“My …” she paused, her eyebrows creeping higher. “Are you being quite serious?”
“Yes!” Hannah said, so exuberantly that both Beck siblings frowned at her. She did not seem to mind, clapping her hands together. “Oh, Vix, it is perfect, you will see!”
Vix was skeptical. “Is he deformed? A drunkard? Why is he agreeing to this? What did you offer him, Teddy?”
“Just you, actually,” her brother answered, flashing his teeth at her. “Which I believe is a reasonable thing to expect.”
She huffed. “Vague. I will not be some tethered boudoir attendant, if that is what you are implying.”
Teddy almost dropped his tea, his face immediately reddening. “Vix!”
“Vix!” Hannah repeated, sounding somehow delighted rather than offended.
“Well, I won’t,” she said, giving a one-shouldered shrug.
“I would … I …never…” Her brother blustered. “I couldn’tfathom…”
“Yes, calm down,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Explain what you meant, then.”
“Tethered!” he repeated, still red in the face, making Vix sigh impatiently.
Hannah placed a soothing hand on her husband’s forearm, clearly swallowing down an urge to laugh, and met Vix’s eye across the table. “If I may?”
Teddy sagged, blowing air out of his mouth, and nodded.
Hannah smiled then, patted his arm, and leaned over to refresh his teacup as she spoke. “Mr. Aster is about to be knighted for heroism,” she said to Vix. “He is feeling rather inconvenienced by it. Last night, he said to me that he wished for nothing else in all the world but to have someone to manage all the particulars of his social expectations and appearances so that he would not have to.”
“Is that how he said it?” Teddy mumbled into his teacup.
“Shush,” said his wife. “I think that the two of you could be a very good match, Vix. You each have to offer what the other is in search of.”
“I see,” said Vix, squinting at the other woman. “He has status and money and I have … what? The desire to deploy status and money in a functional and coherent manner? He could hire a servant for that.”
“But he hasn’t,” said Hannah, bouncing in her chair.
“Well …” said Teddy, frowning. “Perhaps we should stop trying to define the thing so exactly. Instead, let us just have this dinner and see if the match is something that interests both you and Mr. Aster at the conclusion of the meal.”
“Did you offer a dowry?” Vix pressed, still squinting, still suspicious. “What did you say to him?”
“I said that you were competent,” he said with a sigh. “And tall.”
“Tall?!”
He sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Vix, how exactly do you expect me to find you a rich, respectable husband without offering anything in return? Of course I am happy to assemble a dowry for you, but the type of man who is going to be convinced by that alone is not going to be able to keep you to your own exacting standards for any long-standing period of time.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not if he controls the finances, I suppose.”
Teddy stared at her. Silently. Until she dropped her arms and sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “Dinner.”
“Dinner,” he agreed.
“Dinner!” Hannah said, and clapped her hands again for good measure.
CHAPTER 3
Vix was unhappy with her selection of dresses for the dinner tonight.
