“Mr. Sinclair, if you please. My book. We have arrived at Lady Ashford’s home.”
He raised his head and blinked. “Both you and Edward have proven secretive about our morning plans. I gather I am to meet your friends.”
I smiled beatifically. “Yes, I think you’ll find the salon most amusing today.”
Inside Lady Seraphina Ashford’s townhome, a young woman played the pianoforte while the lady of the house greeted us, dressed in a flamboyant red gown with a matching Turkish head wrap and garish feather protruding from the silken folds.
I beamed at her welcome, recalling how a single letter I sent—praising her essay on the education of girls—had blossomed into a surprising friendship by post.
“Miss Grenville, at long last, I am able to meet my sweet correspondent. How your letters have brought me joy, and now at last I can view your face. Let me look at you. La! You ought to be the season’s incomparable and yet here you are, standing in my parlor, ready to embark on an adventure of the mind.”
Her bubbly praise immediately set me at ease. Before I forgot my manners, I made quick introductions of the men by my side, watching both of them for any signs of discomfort. I hid a smirk at Mr. Sinclair, who shifted his stance with his arms taut at his sides, especially when he offered a courtly bow to Lady Ashford.
“I suspect there will be smoking of pipes in this library should you care to indulge. I likely will,” I whispered as I leaned close to him. “Lady Ashford is a bluestocking, as am I.”
Normally, I decried the label denigrating women who gathered in salons to discuss literature, philosophy, or politics. And I most certainly never smoked, although I was willing to make an exception today. However, I could not back down from my singular purpose of repelling him.
Nor did I wish to admit this was my first time attending a salon in person, though I had long dreamed of it. Through letters and the occasional volume Edward dared to sneak me, I had imagined such gatherings with near-mythic fascination. To be here now, welcomed by Lady Ashford herself, felt like stepping into a world I’d only glimpsed through secondhand pages.
Mr. Sinclair’s eyelid twitched in response.
“Lady Ashford, thank you for including me,” he said after clearing his throat.
She pulled out a lorgnette and studied him. “Mr. Sinclair. I have heard this name before. You have the look of a traveler, my good sir.”
“I am visiting London on business. My family remains in Calcutta.”
She motioned for him and the rest of us to follow her down the hall lined with a black-and-white checkered floor. “Then I shall look forward to hearing about your travels. Any friend of Miss Grenville is a friend of mine. I have waited impatiently for her to visit me in London.”
Edward tipped closer to me, his whisper brushing my ear. “Your plan is failing, Kit. I believe your intended will soon be the favorite of the salon.”
“I have other tricks left to shock him,” I whispered back. “I might yet race your chaise through Hyde Park and truly give the haut ton something to talk about. Then we will see if I’m considered wifely material.”
He snorted. “Indeed? I should like to see you try such a feat. Oh, good heavens... You are serious. Kit! I swear Grandfather will put you under lock and key if you persist in resisting Mr. Sinclair to such a degree.”
“Oryou, dear brother.”
“Touché,” he whispered in my ear, his expression grim once more.
Swallowing my indignation, I followed him into a drawing room furnished with blue walls and gorgeous paintings. A group of women, mostly middle-aged, gathered in the space, their chatter weaving through the air. Among them sat a young lady around my age, her shoulders slumped as she studied a book, pausing only to push her spectacles higher onto her nose, her gaze straying to my companions. Two elderly men stood near the window conversing.
Lady Ashford loudly introduced us to the small gathering, her arm still linked with Mr. Sinclair’s. Instantly, several women flocked to him, eager to hear stories of India.
Though the height of their influence had passed, bluestocking salons like Lady Ashford’s still clung to a certain charm—gatherings where clever women once discussed politics, poetry, and moral philosophy with as much fervor as any Oxford man. The name itself had come from a gentleman—Benjamin Stillingfleet—who, lacking formal black stockings, had dared to attend one such gathering in his blue woolen ones. The ladies, far from scandalized, had applauded his intellect and dubbed their society accordingly. Today, the fashion had softened, and the talk was more likely to concern Lord Byron than botany, but the ghost of sharp-minded conversation lingered like the scents of old paper and ink.
“Isn’t it ironic, Kit? Mr. Sinclair is the expert on India, while you and I are left to fade into the background,” my brother said as he chose a chair along the wall, far from the center of attention.
I didn’t answer, but my skin pebbled all the same at his astute, if cynical, observation. Yes, it was a cruel irony. Sebastian had been free to roam the country that had once been my home, to speak of it with authority, while I—half-Indian, yet raised a stranger to my own mother’s land—had been torn away and taught to be silent about it.
Why had God allowed us to be torn from our mother? Why did He seem so distant from the sorrows of those who loved Him? Not onlyin the past, but even now—when I was being pressed into a loveless marriage.
I couldn’t wait for an answer when my future loomed ever so gloomy. If I wanted to avoid this fate, I would have to act swiftly—and think of something far more drastic to repel Sebastian Sinclair’s attentions.
Edward’s wry observation had struck a nerve, but I swallowed my reaction. I had perfected my manners, my music, my deportment—yet here, in a salon devoted to female intellect, my presence seemed an afterthought.
Lady Ashford reclined against the settee and redirected the room’s attention to the man I loathed. “Mr. Sinclair, I’m sure you’ve heard of our Mr. Wilberforce,” she said brightly, referring to the parliamentarian whose campaign to end the slave trade had made him a darling among the ladies of the salon. “He once said, ‘It is the true duty of every man to promote the happiness of his fellow creatures to the utmost of his power.’ Do you share his view, sir—that our Empire bears a sacred responsibility toward the nations under its rule? Given your family’s position in Calcutta, I should think you have a particular perspective.”
I waited, curious how Mr. Sinclair would respond. He glanced at me, a slight flicker in his gaze. “Mr. Wilberforce’s views are, shall we say... admirable, if occasionally impractical.”
