Page 20 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)
B reakfast was a stilted affair, marked by Aunt Elizabeth's stern look and alleviated by Charles Edward's occasional groans, which caused Uncle Charles to peer over the edge of his papers each time as if surprised anyone could make such a sound.
For her own part, Claire tried not to fidget on the edge of her seat until the meal had been taken, and fled at the earliest opportunity to dress for Miss Amelia Fairburn's arrival.
Miss Fairburn was splendidly timely, arriving at the stroke of the eleven o'clock hour, and had such exquisite manners and bearing that at first Claire was afraid her hopes of female companionship would be dashed.
She bore a superficial resemblance to Miss Hurst—Priscilla, Claire reminded herself warmly—in that they both had red hair and pale skin and were both indisputable beauties, but it was as if they had been created as differently as could be within the same palate.
Miss Fairburn's hair was the deep auburn of cooling embers and her skin inclined to a golden undertone.
She wore orange shot with cream, tones that complemented her coloring perfectly and caused Claire to glance at her own modest white dress with uncertainty.
It had been much easier to dress in the country, she thought in despair.
There, she had never worried that she might be lacking in fashion, always trusting her mother's guidance.
Now, though, it was clear her mother had—to be generous—questionable taste, and that Claire had been dreadfully un fashionable.
She could hardly imagine going back to the dresses she had once worn.
While Claire despaired, Aunt Elizabeth greeted Miss Fairburn with the pleasure of long familiarity, then left the young women to themselves.
Steeling herself for the no doubt tremendously proper conversation about to take place, Claire lifted a tentative smile to Miss Fairburn and was nearly knocked over as she rushed forward to seize Claire's hands.
"Oh, do tell me," she pleaded breathlessly.
"Is Charles in as dreadful a state this morning as Benny?
The butler had to get a cold cut for his eye, it's so swollen and blackened!
And he won't speak a word of what happened, so I'm desperate to know, Miss Dalton, absolutely desperate! "
Claire, startled, laughed aloud. Miss Fairburn, looking abject, withdrew her hands and twisted them in her skirt apologetically.
"Oh dear. That was awful of me, wasn't it?
I should have been much more reserved, but oh, Mother is in such a state and I can see that Mrs Dalton hasn't any idea of what went on, so I must know, Miss Dalton!
I simply must know what condition Charles is in! "
"You are perfect," Claire assured her happily, and took the other girl's hand to lead her toward one of the sofas.
"I'm entirely relieved to find that you're not determined to be absolutely proper.
It is so much easier to make friends if we can be forthright with one another.
Charles is alarmingly thick of head this morning.
I believe he actually could not prevent himself from whimpering each time the sun pierced his eyes at breakfast. But what is this about Mr Fairburn?
Certainly, Charles is uninjured, at least beyond that damage he has done to himself by drinking. "
"Oh—!" So sharp was Miss Fairburn's disappointment that for a scandalous moment Claire thought she might actually curse.
She did not, leaving Claire strangely dissatisfied, but she did, after recovering herself, say, "Then I must corner one of the Lads and hear the whole story, as Benny won't let a word of it past his lips.
He was in some manner of fight, Miss Dalton, at, I suspect, some low-class dance hall or—" She silenced herself again, but Claire was able to follow her line of thought, and blushed terribly at the near-mention of a house of ill repute.
"You think I am shocking," Miss Fairburn deduced with an air of satisfaction and sorrow. "Perhaps I am. I apologize, Miss Dalton. I ought to know better, but at times with three older brothers and only one sister it is easier to think in masculine manners."
Before she knew it, "Well, your brother's manners are certainly ill enough to provide a bad example," had escaped Claire's lips. She clapped her hands over her mouth, utterly horrified as Miss Fairburn's lashes parted in gossip-hungry astonishment.
"What on earth has Benedict done now? Oh, never fear, Miss Dalton, I am most inclined to believe the worst of my brother, and never to defend him.
" Although the words were spoken with utmost sincerity, they were also said with tremendous fondness, more as if Miss Fairburn imagined her older brother to be a somewhat ill-behaved puppy rather than a grown man.
Her own remark now seemed entirely out of proportion, but Claire, embarrassed, related Mr Fairburn's mouse comment in the country, and conveniently forgot the appealing blueness of his eyes in the park the day before.
"Oh my," Miss Fairburn said with real surprise.
"That was badly behaved of him. Oh, don't judge him too harshly, please, Miss Dalton?
I know that I tease and poke at him myself, but I am, after all, his sister, and cannot be expected to take him seriously.
I'm sure his apology was in all candor; Benedict does not like to offer insult, and will have been losing sleep over it, I'm sure. "
Claire pursed her lips and had a sudden wish for a fan so she might hide her thoughtful expression behind it.
But a fan was not at hand, and Miss Fairburn's canny eye read the hint of relenting that slipped across Claire's face.
"He has tried hard to make up for it," Claire said with a curious combination of reluctance and pleasure.
"Perhaps I have been too unforgiving. It is only—" Goodness, she thought: Miss Fairburn seemed to bring out an impulse to speak frankly, which could be dangerous indeed.
"It is only what?" Miss Fairburn pounced, cat-like, on the phrase, and Claire, sorrowfully, thought of herself as a mouse after all.
That, in fact, lay at the heart of Claire's troubles.
Hesitantly, not daring to look straight into Miss Fairburn's deeply colored eyes, Claire confessed, "I fear that I am little more than a mouse, Miss Fairburn.
They were all so splendidly handsome, and I…
" She cringed, now unable to take her gaze away from the rose-patterned carpet stretching across Aunt Elizabeth's oak floors.
"I thought myself quite fashionable in the country," she whispered, "modestly fashionable, but still quite…
I suppose Mama had it firmly fixed in her mind and my own that fashion plates were…
excessive, showing the most dramatic sorts of fashion, rather than what one might truly wear.
And…and perhaps Mama clucked her tongue a bit over the gowns some of my friends wore, but I hardly imagined myself so differently bedecked from them.
It is only with having come to Town that I realize how…
how like a sad country mouse I was. The Lads have been very kind since I arrived, and there is Mr Graham, of course?—"
"Wait," Miss Fairburn commanded. "We shall discuss this Mr Graham, but let us first address this mouseish nonsense.
Stand up and let me have a look at you, Miss Dalton.
I'm sure to have an opinion. Yes, stand.
Your posture is excellent and your skin perfectly clear and unblemished by the sun.
You can have no doubt, of course, that your wardrobe is of impeccable style, and I dare say that shade of yellow trim would make me look jaundiced but makes you a spring flower in bloom. Now turn."
Flustered, embarrassed, and delighted, Claire turned, casting a shy and hopeful look over her shoulder at Miss Fairburn, who stood as well to examine Claire with an increasingly critical eye.
"Well, my dear," the red-haired girl announced, "you are very small, there is nothing to be done about it.
Even the tallest of shoes would only make you slightly less short.
Nor are you beautiful, Miss Dalton, not when regarded with a clear eye.
You may have the cheekbones for beauty, but your nose is too snubbed and your smile perhaps slightly too large.
You do, however, have a very becoming way about you, and I dare say many's the man who could not tell the difference between a pretty woman and a beautiful one, and ," she said with sudden emphasis, "as a pretty woman instead of a beautiful one, you may find yourself pursued by young men who are interested in you , rather than called upon by those primarily interested in breeding their family line to an attractive one, as if with horses. "
Claire could turn no more under this barrage of assessments, and indeed found herself obliged to sit before she swooned from so much direct opinion.
She knew she was short; nothing could be done about that.
She also regarded herself as pretty, not beautiful, and so to hear herself described so did not—precisely—sting.
Nor was it exactly comfortable, though, and it took some little while before her breathing became steady again, or the heat faded from her cheeks.
When she trusted her voice again, it was to murmur a bold question: "Have you such ruthless suitors, then, Miss Fairburn? Because you are very beautiful."