He had a face, she thought unkindly, like a dish: wide and round, with a sagging jowl. He also possessed thinning blond hair, with the shiny evidence of his greasy pate gleaming beneath the chandeliers. His nose was a pronounced beak, and when he stood, there was no denying the paunch which slumped over his trousers and swelled his waistcoat seams.
He was an altogether unattractive man.
But not one whit of his unfortunate outer appearance could hold a candle to the hideousness which spewed forth each time he opened his mouth to speak.
She looked around the table—a small gathering consisting of Mama, Father, Lord Hamish, and Lord Hamish’s mother, Lady Falkland. In celebration of the looming betrothal announcement she was doing everything in her power to avoid. None of them seemed prepared to gainsay Lord Hamish’s deeply insulting assertion.
“The women cannot have the vote,” her father agreed. “Men are, by our nature, stronger and rational and far more intelligent than the fairer sex. It cannot be disputed. A woman’s place is at her husband’s side, and she must look to him for guidance, trusting he will make the right governing decisions on her behalf when she cannot.”
Helena ground her jaw. She was more than familiar with her father’s views of her sex. He believed they were intellectually inferior to men. If he had an inkling she spent her time at the Lady’s Suffrage Society instead of paying social calls as she claimed—thank heavens for a lady’s maid she could trust—he would have an apoplectic fit.
And Mama—well, Mama was quiet. Marriage to Father had crushed her spirit, and now Father had found a man fashioned in his mold to be Helena’s own husband.
“Precisely,” said Lord Hamish, a small morsel of his dinner flying from his mouth as he spoke. “Suffrage would be too great a burden for ladies to bear. They must turn instead to the far more rewarding sphere of home and hearth. Tending to one’s husband and children, that is the true meaning of a lady.”
Mayhap she could launch a boat of béchamel sauce in his direction.
Plant poison in his fish course?
Was it too much to hope Mama would at least be the voice of reason? She cast a glare in her mother’s direction, but she was too busy sipping her wine to take note.
“It would be perilous indeed should such a travesty ever be enacted,” Father said. “Our government would weaken and decline, as a matter of course. I cannot countenance the lords who are vouching for this utter tripe. Coerced by their wives, I have no doubt.”
Helena fumed some more, stabbing at the contents of her plate with more force than necessary.
All the eyes around the table settled upon her.
She could hold her tongue no longer. “Has it not occurred to any of you that the government would instead strengthen if all voices were to possess an equal share in the decisions which affect our lives?”
Lord Hamish’s lip curled. “Sentiments such as those are unbecoming in a lady, my dear.”
A peal of laughter rose in her throat. Bitter laughter. Irate laughter. She released it. Her hands trembled with the violence of her reaction. “Of course you would hold such a position in the matter, my lord. You, like all other men, are well pleased to keep women silenced. To decide laws that affect us deeply, without consulting us, without allowing us to offer our opinions, to cast our votes accordingly. Why should a woman be deprived of her own sovereignty merely by the circumstance of her birth?”
Lady Falkland’s shocked gasp echoed in the sudden silence of the dining room.
Her mother frowned at her. Her father was scowling. Later, she would suffer his wrath, she had no doubt.
“While your passion for your subject is commendable, I am afraid you are all wrong, my dear,” said Lord Hamish in the same tone she imagined he might reserve for small children.
It was dismissive and insulting, much like the man himself.
Once again, she could not keep herself from responding. “It is you who is wrong, my lord. Your view of women is inherently flawed. What logic have you to support the supposition that a woman is frail and delicate and incapable of deciding matters of import?”
“Lady Helena, that is enough,” Father intervened, his voice dripping in disapproval. “You are consorting with the wrong set if this is the sort of nonsense filling your head. Apologize to Lord Hamish at once.”
Apologize to him?
Helena would sooner toss the remnants of her wine in his supercilious face.
She lifted her chin. “I will not apologize for my opinion. Neither for the possession of it nor the expression.”
The fish course arrived, shattering the charge of the moment. Grilled salmon with accompanying boats ofsauce verte froide. Helena bit her lip to keep from speaking further and could not help but to feel as if the fates were encouraging her to have her revenge upon the odious Lord Hamish. Here was a sauce boat and the fish course. She could brain him first and lace his salmon with poison second.
“I heard the most intriguingon ditabout those dreadful American catfish being introduced to our English waters,” said her mother, in an obviously desperate bid at changing the subject and avoiding further embarrassment at her outspoken daughter.
“Horrible shame that would be,” Lord Hamish chimed in, happily taking up new cudgels. “I read inThe Timesthat they are inedible. Possessed of mighty, fearsome teeth, and they feed on offal. Despicable things, really.”
Oh, the irony. Mayhap Lord Hamish recognized his own kind.
