“What about that Viscount Moule, who was sniffing about you?”
“The one with all the ailments and potions? Never. But the other three have asked for my hand in the past year, Overden and Aston more than once. I simply have to choose, and I can be wed in weeks.”
The thought of standing at the altar with any of them seemed unreal, but once she’d committed herself, she would become accustomed.
“You had reasons to reject them,” Ethel reminded her.
“And now I have reason to accept one. My mother can advise. Enough quibbling. It must be done.”
However, when Ariana sat down with her mother the next morning to discuss the matter, she found it wasn’t so simple.
As her mother poured them both coffee, she said, “Lord Wilbury married last month, dear. You should pay more attention to local gossip.”
“It’s always so trivial. But that’s annoying. He was a tolerable sort.”
“And Sir Charles is now betrothed to Jane Howes.” Lady Langton passed over a cup to Ariana. “I wouldn’t like you to disrupt their arrangement.”
“I wouldn’t consider it,” Ariana said, but the news was a blow.
That left only Reverend Aston, the handsome vicar of a nearby parish, with a private income in addition to his stipend. Excellent, one might think, but he was thirty-two and unpleasantly full of his own importance as the cousin of a duke. In addition, he was ambitious. Ariana struggled to see herself as a parson’s wife, but was definitely not made to be the wife of a bishop.
She reconsidered Viscount Moule. He was a Sussex man who’d been a guest of Aston’s during the summer. She’d had no hesitation about rejecting his offer, for his conversation had been almost entirely about his ailments and the numerous odd treatments he’d taken in an attempt to cure them. He’d even been experimenting with electricity.
She tried to imagine being his wife, but it was impossible.
“Who else is there?” she asked.
“You’re familiar with all the local gentlemen, and they with you. I don’t think there are any particularly eligible ones, certainly not close to your height.”
“My pestilential height.”
“Do you dislike it very much, dear? I don’t think there was anything I could have done about it, though I remember your grandmother suggesting that we feed you less.”
“Thank you for not taking that advice. I might prefer to be less distinctive, but there’s no purpose to that.I do want a husband of similar height, even though Ethel says that makes no sense, given that tall men marry short women.”
“Ethel is sensible, but often in a nonsensible way. The world looks oddly at a couple where the lady is much taller than the gentleman.”
Ariana considered again the gentlemen of the area. She was acquainted with all the best local families. Her mother was correct. There were no other suitable tall gentlemen. She considered those slightly shorter than herself and still didn’t find any who appealed.
“I must be oddly particular,” she said.
“It would be odd not to be particular about the person with whom you’ll share your life.”
“So I was wrong to push Norris?”
“Not wrong, dear, but perhaps engaged in a somewhat quixotic endeavor. As it happens, you might have found the way to hurry him along.”
“But if I marry and thus he must, he might pick unwisely.”
“That is a risk, but he could do that anyway.” Her mother sighed. “He’s young and should be left to take his time, but disaster does hover in the wings. You’ll have to look further afield.”
“Visit some of our relatives?” Ariana asked, not welcoming the suggestion. After a disastrous season when she was seventeen, she’d preferred to stay in Hampshire among those accustomed to her height. Strangers did tend to stare.
“Go where there’s the greatest concentration of gentlemen, dear.” When Ariana frowned a question, her mother added, “Go to Town.”
“ToTown?”
“It’s not darkest Africa,” her mother said, with anunusually tart edge. “November’s not the most fashionable time in London, and there’s the pall of mourning, but there will be a greater selection of tall, eligible men from which to choose.”
