Page 11 of Lady Like
“I promise you,” Violet says. “I was told there would be men here.”
Emily stares dully across the drawing room, a sea of skirts and bonnets and curls. “At a ladies’ tea?”
“Nowhere on the invitation did the word ladies appear,” Violet says. “I was told it would be a mixed reception!”
“By whom?”
“I don’t remember! I haven’t been getting much sleep.” Violet presses her gloved hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you hoped.”
“It’s fine.” Emily looks around, wondering if it’s too soon for them to leave.
She feels nauseous, and not only because of the three glasses of lemonade she has gulped down since arriving.
The room is hot, and she plucks at the front of her dress.
She has employed her mother’s trick with the ribbon and Thomas Kelly’s ring again to gather the material of her bodice, but even with Violet’s help, it was not so elegantly done, and she’s concerned it might fall at any moment.
“I’ve been out of the social scene for a while,” Violet says.
“I understand,” Emily says, and she does, though it hardly tempers her disappointment.
This might be enjoyable were a marriage not waiting at the end of it.
This party—this whole London sojourn—would be delightful had she not felt the need to inventory every man in her presence, and weigh their worthiness of her time accordingly.
The city itself—her first time outside of Middleham—would have been thrill enough had every day she passed there not simply been one closer to marrying Tweed.
She had thought, based on the stories the dowagers of Middleham trotted out every summer about their own London Seasons thirty or forty years previous, the city would be lousy with noblemen prowling the streets, each in search of a pale, blond bride with small opinions and a smaller waist. To hear them speak of it, Emily had thought she might get press-ganged into courtship by an eligible viscount on her first short walk from the carriage to the Palmer’s front door.
But after a fortnight in the city, she has yet to cross paths with even a minor baron.
Violet’s social circles are more robust than Emily’s, but those particular muscles haven’t been flexed since before her baby was born.
The Season has been in bloom since January, and though it’s barely April, all eligible prospects seem to have already been snapped up.
So, in spite of Violet’s valiant efforts to secure them invitations, they have thus far been only late additions to a single picnic and two sewing circles.
They had squashed themselves into the back row of a public violin recital, at which Violet had been unable to stay awake and Emily had been too fearful of impropriety to talk to men without her cousin to make an introduction.
And now they are passing another afternoon at another useless reception. Not a man for miles.
Violet leans against the wall, stirring her tea absently with her pinkie finger. “It’s nice to talk to adults, though, isn’t it?” she says. “Everyone uses sentences. And words. No one vomits on you.”
“Admirable traits,” Emily agrees.
“And everyone is so self-sufficient! No one needs anything of me! Did I tell you I accidentally locked the baby’s room with keys and baby still in it?”
“And so you had two copies made of every key in the house,” Emily says, for she has heard this story several times, though she doubts Violet remembers telling it.
“I’m still afraid it wasn’t entirely an accident.” Violet stares sightlessly ahead for a moment, then begins tipping slowly sideways.
“Are you falling asleep?” Emily asks.
“I might be,” Violet replies. “I’m not sure I’m ever fully awake anymore.”
“Ladies.” They both straighten as Lady Dennis, the imperious hostess, approaches them.
Her daughter floats behind her silently like a ghost. Both of them smile in the same manner, with their lips pulled tight, showing no teeth.
“Mrs. Palmer,” Lady Dennis offers Violet her hand, then turns to Emily. “And who is this?”
“My cousin Emily Sergeant,” Violet says. “Visiting me for the summer from Middleham.”
Instinctively, Emily tenses up, the way she always does when her name is trotted out for the first time. But Lady Dennis smiles, and Emily takes a deep breath, reminding herself that no one here has any reason to think her anything but a proper young lady.
“Have you come for the Season, Miss Sergeant?” Lady Dennis asks. “You seem of too advanced an age to be on the marriage market.”
“My coming out was delayed by…” Emily swallows. “A local tragedy.”
“You poor dear. Would that I could share with you some of Anna’s invitations.
” She nods to her silent daughter behind her.
“We have received more than we can attend. I had to send regrets to the Majorbankses this morning, can you imagine? The Majorbankses! But we had already agreed to sup with the Irwins in Hampstead that night, and their son is so keen on Anna. He brings in four thousand pounds a year!”
“A shame,” Emily and Violet say in unison.
“Indeed!” the dowager replies. “I heard the Majorbankses have secured the attendance of the Duke of Rochester.”
“Duke?” Emily repeats.
“Have you yet seen him?” Lady Dennis asks eagerly. “He’s quite the catch of the Season. Just returned from a spell abroad. Very wealthy. And keen to be wed, so I’ve heard.”
Well, Emily thinks. Tick, tick, tick.
“There are so many fewer Dukes in London than amatory novels led me to believe,” Emily says, hoping the sentiment might inspire Lady Dennis to offer tips for how to make this meeting occur, or perhaps even their spot at the Majorbanks’s ball to Emily in her stead.
“I should love to meet one in the flesh.”
Lady Dennis simply says, “My dear, wouldn’t we all?”
As the dowager and her daughter float away, Violet slumps against the doorframe, fanning herself. “Do you think anyone would notice if I lied down?”
“Depends where you lie,” Emily replies, taking Violet’s cup from her hands. “I’m going to get more lemonade.”
Emily leaves Violet and starts toward the dining room where refreshments have been laid out, but pauses for moment at the hallway intersection, where she can see the front door, nearby which presumably lie the stack of cards and letters to be sent out.
Including the invitation to the Majorbanks’s ball with the Dennis’s regrets, in spite of the assured presence of a duke.
She couldn’t.
She must.
She abandons her empty cups on a sideboard and sneaks to the front door, slippers quiet on the polished floor. The stack of cards is substantial—Lady Dennis hadn’t been exaggerating her daughter’s numerous calls—and Emily flicks through them quickly.
“May I help you, madam?”
Emily jumps, nearly dropping the stack of letters, and whips around. A valet stands behind her, a parcel of letters to be added to the stack in one gloved hand.
“Lady Dennis asked me to fetch an invitation for her so we might confirm our arrival times are the same.” The lie tumbles out of her with surprising speed. “May I check your stack? I can’t seem to find it here.”
The valet hands Emily the cards to examine, and—yes! There it is. Emily pulls the Majorbanks’ stationery from the stack. “I’ll take this one for her, thank you.”
Emily waits a moment after the valet departs, then cracks the wax seal on the invitation. She pulls her glove off with her teeth and spits on her thumb, then rubs out the pencil marks spelling out regrets.
She can send it from Violet’s house, with their reservation.
They can pretend to be the Dennises for the evening—and what difference will it make to the Majorbankses?
Besides, it’s not as though she’s attending with plans to steal the silverware or lift a bottle from behind the bar like she and Thomas once had.
Thomas.
The memory is sharp and unexpected as a pinprick: her and Thomas sneaking into a magistrate’s private party only to be chased off by one of the valets. They had hidden for nearly an hour in the gardener’s shed, giggling and shushing each other until they were found and escorted out.
In the stillness of the empty hall, she can almost hear his voice, inviting her to slip away. Find an empty room and make their own fun.
No good has ever come from her own choices in men. Perhaps she should trust her parents. Marry Robert Tweed.
But then she thinks of Tweed’s damp hand on her thigh, the way he had pointed the imaginary pistol at her chest, and she clutches the invitation more tightly.
She slips the reservation card into her reticule, then goes in search of a pen.