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IN WANT OF A WIFE

V iscount Saye, handsome, clever, and rich, united in one person all the best blessings of existence, and had lived thirty-two years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

Thus the pang which smote his heart on Harley Street whilst visiting his mother’s eldest sister was an uncommon and decidedly unwelcome sensation.

He had come to Aunt Fortescue’s house that day because he liked her.

She was a bold and independent creature who was fond of gossip and skewering the nonsensical upon her rapier of wit.

She was, in other words, vastly entertaining.

He had not been long in her saloon when Mrs Goddard and Lady Burlington were announced.

He stood, as was proper, and bowed when they entered. To Lady Burlington, a noted beauty of three decades—as well as three stone—past, he teased, “Lady Burlington, pray tell me that dreadful husband of yours is dead at last.”

“Shameful to wish death on a member of the peerage, Saye,” she scolded with a hidden smile.

“But if he dies,” Saye said, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “he will be spared the indignity of gossip when I steal you from him. Surely it is an act of mercy?”

She tittered and blushed, all the while trying for a severe frown at him; and in all, it was quite satisfactory. To Mrs Goddard, however, he could not be so charitable. No indeed, for such a mother as Mrs Goddard, he could offer only the most correct of bows and beat a hasty retreat to his seat.

Mrs Goddard, alas, was beautiful in the same way as her daughter was—blonde curls, large blue eyes, and a bosom that made a man wish to plant himself within it. He was not sure exactly how old she was, but she had most certainly not turned forty-five, and indeed, she looked a decade younger.

But Mrs Goddard’s charms were interesting to him only insofar as they revealed to him his future.

For it was her daughter, the darling, delightful, and undoubtedly delicious Miss Lillian Goddard who truly raised Saye’s ardour.

Miss Goddard would be, one day, Lady Saye—hopefully before she was required to become Lady Matlock—but not yet.

He believed himself full young to contemplate the gravity of matrimony, and he supposed she was too.

The hens began to cackle and scratch over the on dit of the ton and Saye, well-versed in the ability to half-listen while he read the paper, found nothing of novelty or diversion in any of it.

He had just begun to consider taking his leave when Mrs Goddard, with a sharp thrust of her knife into his bosom, said, “My Lilly shall receive an offer soon, I am quite certain.”

Behind his newspaper, he raised one brow, suddenly alert to the conversation. It seemed as if time stood still while he held his breath, awaiting some response to what surely must have been a mistake.

“Really?” asked Aunt Fortescue. “From whom?”

“Mr Harold Balton-Sycke,” said Mrs Goddard, whilst Saye released his breath, carefully soundless. “Lord Saye, you might know the gentleman?”

He lowered the paper with a sharp twist. “What?” he asked, sounding as peevish as he possibly could.

“Mr Balton-Sycke,” Aunt Fortescue prodded. “Do you know the gentleman?”

Mrs Goddard added, “I believe he mentioned he might have been at school with you.”

Saye pretended to think about it before replying cheerily, “Oh yes. Carrot-haired blunderbuss from Norwich, I believe.”

Mrs Goddard’s brow wrinkled, no doubt uncertain whether he meant an insult or not. “Lowestoft. I daresay Lilly will be so very happy there. She has always loved the sea and?—”

“The sea is nothing to the forest,” Saye opined brusquely. “The problem with the sea is all the storms and the flooding. Give me a good forest any day.”

The ladies paused, looking at him, and he wondered if Mrs Goddard was envisioning her precious Lilly swept away in a flood. The thought gave him a little satisfaction but was not nearly enough to calm the tempest in his breast. How dare his Lilly accept the attentions of another man?

At length, the ladies returned to their conversation.

Lady Burlington, it turned out, once knew someone who might have been to the Balton-Sycke family seat and felt it her duty to describe every last coverlet and curtain to them all.

Saye thought he bore it all with great dignity, despite the fact that he wished to box Mrs Goddard’s ears and ask her what sense there was in giving such a lovely daughter over to a stupid oaf like Balton-Sycke, known among those of Saye’s set as Hairy Ball-Sack.

It came to pass that his aunt wished to know when the engagement might occur. “It could be another month complete, likely more,” Mrs Goddard said regretfully. “Mr Balton-Sycke will be away from town with his sister, but once he returns…”

A month, likely more. Saye’s mind was instantly enlivened. But what to do? Could anything be done? Surely she did not love the idiot, did she? At once, all three ladies were looking at him. “I beg your pardon, Aunt?” he asked.

“ I asked ,” said Aunt Fortescue, “if I was wrong in thinking you once had a tendre for Miss Goddard.”

The three ladies awaited his answer with faint smiles and mild interest. No doubt the civil thing to do would be to answer in the affirmative, rhapsodise over her beauty, and proclaim Hairy Ball-Sack a lucky fellow.

Alas, Saye was rarely civil if another choice was given to him.

He yawned, his mouth wide, then spoke in a disinterested tone.

“I might have danced with her once. Short girl, is she not?”

Mrs Goddard’s expectant smile faded into an uncertain frown. “No, not so short. Indeed, not short at all.”

“A tall girl then? Cannot think I have danced with too many of those.”

“Not tall either,” Mrs Goddard protested.

“Really, just a very common height. A pretty height.” Looking around at the other ladies, she added, “I have always thought my children were the best possible heights. Nothing notable, neither too short, nor too tall. And in any case, my lord, she has lovely blonde hair and blue eyes.”

“Very handsome girl,” Lady Burlington said. “Very handsome indeed.”

Saye rose. Gesturing at the women with his index finger, he said, “What you all ought to do is assign them a colour. Start of the Season, get two, three gowns, all the same colour. Then when a man wants to know about this woman or that, we simply say, ‘she’s the rose coloured one’ or ‘the one who wears green’ and everyone knows exactly what’s what. ”

He strolled to his aunt, bending to kiss her cheek. She was amused by him, he could tell, giving him an indulgent grin. “Think of all the money you should save,” he added before excusing himself and leaving the old birds to their clacking.

Across town, in her mother’s drawing room, Miss Lilly Goddard sat amongst the ladies she had known since her girlhood.

Lady Euphemia Boothe had been the first of them to marry, likely because she boasted the most determined and unyielding mother.

Miss Georgette Hawridge had been the Incomparable of their Season; a noted beauty with a fine fortune and exceedingly good connexions, she always had a faint expression of ennui that made gentlemen and ladies alike desperate to pique her interest. Georgette was forever receiving offers—the latest from one of the de Borchgraves of Belgium, which she had infuriated her family by refusing.

Then there was dear Miss Sarah Bentley, who despite her sweetness and fortune was commonly left to sit at balls—likely because when a man did ask her to dance, she would too often run his ear off speaking of her decidedly unusual interests.

Euphemia had taken poor Sarah in her sights; having introduced her to a cousin of her husband— a dreadful old fellow with yellow teeth and an unfortunate propensity to suck on them—she wholly expected Sarah to run poetic over him.

“I thought you wanted to get married,” Euphemia huffed.

“I did. I do! But…”

“But nothing! How can you marry someone if you will not even dance with him?” Euphemia pressed.

“I meant to dance with him,” Sarah said earnestly. “Truly, I did! But they had these delightful cakes, you see, and I thought if I could find the cook and learn what was in them?—”

“Georgette?” Euphemia said, having raised her long fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Pray say something to this girl. At a ball with a very eligible man, and she goes looking for the cook! My word!”

But Georgette only laughed, and Sarah, likely seeing her opportunity to escape Euphemia’s interrogation, asked Lilly, “Has Mr Balton-Sycke spoken as yet?”

“Silly,” said Lilly with a smile, “do you think I would sit here eating cake without telling you about it if he had?”

“Well goodness!” exclaimed Euphemia. “What is the delay? Why, when my dearest William wanted to propose, it was the work of a moment! He called with his mother, and although?—”

“Yes!” said Georgette. “We have heard the tale at least fifty times apiece. I daresay I know it better than the story of my coming out! But Lilly, are you anxious for it? You seem…rather unconcerned, if I may say so.”

Lilly gave her friend a fond look. Dear Georgette, so perceptive and unafraid to ask the difficult questions.

One had to reply with candour for her, there was no sense wasting time with dissembling.

She took a sip of tea, stared into the cup for a long moment and then announced, with no attempt to soften her words, “I do not know that I shall accept him.”

There was a moment of shocked silence before Sarah laughed, a trifle too loudly. “Not accept him? But of course you will accept him.”

“He has such a good family,” Euphemia said. “And think of that lovely house in Lowestoft! I was there some years ago, and it is simply marvellous, so modern and light!”

Lilly shrugged.

“Of course you will accept him!” Sarah urged again. “Why would you not?”