“Well, no longer a girl, I suppose.” Clarinda paused while another “humpf!” sounded from Ernestine. “But when she lost that boy—”
“You mean her husband, Lord Percival?” Ernestine interrupted.
“What a sweet love match they made in her first Season. Rumor has it she nearly went mad from the grief, poor dear.”
Olivia’s fingers curled into tight fists, the nails digging into her palms. They discussed her as if she was some sort of revolutionary bent on rending the very fabric of society in two.
Perhaps she was. Except that hadn’t been her intent at all.
When her sister Mariana had returned from Paris six months ago and revealed that she’d seen—and spoken with!—Percy, an avalanche of dread had nearly crushed Olivia, making it difficult for her lungs to draw air, suffocating her.
Percy was alive.
“He was His Grace’s favorite, they say,” Clarinda said.
Olivia couldn’t deny the truth of those words. Percy had been everyone’s favorite.
Except hers. At least, by the time he’d died. And most definitely by the time he’d rejoined the land of the living as, of all things, a spy, and the full weight of the truth crashed down on her: Percy hadchosento stay away—from her, from their daughter—for the last twelve years.
He’d been better off dead as far as she was concerned, which was why she needed to press forward with her plan to move house. Someday, he would arrive in Town, and when he did, he wouldn’t find her still housed beneath his father’s roof. She would eat glass first.
An unladylike huff of frustration escaped her. This morning, her plan had hit a snag. The Duke’s solicitors refused to assist her without his express consent. He would help her, of that she was certain, but she’d wanted to purchase a Mayfair townhouse herself and present it to him as afait accompli. This final step toward independence was hers alone to take.
Yet, with no other option open to her, she’d had to petition her father’s solicitors for their services, even though her father and mother would remain in Italy for another season and have no ability to back her request any time in the near future. When she’d set out on this course six months ago, she’d had no idea how much male assistance a woman needed to become free and independent. Galling.
“Speaking of His Grace,” Ernestine began, a ribbon of girlish excitement twirling through her words. The door opened, and a roar of bright gaiety rushed in. The gossipy duo was exiting the room. “Have you seen him tonight? He is one eligible bachelor.”
“At five and sixty?”
“An unmarried Duke of Arundel is eligible at any age, Clarinda.”
The door shut behind the pair, and the outside world again dulled its pitch to a quiet muffle. Olivia stepped out from behind the screen and paused before a gilded Baroque mirror. Even its warm, reflective glow couldn’t mask the fact that her face spoke of devastation, like it had been scrubbed raw across a washboard. This wouldn’t do.
She leaned over the washstand and dabbed her skin with its cooling water. Hands to either side of the basin, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, clearing her mind on a long exhale. This Salon was no place for her past.
Another glance in the mirror revealed the red splotches mostly gone. Only a hint of pink remained, which could be taken for too much heat at a crush like tonight’s. Emotion could darken the sky blue of her eyes into stormy gray in an instant. She opened them a little wider into a semblance of their usual selves. The clouds receded.
Social armor intact, she stepped to the door, pushed it wide on a gust of festive cacophony, and her seventeen-year-old self danced before her on the happy notes of violin strings underlain by the grounding drone of cello and bass; the sporadic shrill giggle here and there, punctuating a witty remark like an exclamation point; the rustle of silk and superfine as guests wove in and out of each other, seeking good conversation, good gossip, and good champagne. All underscored by the dull, monotone din of the crowd as the light from a thousand candles glittered overhead, tiny prisms of chandelier crystals dancing to the subtle rhythm of the string quartet.
How her seventeen-year-old self had loved the controlled chaos of a party. Although there was pain on one side of this memory, she experienced the pleasure on the other side of it.
Her lips curved into her first genuine, if subdued, smile of the night. The past didn’t have to be all guilt and hurt.
How that girl would be giddy over the sight of this full-to-capacity ballroom, at the possibilities hidden within it. A tidbit of choice gossip. A chance to roam a room unchaperoned. A stolen glimpse of a handsome-beyond-compare boy with the deepest brown eyes in the wide world . . .
Oh, how Ernestine and Clarinda had conjured the past tonight. She longed to rush home and lie with Lucy, her daughter’s breath soft and regular in the cadence of sleep. Then she would steal away to her studio to ready the sketches she would present to her art master on the morrow.
But the present beckoned, and she must pretend to enjoy herself, smile pasted onto her face. She lifted her chin a notch and feigned indifference. She would be an ice queen, not the soft, gay girl this room had seen over a decade ago.
It was too soon. Hardly a fortnight had passed since Parliament set aside her marriage.
For the people populating this room, life maintained a smooth, unwavering trajectory from birth to death. They couldn’t comprehend how her fate had diverged so dramatically from theirs. Six months ago, she’d been an unremarkable widow, if a little eccentric given her involvement with the arts. But they’d understood her.
Now? She was a real, live divorcée, little more than a new species on display at the zoo.
Across the crowd, she spotted the Duke’s signature shock of silver hair and began making her way toward him through the ever-changing maze of ever-sweatyton. She could hardly remember a time when she’d seen more of Society’s luminaries assembled in one place.
Who was tonight’s honoree? She hadn’t been attentive to the details when the Duke had requested her presence tonight.
