“As long as you’re escorted. If I let you go to town on your own, you’re liable to open up a pub or something.”
Now she was laughing. “I wouldn’t open up a pub!”
“Yes, I’d like to think you wouldn’t, and yet at every turn, you seem to surprise me by doing something I would never expect you to do,” he said. “The lesson I have learned is that if I want any hope of keeping you under control, I must do it myself. So, you may go into town as long as you have one or both of your sisters with you. Do you accept the terms?”
“Yes, yes, I accept them,” she agreed with a smile. “I wasn’t going to do anything untoward anyway. I really do just want to buy gowns, and that will be made enjoyable by my sisters’ presence. I’ll be happy to go with them.”
“Good, then,” Leonard said. “I’ll see to it that you have the money you need. You make arrangements with your sisters for a date and time—sometime soon so you’ll have something new to wear to Staffordshire—and then you’ll be taken care of. If we continue to take these matters seriously, there’s no reason we can’t have a very effective season that meets our goal of showing everyone in London that we have a good and valuable marriage and that there is nothing here to look twice at.”
“That’s very businesslike of you,” Prudence observed.
If she meant that as an insult, he wasn’t going to receive it as one. “I try to be efficient and practical in everything I do,” he told her. “This is no different.”
“All right,” she agreed. “Is that all?”
“Are you done eating?”
“I’d like to go and see what trouble I can get into today.”
She winked at him mischievously, and he was almost certain that she had been joking. Surely, she had to be joking. She wouldn’t try something foolhardy again so soon after the last time.
Either way, she was gone before he could try to stop her.
CHAPTER 23
“Ican’t believe you’re going to spend the season with us after all,” Caroline enthused as the three sisters walked along the path in front of the shops. “I truly thought we would have to go through it without you this year.”
“And what a hardship that would have been,” Prudence teased, taking Caroline’s arm. “Ever since you married, you’ve loved balls. I don’t even recognize you as the sister I knew before your wedding. Didn’t you use to be a wallflower? And now, you’re more excited than any of the rest of us for the coming season.”
“Well, certainly,” Caroline said. “Now I have a husband to attend it with! Now I don’t have to worry about what kind of impression I’m making on society because I’m already married—I can just enjoy myself. And for the first time, that can be said of all three of us. We’re going to have the most splendid time of our lives, you just wait and see.”
“I’m not so sure,” Prudence said. “You may not have to make a good impression, but I do. Leonard says it’s vital that we show everyone what a brilliant success our union is.”
“Oh, well, we’ve all been there,” Arabella said, falling into step beside the two of them. “It isn’t so surprising, Prudence, nor will it be very difficult for you. You’ve always been the actress of the family.”
“Actress? I’m no such thing,” Prudence said indignantly. “You make me sound like a liar.”
Caroline met her eyes and raised a brow significantly. “I suppose you’re going to tell us you’ve never pretended to be something you’re not?”
Prudence felt heat fill her cheeks as she was forcibly reminded of her ventures into town in the garb of a commoner. “Well—that’s different.”
“Oh, yes, that’s different,” Caroline agreed with a smile. “Much easier than pretending to care for your husband, I suppose.”
“Well, yes!” Prudence said. “I like him. He’s proven to be a good friend. A good companion. I’m glad to have married someone I can get along with. But love? I’ve never been in love in my life. How can I pretend at something with which I have no experience? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“All you have to do is stay close by his side,” Arabella said. She was clearly distracted, looking in the windows of the shops as they walked past them. “If you can do that, it will give people the right impression. No one will expect anything is wrong between the two of you.”
“Nothingiswrong between the two of us.” Prudence couldn’t have put into words why that comment got under her skin, but it did.
“I’m not suggesting there is,” Arabella said. “All I’m saying is that as long as you behave normally, you’ll give people nothing to gossip about.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Caroline said. “People will look for any excuse to gossip, Arabella. You know that as well as I do. Prudence’s behavior could be beyond reproach, and they would still find something to say about it.”
“Well, there’s only so much we can control, isn’t there?” Arabella said. “I suppose what I meant was that the gossips won’t be able to get their hooks into any story if they aren’t given any evidence. Look, shall we go into this shop? I’ve never been in before, but the gowns in the window look very nice.”
“I think it’s new,” Caroline said. “I don’t recall seeing it here before, anyway.”
The sisters went inside, arm in arm, but Prudence detached herself from the other two as quickly as she was able and wandered off to look at different fabrics. It was hard to believethat she was shopping for gowns to wear to balls with her husband. Every part of that was so unfamiliar to her. Growing up, she had rarely had new gowns thanks to her parents’ finances. When something new was purchased, it was usually for Arabella so that all three sisters would have the opportunity to wear it and the most use could be gotten from it. Later, when Arabella and then Caroline had married, there had been money for more luxuries, and gowns had been sent to Prudence so that she would be sure to look her best in public. But even then, she’d rarely had the opportunity to choose for herself, the way she was clearly going to be able to do right now.
