“It might make me look even taller.”
Lady Bennet turned the magazine from side to side as she pondered the seriousness of that possibility. Joan’s height had always been a matter of concern. Unlike her petite mother, she could look her father in the eye, and was only a few inches shorter than her brother. “Perhaps if Janet puts it in at an angle, like this one. You need something to frame your features.”
“Perhaps a few more ringlets?”
“Well, there’s only one way to know. You must try it and see.”
“Yes.” Joan cheered up a bit as she gazed at the illustration. How wonderful it would be to look so elegant. Her new blue dress was similar in style to this one; perhaps combined with the hairstyle it would render all of her elegant.
She gave the illustrated beauty a slight nod. A new hairstyle and a new gown probably wouldn’t keep her from spending the evening at the side of the room with the other unmarried and unwanted ladies, but it was worth a try. It would give her something to talk about with her friends, especially since she wouldn’t even have the pleasure of discussing50 Ways to Sinwith them, thanks to Lord Boorish Burke. Her main hope for entertainment would probably be Douglas, who might well arrive thoroughly foxed and bent on being outrageous.
“Do you really think Douglas will marry Felicity Drummond?” she asked on impulse.
Her mother turned her head aside and coughed, touching her lips with her handkerchief. “What’s that, dear? Oh. It would be a very good match, and it’s time he took a wife. Felicity is a lovely girl with good connections and a pretty dowry. And he’s shown no interest in other young ladies; there’s no reason he wouldn’t be happy enough with her.” Her attention had already returned to her letter. “Do you disapprove?”
Joan thought of reminding her mother how dreadful Felicity’s mother was. She thought of asking why Douglas ought to get married now, when he was still as wild and untamed as a bear and obviously had no inclination to marry. It wasn’t as though he needed a wife’s dowry or had expressed a desire to start a family or even any boredom with his current life—which, to Joan’s eyes, seemed to consist mainly of drinking, gambling, and carrying on with actresses and tavern wenches. If not for his devotion to sport, he would likely be a fat, gouty fellow by now.
But then, it didn’t really matter. Once Mother made up her mind, there was no changing it. At least this time it was Douglas’s future in the crucible and not hers. “No,” she said. “Felicity is lovely.”
“Good.” Lady Bennet cleared her throat and put down her pen. She touched her throat and coughed again. “Ring for Mrs. Hudson, would you, dear? I feel in need of some tea.”
Joan got up and rang the bell. She slipped out the door when the housekeeper arrived, and went up to her room since there was nowhere else to go, taking the copy of Ackermann’s with her. She settled onto the chaise near the window and opened the magazine. She skipped the more earnest and scholarly sections about housewifery and history, meant to improve her mind, and read the stories and poems. Idly she flipped through the description of a recent exhibition of paintings. She would have liked to attend such an exhibit, if only she could have. Her mother approved of music but not picture viewing, where any number of immodest scenes might be portrayed under the guise of mythology. Joan had never quite grasped why it was so terrible to see a man’s naked chest, even an imaginary, idealized man’s chest, when she would be expected to allow a husband all sorts of liberties with her own, naked person. Her cousin Mariah, married almost two years now, had told her all about a wife’s duty—although in Mariah’s telling it was the most pleasant duty one could imagine, with nothing dreadful about it. Joan was quite sure Mariah saw her husband’s bare chest on a regular basis, and was routinely ravished in every thrilling way. She must be, since she was due to have her first child in a few weeks.
If Mariah weren’t her dearest cousin and most intimate confidant, Joan would have been wild with jealousy. As it was, the only male chest, flesh or painted, she had seen was Tristan Burke’s. True, she had rather enjoyed it, which lent some weight to her mother’s concern that it was indecently titillating, but it had hardly led to ruin. If anything, it only showed her how dramatically separate a gentleman’s person and his personality were. Lord Burke might have a very intriguing chest, but the rest of him was obnoxious.
She picked up the magazine again and paged through it to the fashion plates. Gold, he said. What did Lord Boor know about ladies’ fashions? She would never have admitted it aloud, but the thought of a deep gold gown sounded rather appealing. She did like rich colors, even if her mother deemed them inappropriate for an unmarried lady. If she ever managed to get a husband, the first thing she would order would be a gown of pure scarlet, just because she loved red.
But tomorrow evening, she was going to look elegant in blue. Pale blue, true, but with a very fine fall of lace at the neckline. And her hair—her one truly beautiful feature—would be winsome and charming, just like the young lady in Ackermann’s.
She almost hoped Lord Boor would be there to gape in awe.
Chapter 5
It didn’t take Tristan long to remember why he rarely went to balls.
First, there was the company. He had nothing against a good crowd, especially if there happened to be a boxing match in the middle of it. What he didn’t enjoy were the stares of women: some sly, some scandalized, some just rabidly curious. Lady Malcolm had gazed at him in amazement when he followed Bennet through her door, and that turned out to be the most polite reaction he got. Every now and then he would meet the eye of a particularly bold female and give her a wicked smile. The young ones blushed, the old ones turned their backs, and the ones in the middle sometimes smiled back. He didn’t care. There was only one female he had come to vanquish tonight, and she was late.
“It seems a pity to serve your penance when the judge isn’t even here,” he remarked to Bennet, who was leaning morosely against the fireplace mantel at the far end of the room.
“If I leave, Mother is sure to turn up ten minutes later and flay me for ducking out.” He flagged down a passing footman and took two glasses of wine from the servant’s tray. “Might as well drink at Malcolm’s expense.”
The second problem with balls, Tristan thought, was the wine. Few hosts served their best wine to the hundreds of guests who came to balls. He sipped from the glass Bennet handed him and sighed. It was either very average burgundy or watered. He didn’t see the point in drinking it at all.
Bennet had already gulped down most of his. “Can’t imagine what maggot got into my mother’s brain. Why should she want me married already? Oughtn’t she be busy getting Joan wed? Lord knows that would be enough to occupy her for another decade.”
“Perhaps she’s given it up as hopeless.”
Bennet downed the remainder of his wine. “Well, it probably is. Joan drives people to distraction.”
“Indeed,” Tristan muttered. He knew that all too well. He was perilously close to it right now, scanning the room for the dratted woman.
“Still, it hardly seems right for Mother to take such an interest in my marriage,” Bennet went on. “I don’t need funds, and I like my life the way it is now. What could I possibly gain by marrying?”
Tristan thought about it. What did marriage offer a man? “Security,” he said at last. “If your fortune, or your father’s, should suffer reverses, you’d have a harder time finding a wealthy bride. If you begin now, you’re more likely to have your pick of the girls.”
“Reverses,” scoffed Bennet. “Even I’m not daft enough to wager away too much blunt. And I’d rather economize than take on a wife who would be nattering in my ear all day and night about something. No, this is all a mania of my mother’s, and I won’t be cozened into it.”
“Right,” said Tristan, hardly paying attention. “Good man.” His eye had caught the arrival, at long last, of the Fury. She was tall enough to stand out in the crowd, especially with that feather in her hair. “Go tell her that.”
