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“Yes.”
“Well, Thea, it’s not nice to always agree that something is bad or wanting. In fact, it is tiresome for me to hear it. What about something that shows a little more imagination, such as: ‘Indeed she has and that’s because she has a proboscis that could launch a ship.’ You’re very dull company, I’m afraid. Ah, here’s a young man passing by. Let us
try again but this time with a response from you that’s a little more diverting.” Aunt Minerva looked at Thea to see she understood the game, then settled herself more comfortably upon the cushion of her chair. “Ready?”
Thea nodded.
“A handsome man this one is, to be sure, but too handsome for a lady to trust. Why, just behold the way he’s looking at you, Thea. As if he’d like to gobble you up!”
The last was begun with quelling opprobrium and finished upon a squeak, for, to Thea’s astonishment, the gentleman, whom she’d just identified as Mr Grayling, was now bowing before Aunt Minerva, asking her venerable relative if he might be permitted the pleasure of the next dance with her young companion. And Thea, squirming in her seat, a smile spreading across her face, could only despair at the response.
“Miss Brightwell does not dance.”
Aunt Minerva’s clipped tones brooked no argument, imperiously drowning out the eager acceptance that had sprung to Thea’s lips as she raised hopeful eyes to the handsome, brown-haired young man before her.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, disappointment threatening to overwhelm her. Mr Grayling inclined his head as he now turned upon Thea an enquiring look, as if she might have the power to sway her aunt.
Thea glanced at Aunt Minerva but the old lady had her eyes raised to the ceiling and was fanning herself as if she’d lost all interest in the conversation.
“My niece doesn’t dance so there’s no point in hoping she’ll suddenly grow dancing shoes,” she snapped, swinging round to lance the young man with a terrifying scowl.
“Aunt Minerva,” Thea whispered, horrified at her aunt’s rudeness.
But Aunt Minerva’s word was final.
And in the crowded Assembly Rooms, the sprung boards of the dance floor groaning under the weight of everyone else in the room who did dance, Thea knew this was unlikely to be the only pleasure snatched away before the night was over.
Prolonging his look of enquiry, Mr Grayling’s beautiful grey eyes seemed to drink in every last detail of the lady whom he hoped to honour but he received nothing from Thea who could only blush, she was so mortified. With a final, regretful smile he turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.
In an irony to compound Thea’s devastation, Aunt Minerva’s sudden need of the chamber pot was not timely enough to recall Mr Grayling but her aunt’s replacement by Fanny and Bertram was a welcome relief.
“I had not thought that being Aunt Minerva’s companion meant I must cut myself off from every pleasure,” Thea said sadly. “I’ve met Mr Grayling before. He’s a most charming gentleman, and when he asked me to dance, Aunt Minerva sent him away.” Choking back tears, she fiddled with her ivory fan in her lap, grateful for her cousins’ obvious sympathy when she looked up. “Aunt Minerva declares no gentleman is interested in a dowerless young lady but even so, she won’t let anyone remotely eligible slip past her guard. I thought she’d be glad if I made a good match.”
Fanning herself furiously to match her roiling emotion now that sorrow and self pity had given way to anger, she cast a surreptitious look in the direction of the handsome gentleman who’d been given such short shrift moments ago. Mr Grayling was lingering just near a knot of revelers a few yards away.
“He does seem taken,” Fanny murmured as she sipped her champagne, seated demurely beside Thea. “I shall have to ask Antoinette what she knows of him. She’s far more active in courting diverting society than I am these days. Oh look, Thea, he’s staring right at you.”
Thea’s heart rate doubled. Buoyed by the thrill of the interest she saw reflected in his direct gaze, she nearly snapped one of the little ivory points of her fan with her sudden burst of energy.
“A match would take me off Aunt Minerva’s hands,” she declared with a toss of her head.
“More fool you, Thea, for such silly daydreams.” Unfortunately for Thea, her aunt had chosen this moment to return. Smiling equably at everyone’s embarrassment as Bertram and Fanny rose hastily, the older woman settled her bulk across the space on the settee they’d just vacated, tapping her charge upon her shoulder with her lorgnette.
She patted her side curls and raised one eyebrow. “An illustrious match would of course be desirable but bear in mind, Thea, that most girls aren’t as lucky as your Brightwell cousins. Fanny’s viscount and Antoinette’s earl were lured very cunningly, but you are not so clever. Neither is your cousin Bertram,” she added with a quelling look at her young nephew who shifted in the chair opposite which he’d just commandeered, no doubt wondering if Thea had revealed the fact he’d lost another five hundred at Hazard only minutes before.
Aunt Minerva’s features settled into an expression of prune-like rectitude. “No doubt, you think I’m a mean-spirited creature who wants to deny you happiness in order to tend to my wants and vagaries. Is that not right, Thea?”
This was so on the money that silence greeted this pronouncement. Aunt Minerva’s chin wobbled and then her mouth started working as if caught in the current. To Thea’s surprise, she actually discerned moisture in the corner of her aunt’s drooping eyelids as the venerable creature went on with considerable emotion, “The truth of the matter, my dear, is that I will not see your heart broken as mine was when I was your age, all on account of a heartless fortune hunter. Yes, a fortune hunter just like that—” she stabbed the point of her fan in the direction of a debonair, greying gentleman holding court with a couple of simpering matrons, her eyes pinpricks of malice—“so-called gentleman.”
Snapping her head round, she glared at Thea. “If you came with anything even remotely substantial, you’d have the young men tripping over themselves to charm you down the aisle. As it is, they’re all wondering if I’ll make you my beneficiary, and who knows but that I may choose to reward you over my good-for-nothing nephew. My dear, you must know that I have only your interests at heart when I turn your potential suitors away.”
Thea pressed her lips together. “So…it’s not that you don’t want me to marry, it’s that you’re afraid I’ll marry the wrong man. That I’ll allow my head to be turned by a fortune hunter.” She knew her combative tone was not wise but after mouldering away under the same roof as her father’s sister for what seemed like eternity, the little patience she had left was at snapping point. Thea’s nature was retiring and she knew the importance of keeping her head low but she did have a good deal of pride, and spirit, and this had led to the occasional burst of pique. Had she and Aunt Minerva been born male, they’d have certainly come to blows before now.
Of course, had she and Aunt Minerva been born male, Thea certainly would not be playing housemaid to anyone, for she’d have been educated and given a meaningful role in life and Aunt Minerva would probably be running the Bank of England, cheese-paring miser that she was.
Bertram cleared his voice. “I think Aunt Minerva means that your best interests are her chief concern.”
“I know how to say what I mean to say,” Aunt Minerva snapped. “And I couldn’t have said it more clearly than I did. That man,” she went on with another vicious stab with her fan in the direction of the silver-haired gentleman in the yellow striped waistcoat, “was under no illusions that I would have laid my heart at his feet had he merely crooked his finger at me—but did he come running?”
