“I wonder what his lordship will do when Nancy doesn’t return?”
Lady Bess stroked her muff. “I know him, and I know his circumstances. He can’t touch Bessington, and if he wants to accuse me of anything, I’ll make the full story known. That he asked me to relieve him of an unwanted child he’d forced upon a helpless girl in his employ.”
Henrietta swallowed the taste of triumph turning sour. “Once I’m presented, I’ll likely be recognized on these little escapades.”
“We can find other uses for your talents, like leading debates.” Lady Bess’s keen eye turned soft. “This is a grand step for you, Hetty.”
Henrietta tried to laugh. “A great leap from the daughter of a tradesman to the daughter of a knight, and a fair way to fall.”
“Apollonia would be so proud of you, dear.”
Henrietta sniffed away the sting of tears. Meetings and debates of the Minerva Society were open to all, but only a few comprised the elite inner circle, the Daughters of Minerva. Her mother had been a votary, and if Henrietta became one too, she would prove herself Apollonia Wardley’s daughter at last.
“You’ll sponsor me, then?”
James drew to a halt before stately Bessington House, in St. James’s Square, and Lady Bess gathered her skirts as a footman emerged to help her alight from the carriage. “You’re well-liked, Hetty, and the others will approve of your helping me this morning. But remember, your Aunt Althea and Pell Mell have influence in places I don’t. They move in different circles.”
Henrietta nodded, swallowing hard. In the Minerva Society, she’d found a company of equals, a fit for her energies and convictions the likes of which she hadn’t known since school at Miss Gregoire’s. She dreaded being thrust into higher circles, but if a presentation at court could promote the causes dear to her heart?—
“Very well,” Henrietta said. “I’ll go through with it.”
Lady Bess squeezed Henrietta’s gloved hand. “Courage, m’dear. A levee at St. James hasn’t been the death of a British citizen in any number of years.”
“Then why does it feel as if I’m St. Perpetua being thrown to the lions?” Henrietta muttered. Lady Bess laughed and waved her away as James urged the horses to walk on, carrying Henrietta back to Hines House to prepare for her afternoon on the rack.
Henrietta,having no head for fashion, didn’t suspect her court gown was not quite the thing until she perceived her brother’s expression as she approached the blue parlor, her broad and ancient skirts sweeping the floor like a soupy wave.
“Good Gad, Hetty! Everyone’s going to be looking at you. Who put you in that awful rig?”
“Great-aunt Davinia sent her old court wardrobe for my use.” Regarding the half-closed doorway of the parlor, Henriettathrew her elaborate train over one arm, clamped a hand to her towering headdress, crushed the panniers at her sides with her elbows, and launched herself through the doorframe. Once in the room, her train fell, her hoops exploded, and she twirled and weaved like a trained bear to keep her padded, powdered wig from toppling off her head.
“Aunt Althea said I would do. You don’t agree?”
Sir Charleton Wardley-Hines snorted and lashed his leg with his decorative sword. Henrietta’s elder by two years, he had come to London after university to be entered on the Official Roll as the 8th Baronet Wardley and had thereafter taken up with riotous circles. He made no secret of the burden he felt at being called upon to pause in his dissolutions to launch his unfashionable sister upon society.
“Aunt Althea don’t want you to shine down Marsi,” he grumbled. “I hope she hasn’t given you notions about this Season. Best not put too fine a point upon it, old girl—you ain’t likely to take.”
Henrietta paused before a small gilded mirror and poked at the ostrich feather drooping over one eye.
Once, her goals had simply been to set her stepmother’s household running smoothly and settle her brother down with a wife, then withdraw to her estate of Birch Vale to acquire her mills and experiment with reforms. Then her sister Fanny died, her father was granted a knighthood, and it was decided the family would remove to London for Jasper’s investiture and to put her stepmother, Clarinda, back in spirits.
“I don’t expect totake, Charley. Too old, for one thing.” At five-and-twenty, she was well past the age for a society debut. “And for another—well.” She pointed to her face. “The family resemblance works in your favor rather than mine.”
On Henrietta, the bold Wardley nose was too big, the mouth too broad, the square jaw decidedly unfeminine, and the high,spare cheekbones too severe. Her eyes were flat gray, almost colorless, her hair a dusty, unremarkable red brown.
But she had a keen mind, many interests, and a voice that carried well in crowded lecture halls and debating rooms. Add to that, she had nice, strong, square teeth. Henrietta bared them at herself in the mirror.
“I think Hetty looks quite regal.”
Miss Marsibel Pomeroy flowed into the room, a vision of silk and lace. Henrietta beamed at her. One of the benefits of London was finding her shy, mousy cousin had bloomed into an interesting, if rather reserved, young lady.
“You needn’t be nervous,” Marsi assured her. “’Tis a long, tedious wait, then over in a moment, and the Queen won’t speak a word to you.”
“Unless my costume comes apart, or I faint.” Henrietta prodded the stiff panel lined with lurid green ribbons pinned to the front of her robe. “Anyone who claims women are the frailer sex has never spent a day in a stomacher.”
Charley rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. Another favorite complaint of the Minerva Society is the style of female dress.”
“I have been granted the honor of leading the next debate, and I may select the topic,” Henrietta said with pride. “The papers say the great ladies of Paris have taken to garbing themselves like peasants in the republican cause. Imagine the liberty of movement!”
