An Independent Woman

He opened his mouth to speak, but just at that moment, as if the conversation had called them, there was the sound of hurried steps outside, and Mrs. Thrall swept into the room.

“Lord Barre! What a delightful surprise! I am so sorry I was not here to greet you when you arrived.”

With a rueful glance at Juliana, Nicholas stood up and made a polite bow. “Mrs. Thrall. We were just speaking about you.”

The woman tittered, casting a flirtatious look at him. “Flatterer! I’ll warrant I know who it is you are interested in seeing, and it is not me. Don’t worry. Clementine will be down in a moment.” She turned toward Juliana. “Juliana, dear, why don’t you ring for tea? Let’s have it in the drawing room.” She turned back toward Nicholas with a smile. “It is much roomier, my lord. I cannot imagine what Juliana was thinking of to receive you in here.”

Nicholas cast an indifferent glance around the room. “I was more interested in talking to Juliana than in the room.”

“Prettily said, sir, but, still, I think we will find it more pleasant to converse in the front room.”

There was little to do except go with Mrs. Thrall as she ushered Nicholas out of the room and down the hallway to the more formal drawing room at the front of the narrow house. Juliana rang for tea, as her employer had requested, and sat down, resigned to having her chat with Nicholas spoiled.

Clementine came rushing in a few minutes later, breathless and attractively flushed, and Juliana noted that she had paused to put on a different dress than she had been wearing earlier, and tie a new blue ribbon through her curls.

“Lord Barre!” She came forward and dropped him a pretty little curtsey, extending her hand and smiling at him. “I was so surprised when Mama told me that you had come to call on me.”

Nicholas raised one brow at this bit of news. “Actually, I called on Miss Holcott.”

Clementine’s eyes widened a bit at this unexpected rebuff, but her mother jumped in to cover her momentary silence.

“Yes, we were so surprised to hear that dear Juliana was acquainted with you,” Mrs. Thrall said. She wagged a playful finger at her employee. “Such a naughty girl you are, keeping your news a secret.”

Juliana was tempted to reply that who she knew or didn’t know was no business of Mrs. Thrall’s, but Nicholas intervened, saying smoothly, “No doubt Miss Holcott did not deem knowing a reprobate like me worthy of your attention, madam.”

Mrs. Thrall’s response to this was a shrill whinny of laughter. “Oh, you…” She snapped open her fan and covered the lower half of her face in a girlish way that looked bizarre, given that she was well into middle age.

Clementine, annoyed at not being the center of attention for so long, jumped back into the conversation. “Your life must have been so fascinating,” she said to Nicholas, gazing at him with wide, limpid eyes. “You have seen so many places. I can scarce imagine what you must have done.”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Thrall agreed. “You must tell us about your travels, Lord Barre.”

Juliana could envision the woman storing up tidbits to drop into her future conversations. “As Lord Barre was saying to me the other day…” or “Lord Barre told me he found India quite…”

She glanced at Nicholas, whose expression indicated that he had little desire to conduct a travelogue for Mrs. Thrall and her daughter. He glanced toward Juliana, then turned back to Mrs. Thrall, saying, “You must forgive me, madam. I am afraid I haven’t time to stay and chat. I just came by to invite Miss Holcott to come riding tomorrow in my curricle.” He looked over at Juliana. “If you would like to, I could come by in the morning.”

“That would be lovely,” Juliana replied quickly, not even looking toward Mrs. Thrall for permission. She was not about to let the woman ruin another visit with Nicholas by giving her a chance to thrust Clementine into their party.

“Excellent.” Nicholas rose to his feet. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must take my leave of you ladies. Mrs. Thrall. Miss Thrall.” He sketched a brief bow in their direction. “Miss Holcott.”

“My lord.”

Clementine stared after Nicholas as he left the room, too astonished for a moment to even say anything. Then she whirled around to face Juliana, her face contorting with anger. Juliana had a sudden, wicked desire that the girl’s suitors could see her as she looked now.

“No!” Clementine exclaimed. “You cannot go. I won’t allow it.”

CHAPTER THREE

JULIANA’S BACK stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mama!” Clementine whirled around to face her mother. “You cannot allow Juliana to go with Lord Barre. I should be the one to ride in his curricle.”

It took all Juliana’s strength of will not to snap at the girl that she was the one Lord Barre had invited, not Clementine.

“Oh, no, dear,” Mrs. Thrall assured her. “Don’t you worry about that. Of course he had to invite Juliana. It would not do for a young girl like you to ride out with a man alone. You have to have Juliana as a chaperone.”

“No, I don’t,” Clementine insisted. “It’s perfectly all right for a lady to go for a ride in a vehicle with a gentleman alone, especially an open-air one like a curricle. Juliet Sloane told me ladies and gentlemen do it all the time.”

Her mother looked uncertain. “Well, I know that it’s unexceptionable for older ladies and gentlemen, but a girl your age, new to the Town, I’m not sure….”

She glanced toward Juliana. “What do you think, Juliana?”

“I think that it scarcely matters in this instance, since Lord Barre has already invited me to ride with him.”

“That’s true.” Mrs. Thrall brightened. “And you can count on it, Clemmy, that if as highborn a gentleman as Lord Barre asked Juliana to come along, as well, then that is the way it should be.”

Juliana had to grind her teeth together to keep from pointing out that Lord Barre had not invited Clementine along at all. It galled her to think of the tiresome girl inserting herself into her ride with Nicholas. She would chatter and giggle and flirt like mad, and Juliana would have no more chance to chat alone with him than she had had today. It was, she thought, the outside of enough. But she could scarcely tell her employer that her daughter was not welcome to come with them. Mrs. Thrall would all too likely forbid Juliana to go, as well.

Clementine pouted for a few minutes, flashing a look of intense dislike in Juliana’s direction, until finally Mrs. Thrall suggested that the two of them go to a millinery shop and purchase a fetching new bonnet for Clementine to wear on the ride tomorrow. Juliana, she said, could take Fiona to the bookshop, as the tiresome girl had been begging to go.

Mrs. Thrall would have been surprised to learn that Juliana much preferred doing almost anything with her younger daughter Fiona than with Clementine or her mother. Fiona, at thirteen, had a livelier wit and more charming personality than Mrs. Thrall and Clementine combined. Juliana had spent a great deal of time with the girl, as Mrs. Thrall found Fiona’s questions tiring and her interests peculiar, so she often shoved her younger daughter off into Juliana’s capable hands.

Fiona, it turned out, was finding Clementine as obnoxious today as Juliana. “If I hear one more word about Lord Barre, I think I shall scream,” she told Juliana as they strode up the street in the direction of the bookshop.

Juliana glanced down at the young girl and smiled. Fiona’s coloring was much like her sister’s, her hair pale blond and her eyes blue, but there the resemblance ended. Fiona was already as tall as her petite sister and showed no signs of stopping growing yet. Her face was squarish in shape, with a firm chin, and none of the soft, dimpled look for which Clementine was well-known. In sharp contrast to Clementine, her blue eyes were sharp and gleaming with intelligence.

“She has done nothing but talk of the man the whole day,” Fiona went on in irritation. “How handsome he is, how wealthy he is, how respected his name is.”

“Lord Barre is a…remarkable man,” Juliana told her.

The younger girl made a face. “No one could be the paragon that Clementine describes.”

Juliana chuckled. “Well, that is probably true. But he is a friend of mine. We grew up together, and long ago he was the best friend I had.”

“Really?” Fiona looked up at her in astonishment. “You are friends with the man Clemmy is going to marry?”

Juliana raised one brow skeptically. “Is that what she said?”

“Oh, yes. She said he would be head-over-heels about her in a few days.” Fiona grimaced. “And she’s usually right about men, even if she is abysmally ignorant about everything else. Men seem to be disgustingly taken with her.”

Juliana automatically started to remind Fiona that she should not talk so disparagingly about her sister. But on second thought, she decided that it was wrong to reprimand the girl for speaking the truth. “I’m not sure that she will have the usual success with this one.”

The evening before Juliana had wondered if Nicholas might become attracted to Clementine’s beauty. He had, after all, smiled and conversed with her. But his actions today had left little room for misinterpretation. He had left, pleading lack of time, shortly after Clementine had entered the room and taken over the conversation, and, whatever Mrs. Thrall might choose to think about Nicholas’s invitation, he had not included Clementine in it. Mrs. Thrall and her daughter might be able to arrange it the next morning so that he had to take Clementine along, but Juliana was quite certain that he had not intended for Clementine to go.

Juliana, too, had seen Clementine wrap men around her finger, and she could not say with certainty that she might not be able to eventually work her wiles on Nicholas, but she did not think it would be easy.

“That would be wonderful,” Fiona said, grinning. “He must be smarter than most of the men Clemmy sees.”

“Yes, I rather think he is. Nicholas was always perceptive.”