Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss (Wallflowers to Wives) Read online

  They were silly notions when he had Cecilia waiting for him and other obligations requiring his attention. For a man like him, a man with ambitions, these evenings were for work as well as pleasure. There were people to meet and to impress, networks to be established. Europe to be saved. Claire smiled to herself. How many others knew what dreams he harboured? It felt good to think that for a little while, maybe she knew a piece of Jonathon no one else did. It could be her secret.

  Where did that leave her? Considering the weighty matters that occupied his mind, she wasn’t sure where she stood on his list of priorities. How had he viewed tonight’s dance? Was she another piece of work he had to conduct or was she part of the pleasure? Something he chose to do or had to do? She didn’t want to think about it for fear the answer would tarnish the perfection of the moment. She wanted to be part of the pleasure for him, as he’d been for her.

  May tugged at her hand. ‘You’re practically glowing so it must have been as good as it looked. Come to the retiring rooms and tell us all about it.’

  The girls were excited, talking over each over on the trip down the hall. ‘You looked beautiful, Claire. No one could take their eyes off the pair of you!’ Evie exclaimed.

  ‘Even Cecilia,’ May offered pointedly. ‘She left the ballroom halfway through.’

  ‘Even Lashley. His eyes were on you the whole time.’ Beatrice’s voice was wistful.

  ‘He has that way about him. He knows how to make everyone feel special, not just me.’ Claire tried to establish some perspective. As much as she’d like to believe in the romance her friends were intent on seeing, she had to be practical or she’d get hurt by her own fantasy. ‘It was only a dance.’

  ‘She’s right, you know.’ Crisp tones sounded from the doorway of the retiring rooms. Cecilia floated in, her entourage of debutantes filing in behind her. She sat down in front of a vanity and studied her hair. ‘Good evening, Claire. It’s good to see at least one of you has any sense.’ She smiled in the mirror and Claire felt her neck prickle in warning. Claire fought the urge to leave the room before she found out what the warning was for, but Beatrice gripped her hand, a clear message that they would not be chased away.

  ‘My dear Lashley is terribly good with people. He can charm anyone.’ Cecilia reached in to her reticule for a small comb, everything about her suggesting this was merely a casual conversation. She used the gesture to study Claire. ‘Olive is a much better colour on you than pink. Much quieter. I do think your style is improving.’

  Claire flushed. With just a few words, Cecilia brought it all rushing back: the humiliation, the cut, the laughter, as if it had happened yesterday and not three years ago.

  ‘Make no mistake, you looked lovely with Lashley tonight, but he can make anyone look good.’ Cecilia glanced around at the group of girls with her, making sure she had all their attention. ‘I just love wearing Lashley. He’s my new favourite colour.’ She paused to let the girls giggle in adoration of her wit. She tilted her head to one side, catching Claire in the crosshairs of a considering glance. Claire stiffened at the attention, wishing she didn’t feel such a thread of fear, that she was somehow finer, braver, than Cecilia’s threats. ‘Well done, Claire. If I was only going to dance once in an evening, I’d choose him, too.’

  Cecilia laughed, a half-hearted attempt at sounding self-deprecating. ‘What am I saying? I get to dance all the dances I want and I still choose him.’

  Claire felt her face burn. She heard Cecilia’s implication. Once again, we’ve chosen the same thing and once again I have triumphed over you, a bluestocking from the country. I looked better in pink and I look better on Jonathon’s arm.

  The girls with Cecilia tittered. Cecilia leaned towards them, feigning confidentiality. ‘We’d dance all the dances if society allowed it. As it is, I have to settle for just two until it’s official.’ Cecilia sighed dramatically. Her entourage sighed with her.

  Claire wanted to gag. The false sweetness was sickening. Did no one else see through Cecilia’s façade? Worse than the saccharine sweetness was the way she objectified Jonathon, as if he were a prize to be won, a handsome ornament and nothing more.

  The girl next to her giggled. ‘You’re so lucky to be marrying him. I wish my father would find me a man just like him instead of gouty old barons.’ Marry him? Was it as final as all that? The words hovered in the air, arrows looking for the target of her heart.

  Cecilia tapped the girl lightly on the arm. ‘But that’s impossible, Lizzie,’ she teased. ‘There’s no one quite like Lashley.’ Cecilia gave Claire a sly smile. ‘Isn’t that right, Claire?’

  Claire had no answer. She was still reeling from the news. It was one thing to suspect Cecilia was meant for Jonathon. It was another, entirely different and awful thing to hear those speculations voiced so casually out loud from the source itself. It became real, no longer just the purvey of gossips. A punch to the stomach would have been just as effective in knocking the wind from her, the news was that devastating.

  ‘Why don’t you just shut up?’ Beatrice stepped forward, arms crossed over her chest, her dark eyes hot, looking every inch an avenging Fury. There was a collective intake of breath throughout the room. No one spoke to Cecilia Northam that way. One word from Cecilia and she could ruin your Season. Claire was living proof of it and she hadn’t even been the one to copy the dress, Cecilia had.

  ‘What did you say to me?’ Cecilia rose slowly from the stool in front of the vanity, eyes narrowed for combat.

  ‘I said, “shut up”.’ Beatrice was unwavering and why not? Claire stifled a little smile. Cecilia’s threats wouldn’t work here. Cecilia had no idea she couldn’t possibly ruin Beatrice’s Season any more than it already was.

  ‘May I ask why?’ Cecilia looked down her nose, a supercilious stare designed to intimidate after hours of practice in the mirror. Everything about Cecilia was designed, from the hair to the stare, everything calculated to gain maximum results. ‘Does the truth offend you?’

  ‘Oh? Then he has asked for your hand? I must have missed the announcement in The Times,’ Beatrice retorted with false sweetness. ‘Which issue was that in?’

  Claire felt a little thrill of victory flicker through her at Cecilia’s hesitation. She felt envy, too—she wanted to be brave like Beatrice, brave enough to back Cecilia to the proverbial wall. Beatrice had her there. Cecilia didn’t dare lie. She would look foolish if she claimed such a thing.

  ‘Everyone knows it’s just a matter of time.’

  ‘Everyone knows? Not me. I don’t think Lashley will offer for you at all. I can imagine what you see in him, but I can’t imagine what he sees in you.’ Beatrice took another step closer to Cecilia, they were nearly toe to toe now.

  ‘Everyone who counts knows,’ Cecilia snarled, her lip turning up, wrecking the pretty features of her face. It was an ugly expression. Claire had never seen Cecilia appear less then perfectly beautiful but there was no beauty now. However, she had seen Beatrice angry before, once, when the former village butcher had cheated a poor woman out of a good cut of meat. Beatrice had railed at him for his unfair treatment and when that had failed, Beatrice had put a butcher knife to his privates. Needless to say, the butcher had relented and the woman had gone home with an excellent ham for free.

  ‘Who would that be? Your father? Is he going to buy you a husband like he bought you a pony? You are nothing without his money, his title.’ Beatrice hurled her insult. Claire saw something flash in Cecilia’s eyes. For a moment Claire almost felt sorry for her, but then Cecilia’s gaze turned in her direction. Cecilia stepped back from Beatrice and smoothed her lavender skirts.

  ‘I don’t care what you believe, Beatrice Penrose. Claire knows the truth. She knows what tonight was: a charity dance. Lashley was doing his duty, nothing more, although what he thinks he owes you for is beyond me.’ She flicked open her fan with a snap and h
eaded for the door. ‘Come, ladies. I believe our dance cards are full and the gentlemen are waiting.’

  ‘What a bitch!’ May exhaled, flopping into a chair in relief. ‘Good Lord, Beatrice, I thought she was going to hit you.’ May snickered. ‘You made her leave the room, Bea. She might pretend it was all her doing, but she had to retreat. It just proves there’s a first time for everything.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ Claire gently scolded her friend. ‘She’ll make life difficult for you.’

  Beatrice snorted. ‘I’m pregnant and unmarried—how much more difficult can life get? I have precisely two more months before I’m packed off to the wilds of some place where my family can forget I’m giving birth to a bastard.’

  ‘Oh, Bea, is it that bad?’ Claire knelt beside her, clasping Bea’s hands. ‘We won’t let them send you away.’

  ‘We’ll go with you, if they do,’ Evie chimed in.

  Beatrice smiled, over-bright. ‘Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about Lashley and Claire and what comes next.’

  Claire stood up, suddenly feeling tired. ‘Maybe we could talk later. I think I’d like to go home.’ She had danced with Jonathon, shared a stroll with him, Beatrice had bested Cecilia. They were all reasons for celebration, but that didn’t mean some of her joy hadn’t gone out of the evening anyway.

  Chapter Seven

  The carriage was waiting for her at the head of queue at the kerb. The Welton family driver knew her habits. She never stayed long at these affairs and he parked close so she could make a quick getaway.

  Claire leaned back against the squabs, drawing a lap robe over her legs more for comfort than for warmth in the spring evening. It was always a getaway. The last three years had been one getaway after another. At first getaways had been her solution. But now, they were fast becoming her problem. In hindsight, she could see the pattern. She was always retreating. At first, retreating had been a defence mechanism, a means of protecting herself, but then that very means of protection had become the means by which she’d started to lose herself.

  What had Jonathon said? You are different than I thought. He thought she was quiet, submissive, unobtrusive. She was not naturally any of those things. But she’d become them until she wasn’t entirely sure who she was any more. Was she quiet Claire, who stood on the sidelines watching others dance, or was she bold Claire, who wore new dresses and scolded handsome men who wouldn’t do their French lessons?

  She simply didn’t know. She knew who she wanted to be, though. She wanted to be the latter; a woman who could fight for what she wanted, a woman who wouldn’t back down to Cecilia because of a moment’s embarrassment years ago. That was the woman Jonathon would notice. That was a woman Claire could respect.

  But how to be someone she’d hadn’t been for years? Someone she might never have been? The road back would be difficult and scary. There would be fits and starts. There would be successes and failures, and those would, by necessity, be public. There would be witnesses and there would be Cecilia, ready to remind her at every turn.

  Claire closed her eyes as the coach bounced over the dark London streets. She forced the painful memory to materialise. It had started nicely enough; the happy laughter of a party, girls exclaiming over one another’s gowns, the Season still new and fresh, the ballroom sparkling with light, young men lining up for dance cards, for her dance card. Her hair was done in an elegant sweeping up-do, her grandmother’s pearls proudly at her neck, an understated complement to the pale-pink gown that had arrived from the dressmaker’s that afternoon in a white box.

  She was beside herself with excitement: Her first ball gown that wasn’t white. She’d loved it on sight in the pattern books, had patiently stood for hours of fittings until the gown was just right. She felt magical in it, as if she could command a room. She laughed at something Jerome Kerr had said and the room about her suddenly went silent. The crowd parted, forming a phalanx, and at the other end stood Cecilia Northam, blonde and regal in a gown identical in colour and cut to hers—her dream gown, worn by another. Not just any other, but a girl poised to be a Diamond of the First Water. Now that girl stood ten paces away, facing her not unlike a duellist.

  ‘Very pretty, Claire, but even so, I wear it better. Pink is more my colour than yours.’

  Cecilia fired first and the words were deadly. Everyone had laughed. People had backed off, leaving her alone to face Cecilia. Only Claire hadn’t faced it. Young and unprepared, Claire had fled.

  Claire opened her eyes, regretting for the thousandth time her choice that night. She’d fled and let the incident become her legacy. Now she was stuck with it. It would have to be overcome, only there was so much more of it to overcome. That moment had defined her. She’d made choices and those choices had changed her.

  She’d withdrawn from society and now she wanted to re-engage. In order to do that, she would have to face her fears, have to face Cecilia. The road back, the road to Jonathon, was through Cecilia Northam. Claire might have been brave enough once, but now? She didn’t know. She should have gone back in, faced whatever scrutiny was thrown her way and got it over with.

  Nothing will change until we do. Could she change again? She wished with all her heart she’d never left the ballroom that night.

  * * *

  Claire hadn’t returned to the ballroom. He’d been watching long enough to conclude she wasn’t coming back. The realisation stole some of the excitement from the evening. Jonathon excused himself from the group he was with and sought the relative quiet of the hall. Anyone out there was too busy with their own concerns to pay him much mind and that was fine with him. He was poor company at the moment; restless and suddenly dissatisfied with the evening. He gave a short nod to an acquaintance just arriving and kept moving before the man could engage him. He didn’t feel particularly social at the moment.

  Why did it matter if Claire hadn’t returned? He’d danced with her. His self-imposed duty was done. Perhaps, even now, she was dancing with her suitor. He could devote his evening to Cecilia without interruption. But was it really a duty if it was self-imposed? No one had made him dance with her. He’d wanted to. He’d offered. And he’d enjoyed it. More than enjoyed it. She’d actually looked at him when they danced instead of peering over his shoulder to see who was watching them.

  Cecilia constantly looked around the room and whispered a social commentary in his ear. ‘Amelia Parks is wearing yellow—why does she persist? It’s such an awful colour for her...makes her look sallow, and she needs all the help she can get or she’ll lose Robert Farley. Bertie Bagnold is dancing with Miss Jellison again. I think he’ll offer for her soon. She can’t expect to do better...’

  The comparison was poorly done of him and not for the first time. He’d held Cecilia up to Claire Welton earlier in the garden. Cecilia Northam was all he’d been raised to desire in a mate; lovely—there was none more beautiful if a man preferred the idea that beauty was defined as blonde and blue eyed; socially astute—she was perhaps the most well-informed young woman in any ballroom. She knew who was courting whom, who would be successful and who would fail, she knew what to wear, how and when to wear it. She would never embarrass him at any occasion, never contradict him in public, unlike a certain sherry-eyed miss.

  But in private, she could be petulant. He’d been raised to understand that was the nature of women, too. His father had suggested as much with a weary sigh. It was the price men paid for a hostess, someone to grace their table, make guests feel at ease, run their homes, raise their children and ensure the continuance of their line. In exchange, a man offered that woman his home, his title, his money, his name, his patience, for the rest of his life. It was difficult to imagine Claire fitting that image. She would be empathetic, listening carefully and contributing a thoughtful opinion. He laughed at himself. His father would be quick to disabuse him of such a fantasy.

 
Marriage in the echelons of the ton simply wasn’t meant to be that way. It was meant to be a compromise, a trading of tasks and goods. It was interesting to note what was left off that list; neither offered the other loyalty, fidelity, affection, devotion, care. The old question that had plagued him raised itself again—shouldn’t marriage be more? He’d been thinking about that often lately. It was probably due to the social pressure he was under.

  Lord Belvoir had stopped by at the club yesterday to subtly talk about Cecilia and his posting to Vienna. It had all appeared very casual, but Jonathon knew better. There were expectations in that direction. A wife was essential to a diplomat abroad, especially in a city like Vienna where navigating the social whirl was the key to political success.

  He needed a wife by August, just as he needed oral fluency in French, one more thing to check off his packing list. Thinking of it that way seemed so impersonal. While his valet was busy acquiring trunks and clothing, he was supposed to be busy acquiring French and a wife, sa femme. Claire would be proud of him for thinking in French.

  ‘Lashley, there you are!’ Cecilia crossed the hall with purpose and latched on to his arm, a bright smile on her face. ‘The supper dance is coming up and I didn’t want to miss it.’ She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial low tone. ‘It’s my favourite time of night, because I get you all to myself.’ He remembered how it had once felt to hear her utter those words and look up at him with those eyes—like he’d won a prize. This evening, there was the faintest hint of dread in hearing them, his restlessness raising its head.

  When had the thought of Cecilia become tarnished instead of tolerable? Probably when he’d started attaching words like ‘for ever’ and ‘marriage’ to her. Jonathon forced a smile. ‘Do you suppose they’ll have lobster patties?’

  She laughed uncertainly at the remark, unsure how to interpret it. Taken literally, it was the question of an idiot. Taken with the slight undertone of sarcasm as he’d intended, it might pass as a dry joke, a commentary on the sameness of every evening. ‘They always have lobster patties.’ Cecilia covered her uncertainty with a bright smile.