A Debutante's Guide to Rebellion (3 page)

“What about the worst dancer living, then?” she asked, and stepped on his foot.

He managed not to wince. The dance floor was hot and crowded, full of swirling bodies. This level of crowdedness always made him anxious, and tonight was no exception. But the conversation helped. “That would be a simpler proposition,” he acknowledged. “Though still, I think, impossible. One could eliminate great swathes of the population altogether—anyone with a reputation for being a good dancer, or even a fair one, would presumably not be a threat to your title.”

“My title?”

“Of Worst Dancer Living,” Ezekiel told her. “However, anyone whose prowess was not established would have to be tested. Group demonstrations could be arranged; in a lifetime, one might in fact establish that you were the Worst Dancer in England. Perhaps we could even manage Scotland, perhaps a portion of the continent, before we perished of old age. But by then, a whole new crop of dancers would have been born, and we would be forced to circle back.”

“I see. I hadn't thought through the practical concerns,” Lady Mildred said, eyes sparkling. The two of them were taken apart again, and Ezekiel watched Lady Mildred bump and stumble her way through the steps with another partner while he handled his own with brisk efficiency.

“However, I doubt that such a search would last very long,” Ezekiel said as soon as they touched hands again. “You are undoubtedly
not
the worst dancer in all of London, much less the world.”

“Is that so?”

“There are a number of one-legged men in London. Also, the blind, those with an inability to balance, the insane—”

“Well. I'm glad to know I rate above the one-legged and the mad,” Lady Mildred said. He paused. Had he offended her? She was still smiling, but sometimes smiles were misleading. Sophie frequently smiled at him a moment before she said,
Z, you're being insufferable
or
Z, that's horribly offensive
. It was always only a moment, though, and over time he'd come to recognize the tight, brittle quality of the smile.

The dance ended. They were already at the edge of the dance floor, and Lady Mildred, a little out of breath, smoothed her hands over her sides and glanced toward the onlookers. Ezekiel followed her gaze, still worried that she was angry with him. Sophie always told him outright; it was extremely helpful, and he wished more people would follow her example.

Lady Mildred stiffened. She was looking at Lord Averdale, Ezekiel's uncle, who appeared to have been watching them. The man gave Ezekiel a nod and turned away, walking toward the exit. Unsurprising; Lord Averdale did not enjoy balls. Ezekiel was uncertain why he had attended so many of them this year.

Lady Mildred let out a little breath, halfway to a sob. Her eyes were sparkling again, but now with tears. What had he done?

“Did I offend you?” Ezekiel asked. “I'm terribly sorry if I did. I can't always tell.”

She looked at him mutely. “I—I'm sorry, I can't,” she said, and fled in the direction Lord Averdale had gone.

Ezekiel stood stupidly, staring after her. He must have done something wrong. Perhaps Sophie would be able to tell him what it had been.

***

Eddie could not believe how foolish she'd been. She was meant to sit and wait, to stay off the dance floor and stay out of conversations, until Lord Averdale arrived. She was meant to play her part and have this done with at last, and instead she'd made a fool of herself, stumbling around like a drunken bear and babbling on about inconsequential subjects.

And Lord Averdale had seen, and now he was leaving. Did he think her fickle? Foolish? Ungraceful?

All of them, no doubt. She pushed past elegant ladies. Her dress was flawlessly fashionable, and yet it hung on her like sackcloth drizzled in egg yolk. These women could wear actual sackcloth and look gorgeous.

She squeezed artlessly between the backs of two such goddesses and stumbled into the foyer. Lord Averdale was exiting out the front. She hurtled after him.

“Lord Averdale,” she called, and then dropped her voice, blushing. “Lord Averdale,” she said again. Her pursuit had left her slightly breathless, and her voice was delicate with the rising pressure of repressed tears.

He turned. He held a walking stick loosely in one hand, his intent to leave obvious at one glance. She swallowed. He was a plain man, round in the face, with hair gone to a coarse gray and a bristling mustache hanging over his wide lips. He was hardly an object of desire; it was what he represented that she yearned for, and for that she could force herself to accept the rest.

“Lady Mildred,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing,” she said. “Except that I wondered if you might like something to eat, or perhaps—” She stumbled over her words. She was being too forward, but what choice did she have?

“I'm afraid I must be getting home, Lady Mildred,” Lord Averdale said. Was he disappointed in her? Angry? It was so hard to tell with him. She had never seen him so much as smile, or raise an eyebrow. He spoke slowly, deliberately, and without emotional inflection. It was like trying to read the disposition of a boulder.

“But the dancing has only just begun,” she said weakly.

“And I hope that you continue to enjoy it,” Lord Averdale said. She suppressed a groan. He
was
angry with her, then. Angry that she'd been dancing with his nephew, instead of him? Or that she'd been dancing at all, and making a fool of herself? “Good night, Lady Mildred,” Lord Averdale said, and made a graceful exit.

Eddie wrapped her arms around her middle and watched him go, biting the inside of her cheek.
Idiot,
she cursed herself.

What had possessed her to dance with Ezekiel Blackwood, of all people? Everyone knew he was a social disaster. A social disaster who had not tried to speak to her about the dance or gossip about the other people present, or simply talk endlessly about himself. He'd talked about fruit, of all things, and made her laugh, and that was more than she could say of anyone she'd danced with since her debut.

Behind her, someone cleared their throat. She turned with growing dread, knowing who she would see.

He mother raised her eyebrows wordlessly, hands folded in front of her. And then turned away.

The rest of the ball was excruciating. Her mother did not say a word to her. Not yet. But she glared every time Eddie made as if to depart the corner she had retreated to. John missed the drama, as he was distracted by dancing with a series of pretty girls. He had a bit of a reputation as a rake, and while Eddie would have seen that as good reason to avoid him, many girls seemed to consider it the opposite. As a result, she was on her own until it came time to leave.

The carriage ride was stiff and quiet. Eddie found herself fingering the gems at her neck, until her mother started staring, at which she dropped her hand to her lap. Her mother probably didn't think she was worthy of even looking at the jewels now. She'd failed. Miserably.

But her punishment waited until they had reached the foyer, with the door closed behind them.

Lady Copeland rounded on her. “What possessed you tonight?” she demanded.

“I'm sorry,” Eddie said immediately, fixing her eyes on the rug. If she could focus on the trellis pattern, the fernlike details, perhaps she could distract herself enough to make it through the next several minutes. Her father gave a heaving sigh and headed for the stairs, apparently disinterested in whatever might come next. Just as well. She had no desire for an audience.

“You had one task. No; that's an exaggeration. Your only job was to do nothing at all, but you failed even at that! My God, Mildred, do you have any idea what will happen to you if you allow Lord Averdale to lose interest? You'll go year after year at these balls, never being asked to dance, never being brought into the circle of whispers and conversation, until you shrivel up. Do you want to be a spinster, Mildred?”

“No, ma'am,” Eddie whispered. The rug was not sufficient. She started to do sums in her head. Two plus two is four. Nine times seven is sixty-three. One hundred and sixty-three divided by nineteen is eight point five seven something-something.

“Well, that is what you will be.”

“Someone did ask her to dance,” John pointed out. He had remained, but off to the side. He knew better than to get into the middle of such a display.

“Yes. And you ought to have refused. Honestly, the only thing worse than not being asked to dance is being asked to dance by someone so . . . so . . .” Lady Copeland was getting red in the face. “So
odd
,” she concluded.

“I rather liked him,” John offered, but Eddie balled her hands into fists and willed him to shut up. He'd only make things worse.

One thousand and twelve times nine is nine thousand one hundred and eight divided by seven is one thousand, three hundred and—

“You are a burden on this family,” Lady Copeland was saying. “If your sisters had survived, they would all be married by now, and perhaps one of them would have taken you in, but there's only John, and he will have the burden of the Copeland name, which is quite enough without you adding to it!”

The square of three is nine. The square of nine is eighty-one. The square of eighty-one is—

“Will you look at me when I'm talking to you!” Lady Copeland said. Eddie's head snapped up. Her mother's nostrils were flared and pale. Not a good sign. She had only truly angered her mother twice in her life. They had not reached that point. Not yet. But it was coming, and there was only one sure defense against it.

Eddie swooned.

It was useful to have a reputation for swooning. The key was in doing it on a soft surface, and falling to the side, bowing one's legs so that it appeared you were falling straight down, but in fact you were lowering yourself gently (but swiftly) into a heap.

Eddie let out a soft cry and flopped to the right, eyes shut. Her mother shrieked.

“My poor child!” she cried. “My poor child has fainted!”

Eddie gritted her teeth and kept her eyes shut. She thought she heard John sigh.

“Quickly, quickly, we must take her to the parlor,” Lady Copeland said.

Strong arms slid beneath her. Not John, but the butler, Fellowes, a man well familiar with her “fits.” And another witness to her mother's tirade.

All the servants in the vicinity would have heard, but it wasn't anything new. She saw them giving her pitying and scornful looks when they thought she wouldn't notice. Or maybe it was just that they didn't care if she did.

She'd once heard the scullery maid and a footman arguing about whether they'd swap lives with her. The maid came down on the side of soft beds and being waited on hand and foot; the footman preferred his dignity.

She herself was undecided.

Fellowes set her down on the chaise longue in the parlor and departed without so much as a whisper of comfort. That she was used to as well; her father chose servants who were like him: disinterested and efficient.

Her mother flapped about in a state of exaggerated agitation until John said, “You are only going to drive yourself into a faint as well. I'll look after her, Mother.”

“Oh, my sweet boy,” Lady Copeland said, and Eddie heard the sound of her kissing John's cheek.

Her footsteps headed toward the door; hesitated. They came back, drawing very close to Eddie, and she forced her breathing to stay steady. Her mother's hands roved to her neck, and the necklace slithered over her skin. Lady Copeland wouldn't want to leave her prize behind, after all.

Only when the door shut did Eddie dare open her eyes. John had folded his hands and was watching her with something akin to resignation.

“A swoon? Aren't you a bit old for those kinds of tricks?” he asked.

“If you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it,” Eddie said, straightening up.

“You could try not provoking her,” he suggested.

“Provoking her? All I did was dance. And you're the one who suggested it,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but then you ran after Lord Averdale like that. What did you think was going to happen? He'd turn around and come back in to the dance?”

“Nothing I could have done after that would have made a difference,” Eddie said. “Mother was going to be disappointed in me regardless. She always is.”

“Because you don't try,” John said.

“I do. I try, and I fail. And she likes it that way. I don't think she'd know what to do if I proved competent at something.”

John sat beside her on the couch and frowned. “At least you got to dance,” he said.

“It was actually a bit . . . fun,” Eddie allowed. “I enjoyed myself, until the Lord Averdale Disaster.”

“More like the Debutante Debacle,” John said, nudging her with his shoulder.

“The Marigold Mayhem?” Eddie suggested.

“The Frantic Frock Foofaraw.”

“Now you're just being silly,” Eddie scolded, and gave a sniff. Her incipient tears were in retreat, at least.

“It was good practice,” he said. “He's a good stepping stone.”

“What?”

“A stepping stone. He's so damn awkward it won't matter what you do around him. You can use him as practice, and to put Averdale off. He won't court you if he thinks you're interested in his nephew.”

“I don't want to put Averdale off,” Eddie said, horrified.

“He's fat and old.”

“He's the best I'm ever going to do.”

“That's just Mother talking,” John said.

“You're the one who was agreeing with her earlier,” Eddie snapped.

“I wasn't agreeing. Just suggesting that you try to keep her happy,” John said.

“And you're not being kind to Mr. Blackwood. He was charming.”

“Oh, please. The man's barely warm-blooded. He's some kind of lizard in human clothing, I swear,” John said, half laughing. “One time—”

“Shut
up
,” Eddie said. She stood. “You are being cruel. And I am quite familiar with such cruelties, as I endure them on a regular basis. He's strange and awkward and wordy, and I'm ugly and clumsy and stuck-up.”

“You're not stuck-up.”

“Everyone thinks so, since I'm not allowed to talk to them, on account of my profound lack of wit,” Eddie said. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I'm going to bed. And I don't want to hear you say anything bad about Mr. Blackwood again, do you hear me?”

He laughed. “Fine. Whatever you wish, darling sister. You always did have strange taste.”

“Sometimes I think you're as bad as they are,” she said, and stormed out of the room.

***

Ezekiel collapsed into an armchair in the drawing room with a groan, removing his spectacles so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “That was a disaster,” he said.

“It wasn't a disaster,” Sophie chided him, curling up in her favorite seat opposite. Her parents had passed a few years prior, and she had lived with their uncle ever since. Ezekiel had entertained fantasies of her coming to live with
him
, but he could not blame her for choosing Lord Averdale's guardianship over his father's. “You danced. With someone other than
me
. I would think I had been dreaming, if there weren't so many witnesses.”

“It's not as if it's the first time.”

“Yes, but all the other times I had to bully you into it,” Sophie said. “This time you only needed coaxing. It's progress.”

“I don't see why you should insist on the endeavor at all,” Ezekiel said. “I have no need of dancing, or of speaking with women. I intend to devote my life to my studies. I don't need any female companionship for that.”

“Oh, please. You'd be an intellectual pauper without me,” Sophie said, tossing her head. “You think best out loud, with someone to ask questions.”

“Your questions are always extremely basic,” Ezekiel said. Sophie persisted in her ignorance of his favorite subjects, even after years of listening to him talk about them. They simply didn't interest her. He had spent a great deal of time being annoyed by this before he realized that she listened to him anyway, and had for years, because she knew it helped him. That was when he had agreed to start going to balls with her.

“But they help. I'm honestly not sure how, but I know they do,” Sophie insisted.

Ezekiel nodded. His mind had a way of haring off on wild tangents. When he was forced to consider the basics, it grounded his thinking. Still, he could not help but think that a more engaged partner would be of far greater utility.

“I intend to forge a scholarly partnership, not a romantic one, as the primary focus of my social life,” Ezekiel said. “As a result, I have little time for frivolous pursuits.”

“It's not frivolous if you like her. And maybe she'd be interested in what you're doing,” Sophie said. She bounced her foot up and down, rolling her ankle as she did so. It was a long-standing habit, and extremely distracting.

“I don't know if I like her,” Ezekiel said. “I find her interesting.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that
is
interesting,” Sophie said with a sly smile. “I think you might be in love.”

Ezekiel snorted. “Nonsense. Love is not something that can be developed after a single dance.”

“Of course it is. Haven't you ever read a poem?”

“My mother always said poetry gets people into trouble.”

“Your mother was a woman with a singular lack of imagination or whimsy, and don't look at me like that, because it's not an insult, just a fact.”

Ezekiel tapped his finger on the arm of the chair. “Her ardent belief in the tales of the Old Testament could be viewed as whimsy.”

“If you want to be wildly inconsiderate of others' beliefs.”

Ezekiel regarded her with surprise. He had not ever perceived his cousin as the religious sort. “You don't believe that every species of animal could fit onto a solitary vessel in the singular, much less ‘two by two,' do you?” he asked.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Why is that always the example? I've always felt that staunch adherence to literalism is the true display of no imagination, whether it leads to refuting such tales or embracing them. You really ought to develop a sense of metaphor.”

“I've never needed it before,” he said, but now he was just needling her, and she knew it. She always knew.

“Arguing about religion?” his father asked.

Ezekiel stiffened and turned in his chair. He had not heard the man enter. “Father. We were discussing metaphor, in fact.”

“Well. Don't let me disturb you.” He paused. “I heard you danced with a girl tonight.”

“Lady Mildred Weller,” Sophie offered.

“Lord Copeland's daughter? Huh. Well, they have money. And with a face like that, offers might be scarce, title or no. You could do worse. A lot worse.” He paused again, then nodded once. “Well done, Ezekiel. So. Good night.”

He left without another word, and the two younger folk stared after him in dazed surprise.

“I do believe that's the most approving I've ever seen him. Actually, it's rather unsettling,” Sophie said. “You should dance with girls more often.”

“What did he mean?” Ezekiel asked.

“About what?”

“About her face.”

“Oh.” Sophie shrugged uncomfortably. “You know. She's . . .” She trailed off.

“Ugly?” Ezekiel asked.

“I wasn't going to say that.”

“You were,” Ezekiel said, troubled. His cousin was normally kind when it came to appraisals of other women. She did not gossip, as a rule, nor insult anyone who had not done her harm first. “You decided not to, but you were going to say it.”

“Oh, all right,” Sophie said. “But I thought better of it. I wouldn't have said it at all, if anyone else were around. As far as I know, she's a perfectly lovely girl, even if her mother never lets her talk to any of us.”

“I don't think she is.”

“You don't think she's perfectly lovely?”