“She is still a sour-faced trout even if she is not old!” Jane insisted, wrinkling her nose again. “Do not compare me to her Emm, for I shall never live up to it.”
Emmaline cupped her sister's face in her hands and sighed, “I only meant that you look beautiful, my darling little sister, and you shall surely be the belle of the bell.”
“Not if you steal away the attention,” Jane insisted. She pulled Emmaline’s hands from her face and held them out so she could look Emmaline up and down. “The purple of your gown does wonders to bring out your eyes!”
Emmaline blushed at that. She often received compliments on just how green her eyes were, especially when she wore purple which just so happened to be her favorite color.
“I could never compare to you, darling Jane,” Emmaline insisted. She lifted Jane's hands to hers and kissed them. “Besides, with Violet already wed, everybody shall be looking to you to make the next match.”
“And you!” Jane insisted, nudging her playfully with her ankle before she turned back to regard herself in the mirror once more. “You are far too smart not to have some gentleman or nobleman snap you up at the first chance he gets. Just look at you!”
Jane pulled Emmaline into the view of the mirror beside her and twisted one of Emmaline's curls around her finger before letting it drop once more to frame her face.
“I fear the men of thetonare not all that interested in brains,” Emmaline pointed out grimly. She had seen the hounds at the door the day Violet first stepped out into society. Many of them had been fortune-hunting nobodies or second sons looking to make an advantageous marriage with the stepdaughter of an earl.
As the true-born daughter of one, Emmaline imagined her prospects might be slightly higher, but she had met enough gentlemen already, and heard enough of Violet's whisperings and gossip a year earlier to know what men really looked for in a woman. They wanted beautiful trophies on their arms and in their beds, women they could use to gain the envy of all other men. Brains meant very little compared to breeding, beauty and behavior where a wife was concerned.
“I shan’t imagine there are many men who would be willing to take a woman to wife who has a better head for business than he,” Emmaline said, mimicking her stepmother who had so often said such things that Emmaline could recite entire speeches on the matter.
“Oh, don't listen to Mama!” Jane insisted, waving the matter away. “Any man shall be lucky to have you and if they cannot see past their own foolishness, then they are not the one for you anyway!”
Emmaline smiled in agreement though deep down she wasn't quite so certain. To hear her stepmother talk in private, she was practically unmarriageable thanks to her father's insistence on putting a clever head upon her shoulders. And to be looking for love? That might well be just as foolish, considering one simple question: who could love a woman whose head for business outmatched even most gentlemen’s’?
Having been born a woman had only made Emmaline more determined to learn all there was, spending hours reading by candlelight while the rest of the household slept, or questioning her father whenever he was in a mood to answer.
Perhaps she had set herself up for failure, but one thing she had always been determined of… if she were to fall in love, she wished for that person to love her back for who she was, not someone that she pretended to be, as she so often saw the other young ladies of thetondo.
Many of them were quite as dim as they were made out to be but a number of them, Jane included, she had seen a spark of intelligence in. And she feared that spark might be extinguished in any number of them before the Season was over.
She had seen how the light had been dimmed already in Violet and many of her friends once wed. And the thought of it terrified Emmaline.
She thought, perhaps, she might prefer to be a lone spinster, content to find a way to live through business if she must, though she was certain nobody would do business with her without a wealthy male patron. Without her father, a husband would be needed, and though she hated to think of a world without her father in it, she was no fool to believe he would live forever. He had reminded her so himself many times during their lectures together.
“Emmaline, are you quite well?” Jane asked and Emmaline realized she had been staring at herself in the mirror, considering her options or lack thereof. Jane only ever used her full name when something was the matter.
Blinking heavily, Emmaline cleared her throat and said, “Yes, though I wonder, Jane, would you promise me one thing before we begin this horrid charade?”
Jane paled a little. “I'm quite certain it won't be that bad, Emm.”
Emmaline smiled sadly at her sister and took hold of both her hands again. Squeezing, she held her hands to her chest and said, “Promise me, Jane, promise me that no matter what this Season brings we shall always look after one another, even if one of us shall be married by the end of it.”
“Especiallyif one of us shall be married by the end of it!” Jane corrected her, squeezing her hands in return. “Always, Emmaline. You need not even ask!”
Emmaline felt a hint better as she and her stepsister embraced, the promise committed between them.
“Mama told me not to talk about it, but I overheard her and Violet talking about how The Duke of Westmarch will be in attendance this evening.”
Emmaline cringed at the mention of the duke, not because she knew him but because she sympathized with him. Just as those closest to her always discussed how brainy she was, they discussed how horribly tragic the Duke’s life had been—and how horrendously disfigured he was.
“I am sure there will be many nobles in attendance,” Emmaline pointed out. It was, after all, the first ball of the Season and Lady Beaufort was well known for her soirees.
“Yes, but none so lacking in choice than Lord Westmarch,” Jane said. “They say he means to take a wife this year but that he shall have trouble finding one, what with his scars and all.”
“We all have scars, Jane,” Emmaline snapped back at her sister, most disgusted that Jane should talk in such a manner when she was the sweetest of their entire family. “You have spent far too much time with Mama and Violet.”
She shook her head, removing her hands from Jane's to pick up her gloves from where the maid had laid them out on the vanity table beside the mirror.
“A scar on your elbow from falling off the tree swing in the back yard is hardly the same as the duke's burns,” Jane protested, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I resent that you should say such a horrid thing, Emmaline!”
