Page 2 of A Sham Engagement

Don’t stare and don’t mention the wrinkles. Remember what Mama said in the carriage. Think before you speak.

Mama smiled all the more sweetly. “We came to London for Elenora’s gowns, of course. And Elenora has been such a pleasure to dress, with her good looks. Everything looks perfect on her with her figure and coloring.” Mama had not neglected to mention that Lady Routledge’s eleven daughters all resembled their mother in build—quite a fleet they must look when assembled together.

However, Elenora cringed. Why must Mama mention her looks—which in all truth she’d rather she didn’t possess. Oh, to be more like her sisters and melt into their homogenous background, and less like dear Papa.

Lady Sedgemoor, the dowager’s miniscule companion, thin as a leafless twig with rather sallow, unhealthy skin, was also the younger of the two, and in possession of a living husband, although he wasn’t as exalted as a duke. The fact that both of her sons were already spoken for had irked Mama, as apparently both were exceedingly well off and the elder due to inherit his ailing father’s earldom sometime soon.

“What a charmingly pretty daughter and niece you have, Fanny,” Lady Sedgemoor said, the look on her face rendering her praise insincere. “Almost like sisters. I am sure they will be a great success this season. Quite the belles of the ball tonight.”

Why did Elenora get the impression both these ladies knew exactly why she and Mama were here? That their every secret was well known to everyone, in fact? A tickle of apprehension ran down her back, making her want to fidget her shoulders. Mindful of Mama’s strictures not to wriggle, she resisted the temptation with difficulty.

But belles of the ball? Over my dead body. She cringed some more. She didn’t want to be the belle of any ball, nor have people say she was, nor have them look at her. She didn’t want to be flaunted by Mama in the hopes some eligible man’s roguish eye would settle on her. And most of all, she didn’t want to be found a husband. However, she smiled demurely, as she’d learned to do long ago, and cast her eyes down again as though she might possibly be a respectful and modest daughter.

“Indeed they are,” Lady Routledge joined in. “I should say neither of them will have any trouble filling their dance cards.” Her gaze ran up and down Elenora as though studying the conformation of a horse she was thinking of buying, and making her once more wish for that elusive hole in the ground to open up and swallow her. “She looks nothing like you, my dear Fanny. One would think she and Miss Dandridge were sisters in truth, if one didn’t know better.”

“She takes after her papa,” Mama said, with more than a hint of truculence, as though this might be a bad thing, which, of course, in Jolyon it was.

Aunt Penelope interrupted. “And of course, dear Petunia takes after me, as you can see, and I am very like my dear brother. Fanny will tell you that Elenora has four younger sisters who all take after her, though.”

Lady Routledge raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “Indeed? How charming for Fanny’s other daughters to have inherited her… looks.”

Elenora had to bite her tongue. Her sisters had often bemoaned the fact that they all took after Mama, and Elenora, conscious of what they saw as her own good fortune, had hastened to inform them good looks were not that important in life. She’d have swapped places with any of them if given the opportunity. None of them had believed her.

Mama smiled back as though she hadn’t just heard a thinly veiled insult, putting into practice the advice she’d given Elenora before they’d left Aunt Penelope’s house in Arlington Street. If someone insults you, just smile politely and ignore it. She patted Elenora’s elegantly coiffed hair. “I know. I’m blessed with having five such delightful daughters, as well as two handsome sons, all of them different. Elenora is the apple of her papa’s eye.”

“I see not quite enough that he is here to escort her to her first ball,” Lady Routledge said, her piggy eyes narrowing as though she were a hook-beaked eagle coming in for the kill. Did they all know about Papa’s propensity for gambling? Elenora felt her cheeks begin to warm and dug her nails into the palms of her hands in an effort to prevent herself blurting out some rude retort. How hard it was to follow Mama’s advice.

“Oh, he’s here tonight, of course,” Mama said, a trifle too breezily. “He’s just gone off with Jolyon, our oldest, to find us refreshments. So kind and thoughtful of him.”

Gone off to the card room was what she really meant. How to rescue Mama from this painful interlocution and get away from these two old harpies?

Fate came to her rescue. “Oh look, Mama,” Elenora said, tapping her mother’s arm with her folded fan, the only use she could see for it. “I see Matthew over there with several of his friends.” She pointed the fan in Matthew’s direction only to have it pushed down.

“Do not point, Elenora. That’s so common.” But the words had been muttered behind her mother’s fan, not meant for her two old friends to overhear. “You are quite right. I fear, ladies, that we must leave you. My younger son has just come down from Oxford and I’ve not spoken to him as yet.” With another elegant curtsy, Mama swept Elenora away in the direction of her older brother. Aunt Penelope and Petunia followed in their wake.

Mama leaned close. “Thank you, Elenora. Elegantly done.”

Praise indeed. Elenora wasn’t used to being told she’d done the right thing, especially not that it had been elegant. Perhaps, at last, her mother’s and governess’s influences were rubbing off on her.

Chapter Two

As Elenora and Petunia followed Mama and Aunt Penelope toward the little group, Elenora’s brother, Matthew, turned to greet them, a wide smile on his rather homely face, his brown eyes dancing with mirth, as usual. Yes, he resembled Mama too, although no hint of the frivolity he possessed attached itself to her.

“Ellie, Mama! I was hoping to see you two here. I heard from Jolyon that you’re staying in Arlington Street so Ellie can come out at the same time as Petunia. Aunt Penelope, you’re looking as lovely as ever. Pet, you look charming, lemon suits your coloring. Ellie, cheer up, it could be worse. Jolyon’s about somewhere, I think. We came together as he’s been so kind as to put me up in his rooms in Jermyn Street since I was sent down. Let me introduce you all to my best friends, Adam Thoroughgood and Timothy Brightwell. We were all up at Oxford together.” He grinned. “And all rusticated together I’m ashamed to say.”

Matthew didn’t look in the least bit ashamed. Even Elenora could see that.

“What have you done this time?” Petunia asked, sounding just a little impressed at his daring. She’d confided to Elenora in bed last night that she thought Matthew the better looking and the more interesting of her two male cousins. Had Elenora been bothered, she might have taken the opportunity to tease her, but thoughts of the coming ball had occupied her mind.

“Adam, Tim, this is my dear Mama and the oldest and best of my brood of many sisters, Elenora. Oh, and this is Cousin Petunia.”

The two young men, who from their youthful countenances must have been of the same vintage as Matthew, who was six months off his majority, swept bows to Elenora, Petunia, Aunt Penelope and Mama, both of them with appreciative stares for Elenora that made her want to hide behind Mama. Or that pillar over there. Or that enormous vase of hothouse flowers.

Mama fixed her second child with the sort of hard stare that had terrified her brood when they’d been in the schoolroom. Alas for her, it had less effect now Matthew had been out of her control for several years. “Yes,” she said, her tone dry. “Your father and I heard you’d been sent down. What was it for this time?”

Matthew waved a negligent hand. “A mere trifle. Nothing I can mention in front of the girls, at any rate.” He gave a self-deprecatory smile. “Don’t want to shock ’em.”

“We won’t be shocked,” Petunia said.