Unbuttoning The Innocent Miss

‘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.’

Chapter Two (#ulink_08175e89-11af-51be-9944-e4fe4fdf241d)

They had to be the ones to change. Beatrice’s words still echoed three nights later. They had to stop accepting and start fighting for the life they wanted. Claire did not take issue with the concept in theory. Beatrice’s speech had been rousing, inspiring even in a Henry the Fifth, ‘once more into the breach’ sort of way. But did she have to be first?

Claire pressed nervous hands against the flat of her stomach, repeatedly smoothing the silky material of her Evie-enhanced gown as she mounted the steps of the Worth town house behind her parents for dinner. Her friends should have started with someone they could succeed with. There was nothing like attempting the impossible to doom morale. She knew. She’d attempted it once. That’s what this mission was: the impossible, an experiment doomed to failure. Jonathon hadn’t noticed her for three years. Why would he suddenly notice her now? Why would anyone? She’d spent three years trying not to be noticed, trying to avoid reminding people she was the girl who had worn a gown identical to Cecilia Northam’s at the largest ball of the Season the year she’d come out.

Inside the high-ceilinged hall of the Worth town house, with its blue-veined marble floor and white-arched niches filled with expensive statuary, Claire’s nerves hit a ceiling of their own. Changing one’s circumstances was all well and good in the hypothetical, but in practice it was far different, far more real. It was some comfort to know that May would be there with her tonight, playing hostess with her mother, but the comfort was outweighed by the knowledge that Jonathon Lashley and his parents would be in attendance, along with Cecilia Northam’s family.

There would be others present, too, all of whom most likely outranked the Weltons in terms of social cachet. Her father was an unobtrusive man, a quiet viscount possessed of an old title, the sort of guest who could always be counted on to fill seats. As such, he and her mother were invited everywhere. It was a comfortable but not demanding popularity. Tonight was a case in point. The Worths liked to seat an even twenty for supper when they entertained, hence the need for the Weltons.

The butler led them into the drawing room and May was immediately at her side, slipping an arm through hers. Claire felt some of her nerves ease. May, like Beatrice, had been there when she’d refused her one and only offer of marriage and her family had been livid with her. May had been there when Cecilia had pulled her awful prank. Without May, Claire would have given up society years ago and retreated firmly to the country with her books. She’d probably know six languages by now instead of four.

‘You look beautiful,’ May whispered, looking lovely herself in a dress of midnight-blue silk.

‘Do you think so?’ Claire tugged self-consciously at the newly lowered bodice of her gown. Evie had recut the old conservative square one into a more modern style that was off the shoulder and considerably more revealing, before horizontally ruching the fabric to make the expanse of bosom now on display appear fuller.

May slapped her hand. ‘Stop fussing with it. The cut is fine, more than fine. Evie has outdone herself.’ The dress was hugely improved. Claire had hardly recognised it when Evie finished. It was just that Claire wasn’t used to it. It wasn’t the sort of dress a girl like her wore—a girl with no prospects, a girl who blended into the wallpaper. This was a dress that got a girl noticed. She’d not been oblivious to the second glances cast her way. The realisation made her fidgety. She wasn’t used to being looked at, only looked over, or was that overlooked?

Of course, being noticed was part of the plan: no more matching the curtains, no more blending in. Being different meant looking different and there’d been no time in the last two days for an entirely new gown to be made. The girls had crowded into Claire’s room and meticulously gone through her wardrobe until every gown had been scrutinised and discarded. Claire had not realised how plain her wardrobe was until it had needed to pass their inspection and failed.

The girls had decided she should wear blue, ‘Ethereal’, Evie had called it. Evie had taken notes on her little pad and had worked wonders with the gown. After the bodice had been remade, Evie had added wide chocolate-brown grosgrain ribbon at the hem and thinner silk ribbon of the same colour along the bodice and the tiny puffed sleeves: a striking effect against the sky-blue that brought out the amber colour of her eyes.

Truth be told, Claire did feel different in the dress, but it would take some getting used to. Maybe she felt too different. A dress could change her on the outside, but it couldn’t change her on the inside, could it? She scanned the room bravely, her eyes finding Jonathon; dark haired and tall, at the wide fireplace mantel that dominated the far wall. He was smiling, looking entirely at ease as he conversed. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him without that smile and that air of confidence he carried everywhere with him, trademarks of who he was; a man with the world at his fingertips.

It was no wonder he was picked for an important diplomatic post. He was witty, charming, informed and there wasn’t a talent he didn’t possess; he could sing at musical evenings, fence, box, ride and shoot. He was perfect, the Regency’s incarnation of Da Vinci’s Renaissance man.

He stood with his father and Lord Belvoir, Cecilia’s father. Cecilia Northam was at his side dressed in an exquisite rose silk, her hand on his arm, possessive and proud as if he already belonged to her. Cecilia’s eyes caught hers, her steely-silver gaze perusing Claire’s gown.

Claire could hear the old, hurtful words. ‘I wear it better. Far better. You should have known you could not wear my signature colour.’ Claire hadn’t worn pink since.

This gown was not that gown, she reasoned with herself. In no way did Evie’s blue creation resemble the rose silk Cecilia wore tonight. But Claire still felt her confidence falter. ‘I feel as if I’ve been thrown to the lions,’ she murmured to May.

‘Then be Daniel,’ May whispered. ‘Keep your head up and look them all in the eye. Let everyone know this Season you mean business, beginning tonight.’