There was a muffled giggle before the youngest Fairfax emerged from the coverlet, wearing her most indignant expression.
‘Actually, I overheard Harriet telling Cook, that Mama said Thomas might end up anawful libertineif he didn’t find himself a wife by the extremely old age of thirty!
‘Though Blackbeard the fearsome pirate also fought for libertines, I think?’ Matilda added, wrinkling her nose.
‘Blackbeard the fearsome pirate fought forliberty!’ Josephine corrected, dissolving into peals of laughter.
‘And really, dearest,’ Sophie exhaled, as though in pain, ‘it’s probably best you don’t go around repeating unsavoury gossip, especially if it concerns members of your own family!’
‘But if Mama said it…’ Matilda began, before catching the warning light in her sister’s eye. ‘Oh well, what game anyway?’ she grumbled, retreating inside the bedding.
‘Why, the season of course!’ Sophie returned, dabbing a small amount of homemade lavender perfume on her wrists and neck. ‘Otherwise known as the marriage mart, or entertainment of the ton, while gentlemen sit in Parliament and make all the important decisions about our lives.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like Phoebe!’ Josephine accused with a grin.
‘I’ve never disputed that the female mind is vastly underappreciated,’ Sophie retorted. ‘Only thatrealchange requires a little more ingenuity than swapping our corsets for pantaloons and calling ourselves heroines. Not that I wouldn’t look extremely fetching in a pair of fitted riding breeches, of course,’ she murmured, side-eyeing her reflection.
‘Of course!’ Josephine chimed in, still grinning.
‘For I do believe,’ Sophie mused, ‘and I say this entirely without prejudice, that I have a better leg than most gentlemen…
‘Anyway, Harriet says the game or season is a ‘vicious place for any debutante’, for while mamas and their offspring vie for the biggest prize, there is always ‘a pack of notorious rakes waiting in the wings’!’
She mimicked their old nurse perfectly, while bringing her new Prussian parasol to her shoulder, musket-style, and eyeing her youngest sister with suspicion.
‘Theyprowlthe market,’ she growled, stalking the bed and making Matilda shriek and retreat back inside the coverlet. ‘Hunting the finesttrophies, before using every last ounce of their wit and charm for the kill! And woe betide anyone who gets in their way’—she paused to take aim at Matilda’s giggling, padded form—‘for they arepigwidgeoned dunderheadsindeed!’
‘Sophie!’ Matilda wailed as her sister dropped the parasol and began tickling her mercilessly instead.
‘Trophies like Arabella Huntingdon?’ Josephine sniffed, immersed in a library copy of Lord Byron’sChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage.
‘Yes, just like Arabella Huntingdon,’ Sophie sighed, finally taking pity on her sister and returning to her toilette. ‘Though how she didn’t guess Lord Sutcliffe was a cad remains a total mystery to me. She agreed to a clandestine elopement, thus compromising her reputation, and for what good reason? She is never to be seen anywhereintown, while he is rarely to be seen out. It was truly a marriage of contrivance, and how she ever thought it would end otherwise was the greatest piece of folly.’ She pulled a small pair of lace day gloves from her dressing table drawer.
‘Phoebe is happy and she nearly eloped,’ Josephine said with a frown.
‘Well, yes, but she didn’tactually marry the brother she planned to elope with!’ Sophie replied drily. ‘And Phoebe and the viscount are an exception anyway,’ she added.
‘They were not only lucky enough to find love, but also to make a perfectly respectable match that the ton has embraced. It is the best and most fortunate of outcomes! Can you imagine actuallydesiringto spend time with the person you’ve married, rather than planning your happiness around their absence? It has to be most satisfying– a meeting of both hearts and minds…’ she tailed off wistfully.
‘Phoebe and the viscount never agree,’ Matilda scowled. ‘They’d argue over breakfast eggs, given half the chance!’
There was a brief silence before they all started to laugh.
‘That’s very true,’ Sophie conceded. ‘In fact, sometimes I’m not sure who’s more disagreeable of the two!’ she added, making them laugh harder.
‘And yet… they do seem tolovebeing perfectly disagreeable together. It’s the oddest sort of happiness I’ve ever seen,’ Sophie sighed, wiping her eyes. ‘But then, perhaps that’s the secret. Perhaps real, enduring love is only to be found with someone similar enough in nature, and yet confident enough in spiritnotto concede their opinion every five minutes? Perhaps the combination keeps both interest and affection alive?’
‘Like Titania and Oberon!’ Josephine exclaimed, her eyes shining. ‘Or Romeo and Juliet, or Hermia and Lysander… or?—’
‘Yes, yes we get the picture, dearest,’ Sophie assured rapidly, before Josephine recited her entire list of favourite fictional lovers.
‘Is that what you want though, Sophie?’ Matilda asked, frowning. ‘To find someone you can be perfectly disagreeable with? Because I think it a terrible idea. You’ll be forever enacting a Cheltenham tragedy!’
‘Moi? A Cheltenham tragedy?’ Sophie repeated, throwing up her hands in mock horror. ‘Though you may be right,’ she smiled after a beat. ‘And, disagreements and tragedies aside, I fullyintend to make an advantageous love match this season!’
She paused to flick open her new ivory brisé fan with practiced ease.
‘For why shouldn’t it be possible for modern debutantes, who know their own mind?’
