Second Season

SECOND SEASON

Elsie Lee

Miss Charlotte Stanwood was the despair of her family. She had reached the ripe age of eighteen without a husband, and if her disastrous first season in London was any indication, she was doomed to spinsterhood.

What could you do with a girl who would not learn to chatter sweetly or sew neatly or even play the harp? Instead Charlotte rode as well as any man, read the most boring books, and even knew how to speak German.

All society was startled when the dashing, handsome, immensely wealthy Duke of Imbrie asked for Charlotte’s hand—and shocked when she turned him down. But that was just the first of many surprises Miss Charlotte Stanwood had in store...

CHAPTER I

As the dowager had put it: “The Stanwoods may look as high as they choose for their marriage contracts,” but in 1811, Lady Eleanor Stanwood would have been glad to look no farther than beneath the next chair and take whatever she found for her eldest daughter.

Dearly as her family loved her—and they did, for a variety of mundane reasons—there was no denying that Charlotte Stanwood was All Wrong for presentation to the marriage mart.

At the outset, she looked wrong. Aged eighteen and a bit, she was unduly thin, energetic and wiry, with a wealth of waving hair to equal her father’s prized team of chestnuts, and grey-green colored eyes—which is to say she was insipid in a pink gown, bearable in blue, and stunning in deep green. Unfortunately, the prevailing fashion was for ethereal blondes with delicate white skin, and Miss Stanwood was pronounced a shade too tall, although she never lacked dance partners because a number of the beaux discovered this was her only accomplishment. Faced with a hostess determined to present him to quite the dullest wallflower in the room, any Pink of the
Ton
would bolt across to Miss Stanwood. “At least she follows creditably, and she don’t say anything until it’s over.”

That lack of conversation was Lady Stanwood’s despair, and her cup of humiliation overflowed when the odious Mrs. Drummond Burrell graciously bestowed upon Charlotte the patroness’s permission to waltz at Almack’s. “Unless,” she smiled thinly at Lady Stanwood, “her shyness makes the dance unacceptable to Miss Stanwood?”

“
Shy
?” Lord Stanwood choked incredulously when his lady reported the incident. “No, no, milady—you can’t have heard right, or the woman’s got the wrong girl. There never was anyone with more to say for herself than our Sharlie.”

“So I’d have said,” his wife agreed dolefully, “but why must she sit mumchance upon all occasions?” Charlotte herself merely sighed apologetically. “I’m sorry, mama, but I can never think of anything to say. I don’t seem to have learned the right words for London.”

Lady Stanwood could not repress a snort. “This,” she stated, “is what comes of education for females. I warned your father, but he
would
allow you to join your brother when Mr. Appleby was preparing him for Oxford ... and now we see! French is unexceptionable, and Italian, but
German
... and no elegant young female should ever have heard of Latin or Greek. In fact, I don’t know why any man needs to know them, either.”

“Neither do I,” Charlotte admitted, “but Oxford doesn’t agree, and you know very well, ma’am, that Geoffrey would never have completed his preparation but for not wishing me to get ahead of him. He’d have been playing truant every fine day.”

“Exactly—and he still played truant and took you with him, miss! Romping about the countryside, when you should have been learning a semblance of gentility.”

Charlotte sighed again, “I did try, but I wasn’t born with the knack of it.”

It was sadly true. Dearly as she loved Charlotte—and Lady Stanwood privately admitted a partiality for this one among her six children, while striving not to show it—no governess or special master had ever been able to turn Sharlie into a drawing room ornament. She was staggeringly non-musical, unable to manage even the simplest sonata or carry a tune, although she could whistle as melodiously as a blackbird. Of genteel accomplishments she had none, being afflicted (apparently) with three left thumbs. Her knitted scarves and netted purses contained mysterious holes in odd places. Her embroidery had always to be laundered as soon as she’d set the final stitch, so one could see what her design was ... not that it mattered, and much of the time Lady Stanwood felt she would rather
not
see it. A series of drawing masters failed to train Sharlie’s eye for any sort of perspective, while paint was abandoned at an early age. She got it all over everything, including her baby brother.

She did have accomplishments, of course. Unfortunately, they were unsuited to a pretty-behaved young female. Charlotte was far and away the best horsewoman in the county, could manage the estate and stables competently whenever her father went to a race meeting or hunt. She could set a rabbit snare as well as any poacher, cast for a trout or handle a gun to equal her brother. She knew every inch of Stanwood, exactly where the badgers lived and when the gamekeeper should concentrate on eliminating an intrusive kestrel. Every tenant automatically went to Miss Sharlie, if his Lordship were unavailable, and if Lady Stanwood wanted a specialty from the succession houses, she told Sharlie to ask MacLean for it. Sharlie
was the only person in the world the head gardener would obey.

It had long been obvious to Lady Stanwood that her darling hobbledehoy was a country woman from toes to topknot, that Geoffrey would succeed his father and manage Stanwood in exactly the same careful-casual manner, while Emily would appear once at Almack’s, be hailed as an Incomparable and take her pick among the dozen most eligible men in England. Emily was everything Charlotte was not, including stupid, but Lady Stanwood had no fear of settling her handsomely within the first Season. In fact, between Emily’s guinea-gold natural curls, melting sapphire eyes and alabaster skin, the problem was how to keep her free until she could be got to London. Every lad in the neighborhood—and to Lady Stanwood’s mind there were far too many of them—had been dangling after Emily for the past two years, which made it the more imperative to establish Charlotte before her younger sister burst upon the
haut ton.

To this praiseworthy plan, Charlotte objected hotly. “I’ve
been
to London, and you know very well I did not Take. The
ton
thought me a bumpkin, and I found them a dead bore. It will be the same this year. Worse!” she foretold gloomily. “I’ll be called an antidote.”

“But I cannot feel you have had your full chance.”

“I couldn’t
help
falling ill of the mumps.”

“No, but it did cut short all possibilities,” Lady Stanwood pointed out, and changed the subject while Sharlie was muttering, “
What
possibilities?”

Not only had Miss Stanwood failed to create a ripple in London, she had acquired an odious childhood complaint midway, and just as Lady Stanwood had every expectation of an offer from Sir Ruthven Crevelly ... not that he was more than acceptable, but it was maddening that Charlotte should fall ill before a definite declaration. Sir Ruthven was the nearest thing to a prospect Sharlie had achieved, but when she retired to Stanwood Hall, he transferred his interest to Miss Farnsworth, and long before convalescence, the banns were up, the marriage heralded at St. George’s.

Lady Stanwood was philosophical in the connubial chamber. “After all, he was a thought too old, and I understand some of the estates are encumbered.”

“He’s a prosy bore,” Lord Stanwood stated, “and if Sharlie took him, she’d have to be desperate, which you know she isn’t, milady. She’s her grandmother’s money in trust until she’s thirty unless I consent to her marriage, which I’ll tell you now I’d not have given for Crevelly. Plus there’s her portion from me that’s been safely funded since her birth. If she don’t choose to marry anyone, she needn’t.”

Lady Stanwood fixed him with an awesome eye. “Do I understand you right, milord: you would see your eldest daughter UNWED?”

“Why not, if she don’t find someone she fancies?” her spouse inquired bluffly. “But she will. You’ll see, milady! Aye, she’s not just in the common style of your milk-and-water misses, but there’s many a man’d prefer Charlotte’s blurting out what she thinks to the simpering ‘Oh, la, sir, I vow you’re a rogue’!”

Lord Stanwood did a broad caricature that drew a reluctant smile from his wife, at which he roared with glee. “Come, Nelly—we married for love as well as suitability, and I’ve never regretted it...”

“Nor I,” she admitted with a naughty chuckle.

“Why should our Sharlie have less, eh?” Lord Stanwood set a strong arm about her plump form and hugged her. “Leave the lass alone. Take her to London for a second try, if you insist, but she’s not to be pressed, pushed, made to feel it’s her duty to be well-established, you understand?” His face was serious. “Let her find what she wants in her own way—and if there’s nothing she wants, let her come home to Stanwood and be happy in her own way.”

Lady Stanwood felt all the sense of her lord’s dictum, but still ... there might be someone new on the Town this year, the fashion standards might have altered to bring Sharlie more in the mode. She’d at least got her feet wet last year. Surely she’d know better how to go on, might show a little more confidence. She steeled her heart to protests. “Your father agrees it is only right you shall make your curtsey once more. It is by no means impossible you will encounter someone for whom you feel a decided partiality—and let me tell you, my dear, it is infinitely more comfortable to be a married lady than the wealthiest of spinsters. Come, my love,” cajolingly, “your father declares you are not to be pressed in any way, merely that you are to see if there is one who will suit you.”

“I won’t find him in London,” Charlotte muttered mutinously, but her mother disagreed.

“On the contrary, it is the only place you will find him,” she said firmly. “Do not be thinking you will tumble over an eligible husband in a hedgerow, nor even in a hunting houseparty, for I assure you it is no such thing. The gentleman of suitable birth and property may admire your horsemanship, but he will wish also to see how you conduct yourself in the society you will grace as his wife, and
that
can only be determined during the Season.”

“Exactly,” Sharlie countered, “which puts you at Point Non Plus before you begin, ma’am. You know full well I
have
no grace. We learned that last year.”

“Nonsense, you never lacked partners at Almack’s,”
Lady Stanwood said feebly, but Charlotte swept it aside.

“Yes, but when it is not a dancing party—can you imagine how I feel to sit beside you, with no more than a few civil words from your friends?” Sharlie’s grey-green eyes darkened unhappily. “Always to go out to supper with a gallant friend of papa’s, or to pretend happy gossip with the other wallflowers? No, mama, don’t ask it of me! Can’t you take Emily instead? Truly, I’d rather stay at Stanwood, and you know Emily is fated to be the Incomparable of the year.”

“Yes—which is exactly why I want you married before her presentation,” Lady Stanwood murmured involuntarily.

“If you mean no one would look twice at me after Emily, you’re right. It seems a stupid waste of time and money to spend another Season trying to get rid of me. I warrant you I’ll never attach anyone suitable,” Charlotte pleaded earnestly.
“Please,
mama?”

Lady Stanwood took refuge in the universal wifely bolthole. “I will speak to your father,” but she had nearly abandoned the project when Algernon Whipsnade was observed kissing Emily in the conservatory.

“Oh, yes, milady. MacLean saw it quite clear,” Miss Tinsdale reported sweetly, while dressing her mistress’s hair before dinner. “Please not to jerk your head so sharply, milady. It makes the curls all uneven.”

“Never mind the curls! What did MacLean do—aside from running to tell the first person he saw?”

“He cleared his throat, milady, and Mr. Whipsnade sprang away.”

“Are you telling me that Miss Emily—MY daughter—was participating in an embrace?” Lady Stanwood’s fulminating eye fixed her dresser in the mirror, causing immediate retreat.

“Oh, no,
indeed,
milady!” Miss Tinsdale sounded shocked. “It seemed to MacLean as if she’d been taken by surprise and was protesting, but being as Mr. Whipsnade is well-grown for his years—like the Squire,” she simpered genteelly, “I dessay as Miss Emily were overborne-like.”

Recalling the ham-like arms of the Whipsnades, Lady Stanwood could well believe it. “I see,” she made her voice indifferent. “That will do, Tinsdale. Hand me the Norwich shawl, and you may go,” but when the dresser had left the room, Lady Stanwood lost no time in hastening to the young ladies’ sitting parlor. She found, much as expected, Charlotte absorbed in the Farming Gazette, while Emily pored over the Ladies’ Monthly Museum. She looked up with a happy smile, “Did you want me, mama?”

“Tinsdale told me Algy Whipsnade had called this afternoon. I said she must be mistaken, I would have been informed.” Lady Stanwood’s heart sank at Emily’s involuntary blush and lowered eyes.

“Not precisely
called,
mama.”

“He didn’t call at all, mama,” Sharlie stated. “He rode over to get the spermacetti ointment papa promised, and unluckily Emily was just come in from a ride. Algy walked beside her to the house.”

“What was she doing in the conservatory, then?”

“You wanted a fruit for dinner, ma’am. I told MacLean to have it ready, and asked Emily to take it to cook, because I was making a bran poultice.”

Emily hung her head, “The fruit was in a basket, I only stepped in to get it, and ... well, Algy was trying to be gallant, and he reached behind me to take the basket.”

“And squeezed her hand under his, and breathed ‘Miss Emily!’ worshipfully,” Sharlie added impatiently. “MacLean was there all the time, mama, though Algy didn’t see him at first—and I wish you will not allow Tinsdale to upset you with her exaggerations.”

“I am not upset. I merely wish to know whether Algernon Whipsnade attempted to kiss Emily.”

“Of course not, mama! He wouldn’t dare,” Emily flushed with indignation.

“Not now, but he’s working up rapidly,” Charlotte chuckled.