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Annie cleared her throat and began again.
“That is, are the men of this society so ruled by superficiality? Doesn’t any of them attempt to look beneath the surface?”
“Why would they?” Elizabeth quipped.
“All they need in a wife, if they are fortunate to find one, is someone rich, attractive enough to procure heirs with, and otherwise completely ignorable. They have mistresses to take care of the rest.”
“Even if the wife is pretty, most men still take mistresses, for conversation and entertainment if nothing else,” Lucille added.
“There is no incentive to look beneath the surface.”
“I thought that was just exaggeration in movies and books,” Annie muttered beneath her breath.
Brigid wondered what “movies” were.
“On the other hand, we admire men superficially as well,” Elizabeth said in all fairness.
“We want someone young and preferably handsome. Well heeled. No unforgivable vices. That is all. Our entertainments are our children and our circle of female friends. Who wants to accompany the men to Tattersalls or boar hunts anyway? We simply don’t share the same pursuits.”
“But mistresses do?” Annie inquired.
“Well, they must earn their coin somehow, mustn’t they,” Lucille said with a jaded realism that belied her years.
“Pretending to enjoy things they don’t is part and parcel of their trade.”
“The point is,” Elizabeth brought the conversation back to safer topics, more suitable for ladies’ ears.
“You will be our lure to cast into a sea of fish,” she snickered in a distinctly unladylike manner, comfortable enough by now to let down her guard.
“Be sure to toss the big ones our way when they nibble on your heels.”
“And Lord Larkin will attract the piranhas,” Lucille inserted, “but perhaps they will bring their tamer male relations along for us to net, descale, debone and take home.”
All four women giggled at that, taking wicked delight in their schemes.
When she caught her breath, Brigid said, “Count me out. Don’t throw any fish my way. I’ll be sitting out the dances with the Wallflowers. I can’t dance very well anyway. Two left feet, you know.”
“Rubbish,” Elizabeth dismissed. “I’ve seen you traipse about our back gardens at home when you thought no one was watching, Brigid. You dance beautifully. Even if it’s only with imaginary gentlemen.”
“Just the one,” she murmured. “Only one man. And I’m not altogether certain he’s terribly gentle.”
“Ooohh, do tell,” Lucille said, leaning in closer from her own coiffure chair.
“Is this the faerie prince you always dream about? I feel like he’s a real person with the way you describe him so consistently, and capture him with such vital likeness in your drawings.”
“May I see?” Annie inserted. “I wonder if my own imagination upon hearing your story matches with how you see him in your mind, Brigid.”
Brigid hesitated only briefly.
She trusted these girls, even Annie, who had been lying to her since the moment they met. Instinctively, she sensed no threat. And it was a balm to be able to share her secret world with others. As if sharing her dreams made them more real.
Oh, how she wished they could really come true!
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Lady Watham’s Ball, later that evening.
“Well, that was easier than I thought,” Annie remarked, standing the requisite distance away from Ben, measured only by keen observation.
