw that the girls were all staring at her and nodding toward Ozzie.
Virtue cut from the group and strolled toward him. The rest of the girls settled back to watch the show. They’d seen that stroll before. It usually proceeded some poor sap keeling over in absolute lust with Virtue. She could have used it as a force for evil but mostly she used it to get her friends out of scrapes. How the men she ensnared felt about it was another matter entirely. To Eleanor’s recollection, Oswald had never gotten a direct blast of Virtue but only seen her trap other innocent, as if, men in her net. This time Virtue affected a distracted, even more breathless quality to her voice.
“Ozzie.” She stood too close to be appropriate but not so close as to touch him. The girls watched as Oswald turned pink then pale as if all the blood had moved from his head. “We were just having a little fun.” Her voice had lowered to a silky chord. She bit the tip of her finger between her teeth. “You like to have fun, don’t you, Ozzie?” Eleanor almost felt sorry for him. He looked like a moth caught in a spider’s web and Virtue hadn’t so much as touched him.
“I, um, I don’t, uh, blast, what does that have to do with anything?”
“What’s the matter, Ozzie? Won’t you let us play with your toys too?” He turned purple. That could not be good for him. Ozzie managed to stagger back from the entry but still had to hold the door frame so as not to lose his balance. That is when Virtue struck. She pulled the wet fingertip from her lips and dragged it over his forearm and then down the back of his hand. “Ozzie, do you want to play too?” Virtue’s voice was even more breathless than usual. Eleanor bit hard on the inside of her cheek to keep a straight face. It would ruin everything to burst out laughing while Virtue still held the man in her grasp. Ozzie looked at his hand as if he’d just discovered he had one then turned and ran. After Virtue calmly closed the door, the peals of laughter were even louder this time. The only one not laughing was Virtue.
“Oh, this may be fun after all. I’ll have to find a way to contact Rothwell and get him in on the plan.”
“I wouldn’t yet. The less he knows the better. Wait until you absolutely must and then tell him only what he needs to know. Tell him too early and he may expose you just for the fun of it.”
Chaos’s Consort Chapter Three
Simeon Rothwell leaned against the hallway wall scowling. It was a look that was natural for him under most circumstances but today it was unavoidable. How had George Worth managed it? Simeon had been sure the necessary votes were lined up to win, instead he’d lost. It wasn’t a rout but the end result was the same. He clenched his fists at all the wasted time and pandering that he had done and would need to do again. “Blast!”
“Would that be directed at me, Rothwell?” Glancing at his fists, George Worth took half a step back. “You aren’t actually going to hit me, are you?”
Worth stood in the doorway of the chamber grinning warily at him. For a moment he considered doing just that, to let his baser nature loose from the tight rein with which he held it. But no, the man wasn’t a competitor in a boxing ring, the House of Lords however, was a different story. Simeon forced his hands to relax and pulled a deep breath
into his lungs letting it out slowly.
“Worth, I fail to understand your reluctance to have even the slightest oversight of the medical establishment, but credit where credit’s due, that vote was well played. How did you do it? I was sure Strongham was firmly on our side.”
He moved from the wall with his hand extended and the man visibly relaxed. In truth, while he may not agree with the man’s politics, Worth worked as hard as Simeon did so at least he was a worthy opponent.
Worth took the congratulations offered without smugness. “It isn’t the oversight per se but how to pay for it. Strongham thinks very highly of you, persuading him to see my side was quite a trick. Before Matilda convinced him voting against his future son-in-law would impair my chances of giving her everything her heart desires, I was having a devil of a time.”
“Wait, son-in-law? You and Strongham’s daughter? When did this happen?” The man couldn’t be more than eight and twenty, far too young to be leg shackled, though some men found a woman’s conversation entertaining. He’d yet to meet one though who held his interest for longer than a dance.
“While I was trying to make the old man see the light. I attended the ball they held to get in to see the man and danced with his daughter. She’s pretty enough, if a little dim.” That was an understatement in Simeon’s opinion. He’d had to endure Matilda as a dinner partner, twice. He took a little pity on the girl and tried not to grimace every time she brought up her idea of current events. The thought of trying to make conversation over the breakfast table within the chit’s limited skills boggled the mind. One could only discuss the latest fashions once or twice and maintain a polite interest.
“Surely it took more than one dance?” He heard himself sputter. Worth was a mere pup but with Strongham’s backing he’d be a damned formidable one.
The man laughed. “Not much more, a walk in the garden and she practically begged me to... Well, you know how the ladies are.”
Actually, he didn’t. Most took one look at him and quaked if he so much as returned their glance. His fists clenched as a reflex, not that Worth noticed this time as he was too taken with his recollection of ruining the girl who may well have been too foolish to understand the rashness of her actions.
“So she trapped you?”
“It isn’t as bad as you would think.”
“Surely your life will change dramatically, she’ll want the time you now spend here, though I suppose there will be the time you used to spend with your mistress.”
“Oh, I see no reason to give her up. I’ve had Sadie since leaving school, I finally got her set up just how I want her.”
“Won’t your wife object?”
“I see no reason to get her involved. As long as she gets her dresses and some pin money in exchange for an heir and maybe a spare, we both get what we need from the bargain. Her father throwing his vote behind me just sweetens the pot.”
Simeon ground his teeth at the man’s callous attitude toward the woman who would be his wife, though in truth it wasn’t any worse than many of their peers. Still, while most women grew tiresome in the space of a quarter hour, the ‘gentler’ sex had gotten the most dangerous part of carrying on the legacy of the ‘ton.
“So if I am to believe you, when your wife is bearing your heir you will just pull any man with a scalpel off the street?”
“Of course not. I would have only the best for my family. I would get someone highly recommended.”
“Recommendations can be bought or forged. How will you really know? Perhaps when the time comes you’ll have wished you’d been on the other side of this debate? Until next time then.” He nodded to Worth and left. He needed a stop at his club, a healthy pour of brandy and time to consider his next move.
Simeon shook his head as Ozzie Stonington downed a second shot of good brandy on his crown. “Better now old man?”
“You have no idea. I could hear them laughing at me, I can still hear them laughing at me. And she...” Ozzie just stopped and stared off into space like a man seeing a ghost.
“And she what?”
“She touched me.” Oh, bother. He never understood how a man could fall for the most brazen tricks. And who the hell was this hoyden anyway?
“She, is?”
“Virtue.” Simeon shook his head. There were a lot of names he could think of for a woman bold enough to orchestrate a daylight seduction, but that name was not on the list.
“So this Virtue touched you, where exactly?”
“My hand.” Ozzie stared at his hand in a daze.
“I was thinking more along the lines of an address but all this over the fact that she touched your hand? Admittedly, she was forward but really I fail to see why that would require two generous shots of brandy to recover from?”
“Her finger, she touched my arm with her finger.” Simeon almost laughed, the man still had streaks of grease visible below his cuffs. Virtue deserved a few points for bravery.
“Still not understanding.”
“Her finger had been between her teeth, just the tip, I watched her caress it with her tongue, pink against the pale tip of her finger. Oh God. I need another drink.” He pulled the bottle away before Ozzie could down more.
“Ahh, I think I’m starting to understand. You don’t need another drink, you need to go home and forget about her or bury yourself in more of your inventions.”
“You don’t understand, I can’t go home, they are all still there.”
“They who?”
“They, the girls, the damned Heiresses of Eris.”
“This happened in your house?” Maybe his friend had actually gone round the bend. He wasn’t making any sense.
“My sister and her friends, Virtue, Minerva, and Louisa. They call themselves the Heiresses of Eris.”
“The goddess who tossed the apple into the crowd that said ‘to the fairest’ or some such? The one who started the Trojan war?”
“Yes, exactly! And my sister is Eris herself, now you understand why I can’t go home.”
“So this Virtue is part of your sister’s little club? And she touched you in front of these other girls?”
“Yes!”
“Oh come now man, your sister is a mere chit. She couldn’t be more than…” He did a quick calculation. That couldn’t be right. “Is your sister nineteen years now?” He hadn’t seen her on the party circuit but then he hadn’t exactly been looking for innocent virgins at the few gatherings he attended. Mostly it was corner the host who had been dodging him, maybe play some cards, and then leave.
“Yes, and so are all her friends. You don’t know what they’re like. Gorgons, all of them.”
“I sincerely doubt that. I remember your sister as being attractive in, well, a childish way, bright blue eyes, dark hair always falling in her face, rode a horse astride. Does she still beat the lot of you at races?”
“That was just low. I expect better from you if you are going to goad me.” Ah, his friend was back from the beyond. “And stay the hell away from my sister. My mother has insisted she present herself this year. Mother is tired of her excuses.”
“Excuses for what?”
“Avoiding her duties, of course.”
“And what are her duties as you see them?”
“Why getting married, having a few children. Some man will want her, father has put up a sizable dowry. And it will take all of it to catch a poor sap to take her off our hands.”
“Surely she can’t be that bad?”
“You haven’t seen her in action, and her friends are always around. Like a coven of witches, I swear.”
“Now you have me intrigued. I may stop by and see if my old shadow is up to new tricks.” He couldn’t resist getting Ozzie’s ire up. Trading barbs with Ozzie was the one hobby he had left. Had his life truly shrunk to Lords and tormenting his friend?
“I said to stay away from her.” The menacing effect was ruined as the brandy started to slur his words. Now he was going to have to get Ozzie home.
He had hoped to stop in at White’s and chat up a few stragglers to support his cause.
“Ozzie?” The man was now slumped over to the table between them muttering to himself.
“Her tongue. Her little pink tongue. She asked me to play?”
Wonderful, now he was in his cups. He never had been able to hold his liquor, give the man anything stronger than sherry and he turned into a blithering idiot.
Simeon flagged a man to have his coach brought around. He debated having his coachman drop Ozzie off and walking to White’s anyway, but he did feel a certain amount of responsibility for the man’s drinking. Simeon had been working far too much and deserved a quiet evening at home. His shoulders sank, he knew he would spend the evening pouring over arguments. Of course if he went to the Stonington’s, he might catch the duke in residence and gain his support. His thoughts turned to what the wild imp might have turned herself into. While still in the school room, Eleanor been more able than her brothers at most things. He would no doubt be disappointed. Her parents and schooling would no doubt have smoothed her rough edges, taught her to mind her words, and limit her conversation. Still, he was curious and it was better than going home to an empty house or pretending interest in some fop’s latest horse flesh.
Chaos’s Consort Chapter Four
Simeon attempted to balance the full weight of Ozzie one-handed while knocking on the Stonington residence door. Unfortunately, Ozzie chose that moment to flail.
“...Heartless wench...” Oz yelled as he careened into the door and collapsed to the mat.
“Can I help you sir?” Simeon pointed to the esteemed Viscount now lying at his feet.
Graydon, the Stonington butler, had been with the family from the time the boys were still in short pants. At this point, Simeon was sure there were infantry men less battle-hardened than the Stonington’s head butler.
“Thank you, your Grace, for seeing the viscount home. Will you be staying for dinner, sir?”
“Kind of you to ask, Graydon. I think...” Four women walked into the foyer behind Graydon. The most startling thing about them was their conversation. They were discussing a recent corn tax vote. He stood goggle-eyed and was fairly certain his mouth was hanging open. It wasn’t for a minute that he realized they had all turned to stare at him.
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