Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
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Bronwyn Scott
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Chapter One
London—May 1821
It all started with two words. ‘I’m pregnant.’ The phrase jerked Claire rudely out of her own admittedly rather self-centred thoughts and thrust her into the horrifying present of someone else’s reality. Had Beatrice truly said she was pregnant? Claire stared at her friend in abject confusion as the words settled. Pregnant, as in going to have a baby. Enceinte. Her brain switched to its fail-safe coping mechanism, French. In a crisis, everything always sounded better in French.
Then the shock came, waves of it. Having a baby implied certain other things had taken place prior unless one was the Virgin Mary. Beatrice, one of her best friends since childhood, whom she had played with as a girl, whom she’d come out with, whom she’d not thought kept any secrets from her, had taken a lover and hadn’t told her. Hadn’t told any of them if the looks on the faces of Evie and May were anything to go on. They looked much like she suspected her face did—all pale emotion and bewilderment, while their brains picked through all responses possible for such a situation.
All the while Bea sat still, equally pale, waiting for an answer, watching each of them expectantly and patiently while their emotions rolled. This was not at all what Claire had been anticipating today. Today’s meeting in the tiny attic garret of Evie Milham’s town house was supposed to be like all the other meetings: secret and commiserative. They would bemoan the lack of male attention and/or intelligence, eat some cake and go home, only to meet the following week and do it all over again. It was a comforting ritual they’d sustained over the last three years since they’d come out, when hopes had been, if not high, certainly higher than they’d become after three years on the marriage mart and no takers.
Someone had to say something. Even May with her ever-ready comments couldn’t seem to mount an adequate response. For the first time, Claire noticed how tightly Beatrice’s hands were clenched in her lap, two hard, pale fists while she waited for their...verdict.
Suddenly Claire understood. Beatrice was waiting for them to pass judgement on her, against her, no doubt wondering right now which of her friends would move away first. They wouldn’t be the first to know. Beatrice had already been through this with her family. Apparently, she thought she knew what to expect: rejection of the very worst sort. Exile. The social death of anonymity. It certainly made Claire’s own problems pale by comparison. She’d been selfishly absorbed in her own concerns while Beatrice grappled with something much larger. Beatrice shouldn’t have to do it alone.
She would help, if only she knew how. She needed information and that gave her a voice again. The questions came out in a rush. ‘How? When? More importantly, who?’
Beatrice swallowed hard, the questions no doubt discomforting, but it was too late to take them back. Quiet Evie shot her a quelling look in scolding and leaned forward to take Beatrice’s hand. ‘Bea, you don’t have to tell us.’
Bea shook her dark head. ‘Yes, I do. You have a right to know. I owe you all this much. You will have decisions to make.’ She looked at each of them in turn and drew a fortifying breath. Claire’s heart broke for her friend. She wanted to tell Bea it would be all right, but she couldn’t. Things might never be ‘all right’ for Beatrice Penrose again.
Beatrice began to speak. ‘Over the winter, I became acquainted with the friend of a neighbour who had come for an extended visit. In hindsight, the term “repairing lease” might be more appropriate. There were likely “reasons” he was in the countryside of Sussex instead of London or somewhere far more interesting.
‘I did not look past his handsome face, his manners and the acceptance he’d been afforded by local gentry because of those attributes. Others easily accepted him without question and I did, too.’ Beatrice’s fingers pleated her skirt absently. ‘The country in winter is as dull as the weather and he was exciting, new. No one had ever been interested in me the way he was.’
Claire nodded in sympathy. She felt guilty for being absent. Her family had spent the holidays in the Lake District. She’d not been there to steer Beatrice away from danger. Neither had May, whose family had stayed in town, nor Evie, who had gone to one of her sisters’. Beatrice had been entirely on her own. Alone and lonely.
Claire had plenty of experience, they all did, when it came to being overlooked by gentlemen of society for one reason or another; She was too smart with her acumen for languages when most gentlemen could barely master one; Evie was too discreet as to become anonymous and May was just too well informed, too sharp tongued. May had a talent for eavesdropping. She knew everything about everyone and that made her positively frightening to men who preferred to hide their secrets.
‘He and I would take long walks and discuss everything: plant life, wildlife, the latest findings from the Royal Academy of Sciences. He listened to my opinions.’ Beatrice’s gaze grew misty with remembrance. Claire heard the wistfulness there even now with ruin facing Beatrice and it surprised her, knowing the perfidy this lover was capable of. Then she saw the dilemma in Beatrice’s eyes. Bea wanted to hate him but she couldn’t, didn’t. It was not a dilemma Claire could understand. The cad had left her pregnant. Ruined her. Destroyed her, in fact, and Beatrice could not bring herself to hate him, not quite, not yet.
‘Listening turned out to be far more seductive than I could ever have imagined, especially when that listening was accompanied by a pair of grey eyes the colour of a winter storm. I was convinced he valued me in the most important of ways.’
Claire put a hand over her mouth and suppressed a sad sigh. In return for that false respect, Beatrice had given him the most important thing she possessed: she’d trusted him with her reputation. To her detriment, it turned out.
Beatrice looked down at her lap, a wry half-smile on her mouth, her tone part self-reassurance, part self-deprecation. ‘The awful thing is, I tell myself surely it wasn’t all illusion. Surely he found me interesting to some extent. Even now, with disaster staring me hard in the face, I’m not convinced he’d felt nothing for me. Surely one can’t fake that depth of emotion. I guess I’ll never know.’ Instinctively, her hand moved to the flat of her stomach.
Claire’s eyes caught the motion. ‘How far gone are you, Bea?’
‘Eight weeks.’ Two months. Long enough to be sure. Long enough for the announcement not to be a mistake. Then again, Claire had never known Bea to make mistakes. Unlike her, Bea was always certain, always sure of her direction.
‘And the father? How far gone is he?’ May asked, characteristically honing in on the heart of the issue. Clare exchanged a nervous look with Evie. May might have gone too far. But May would not be deterred. ‘Well, we have to know,’ she said resolutely. ‘Will you be marrying him?’
Bea gave a pretty shrug. ‘The question is hypothetical only. Perhaps I would, if he was here, if our affaire hadn’t been a pretence to him.’
Claire’s heart swelled with admiration for her brave friend. Even with a baby on the way, Beatrice would not stoop to marry a man if it had all been a game and nothing more. As always, Beatrice’s ethical compass faced true north and would not be compromised. It was an enviable commodity, one that Claire had once possessed herself: to be herself even in the face of great social odds, but somewhere in the last three years she’d lost it, ironically perhaps in an attempt to protect it. It was hard to say when it had started to slide. Maybe it had begun with Rufus Sheriden and refusing his proposal on the principle that she was a unique individual and as such deserved his unique regard, or perhaps it had been the Cecilia Northam incident. It had certainly been a slippery slope since then. She was no longer sure who she was, or what she was capable of.
May’s cheeks were in high colour, her quick temper rising on behalf of their friend. ‘The gall of the man to leave you pregnant and alone, unwilling to do right by you!’
Beatrice shook her head, her tone a soft contrast to May’s outrage. ‘He doesn’t know, May. He left before...well, before I knew. Please do not despise him out of hand.’ She took in the whole group with her gaze, perhaps guessing the direction of their thoughts. It was easy to vilify the absent father. ‘It was the most delicious, exquisite week of my life. He brought me flowers, he smiled at me in a way that wiped away all reason. He did not seduce me, I went willingly into this folly. We had a winter of long walks in the cold and a week of illicit loving in abandoned cottages and warm haylofts. He told me he had business in a town a day’s ride away. He didn’t come back.’ But he would always be among them. With a baby on the way, he’d never truly leave them. Ever.
‘We have some time. That is good,’ Evie said encouragingly, still holding Bea’s hand. Thank goodness for Evie, always willing to put a cheerful outlook on things. ‘It will be a Christmas baby. You shouldn’t be showing until the very end of the Season. Fashions are fuller this year. I can start altering gowns right away.’ Evie was at her best when she had a needle in her hand and fabric to transform. But her words spoke for them all. They would not desert their friend. Claire glanced around the circle. They were all smiling at Beatrice now; smiling their support, their approval.
Tears prickled obviously in Beatrice’s eyes. She swiped helplessly at them. ‘Dash it all! I wasn’t going to cry. All I’ve done this past week is sob. Thank you, thank you, all of you. I didn’t expect this.’
‘What did you expect?’ Claire couldn’t keep the sense of betrayal out of her voice. ‘Did you think we’d desert you at the first sign of trouble? After all we’ve been through, certainly you know we’re made of sterner stuff.’
May took Claire’s lead and leaned forward, her hand joining Evie’s. ‘You were there for me when my family forgot my birthday. You made me a cake and stole a whole bottle of brandy out of your father’s liquor cabinet.’ Claire remembered that. May’s brother had got a prime government appointment and her parents had gone to London to celebrate with him, leaving May home. Alone. For her seventeenth birthday, the last birthday of her childhood.
‘We got rather drunk that evening, I recall.’ Beatrice managed a small smile.
‘You were there for me through both of my sisters’ weddings,’ Evie added quietly. ‘I had so much work sewing lace and pearls on to their gowns I hadn’t time to see to my own gown. But you stayed up all night to help me finish my own dress for the wedding.’
‘I think my fingers are still reluctant to pick up a needle again to this day!’ Beatrice laughed.
Claire added her hand on top of the pile. ‘And you were there when I refused Sheriden. And other times, too.’ Her voice broke a little. Claire cleared her throat. ‘Bea, you’ve always been there, for all of us, our glue holding us together in our time of need. We wouldn’t dream of losing you now.’
It wasn’t just a rescued birthday, or a stitch in time on a dress. They’d been there for each other when no one else had. They understood how much it hurt to be left behind by their families, no matter how unintentional, and how much it hurt to face the reality that this was a foreshadowing of their future. They’d been left behind by the dashing gentlemen of the ton.
There would be no gallant matches. Those gentlemen had looked right through them for years in London’s ballrooms either purposely or accidentally choosing not to see them in lieu of seeing some other dewy-eyed, innocent miss. The world they knew had moved on, leaving them behind because they were too smart or too mousy, too anonymous or too outspoken for the ton’s tastes.
May pulled her hand out of the pile and broke the silence that had descended on the room. ‘Beatrice is going to have a baby! We should be celebrating. This is a joyous occasion.’ May reached beneath her chair and pulled out the basket she’d brought. ‘I know just what to celebrate with. Cider and Cook’s chocolate cake squares.’
Claire felt a smile of gratitude for May overtake her face. Leave it to May to know exactly what they needed, what Beatrice needed; not the chocolate, although chocolate helped quite a lot—the celebration. This baby might be a bit unorthodox in its beginnings but it was clear Beatrice was prepared to love the baby, that she already loved it. May passed around chipped cups and the cider jug. She passed around the cake squares, too, until there was only one coveted square left on the plate.
‘Hmm.’ May tapped a long finger on her chin. ‘How shall we decide who gets the last square? How about a game of misery?’
Beatrice laughed, already reaching for the cake. ‘That’s easy. I’m the most miserable. I’m pregnant and the father has disappeared.’
‘Not good enough.’ May lifted the plate out of reach, acting as judge. ‘You may not have a father for the baby, but you have three aunties just waiting to spoil the little dear. Now, on the other hand, I think I should get the square because my parents have threatened to marry me to squint-eyed Vicar Ely this time next year if I don’t succeed in the interim.’ May pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and sighed in exaggerated distress but Claire knew it was no laughing matter. She’d seen the vicar. Vicar Ely was forty-five, squinty, stooped and forever preaching chastisement for sin from the Sunday pulpit. A more inappropriate mate for the outspoken May was not imaginable. Nor was it imaginable that May would actually succumb to such a fate. May would find a way out. May always did.
Evie jumped in, apparently not willing to lose the cake square or to let May feel sorry for herself. All of them were admirable that way, Claire thought; each of them unwilling to let any one of them suffer. ‘May, that’s a year off. Anything could happen. A duke could come on the market and you could snatch him up—’ Evie snapped her fingers ‘—just like that. You have time and I don’t. Andrew is home and declaring to everyone he means to marry. Immediately.’
‘But that’s good news,’ Claire placated Evie with a kind smile, taking her turn. ‘He is home, after two years away, and he’s ready to settle down.’
‘He has to notice me. He hasn’t noticed me in years. Why would now be any different?’ Evie said forlornly. They were all aware of her long-held and unrequited secret crush on her childhood friend, Andrew Adair. ‘At least when he was gone, I knew he wasn’t unavailable. I don’t think I can bear it once he marries and there’s no hope.’ Evie shuddered and Claire could imagine all too well what her friend was envisioning: a lifetime of encountering Andrew and his bride at social functions in Little Westbury and watching Andrew’s children grow up in his ancestral home. That particular horror too closely mirrored the fear she had grappled with lately.
It was the bane of living in a tight-knit community. It was impossible to get away from it unless Evie married and moved. Which wasn’t a bad option. In Claire’s opinion, Andrew Adair was a little less worthy of Evie’s regard than Evie realised. He would only disappoint her in the end.
‘He’s just starting to look for a bride. Men say they want to marry and then they look for ever,’ May put in cheerfully. ‘Remember Viscount Banning? He looked for over three years before deciding on a wife. Sorry, no cake for you. You, like me, have time, too.’ She cast a sly glance in Claire’s direction and Claire froze. No. Not here. Not today. This was her private hell. She wasn’t ready to air it to the others. She regretted even telling May. She tried to signal May with her eyes. Either May didn’t take the hint or chose to ignore it. ‘Tell them, dear. At the very least, you could win the cake square.’
That had all of Beatrice’s attention. ‘What is it, Claire?’ She was not going to tell them, but she was very likely going to kill May. They should be focused on Beatrice now. ‘It’s nothing.’ Claire shot a quelling look at May. ‘There are far bigger concerns for us to deal with. We should focus our attentions on Beatrice.’
‘No, we shouldn’t,’ Beatrice put in firmly. ‘We have seven more months to worry about me. Besides, I could do with a little less self-focus these days. Tell us, May.’
May obliged. ‘It’s Lashley. I have it on excellent rumour from the Foreign Office that he’s to go abroad in a plum diplomatic post in Vienna and Cecilia Northam is angling to go with him as his wife.’
Claire wanted to groan. ‘Excellent rumour’ meant May had heard it from her brother, Preston, who was friends with Sir Owen Danvers, head of the Central European Diplomatic Corps. If Preston said it, it was infallibly true. She wished it wasn’t. She wished there was a margin of error that allowed her to dismiss the news as heresy. Aside from Beatrice’s news, this was the single worse thing that could happen in her world: Jonathon Lashley, set to marry without having even laid eyes on her, without her even having had a chance to win him.
She supposed it was no less than she deserved. What had she ever done to draw Jonathon’s regard? Unlike Evie, who was naturally retiring, Claire had deliberately chosen to retreat from society after a disastrous first Season. She was being served her just desserts for that choice.
‘It was never anything more than a fool’s dream.’ Claire shrugged, valiantly acting as if it were indeed nothing of import. Compared to an unwed pregnancy, it wasn’t of any significance, but from the pitying expressions on their faces, she was not succeeding. They all knew she’d longed after the dashing Jonathon Lashley for years. As open secrets went, it didn’t get any more open. She’d been sweet on Jonathon since the summers they’d all run together in Sussex, four nine-year-old girls relentlessly chasing after May’s older brother and his visiting friend. Back then, Jonathon had gone out of his way to be kind to four nine-year-old girls. She’d fallen hard for those kindnesses. She was falling still and about to hit bottom. ‘Lashley hasn’t even looked twice at me in all the years I’ve been out.’ And now he never would. According to Preston’s rumour, any day, Jonathon would choose Cecilia Northam.
‘Maybe he should. Look twice, that is,’ Beatrice said staunchly. ‘You don’t give yourself a chance, Claire. You are lovely. Women would die for your hair, all those soft brown waves like a rich cup of coffee. You should let me do your hair one evening and Evie could fix up a dress or two for you.’
Claire shook her head at the compliment. ‘Yes, lovely brown hair. Too bad current fashion prefers blondes to brunettes and blue eyes to amber.’ But it was a preference that ran to more than just looks.
She was a pragmatist at heart. English society preferred not only a certain physical ideal, but a particular mental ideal as well—a blank-slated miss to one who could converse with a gentleman in four languages. Statistically speaking, four languages should have increased Claire’s odds. Socially speaking, it had not enhanced them. Her one failed attempt at making a match had proven that. Sir Rufus Sheriden, baronet, had made that quite clear. There would be no tolerance for female intelligence in their marriage. His clarity had been her point of retreat, the point at which her defences had gone up. She refused to yield her intelligence for any man. After a while, London had given up the siege. There were others more willing.
‘Why would Lashley look twice when he has Cecilia Northam to hand?’ It hurt to admit defeat, but that didn’t make it less true. What man would look at a wallflower when faced with a veritable garden of perfection: Cecilia of the pale-blonde locks, the bright blue eyes and the porcelain skin. Cecilia was everything an English gentleman wanted in a bride.
‘Because you’re so much better than she,’ Beatrice offered encouragingly, but that didn’t change facts. Cecilia was like salt in a wound. She was a darling of the ton. She’d debuted with them and become instantly popular where they had not. She might also have been out for three Seasons, but Cecilia’s experience was vastly different than theirs. She was looking to make a match this Season and finish her debut where they did not have such prospects.
Claire had long thought it was too bad men couldn’t see Cecilia Northam for what she really was. Or maybe it was just that Jonathon could not see her for what she was. Cecilia was beautiful, but beneath that beauty, she was conniving and she’d managed to draw about her a coterie of the ton’s loveliest, most devious young women—women just like her, all of them desiring to snare the ton’s most eligible men. Claire could have ignored that. She didn’t much care for those eligible men. Cecilia could have them. But now that Cecilia’s sights were set on Jonathon, it was much harder to ignore. Apparently, kindness would not carry the day no matter what fairy tales argued to the contrary.
Once upon a time, she would have fought back, she would have been brave. She wasn’t brave any more. There was no point to it. Bravery counted for nothing. Cecilia had seen to that. Rufus Sheriden had seen to that. London society had seen to that. She wasn’t sure when that had changed for her, only that it had.
‘No.’ Beatrice stood up and Claire froze. She recognised the stubborn tilt of Beatrice’s chin. Beatrice on a mission was a formidable creature.
‘No? What?’ Claire was afraid to ask.
‘No, as in we shall not stand for it. I may be ruined, but there is no reason the rest of you have to settle for futures not of your choosing.’
Claire opened her mouth to protest, but Beatrice overrode her dissent with quick words and plans. ‘We’ve been overlooked and forgotten. It’s not entirely our fault. But we have had some hand in the blame. We’ve let the ton treat us as if we accept we’re destined for nothing better than country marriages to dried-up vicars and poor third sons of baronets.’
‘It’s just how it is. What can we do about it?’ Evie ventured hesitantly.
‘We can use our special talents for our own betterment instead of detriment.’ Something stirred inside Claire. She liked that—betterment not detriment. It sounded like something the workers at Peterloo would have chanted. Beatrice began to pace and Claire could feel herself getting caught up in Beatrice’s fervour. ‘It’s so obvious. Why haven’t we seen it before? We have to go after what we want. It’s a simple principle of nature. A system dies when it has no new stimuli.’ Beatrice rounded on the group, gesturing to Evie. ‘We’ll need your skill with the needle to create eye-catching fashions for those who need to stand out. Claire, you can coach us on French phrases to drop into conversation since it’s coming back into vogue. May, you can help us research our quarry: where they’ll be, when they’ll be there, what they like. You can start with Lashley.’
Claire’s passion for Beatrice’s crusade came to a crashing halt. Why Lashley? Oh. Beatrice was starting straight at her, delivering her directive. ‘Time is of the essence. You shall be first.’
‘Me?’ Claire choked on her cider.
Beatrice offered her a consoling smile, but she would not relent.
‘Yes, you,’ Beatrice said sternly. ‘And it’s certainly time you forgot about that idiot Sheriden. You’ve let his opinion of you hold you back for far too long. And it’s time you forgot about Cecilia’s dress prank. I don’t think Lashley even noticed. It was years ago.’
Claire groaned. ‘That just proves my point. He didn’t even notice my most embarrassing moment.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Beatrice argued. ‘It’s time we all forget. We’ve been complacent too long. No more. It has taken this pregnancy for me to realise I don’t have to settle for the life society dictated for me. I don’t want my friends to endure a similar tragedy in order to realise it, too. Each of us can have the lives we want, but only if we stand up for them and for each other.’
She fixed Claire with her best stare. Claire felt something warm and forgotten start to come to life deep inside her, a flicker perhaps of who she was, who she was meant to be instead of whom she had become.
‘It starts with you, Claire. We are not going to let Cecilia Northam take Lashley, not without a fight, by God. She’s had her way far too long and for no good reason.’ Beatrice lifted her cup of cider in proclamation. ‘I hereby officially declare this the “Left-Behind Girls Club”, where, through acts of vigorous self-improvement, social courage and the protection of one another, we will change our circumstances by living life on our terms, not society’s. Because, ladies, nothing will change until we do.’
