Imogene hung onto Anthony and beamed coquettishly. “Do you like the latest French fashion?” She fanned her brocade skirts, “Marie Antoinette’s new rage.”
An unfamiliar pang of jealousy surfaced. Why? Hadn’t she told Lord Anthony they were…like brother and sister? Didn’t he own the right to have feminine pursuits and hadn’t she just told him he should marry?
With his older brother, the heir, missing and presumed dead, Anthony was fair game. As the prospective next Duke of Rutland, he was a hare before the hounds, a veritable feast for status seeking females on the hunt.
“Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Thorne?” Imogene shrilled, and then looked adoringly to Anthony, one of her hands resting in the region of her heart as though to keep that organ from leaping through the silk of her gown.
Through her lowered lashes, Rachel stole a glance at Anthony’s grim expression as he engaged in conversation with the gentleman beside him. She hoped Anthony would marry well. Someone who appreciated him for his talents.Someone to love him.Her eyes clouded. She needed him like the very air she needed to breathe, but to dream of a life with Anthony was impossible. He walked a different path than hers.
He would be the next Duke of Rutland. As a duke he would need a match of comparable status. They were an ocean apart.
More young girls circled. Scavengers ready to feed on their prey. He looked incredibly handsome in his black evening attire that fit his tall, muscular frame to perfection. No doubt many of the women yearned to have him at their side, to bask in the aura of restrained power and masculine vitality that emanated from him, and to know the fascination of those bold blue eyes capturing and holding theirs.
All her musings scattered. Festering occurrences of the past tore open old wounds. She was alien, did not belong, a Colonial. “I am not accomplished in that area,” Rachel admitted.
“Watercolors? Embroidery? Too bad that you are not refined in the arts.” Imogene answered for her. “What can you do?”
“I-I-” Blood drained from her face. What could she say?That she could climb to the top of a mast in thirty seconds, tie sailor’s knots so tight, a ship in a hurricane couldn’t breach, discuss hydraulics?None of which were important to the British social whirl and definitely frowned upon. She lifted her chin. “I’m afraid I do not have any of the refinements you speak of.”
To go back to her room at the Rutland’s and crawl under the covers. Jacob, Ethan, Abby, her home in Boston…anything to distract.
The girls covered their mouths with their hands in a silent, condemning “no,” darting haughty glances to one another. Imogene snorted her disgust and tightened her grip on Lord Anthony. “An English Lord desires an accomplished lady.” She conveyed a remote and unapproachable majesty, pouting her perfect lips. Her companions tittered, nodding their heads in undeniable agreement, launching an attack that would have made Cromwell proud, and with Anthony in their sights.
Rachel’s world tilted. If Anthony was to be the next duke, Imogene’s foregone intimation was valid. Never could Rachel fill that role. He needed someone with a pedigree.
Would Imogene be his wife? Her belly knotted. He deserved so much more. In the past few weeks of working together, they had cemented a friendship, and as a friend, she could not allow Imogene to be that woman. But how?
“Mother, is going to buy me a Shiatsu or should I get a poodle?” Imogene said with all the charm and amiability she could muster. With tactical precision, she squeezed herself between Anthony and the gentleman he was conversing with. Anthony glared. Undeterred, Imogene fluttered her eyelashes as if she had just written and offered him the Magna Carta.
Anthony leaned toward Rachel, brushing her shoulder, his sandalwood drifting through the air. “What do you think about piling our capacitors?
“Is it a kind of cat?” Imogene gushed like water sluicing from a bilge, battling to be in the conversation.
Anthony groaned.
“I’m going to sing tonight, Lord Anthony. Would you be my escort?” Imogene didn’t wait for an answer, commandeering Anthony’s arm, and all but whisking him away. He stood firm. Imogen jerked back into place. Her eyes protruded. Refusal was not one of her strong points.
Identical to serendipity, a scientific thought occurred to Rachel, bubbling up and popping a champagne cork. “Did you ever think we could use Newton’s law to calculate the magnitude of electrical force arising between two charged bodies?”
“Do you sing, Miss Thorne?” Imogene trilled her coup de grace. Her companions raised their eyebrows, expectant of another failed response from Rachel.
“She hums,” Anthony answered for her.
To kick him had merit, but in his eyes, Rachel saw a glint of humor, then the amused twitch of his mouth. He was inclined to play games with Imogene.
“Hums? That is not a quality in a well-bred lady,” Imogene scoffed.
Anthony scratched his neck. “Rachel, do you remember our conversation about Reverend Pott’s wife? Do you recall how she was abated by your singular aim?”
Rachel smiled, abject gratitude from his sardonic sense of humor flooded her. She was scorned by his peers, and he had championed her in a swarm of scavengers.
Imogene glared at them, and then marched off. Her companions raised their noses, pivoted and trailed after their queen.
“A compelling touch of the civilized and the barbaric, don’t you think, Miss Thorne?”
“You have managed to be courtly, perfectly mannered and at the same time carry a ducal arrogance that women find irresistible.”
“Including you, Miss Thorne?”
