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In the shed, he’d caught a tantalizing glimpse of pink stockings and pink garters tied with rosettes, and a slender waist, curvaceous breasts...
Whisky. And lots of it.
“What did you think of MissPenny?” Beatrice asked, glancing at Drew over the top of her teacup.
“I thought she was trouble.” Pretty, perplexing, arousing peril. Best avoided. Best forgotten.
Beatrice laughed and propped her feet up on the fender, turning her skirts up at the hem so they wouldn’t catch on fire. “I liked her. She didn’t stare at my face at all, and she offered to mete out punishment to Lady Millicent for making fun of me. She was quite ferocious about it. Reminded me of you, actually. You have the same warlike expression on your face right now.”
“You know I won’t countenance anyone who makes fun of you.”
“It’s part of my life,” said Beatrice, staring at the flickering flames. “The Almighty placed this mark on me for a reason. I’m a wallflower. A complete and utter failure in society.”
“You’ll never be a wallflower to me.”
“You have to say that. You’re my brother. Besides, I’ve made my peace with it. I intend to find a new and different way to become a triumph.”
“I call that a complete triumph,” said Grizzy as they returned home after the ball. “Sir Malcolm will be very pleased with the progress you made tonight, Wilhelmina.”
More like a total disaster, thought Mina as she climbed the stairs to her room.
Lord Rafe had never arrived because of some feud with his brother, the duke.
Thorndon.
Had she gone temporarily insane in that garden shed? Holding him at pistol point. Demanding that he undress. And then the commanding way he’d disarmed her...
“You achieved success where all the other ladies failed, Wilhelmina.” Grizzy followed her into her room. “He was quite taken with you—everyone was whispering about it. The scrutiny of your deportment will be more intense than ever. We must resume our decorum lessons immediately.”
“I’m tired.”
“No rest for you, my girl. Not until I’m satisfied that you will be able to converse knowledgably on the arts when the duke invites you to visit the opera with his sister and mother, as I’m quite certain that he will.”
“I met Lady Beatrice tonight. She’s wonderfully engaging and clever. I hope that we’ll become friends.” She’d always wanted a friend growing up. She’d been so very lonely with no one to play with.
“Perfect. Now then, I’ll name the opera, and you name the composer...”
Mina’s mind wandered back to the shed as Grizzy tested her.
She couldn’t shake the suspicion that Thorndon had been hiding from something when she’d surprised him in the shed. She needed to read the Duke Dossier more closely.
The surprising thing was that Thorndon had warned her about Lord Rafe. Which either meant that he was jealous of his brother or that he was capable of empathy and of caring for something beyond himself, not a very dukelike emotion, to be sure.
“I can see that you’re too fatigued to concentrate on your lessons,” said Grizzy. “We’ll resume in the morning. I’ll send Addison to help you undress.” Mina hadn’t brought her own lady’s maid to London, because she’d never had one.
Her life had been entirely unconventional. She’d grown up as a hoyden, allowed to roam as she pleased around the grounds of Sutton Hall but never allowed to venture past the woods.
“I’ll have to start a new naturalist tableau.” Grizzy cocked her head. “I think I’ll call it the Wedding of the Hedgehog and the Vole.”
“Oh, please don’t.” Mina had seen the chamber of horrors that Grizzy called her workshop.
The iron pincers, the spools of metal wire, the cotton batting she used for stuffing. Grizzy had lent her a stomach-churning book entitledTaxidermy: the Art of Collection, Preparing, and Mounting Objects of Natural History, by her idol, one MissSarah Lee. “That is, don’t start planning a wedding just yet,” she said. “I only had one waltz with the duke.”
“Nonsense. You dazzled him. I have every hope that an invitation from the duke will arrive for you tomorrow. A whirlwind courtship and then... Duchess of Thorndon. I never would have thought it possible.”
Was that an approving glint in Grizzy’s flinty eyes? Mina never would have thought it possible.
“Good night, Great-Aunt.”
