Page 7 of The Scandalous Spinster

It had already been a brutal business, but now it was downright vicious. Aristocratic ladies were not taught skills that lent themselves to work, even if women were welcomed to work in the first place. Debutantes were on the shelf if they had not secured a match by their second Season. Spinsters and wallflowers were pitied, ignored. Impoverished.

But it gave them power. And Priya was more than happy to use that power against those who thought themselves above consequences of any sort.

The only reason the ton had not taken Lady Priya Langdon out at the knees was that she knew too much. About everyone. And she hated bullies. There were rumors of a scandal when she was a debutante, when her parents were in India where her mother was born, and her brother, Persephone’s husband, was on the Continent fighting the French. But it was only a rumor, nothing anyone could truly verify.

As the clock on the mantelpiece chimed, cheerful chaos burst through the door. Two other members crowded inside, Lady Emmeline and Lady Matilda. Lady Matilda was soaked through, water pooling on the gleaming black and white checkerboard marble under her feet. Her bare feet. She wrung more water from her thick, dark hair. “Did you know the Serpentine is wet?” she asked cheerfully.

Priya handed her a towel. There were wicker baskets in every room stocked with various supplies: towels, soap, tweezers, alcohol.

“Did you find them?” she asked, unfazed at the mess and the mayhem.

“Of course I did,” Matilda said. “That’s one fortune hunter who will not be abducting a lady to a forced marriage at Gretna Green. He is currently in the Serpentine. With his carriage. His horses are eating grass at the other end of the park. They were lovely.”

Clara kept an eye on the time, battling envy. She still had to stop at the bookshop before it closed. That was something. A lovely something, and worth focusing on instead of the unpleasant twinge of jealousy and self-pity.

She wanted to drop a fortune hunter into the Serpentine.

Pierce Gallagher followed, taking the chair unofficially reserved just for him. He smiled at Priya. She liked to say that she had stitched him up when he was stabbed on her front doorstep, and then he had simply never left. What was more, he had brought with him a friend from his navy days, Captain Bram Thorn, to shadow the ladies, as shadowing Priya was a full-time occupation, however much she protested the matter.

Bram slipped into the room as well, taking his usual spot against the wall. Clara’s eyes found him without any instruction from her brain. His gaze touched her, slid away. She felt it in her toes. He was imposing, handsome in a rough, steady way. It was difficult not to stare at him even when Clara had made it a bit of a lesson not to do so. It was a good deal harder than learning embroidery, or French, or the hundreds of unspoken rules and expectations that governed Mayfair. With a bit of an iron fist, it had to be said.

If there was one thing Clara knew, it was rules.

She was the worst of clichés. A prim spinster sweet on a sailor who could surely have anyone without extending any effort whatsoever. He did not have a title, true, but he was a war hero, for goodness’ sake.

“Where’s the whiskey?” Lady Matilda demanded. Her wild mahogany curls were a cloud of chaos around her head. Though Spanish was her mother tongue, she spoke six other languages, excelling with the naughtier words.

Priya grinned. “I’ve a lovely pekoe tea right here.”

Matilda snorted. “I know the pot painted with the daisies, Priya. I’m not drinking that.”

They were among the first invited to join the Spinsters and knew all about Priya’s slightly disconcerting poisoning hobby. Nothing fatal, of course.

That they knew of. Honestly, Clara would not put money on that assumption.

Lady Emmeline was stunning, with curves and lush hips and the ability to befriend anyone. She sat with a smile while Matilda poured whiskey into small green glasses that matched the silk wallpaper and handed one to her with a wink.

There were many reasons to be a spinster. Sometimes it had nothing at all to do with the Marriage Mart and everything to do with love. It was obvious in the way the two ladies smiled at each other and how close they sat together in this house, where they were safe.

Clara accepted a glass as well, taking a bracing sip. She preferred brandy, whatever the etiquette might have to say on ladies drinking spirits at any time, never mind before supper.

“Why do you look cross as a chicken at sea?” Matilda demanded. With seven languages under her belt, she tended to mix her metaphors, creating new ones that made no sense at all. She always waited for Clara to correct her. Clara never did. Here in this house, she wanted to be anyone but herself. Even if no one would let her.

Matilda was right, though—Priya’s expression was sharp, simmering with banked fury.

Never a good sign.

Priya moved to take her seat behind her desk, unfolding a letter. Her mouth was tight.

“Sybil is missing.”

Chapter Three

Sybil had been sent into the field some weeks back, posing as a chaperone for the ward of the Marquis of Eastbourne. Lady Heloise was nineteen years old, with an inheritance and a dowry comprising several thousand acres in Northumberland.

Which was hers upon her marriage to anyone she chose for herself. Her mother, a widow, had been clever and suspicious before she died.

Rightfully so.