This was exactly how this conversation always went, but Priscilla never tired of repeating herself.
Grandmother had never indicated she loved her—no one had ever claimed to love Priscilla—but she didn’t want her grandmother to ever doubt that at least one person in the world carried her in their heart.
Priscilla rang for her two favorite maids and tried not to be too disappointed to discover one of them had been replaced by a stranger.
It wasn’t quite summery enough for the barouche, even with a warming brick, but its collapsible hood allowed one to see and be seen without needing to stop every few feet to allow others to peer inside her carriage.
Being seen was a critical component of complying with the requirements of her inheritance. Priscilla had committed its terms to memory as each delightful word left her father’s lips.
If she remained unwed at the age of five-and-twenty, she received a one-time settlement of ten thousand pounds—enough to be independently wealthy.
But to earn it, she must be an active part of the Marriage Mart every season. No joining a convent to kill time. She needed at least three public appearances per week. In the same vein, her name could not be embroiled in scandal. No making herself ineligible by taking a lover or causing embarrassment.
Nor could she speak of the inheritance to anyone, lest she be deemed colluding with a suitor by devising a secret engagement. Nonsensical, since the money would then go to the husband, who could forbid her from walking down the street, much less explore foreign lands.
The easiest way was to remain one of the crowd, familiar but forgettable, always on the outskirts.
Since the ton could be seen perambulating in Hyde Park every afternoon with fair weather, joining the well-heeled caravan was an easy and enjoyable way to put in an appearance without having to dodge waltzes or guard herself from flirtations.
It was also an exceptional vantage point from which to play her game, adding and subtracting points for hearts won and hopes crushed as countless dramas unfolded all about her.
“Miss Weatherby!” A debutante with blond ringlets nearly tumbled from her carriage in her eagerness to whisper to Priscilla. “You were right! He introduced me to the marquess! He’s promised to stand up with me at the next ball!”
“Congratulations, Miss Corning.”
Priscilla mentally tallied the points: five to herself for a successful plot, twenty to the girl for implementing it, then minus ten for discussing it in plain view of hundreds of people.
Everyone was part of the fashionable stream of carriages, even those who could not procure vouchers to Almack’s. The patronesses could keep the nouveau riche and persons with inferior manners from their assembly rooms, but Hyde Park was open to all.
“Miss Weatherby!” squealed another young lady Priscilla had helped earlier in the season, as their carriages drew close. “If you come to my church on Sunday, you’ll hear a familiar name in the banns!”
“Congratulations,” Priscilla said again.
Five points for her, fifty for the young lady.
Although it was not a path Priscilla would have chosen, she did not believe any person should have the power to dictate someone else’s life. Some women aspired to be portrait-perfect figurines trapped in a cravats-and-pearls menagerie.
Priscilla did not begrudge them their schemes and alliances. She thought of her time in London as a prelude to her life as an explorer. She didn’t share their goals and culture, just as she would be out of place in Africa or India. There, it would all be part of the adventure.
“Miss Weatherby!” A young lady Priscilla had helped the previous season beamed at her next to her new husband. “I wanted to thank you for—”
Whatever it was she had done, Priscilla did not hear it. There, not forty yards away, sat Thaddeus Middleton atop a smart bay. He looked dashing in biscuit-colored buckskins and a stylish wool coat of olive green. Even his smile was delectable.
“Minus thirty points,” she mumbled to herself as the young lady and her husband rode away with Priscilla having no memory of the conversation.
As if he felt the whisper of her breath upon his skin, Mr. Middleton abruptly lifted his head and turned in her direction. His gaze locked with hers, too far away to see the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes, but hot enough to warm her to her toes all the same.
“Blast and damn.” She flung herself around to face forward and waved a nervous hand toward her driver. “Go! Go!”
The driver could go, but not far. Hundreds of other carriages trudged like treacle down the same gravel road as all the others.
She pushed the warming brick toward the maids and fanned her throat. One sighting of Mr. Middleton and spring had turned to summer.
Her high color was due to the wind, not to the handsome rider who absolutely positively was not coming this way, even as her barouche fled inch by painstaking inch behind an armada of horsemen and carriages.
Was she attracted to Mr. Middleton? Of course. She had a pulse, didn’t she? But she also had a brain. If she let this foolish attraction go any further, she would lose a lot more than fictional points.
The only choice was to mind her distance and stay far, far away.
