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Admittance of one’s prejudice was a difficult task, yet Seth could acknowledge he’d hitherto misjudged such gatherings, believing he’d be snubbed for his status. At this salon, however, restless merchants mixed with indolent lords, a doctor lectured a naval man upon scurvy and a plump marquess chatted with a hawk-nosed young poet who appeared not to have eaten for a week. Seth felt quite at home within this mishmash of accents and wealth, most attendees having been nothing but cordial, and a few fellows had even shown interest in Academy membership.
The sole gentleman to be rather disdainful was a baronet, but then Seth had often found the lowest titled gentry to be more conceited and pretentious than a ninth-generation duke.
“I hope you are enjoying our gathering, Mr Hawkins?”
He twisted to the hostess, a Mrs Ashby, as she proffered a fresh glass of claret. Pretty, she appeared similar in age to himself, with auburn hair and light-green eyes.
Taking the glass, he dipped his head with a short bow. “Indeed I am, Mrs Ashby.”
“I’m so glad. And it is a pleasure to meet you as my brother is a member of the Fancy. I believe he saw you at Chepstow in 1810. The only fighter to ever defeat Invincible Ivan, whom, I have to confess, my brother had fifty guineas on to win.”
“Ah. Well, my apologies to your brother but it was a lucky day for me, Mrs Ashby.”
“And you are a modest man, Mr Hawkins. Our dear Matilda told me she is your daughter’s governess now? I hope she is…safe within your Academy. She is a treasure which not all appreciate. After the tragedy of her parents’ passing, I do so worry for her.”
“Miss Griffin is under my protection,” he assured, “and is treated as the lady she is. A perfect governess.”
Although… Perhaps a governess should not tempt a prizefighter with offers of a clandestine kiss in a midnight carriage or attend fights dressed as a nefarious footpad on the prowl.
But that was what made her so very perfect.
“Excellent.” She fiddled with her necklace. “Now, I must initiate our formal discussion before my guests get too sloshed. Do excuse me.”
With a shallow bow, Seth’s eyes caught on the saffron skirts of Matilda, who’d been trapped by the belligerent baronet at the punch bowl, and he could tell every muscle in her body was readied for flight, yet etiquette prevented her from telling him to go to the bloody devil.
Miss Matilda Griffin was such a dichotomy. Bold and brave in nature but in turn hesitant and restrained by nurture.
Clenching his wine glass, Seth glowered as the baronet leaned too close, murmured something and then distinctly sniffed her hair.
Coxcomb.
But his bold and brave lady abruptly peered at the baronet as though he were a beetle exhibit in a museum, drew herself to her full height, muttered something back, grabbed her punch glass and stomped across the room to where Seth stood.
“Did that baronet cause you offence? I could set Chloe on him?”
Matilda smirked. “He suggested that women could never write a book that would still be read in one hundred years – that we lack depth.”
“I’ll definitely set Chloe on him.”
She shook her head. “I did not wish to be a smart-boots, but I reminded him of the book we will reading next month byMrs Behn from 1688.” Her rosy lips twitched. “And do not worry, he came on the coat-tails of a cousin and is not a regular attendee.”
Seth wished to seize her hand and bring it to his lips, nip her palm and tell her how very clever she was, but the hostess tinged a glass with a spoon to gain the guests’ attention, so he made do with a wink.
“Now,” declared Mrs Ashby from the centre of the elegant drawing room, “may we commence discussing this week’s choice, which is the Shakespeare sonnet, number thirty-three.”
Therein followed a lively debate, but Seth kept his thoughts to himself amongst this canny lot who talked of vicarious experience, metaphysics and artistic alchemy.
They cheerfully chattered upon phrasing, pentameter and alluring alliteration, and he was quite certain that each one of their observations was correct, but for himself, the sonnet’s appeal was simply the exquisite use of imagery and the aching sense of loss it conveyed.
“The young could do with reading more words of this calibre,” stated the baronet, “and less of that romantic novel drivel which proliferates nowadays.”
“And you’ve read these novels, have you?” asked their hostess, with a curved eyebrow and narrowed eye. “In order to form your opinion?”
“Merely curious as to their popularity amongst the…middle classes. I happened to glance through that work apropos of…prejudice and pride or somesuch, and found it to be the creation of a no doubt flighty unseasoned person – replete with undeveloped characters, trite emotion and magniloquent wordage.”
Arsewit, thought Seth.
Frowning, he noted Miss Griffin likewise scrunch her brow, mutter to herself, then lift her head.
