Kathryn Caskie (2 page)

Eliza and Grace were seated in the parlor when the click of walking sticks in the passageway heralded their aunts’ arrival.

With great solemnity, Aunt Letitia and Aunt Viola took their places before the Pembroke table and stood as though an announcement of great import was to be made.

Aunt Viola cleared her long throat and began. “Years ago, Letitia and I were about to enter our first season when our mother died. Even for some years after the mourning period, in deference to our father’s deep despair, we did not partake in the season’s festivities. We were not courted. We received no offers despite the General’s esteemed standing in society.” A forlorn sigh escaped her. Then, quite suddenly, Aunt Viola’s eyelids fluttered and she gasped a quick warning.
“Spell..
.”

Viola’s chin hit her chest and she wavered to and fro as her eyelids fell shut.

With nary a trace of worry on her round face, Aunt Letitia guided Viola back into a seat a second before her sister’s knees buckled beneath her.

Then, seeming confident Viola was not about to tumble from her chair, Aunt Letitia turned once more to face Eliza and Grace.

“Now, where did she leave off?” she asked.

“Y-you received no offers,” Eliza offered helpfully as she glanced at Viola, who showed no sign yet of waking from her spell. Her aunt’s sudden sleeping spells were a regular occurrence in the household, and though the suddenness of them always startled Eliza, she knew she needn’t be concerned. Aunt Viola would awaken soon enough, fit as a filly on a spring day.

“Right you are,” Aunt Letitia replied. “When Papa died some years later, we reentered Society. But we were past the marrying age and were put on a shelf as
spinsters.”
She reached for her sleeping sister’s hand and squeezed it. “You cannot imagine the half life of a spinster. Never quite belonging. Never truly loved or appreciated—”

“But Auntie,” Eliza cut in, “you are free to make your own choices. You are independent. No one tells you what you can and cannot do with your life—”

“And no one shares my bed at night. No children come to visit me. I have no grandchildren to spoil. Do you not understand, Eliza? A spinster’s course is a lonely one.” Tears glittered like starlight in Aunt Letitia’s lashes.

The heartbreak in her aunt’s voice prickled the backs of Eliza’s eyes. It would be different for her, she told herself. She had her art, after all.

Aunt Viola’s hand jerked, bringing a smile to Aunt Letitia’s lips. “Good, good. Sister is returning to us now,” she said, settling Viola’s hand back atop her own knobby knee.

She looked at Eliza, then at Grace. “The point of all this is that we do not intend to allow the same fate to befall either of you.” With a precise nod, she signaled to Edgar, who crossed the room and placed a thick red book before the elderly aunts.

Eliza stared at the dusty tome and puzzled over its significance. Rising, she moved to the Pembroke table and ran her finger across the book’s faded gilt title.
“Rules of Engagement”
Eliza read aloud. She looked up at her aunts for further explanation, but they only smiled back with delighted expectation.

Opening the heavy book to its middle, Eliza quickly scanned its pages and saw it was filled with military ruses and stratagem. This was even more perplexing.

What were her aunts planning to do with a book on strategies for war? Eliza snapped her head upright. “I do not understand.”

Aunt Viola raised her head slowly, then snorted and grinned. She took Letitia’s proffered arm, and, finding her balance, moved to the table and closed the book. She tapped a nail on the fading cover. “Read the title, dear.
Rules of Engagement.
It’s a primer, you see, on how to get engaged.”

Aunt Letitia clapped her hands. “With this book, we have all the strategies necessary to see both you and Grace engaged by season’s end. ‘Twill be like the season we never had.”

Eliza wavered, trying to make sense of what she’d heard. But there was no sense in this. None whatsoever.

Her aunts had mistaken a military strategy text for an instruction manual for getting engaged!

“Auntie, this book is—”

Grace clasped Eliza’s hand and pulled her back to the settee. “Remember your promise, Eliza.”

“But Grace, you do not understand, this book—”

"I do not
need
to understand. Can you not see what this means to them?” her sister whispered.

Eliza looked at Aunt Viola, who was now cradling the precious rule book in her hands. She turned to Aunt Letitia, whose eyes were alight with hope.

Eliza squeezed her lids closed. Oh, for mercy’s sake. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t tell them the truth. Not without breaking their hearts.

Opening her eyes, Eliza forced a smile. “This book is
exactly
what we need. How lucky for us that you remembered it.”

Grace released her pent breath.

Skirting the table, Aunt Letitia pressed a kiss to Eliza’s cheek. “We knew you both would be pleased. We shall begin at once. Edgar, bring the sherry. This is a celebration!”

Eliza and Grace joined their aunts around the table as Edgar served the libation.

A giggle of excitement escaped from Aunt Viola’s lips as she set the book down again and opened it. She positioned her lorgnette and focused on the large dark heading at the top of the page—no doubt all her aging eyes could make out. “Rule One,” Aunt Viola read. “Those whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.”

“We have achieved our first objective,” Aunt Letitia announced. “From this moment onward, we are one in our purpose—to see you both engaged by the end of the season.”

“Hear! Hear!” Grace cheered, looking toward Eliza.

“Hear, hear,” Eliza murmured, staring with shock at the crimson book between them.

What sort of madness had she just agreed to?

Rule Two

Take action before he can discern your strategy.

With a muffled cry, Eliza burst from the Presence Chamber at the Court of St. James’s and yanked from her hair the wretched white plumes that had caused her disgrace. Even now, standing in the gilded drawing room amid the shocked stares of London’s ton, she could not believe what she had done.

“Really, Eliza. This tops it all.” Grace pushed through the crowd at the door and trailed not two steps behind. “You sneezed on her. You spewed saliva in Queen Charlotte’s face.
Three times,
no less!”

“Grace, please. Is not my own humiliation enough?”

Pressing her way through the undulating surge of courtiers, Eliza spied the grand staircase and made for it at once. In just a few moments, she’d be safely inside her aunts’ carriage, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the damnable palace.

Just as Eliza’s slipper touched the first step, Grace snatched her wrist and jerked her aside.

“You disgraced us all,” her sister rebuked. “We will never live this down. Never.”

"I hardly think all the blame can be placed on my shoulders,” Eliza replied. Looking past Grace, she noticed a circlet of London’s first set watching them intently.

Eliza lifted her chin. She didn’t care in the least what the ton thought of her. Though the season had only just begun, they’d already written her off as … what was it now? Oh, yes. A hopeless hoyden. After today’s sneezing incident, no doubt this snide assessment would make its way through the whole of fashionable London before nightfall. Yes, the entire incident was mortifying, but Eliza had to own that even this nightmare suited her purposes perfectly well.

When Grace, too, realized the onlookers’ scrutiny, she drew closer to Eliza. A look of warning flashed plainly in her eyes.

Eliza sighed. “Surely you do not think I sneezed on purpose.”

Grace merely stared back at her, clearly waiting for an explanation.

“It is not as though I
asked
to wear these vile plumes.” Pinching the frothy feathers between her thumb and index finger, she held them at arm’s length, as if they were crawling with vermin. “You know how feathers affect me. My eyes are watering so badly I can scarcely see.”

Ignoring Eliza’s statement entirely, Grace snapped open her pierce-work fan and flapped it before her delicate face. “What must the queen think of us, or the ton for that matter? Word will travel, you know. We will be blocked from every respectable drawing room in London, I am quite sure of it.”

“Oh, calm yourself, Grace. I’m certain the queen has all but forgotten the episode by now.” Eliza raised the offending plumes eye-level, turning them thoughtfully through her fingers. “Besides, since all debutantes wear these absurd white feathers during presentation, I truly doubt I am the first to
spew,
as you so daintily put it, on the queen.”

"I fear, Lizzy, you are mistaken,” a plaintive voice said.

Eliza turned to see the plump Lady Letitia and willowy Lady Viola, bearing down on them in identical gowns of lavender satin and blond lace.

Aunt Letitia fretfully wrung her handkerchief as she wedged her turnip-shaped form between the two young women. “I have it on good authority that you
are
the very first.”

“Really? The very first?” Eliza looked from one aunt to the other. As humiliating as her presentation had been, she was not about to take a simple sneeze, or three, so gravely. And neither, she decided, should they. “Then I must make it my solemn mission to ensure this tragedy never befalls another debutante. I shall petition the queen, at once, to ban all ostrich feathers from court.”

“Oh, dear,” Aunt Viola gasped, frantically looking to Aunt Letitia for help. “We cannot allow her to do it, Sister.”

“Now, now, Eliza will do nothing of the sort,” Aunt Letitia answered. “Will you, gel? You’ve caused quite enough stir for one day, don’t you agree?” She punctuated her statement by jabbing the point of her index finger into Eliza’s back and starting her down the staircase. “The queen has finally retired, so to the carriage, my loves. Quickly now.”

While they waited in the noisy, bustling entry hall for their conveyance to draw up through the crowded line, Aunt Viola grasped Eliza’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Do not fret, Eliza. It’s all over now,” she said softly. “You have been presented. And, as you know, dear, presentation is the first step in making a good match.”

Eliza cringed. “If that sort of thing matters to you,” she muttered.

Aunt Letitia clucked her disapproval. “Did I hear you right? If that sort of thing matters?”

Eliza withdrew her hand from Aunt Viola’s gentle grasp and faced Letitia’s formidable countenance. “Please do not misunderstand me, Auntie. I do appreciate your efforts, for Grace, that is. But I am not inclined to find a husband. You know that.”

Aunt Letitia swatted down Eliza’s comment as though it were a winged insect headed for her nose. “Nonsense, child. Now that the season is under way, you will have the time of your life.”

“Assuming she survives
this
disgrace,” Grace added.

Eliza ignored her sister’s comment. Instead, she gave her aunt a noncommittal nod. “I am sure you are right. But since I possess few of the traits desirable in a wife, I seriously doubt any offers shall be made for my hand.”

“Pish posh,” Aunt Letitia said. “You are fair and clever. The gentlemen will be queuing up to call upon you. You will see, Lizzy.” She gave a sidelong glance toward Viola. “For we have a plan, do we not?”

Aunt Viola’s ancient eyes sparkled with excitement. “We do indeed, Sister.”

A plan? Oh, no, they mean to use the rule book, don’t they?
Eliza shuddered at the thought. To her dismay, that slight movement made her nose itch. She was about to …
Oh God, not again. Not here. “A-achew
—”

At the wet blast, Aunt Letitia looked Eliza full in the face, her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Give me the feathers.” Snatching the white plumes away, Aunt Letitia shoved them at Viola, then pressed her own handkerchief into Eliza’s empty hand. “Do see to your nose, Lizzy. It’s as wet as a pup’s.”

A moment later, their footman, liveried in pale Featherton lavender, stepped into the hall to signal the arrival of their carriage.

With great exuberance, Aunt Letitia waved her arms to shoo the young women through the burgeoning crowd as though they were a pair of particularly dim-witted sheep.

Eager to leave the scene of her blunder, Eliza started for the door, when she noticed Aunt Letitia’s handkerchief was missing. Whirling around, she spotted the crumpled bit of lace on the floor and dashed back, stooping to retrieve it.

“Eliza, do hurry,” Grace called out from the doorway.

“Coming.” Eliza straightened, then turned on her heel for the door, only to slam into a blue wall of some sort. Pain shot through her face.

Oh, what now?
Opening her watering eyes, Eliza found her nose flattened against what appeared to be a brass button. She tried to see whom she’d run into, but was too close. Teetering on her heels, she pitched backward.

Firm hands seized her shoulders, steadying her on her feet.

Eliza inched her head upward. The button was attached to a silk gold-shot waistcoat, and the waistcoat to a very large man. Her gaze climbed higher still, until at last, she found herself looking straight into the gentleman’s face. She gulped.

Pale eyes, glinting like quicksilver, stared down at Eliza. As she marveled at their sterling color, she saw in them the faint reflection of her own heart-shaped face and wide sherry-hued eyes.
Criminy.
It was like looking into two small mirrors.

Thick waves of ebony hair, drawn back in an unfashionable queue, set off the man’s strong chiseled features.

Her gaze slid down along his jawbone, over the blue beginnings of beard just beneath the surface of his faintly bronzed skin.

His body, too, was well defined, suggesting years of physical activity.

And he was tall, standing fully a head above any other gentleman in the hall. Eliza wondered how she’d missed seeing him earlier.

She took a half step backward. Like her, this man did not belong at the palace. Oh, he was polished enough. His tailor had done well by him, supplying formal garb of the first quality. But somehow, his well-muscled form seemed ill-atease within its perfect seams.