Buch lesen: «The London School for Ladies»

Chapter One
April 1814

There it was—between a cataloged detail of the lobster patties and a thorough description of Lady Norrick’s ball gown lay the entire tale of Lady Eleanor Murray’s most humiliating moment.

And a perpetual reminder of that blasted moniker.

Ice Queen, indeed.

Inside she was anything but ice, with untethered emotion lashing and writhing until an aching knot settled in the back of her throat.

But ladies were not to show emotion—and she was, after all, a Murray. Murrays were strong. They did not show fear. And they certainly did not concede to hurt, no matter how it twisted within one’s soul.

She stared down at the crinkled page in her hands. The corners of the paper fluttered and called to attention the way she trembled.

She wanted to read the story again and wished for the usual: a detailed account of dinner, as always very thorough, told through the eyes of the Lady Observer, and trifling little on-dits that did not include her. Simple, ineffectual tales—like pointing out someone who had had two glasses of champagne instead of one, or whose reticule might have been left behind after the guests departed, followed by speculation as to why it had been left with such haste.

But the words of the story had not changed. Lady Alice had swept late into the Season, bright and beautiful and devoid of the desperation clawing at Eleanor. Every man had been drawn to her—including Hugh.

Eleanor’s heart gave an ugly twinge.

Not Hugh. Lord Ledsey. She no longer held the right to address him or even think of him so informally. That right belonged to Lady Alice now. To make matters worse, Lady Alice was such a kind soul, and so lovely a person, it rendered her impossible to dislike. How very vexing.

The life Eleanor had envisioned with Hugh—summers at Ledsey Manor, the Season spent at Ledsey Place, freedom from having to plod along in the dreaded search for a suitable husband—all of it now belonged to Alice.

Eleanor’s throat went tight. Dash it—she was about to cry.

A delicate knock sounded at her closed door.

She quickly shoved the paper under the pillow of her bed, blinked her eyes clear and grabbed up a book. “Enter.”

The Countess of Westix swept into the room, followed by a footman carrying a large boxed parcel. Eleanor’s mother indicated the dressing table with a wave of her hand and then addressed her daughter. “I’d like a word with you.”

The footman obediently placed the parcel on the seat before Eleanor’s dressing table and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Eleanor eyed the curious package first, and then her mother. The Countess wore a lavender evening gown sparkling with beadwork over a net of black lace. She was lovely, despite the silver in her golden hair, which had been coiffured to its usual state of perfection. There was not a wrinkle of worry or anger on her smooth face, but still Eleanor’s stomach gave a familiar wrench—as it did any time her mother entered her room.

A lecture was forthcoming.

But what of the curious gift?

Her mother regarded the book Eleanor held. “What are you reading?”

“The Festival of St. Jago,” Eleanor replied slowly.

Surely her mother had not come into her room to discuss her selection of literature?

The Countess tilted her head dramatically to the side. “Upside down?”

Eleanor focused on the page for the first time. It stared up at her from its flipped position. Exactly upside down.

Drat.

“Perhaps you were reading something else?”

The Countess of Westix lifted her brow in the way she always did when it was obvious she’d spotted a lie. That look had plagued Eleanor through the course of her very rigid childhood. Or at least after Evander had been sent to school, following the incident with their father, since when life had become impossibly strict.

Eleanor set the book aside with careful measure. The Lady Observer gave an incriminating crackle from beneath her pillow.

The Countess sat on the bed beside her daughter. “I read it, too. And I’ve heard the rumors—what they say about you.”

Eleanor pressed a fingernail into the pad of her thumb until it hurt more than her mortification. It was a trick she’d used as a girl, when emotion threatened to overwhelm her, as though she could pinch the feeling out of herself with the sharp sensation.

She did not want to be having this abysmal conversation with her mother, having to relive the awful moment ad nauseam. Hadn’t the experience itself been torment enough?

“I’m proud of you, daughter. You’ve maintained your composure.”

The Countess settled her hand on Eleanor’s arm. The touch was as awkward as it was foreign. Her mother immediately drew away her cold, dry fingers and tucked the offending appendage against her waist.

“It is I who is ashamed.”

The shock of those words left Eleanor speechless. Her mother was without even a modicum of impropriety.

“I did not have a good marriage with your father, God rest his soul.” The Countess regarded Eleanor with a cool look. “He came from a strong clan before his family was elevated to the English nobility. It was his belief that all emotion was weakness, indicative of one who was baseborn, and his family had worked too hard to climb high to be considered common. Murrays are strong. They do not show fear.”

Eleanor bit back a bitter smile. She knew those words well and had spent a lifetime listening to them being recited. After all, she knew the story well enough. Her father had not allowed any of the ton to look down on them for being Scottish, for not having been members of the nobility since the dawn of time.

“I gave up a piece of myself when I married your father,” said her mother. “I didn’t realize...” Her eyes became glossy. She pursed her lips and gave a long, slow blink before resuming. “I didn’t realize I would be making my children give a piece of themselves away as well.”

This show of such emotion left Eleanor wanting to squirm on the bed with discomfort. This was immediately followed by a shade of guilt. After all, her mother was voluntarily peeling back a layer of herself to offer a rare peek within, and Eleanor could think of nothing but her own uncertainty on how to handle this foreign and precarious moment.

Her mother rose abruptly, alleviating the uncomfortable tension between them. “I aided in the suppressing of your feelings until you were rendered emotionless...cold. I did not see that until this incident.” She sighed and the rigid set to her shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m sorry, daughter. And I will right that wrong tonight.” She strode to the box and pulled off the cover.

Eleanor slid off the bed and peered into the opened parcel. Nestled within was a length of folded black silk.

“It’s a domino and mask.” The Countess gracefully scooped a black silk mask from the box. “There’s a wig as well. To protect your identity.”

To cover her hair. Of course. Anyone seeing the garish splash of red would immediately know Eleanor’s identity. The color had come from her father and it certainly had not offered Eleanor any favors. Not like her mother’s green eyes, which Eleanor was grateful to have inherited.

Eleanor stared down at the pile of black silk and her heartbeat gave a little trip. “Where am I to go that I should need a disguise?”

“I’ve paid a courtesan to teach you what I cannot.”

Eleanor jerked her gaze to her mother in absolute horror.

“Oh, she wasn’t always a courtesan,” the Countess replied. “She’d once been a sweet vicar’s daughter, which is how she is known to me. Difficult times do harsh things to women who have no other options.” She pressed her lips together in a reverent pause. “The woman is discreet, and she will teach you to be more genuine, more receptive. Less like me. I don’t want you to have a cold marriage or an austere life, in which every detail is perpetually calculated.” The mask trembled in her mother’s loose hold. “It’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to soften I fear I would be a poor tutor.”

She pushed the mask into Eleanor’s hands.

Her fingers closed around the silk without thought. “A courtesan?” she gasped. “I’ll be ruined. You’ll be ruined.”

Her mother leveled her with a look. “Your father is dead, your brother is missing, I am getting old, and you are already two and twenty. The Season is halfway over and your one prospect has found another woman. You do know that if Evander is gone three more years he’ll be declared dead and your cousin will inherit everything?”

Eleanor’s thoughts flinched from the mention of her brother. It ached too much to think of his absence. He had left four years ago, to seek the adventure his father, the previous Earl of Westix, had once relished. In a world of turmoil and war, his prolonged absence gave them all cause for concern. Not that they had relinquished hope. Not yet, at least. But that did not mean they did not worry.

Her mother was correct in her harsh assessment. Eleanor’s prospects were bleak.

The Countess was also correct regarding Eleanor’s cousin, Leopold. He was a rapacious young popinjay, with an eye on Evander’s title and any wealth he could squander on eccentric clothing and weighted gambling tables. Eleanor would get little from him before he managed to consume it all.

“Perhaps next Season will be better,” Eleanor said. “I know I’m already nearly on the shelf, but—”

“There isn’t money for another Season.” Her mother pressed a hand to the flat of her stomach, just below her breasts, and drew in a staying breath. “Your father spent it traipsing around the world. Evander didn’t leave to follow in his path—he left to repair it. To save us from financial ruin.”

Eleanor maintained her composure—a near impossible feat when the world seemed to have tipped out from underneath her. “I didn’t know...”

“I wouldn’t have expected you to. It’s not information I would have willingly shared. At least your father had the forethought to establish a trust in my name after we were wed. Which is why you’ve had the Seasons you’ve had so far.”

The confident tilt of her mother’s head lowered a fraction of an inch. Weariness etched lines on her face, and for the first time in Eleanor’s life her mother appeared truly old.

Their situation was indeed dire.

Eleanor unfurled her fingers and regarded the mask crumpled against her damp palm.

“This may be your only chance, Eleanor,” the Countess said. “Learn how to be less cold, how to appear more welcoming. Dispel the rumors and rise above the label they’ve placed upon you. Be in charge of your own destiny.”

Her mother touched her face with icy fingertips. Eleanor did not pull away, but instead met the anxiety in her mother’s stare.

The Countess’s brow creased. “I want a better life for you.”

Eleanor’s heart pounded very fast. Surely her cheeks were red with the effort of it? “Do you trust her, Mother?”

The Countess of Westix nodded resolutely. “I do.”

“Then so shall I.” A tremor of fear threatened to clamber up Eleanor’s spine, but she willed it away. “When do I start?”

The Countess turned to the window, where the sky beyond had grown dark. “Tonight.”

Charles Pemberton was the new Duke of Somersville. The news was unwelcome, for it meant that in the six months it had taken him to return to London his father had died.

He stood by the desk in the library within the massive structure of Somersville House, his father’s letter clutched limply between his fingertips.

It did not feel right to sit at the desk, when for so many decades it had been the previous Duke of Somersville who had resided behind the great expanse of polished mahogany. The entire room had been off-limits to Charles for the majority of his life, and it left everything within him feeling too hard, too desolately foreign, to offer any comfort.

Charles regarded the letter once more. Not the one which had taken months to reach him where he had been exploring in a remote location on the outskirts of Egypt. That one had informed him that he must return home immediately. No, he held the letter which reminded him of a promise made—a promise woefully unfulfilled.

Rain pattered on the windowpanes outside, filling the room with an empty, bleak drumming. It was fitting, really, as it mirrored the torrent raging through him. His father had been the biggest part of his life—the reason Charles had sought to travel from the first. To witness the wonders of the world which had made his father so much larger than life in his eyes. To make his father proud of him for the first time in Charles’s life.

And now the Duke was dead.

Ridiculous that the notion still had not thoroughly soaked into Charles’s mind. Or perhaps it was his own guilt which prevented it. After all, he’d vowed when he’d left for his Grand Tour that he’d seek out the Coeur de Feu—the renowned ruby stolen from a French collector in the mid-sixteen-hundreds. It was said to be the size of a man’s fist and to burn with a fire at its core—hence its name: the heart of fire.

It was the one artifact that had eluded his father, and therefore the one with which the previous Duke had become obsessed. It had been Charles’s intention to seek out the stone, but he’d been so busy in the last years, experiencing new cultures, learning from the people there and their way of life. Time had seemed limitless and his father had seemed immortal.

Charles’s legs were too heavy to keep him standing, and yet still he could not bring himself to rest in his father’s cold chair. The grand home and all its fine furnishings might belong to Charles now, but he very much felt a stranger among his father’s effects rather than their new owner. His new title fitted as uncomfortably as did the rest of his inheritance.

He looked down at the letter, which his father had left for Charles to read upon his return to London. It had been hastily written before the Duke’s death and was crumpled from where it had been found, clutched in his fist. Even to look at it wrenched at Charles. He hadn’t been there for the funeral. He hadn’t been there to say goodbye.

The note was not filled with lamentations of time lost or proclamations of affection for Charles, who was his only living child. No, the letter contained only one scrawled line.

Find the journal and use the key to locate the Coeur de Feu.

Of course. The Coeur de Feu. Charles’s greatest failure.

“The key” was a flat bit of metal the size of a book, with twenty-five small squares cut into it. The Adventure Club insignia had been stamped into the bottom right corner, indicating the key’s proper direction for use. Its size matched perfectly with the various journals his father had had in his possession, all embossed with a gilt compass—the insignia of the Adventure Club.

The club had been started by his father and the Earl of Westix, and other members of the ton, several decades prior.

Charles had, of course, tried fitting the key into the journals. While the size of the metal piece matched perfectly with the books, it did not reveal anything more than garbled letters. Charles had tried to scramble the random offerings, rearrange them and put them together again. Yet none of his attempts created successful words—at least none that made any sense.

“Your Grace...” A voice sounded on the edges of Charles’s thoughts.

Charles braced his fingertips over the desk atop one of the books, lest he leave prints on the polished surface. His father had always hated fingerprints on things.

“Your Grace?” the voice said again.

Perhaps the journals the late Duke referred to in his note were not within this collection. Westix had a stash, after all. Charles had been present and had seen his father’s objections on how the artifacts had been split after the final venture of the Adventure Club fifteen years before—specifically the ownership of important artifacts and documents.

“My Lord,” the voice snapped.

Charles turned in response to the familiar form of address. His valet, Thomas, was at his side with a parchment extended.

“With all due respect, Your Grace, you are Your Grace now.”

Thomas was ever the loyal companion. The man had traveled around the world with Charles, never once complaining, no matter how dismal the conditions. And they had indeed been dismal at times.

Regardless, Thomas always managed a smile and a pot of warm water for a proper shave. And so it was that Charles knew his valet was not being disrespectful in issuing the gentle reminder.

Charles nodded appreciatively. “Yes. Correct.”

A roll of thunder rattled the windows. Thomas cast a disparaging look outside. “It would appear that Miss Charlotte is in town and she asks that you join her at her home immediately. Her servant also bade me give you this.”

“Miss Charlotte? Lottie?” Charles asked with a note of surprise.

Thomas lifted a brow and handed the parchment to Charles. “Yes, Your Grace. She is apparently most eager to speak with you.”

Charles unfolded the parchment and glanced at the letter.

Don’t say no, Charles.

He couldn’t help but smile at that. How very like Lottie. She always had been bold with her requests, even when they were children. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d last seen little Charlotte Rossington, the vicar’s daughter from his local church near Somersville Manor. They’d grown up together, and had held a platonic fondness for one another ever since.

She’d grown into a beautiful woman, with dark hair and flashing blue eyes, and was so similar in coloring to him that people sometimes confused them as brother and sister. They’d been close enough to be siblings.

He hadn’t seen her since just before he’d left for his Grand Tour. There would be much to catch up on. By his estimation, and with his knowledge of her sweet, charming nature, she was most likely married with the brood of children she’d always wanted.

The night was abysmal, but even the storm was preferable to a dreary house filled with ghosts and failed promises.

Charles folded the note. “Have the carriage readied, Thomas.”

He smirked to himself as his valet departed. It truly had been far too long since Charles had seen Lottie.