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Alfred half listened to Bates prose on as regarded the necessity ofbillets-douxand floral tributes and wooing and instead assessed the women who came close, but not too close, to him. They treated him as though he were unapproachable when all he wanted was to be approached; unlike the majority of the young aristocratic males in the room, he yearned to marry. A failed pairing could destroy the morale and robustness of a pack—he had only to look at his parents: the disaster that was their reign had all to do with disrespecting Fate and allowing their ambitions precedence. And yet, he dreaded the notion that he might not find her by the Feast day and would thus be consigned to searching one ballroom, one garden party, one Venetian breakfast after another, for another year, all in the hopes of discovering—
He thrust his glass into Bates’s hand and froze, nostrils flaring. There. Where? He let his instinctual self scan the ballroom, his vision heightening to an almost painful degree even in the soft candlelight, his focus sharp as a blade. He fought to turn without the preternatural speed with which he was endowed and struggled to align the rest of his senses. His ears pricked, such as they could in this form: he heard laughter, a note of feminine gaiety that made his skin come out all over in gooseflesh, a sound that landed into the center of his heart as would Cupid’s dart. His inner self rolled through his consciousness, eager to explode into life, and he held it at bay.
The set concluded; the next was to be a waltz, and the usual flutter of partnering unfolded around him. That laugh rang out again, and he turned once more in a circle, uncaring if anyone noted the oddness of his behavior. It was as if every one of his nerve endings had been plucked at once, as if a bolt of lightning were gathering its power to explode down his spine. He scented the air again, and between the candle wax and the overbearing scent of lilacs, he divined a hint of vanilla, an unexpected hint of rosemary, a waft of sweet william…
“We are very near the wallflower conservatory,” joked Bates as he set their untouched glasses aside. “Shall you pluck a bloom from there?”
Alfred held up a hand and focused on the wall of palms screening the corner in which the undesirables mingled and hid, homing in on a bouquet of fragrance he’d despaired of scenting, a combination of familiar elements he may have experienced singly but never before as one, not with such rapturous force. He turned to face the greenery; Bates moved to protect his back. He inhaled, and yes, there it was, a collection of mundane notes that combined to create a glorious symphony of attraction, desire, lust, yearning, and possibility; a concoction of lush skin, that hint of sweet william, fresh air, horses—and an excessive amount of lemon? His heart beat like thunder, and as the violins tuned for the upcoming dance and the crowd’s murmur built into a roar, he swept, heedless, through them to reach the source.
Two
It looked to be a veritable crush, at least from the view behind the palms. It had taken the Honorable Felicity Templeton far longer than usual to claim her place away from the superior gaze of society. As she had resolutely edged around the dance floor, she nodded and distributed faint smiles to those who exerted themselves to obstruct her path. Did the Incomparables and Corinthians and rakes force her to arduously achieve the anonymity of the fronds out of spite? They certainly cut her, if not directly, then with just enough acknowledgment of her person to imply that her person required very little acknowledgment at all.
She had held her head high as she maneuvered past the simpering maidens and their vigilant mamas; past the knowing widows and their fluttering fans; past the tabbies and the tartars and the dragons clustered in strategic positions around the dance floor so no one and nothing would escape their notice; past the leering elderly gents keen on finding their umpteenth wife; and past the young bucks who insinuated their bodies against her softer parts without fail or shame. She was no one, after all; there was no one to give redress.
And yet, they gossiped about her. Thetonwould gossip about a fly on a wall, never mind an oddity that debuted at the grand old age of twenty and after five seasons had failed to secure an offer, much less a husband, a young woman with only an uncle and two cousins to her name—and were they first cousins? She’d best marry one of them, should they be further removed along the bloodline, as beggars could not be choosers, even if they were Cits. She had, of course, tragically lost her parents one after the other, but that didn’t excuse her sad lack of style. Her uncle, Ezra Purcell, must have the funds to hire his niece a decent companion. It was a scandal she went about with no companion at all!
What would they say if they knew that every misstep she took was made with purpose? That she was on a mission to remain unwed? They would collapse in a heap of disbelief.
Once installed in the area meant to screen the less fortunate ladies from the gaze of their betters, Felicity let down her guard, safe for the moment from the talk and the laughter and the whispers; from the overwhelming colors and scents; from the vertiginous sensation of the dancers swirling near to her and then away; and from the sensation of being surrounded, about to be drowned in humanity. She was also secure in the company of her friendship with Lady Jemima Coleman, who had run her own gauntlet to escape the protracted notice of theton.
Both ladies had collected as many cups of lemonade as they could carry so that they might be refreshed throughout the interminable evening without needing to leave their camouflage. Felicity sipped from her second serving, cautiously. “This tastes rather unusual.”
“I believe it has been concocted from actual lemons,” Jemima replied. “As well as with a touch of honey, as my grandmother used to make it.” Her robust Northumberland cadence, earthy and rough around the edges, came as something of a surprise from as petite and delicate a lady as she appeared—a surprise the year’s swains did not find enchanting.
Nor did they find Felicity’s strapping, sun-kissed person to be in any way intoxicating. Standing eye to eye with most of the men of her class, Felicity was not suited to the high-waisted, wispy fashions of the day, which did not show her bosomy figure to its best advantage. The short-capped sleeves made her arms look positively muscular, and the roundness of her face was exacerbated by the severity of her topknot. Such fashionable deficits would send many a maid weeping into her pillow at night, but not she. If anything, she ensured that her dress and toilette were done to her disadvantage as rigorously as possible.
For Felicity had a plan, a plan that would turn into a dream come true.
“Do you yearn for your homeplace?” She rearranged a few fronds to shield them further from the gaze of the ballroom’s denizens.
“I do not.” Jemima delicately sipped from her cup. “Most especially not since having made your acquaintance.”
“We are friends, Jem, for the love of—galoshes.”
“We are, we are,” Jemima replied. “And it’s grateful I am for it. I have received the welcome to be expected for a nobody from near enough to Scotland to be vulgar and uncouth, and yet it has transcended even the worst of my imaginings.”
“The slightest intimation of difference sets this lot off like hounds on a hunt.” Yet, Jemima was everything Felicity herself was not, far closer to theton’s ideal of femininity, and she couldn’t imagine why her friend had not “taken.” Fine-featured and slim yet with an ample bosom, pale-skinned, with smooth, dark-brown hair, Jemima’s appeal was perhaps undone by her gray eyes: too perceptive, too observant, and thus disturbing, as there was oh, so much that was required to remain unseen in high society.
“I can only imagine the things they’re saying about me.” Felicity waved her cup airily toward the crowd. “‘Why, she’s as sturdy as those columns she prefers to hide behind—I wouldn’t give even the tweeny one of her gowns—that hair of hers is positively red—I do believe she has been out in the sun without her bonnet!’” She sighed. That hadn’t been as amusing as she had intended.
“If they knew the truth about you, their tongues would fall out of their heads from wagging.” Jemima reached out to touch Felicity’s elbow. She was demonstrative and a frequent giver of soothing pats and bolstering squeezes.
It had the desired effect. Felicity smiled and could feel the vitality of her vision surge through her like it was a living thing, a thing that was strong of spine and stance, beautiful and glorious and fierce. The mere thought of her passion filled her entire being with life and hope and joy.
“Bedamned with them,” she said, with conviction.
“Your language becomes dangerously coarse these days, friend.”
“Due to frequenting the stables and the sales.” Felicity smiled into her cup, hoarding the dregs of her treat.
If thetononly knew how conversant Felicity was in matters regarding the stables and the horseflesh sales. What would her parents have thought, were they alive? But were they alive, she would not be on this path. She would have been brought out at the proper age of seventeen, when she was still dewy and naive; perhaps dewiness and naivety would have garnered her a decent match, but as time went on, Felicity doubted she had ever been as fetching and credulous as any of the debutantes she’d come across.
Her parents’ marriage hadn’t been in the usual run of things: they had fallen in love at first sight and damned the consequences—one of which was Felicity, born rather hale and hardy for a child delivered at seven months. Had they truly known each other before they’d let their fascination for one another sweep them away from family and friends? Upon their elopement, her mother had been cut dead by her family for a time, which had amused her father, as it was the aristos who indulged in that sort of nonsense. For Felicity’s mother was the daughter of a merchant, and her father a baron, and the twain had met, heedless of all societal strictures, for better and for worse.
She’d also been aware of her father’s dislike of her mother’s horse madness, of her mother’s laughing disdain of his fears, but when she’d died due to that passion, the grief proved too much for her remaining parent, and he soon followed his love to the grave.
Two bereavements hard upon the heels of each other had forestalled any chance of a debut, and as the years passed and her heart healed, Felicity was certain she had missed her chance. It had been a dream she had shared with her mum in happier times, just before it was time for her to lengthen her skirts and put up her hair: of standing at the top of a sweeping staircase, clothed in a diaphanous, white gown, waiting to be announced, all the while turning heads and smiling down upon the beaux who swarmed to meet her as she descended.
