Least Likely to Win a Duke
Autorzy
Emily E K Murdoch
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17,1K
Rozdziały
20
Chapter One
This was absolutely the last place Miss Gwendoline Knox wanted to be—not that she had any choice in the matter.
Murderess wallflowers were rarely wanted at home.
‘There y’are,’ muttered the coach driver, rather unceremoniously dropping her trunk to the ground. It rolled, mud splattering up one side of the leather case. ‘Academy.’
Gwen swallowed and looked up at the large manor house, its beautiful Tudor bricks glowing in the afternoon sun. Imposing chimneys pumped out smoke and the large front door had a highly polished bronze knocker.
‘But where am I supposed to—?’
The whip cracked and the horses stepped forward, pulling the coach away and leaving Gwen alone on the drive. Silence quickly spilled into the gardens.
If only her mother had agreed to accompany her, Gwen thought wistfully as she picked up her trunk, leaning slightly thanks to its weight. But that would have meant talking about...the incident. Perhaps this was best.
Besides, this was why she had been sent to the Academy. To get out from under her mother’s feet, prevent any hint of scandal and find a husband. Gwen tried to push the unkind thoughts from her mind, but they intruded, nonetheless.
If Mother had been kind enough to come with me, she would not have been so unkind as to send me here.
It was an unpleasant thought, and it was getting her nowhere. The bright autumnal sun was drawing long shadows across the gardens, and a chill in the air hinted at an icy evening.
Stepping forward timidly, Gwen knocked on the door, which was immediately opened by a footman in blue livery.
‘Miss Knox,’ he said smoothly. ‘Miss Pike is expecting you.’
Gwen was certainly not expecting the hall she stepped into, conscious of the mud she was spreading into the magnificent space. High ceilings, a beautiful red carpet, and landscape paintings along the walls: the very picture of elegance.
‘Ah, Miss Knox!’
A smiling older woman, perhaps nearing fifty, was approaching rather like a battleship. Gwen took a step backwards.
‘How pleasant to make your acquaintance,’ said the woman, who could only be Miss Pike. ‘The Wallflower Academy welcomes you.’
‘And no one will miss you there!’
Her mother’s parting words rang through her mind.
‘It’s not as if women like you deserve happy endings, do you? Not after what you’ve done...’
Gwen winced. It was bad enough to be labelled a wallflower by one’s own mother, but to be sent to such a place! It was scandalously embarrassing.
‘I do not want to be here,’ she said, the words slipping out before she could stop them.
They did not appear to offend Miss Pike. ‘Of course you don’t,’ she said with a broad smile, waving her hand as though opinions mattered little. ‘And you won’t be alone. Matthews, please show Miss Knox to her bedchamber. The end room.’
A flurry of corridors passed Gwen by until she was standing in a small yet genteelly furnished bedchamber. A large bed, a writing desk, a toilette table and a wardrobe were the only items within it, but a large bay window looked out onto the south of the house, towards the rear gardens. She could see kitchen gardens, what appeared to be a walled rose garden, and an abundance of carefully manicured lawn.
She turned. The footman had gone. She had not even noticed his departure.
Breathing out slowly as her heart rate started to slow, Gwen sank onto the end of the bed and closed her eyes. This was not the end of the world. She would manage.
‘Goodness, you look terrible,’ said a cheerful voice.
Breath caught in her throat, Gwen was unable to say anything as her bedchamber door opened, and a pair of ladies entered.
‘Sylvia,’ said a woman with black skin and a broad smile.
She had on her arm the hands of another lady, a little older, with milky white eyes.
The door shut and flickers of panic tingled up Gwen’s spine. To be so enclosed with unknown people...
‘My word, your bedchamber has the most outstanding view,’ said Sylvia, leaning towards the window. ‘We’re all jealous, you know.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the one with milky eyes, who had been helped to the window seat. ‘I don’t think I would mind. I’m Marilla. You can call me Rilla.’
Gwen nodded weakly. She was always terrible with names, but she wasn’t about to forget Rilla in a hurry. When had she lost her sight? How could she speak of it so calmly?
‘I don’t hear the new one laughing,’ said Rilla mildly. ‘Don’t you worry about it, whoever you are. I don’t—you shouldn’t.’
‘Gwendoline Knox,’ Gwen said weakly, head spinning and in desperate need of solitude. She had risen early for that day’s journey. ‘You can call me—’
‘Do you have any beaus?’
‘N-No!’ Gwen spluttered, startled into speech by Sylvia’s blunt question.
She was still grinning as she leaned against the window. ‘I only asked.’
‘Don’t hound her, Sylvia,’ said Rilla.
‘I’ll hound whoever I want,’ said Sylvia brightly. ‘I’ve got to find entertainment somewhere in this place.’
They laughed, and Gwen smiled nervously. As long as she didn’t draw attention to herself...
They were not as dull as she had expected. An Academy for Wallflowers...well, her mother had considered it perfect. The perfect place to hide someone. Gwen had tried to imagine the sorts of ladies who were sent to such a place—women no longer wanted by their families, who had tried, and failed, to make a match.
The beginning of the Season had been only a few weeks ago, and Gwen knew precisely what her mother expected of her: to keep her head down and make a good match.
But how was she expected to do so in an Academy full of ladies who could conceive of nothing worse than making light conversation with a handsome gentleman?
‘Are we it?’ Gwen flushed as laughter resounded around her bedchamber at her question.
‘It?’ repeated Sylvia with a giggle. ‘Were you expecting something far more impressive?’
‘Don’t tease her, Sylvia,’ Rilla said with mock severity. ‘You forget, you’ve been here an entire Season! You can no longer remember how frightened you were when you first arrived.’
A slight pink tinge came to Sylvia’s cheeks. ‘I suppose not. Yes, Gwen—can I call you Gwen?’
Gwen would have permitted her to call her anything she liked if it meant the focus of the conversation moved on quickly. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes, Gwen, we are “it”—at least some of it,’ said Sylvia with a grin. ‘There are—what...? Five of us here now? You make six. I am least likely to be wed—’
‘I think I’d agree with you on that one,’ muttered Rilla.
‘Daphne is least likely to say boo to a mouse—’
‘She does this,’ Rilla said to a bemused Gwen. ‘It’s her way of keeping track of us, apparently. Some ladies come and go rather quickly.’
‘They...they find husbands?’
Gwen could hardly believe it. For all the wonderful references Miss Pike had sent her mother, it had been hard to fathom how the Academy could marry off so many wallflowers in such a short time.
‘Oh, Miss Pike has her ways,’ said Rilla dryly.
‘She does know what she is doing most of the time,’ said Sylvia, glancing at Gwen with a knowing look. ‘So, you are here for a husband, are you?’
Gwen wished heat would not immediately flush up her décolletage, wished it would not pinken her cheeks and make her words incomprehensible.
What would she be? Least likely to form a coherent sentence?
‘I—I... That is...my mother wants—’
‘Oh, mothers,’ said Sylvia dismissively. ‘I was sent here by my mother.’
‘Me by my father,’ Rilla said curtly. ‘Such as he is. But not for marriage. No, the blackguard believes—’
‘Miss Knox does not need to hear our sob stories,’ interrupted Sylvia firmly.
Gwen swallowed, curling her fingers around the blanket on the bed. The tension taut in her shoulders and neck was starting to give her a headache, and Sylvia was right. She certainly did not need the histories of the ladies who had invaded her bedchamber.
What she needed was quiet and solitude—a chance to think over all she had heard, all she had seen. All that she might now expect.
She was a prisoner here, sent by her mother after her own scandalous marriage, after the...the incident had become a fact. What she, Gwen, was going to do about it... Well, that was quite another matter. A matter that required due consideration—and she was not going to be able to think with all the noise in here.
But first, Gwen had questions which needed answering. ‘What...what happens here? At the Wallflower Academy, I mean? How does she—Miss Pike—how does she...marry us off?’
Rilla chuckled. ‘It’s all very simple, Miss Knox. You have no need to be concerned. Miss Pike gives us lessons—’
‘Lessons in how to be more interesting and charming young ladies,’ Sylvia interrupted, rolling her eyes.
‘Lessons on attracting a gentleman,’ Rilla continued, a smile curling her lips. ‘And then eligible gentlemen are invited to come and meet us.’
‘View us,’ said Sylvia wryly. ‘Like specimens. Like animals in a zoo.’
Gwen swallowed. It did not sound particularly appealing. She had never been one to enjoy being looked at—which was all to the good, for her mother had pronounced her plain when she had first started curling her hair and pinning it up.
No, to be invisible. That was the thing. To go through life without being noticed, without attention, was all she desired.
The thought of gentlemen arriving at the Academy to look at them all, as though through a catalogue...
‘I will hate it,’ she whispered. ‘I just want to be left alone.’
‘Plenty of opportunities for that,’ said Sylvia, and there was little laughter in her tone this time. ‘Some of us have been here for years. ’Tis not a given that you will ever be chosen.’
Was that bitterness in her voice? Gwen could hardly tell. There had been such mischief in everything Sylvia had said since barrelling into her bedchamber.
‘You will get accustomed to it,’ said Rilla quietly. ‘We all do.’
Gwen nodded mutely. It sounded awful. So, gentlemen would come to...to examine them.
‘We have lessons on how to speak with confidence, how to stand tall, how to select topics of conversation,’ Rilla explained, her hands folded in her lap. ‘Music, art, languages...the normal things.’
Sylvia rolled her eyes. ‘It’s completely ridiculous. As though being shy, being a wallflower, is something needing to be cured.’
Only then did a natural smile creep across Gwen’s face. Until now, her fears of being forced to change, to be a different person, to lose so much of who she was had overwhelmed her.
‘You are not at all the wallflowers I had expected,’ Gwen admitted with an awkward laugh.
Rilla grinned, her pale eyes turning in Gwen’s direction. ‘I am not here as a wallflower, you understand. ’Tis my father’s intention—’
‘And I’m not a wallflower at all, but a prisoner,’ declared Sylvia with a wink. ‘My father wants to marry me off without having to bring me out into Society. So here I am, stuck amid all these quiet ones. I manage to gain sufficient conversation at the official dinners, of course. You have missed the first one.’
Official dinners? Gwen’s cheeks blazed with heat at the idea she had missed something important. Miss Pike’s letter had said that any time was perfect for her arrival, that she should not rush her goodbyes with her family.
It had not prevented her mother from bundling her off as soon as possible...
‘Official dinners?’ she repeated.
Rilla smiled wearily. ‘Miss Pike hosts six dinners throughout the Season. Only the very best and most eligible gentlemen are invited—though of course, they must all be accepting of a wallflower as their bride.’
As their bride.
Gwen’s stomach twisted most painfully and her grip on the blanket increased.
Because that was what she was here for, wasn’t it? To make a match. To be married off, cast away from her family to make her own way in the world. To be hidden amongst the most unlikely of ladies.
‘And I have missed the first?’
A rather wicked smile spread across Sylvia’s face. ‘You did not miss much—it was a complete disaster! Oh, Gwen, it was awful. The gentlemen Miss Pike had procured were so immensely dull they did not ask us anything, nor start any conversation—and of course this lot said nothing either!’
There was a peal of laughter from Rilla. ‘Speak for yourself! I tried to ask Mr Whatshisname something about the meat course, and he said—’
‘“I don’t speak to wallflowers!”’
Both chorused this, and then fell into peals of giggles, the loudest snort coming from Sylvia.
Gwen looked at the laughing women and tried to smile. It was all too much: too much noise, too much expectation, too much going on. Her mind clouded, her head spun. She tried to make sense of all the information she was being given, but her bones ached from the long carriage ride, and the very last thing she wished to do at this moment was have dinner with what Miss Pike considered to be eligible—
‘Don’t worry,’ said Rilla, a smile still dancing on her lips. ‘The second official dinner is this week.’
Gwen’s stomach turned horribly, threatening to return the meat pie she had hesitantly accepted at the inn just a few hours ago.
The second official dinner—so soon? She would barely have enough time to settle into the Academy!
The room closed in, as if the air was running out, and Gwen gasped for breath. ‘I... I need...’
‘Goodness, you sound awful, Gwen,’ said Rilla, a slight crease of concern appearing between her eyes. ‘Are you quite well?’
Gwen shook her head, unable to speak. Then, remembering Rilla, she said, ‘Y-Yes.’
‘She needs some air,’ said Sylvia firmly. ‘A walk in the garden. I will go with you...show you the way—’
But Gwen had already risen and waved a hand. ‘Oh, no, I can easily—I—I would like to be alone, if you do not mind.’
Fear seared her heart at the thought of giving offence, but Sylvia only sighed. ‘You wallflowers are all the same.’
Gwen swallowed, shame flooding her veins, but a second glance at the beautiful woman showed her Sylvia had meant no harm.
It was just too much. Too many opportunities to reveal the truth.
‘I have to...’ Gwen tried to speak, but made no effort to continue as she half walked, half stumbled out of the bedchamber.
It was not difficult to find her way outside. Once she had descended the staircase into the hall, she opened the front door and stepped out into the cold yet welcoming air. There were sufficient borders and hedges here, along the drive, in which to lose herself.
Her skin prickled with the cold, but at least it was cooling. Gwen paced, hardly looking where she was going, entering into one of the portions of the garden lined with hedges.
The Wallflower Academy. It was like a bad jest someone had made in their cups, and yet it was real. She was here. The tall redbrick building loomed above her. She had no home, no friends—although that might soon change—and no idea what she was going to do with herself at these awful dinners.
If only I was not guilty of something so terrible, Gwen thought bitterly as she turned a corner, her skirts whipping because she was walking so fast.
Then she could have asked her mother to allow her to remain at home.
But it was not to be. She had to live with the consequences of her actions, and this was far more pleasant than a prison—even if the punishment included being paraded before gentlemen for their enjoyment!
Gwen’s eyes filled with tears as she turned hurriedly around the next corner, the hedge brushing against the sleeve of her gown. How could she bear it? What could possibly make the Wallflower Academy endurable?
She turned another corner and walked straight into the most handsome gentleman she had ever seen.
