Chapter Two
Lady Lanora Hadler, daughter of the Duke of Solworth, sat at the kitchen table in her father’s London home, shucking peas. Her best friend and maid, Grace, was opposite her, similarly engaged. Lanora’s hands flew as she stripped the ripe green pods, but Grace was still winning. Her pile was nearly gone.
“Victory,” Grace cried, eyes bright, dropping a final pod onto the heap of shells before her.
Lanora smiled. “I don’t know how you do it, or how you can be so nimble with peas and not able to stich a straight seam.” She kept working. The peas were needed for dinner.
“Practice.” Grace reached across the table and snatched some of Lanora’s.
Lanora pushed a dark lock from her eyes. “You could practice sewing.”
“But then you’d want me to do it. I prefer kitchen work. Someday, when you wed, you’ll set up your own home, and I’ll be your cook.”
“I will never wed, but you are welcome to cook all you like once I convince Father I need my own home.”
“Or that.” Some of the cheer left Grace’s face.
“I will convince him.” Lanora snapped a pod open with such vigor, some of the peas jumped out. “He must acknowledge I’m perfectly well on my own.” She made a vague gesture around the kitchen.
It was a warm room, the plaster walls yellow in the morning light. The sunshine that spilled through the windows gave way to a view of the garden, hothouse and grounds beyond. Lanora knew the grounds were large for London, but had never fully taken to them. The ordered patch of earth was worlds away from the rolling hills and forest around her country home.
She sighed, and slowed. She didn’t hate London. She simply wished her father hadn’t decided she must have a season. She missed the people left behind, though many of the staff had made the journey with her and she’d come to know the London staff well. She missed the countryside, the tenants and freedom. Not freedom from oversight, for she was ordered about no more in London than the countryside, but of space and from the scrutiny of theton.
Lanora’s chaperone, her Aunt Edith, was even more opposed to London living than she was. The frumpy middle-aged sister to Lanora’s father, Aunt Edith was likely riding in the park even then. Riding or not, she wore mostly riding habits, and those about two decades out of fashion. To make London more tolerable, Aunt Edith had brought many of her terriers to town with her, the little monsters her one true love. Lanora found them enjoyable in the countryside, but they chafed at the small grounds, too little work making them ill mannered.
Still, their London cook said the larder had never been so vermin free. She plead endlessly with Aunt Edith to leave a few of the little mongrels behind. Likewise, the groundskeeper was impressed with the lack of small creatures ravaging his work. For her part, Lanora missed the songbirds. If a pair was foolish enough to remain on the grounds, the terriers would wait for the fledglings to leave the nest and snap them up before they learned to fly properly.
“You’re wearing your dead-baby-songbird face,” Grace said. She took up the last of Lanora’s peapods.
“I do wish new ones wouldn’t keep coming.”
Grace shrugged. “It’s nature.” She finished the peas and stood, gathering the shells for the bin. “I was thinking. I should win a prize for shucking more peas than you.”
Lanora narrowed her eyes. “Such as?”
“Such as, for today, you forget about Mrs. Smith.”
A broad smile turned up Lanora’s lips. Mrs. Smith, the only wonderful thing about London. Not that the reason for her was good. Poverty was never a happy circumstance, and poverty was what Mrs. Smith sought to alleviate. Rather, Lanora sought to alleviate it, in the guise of the widowed Mrs. Smith.
Lanora was quite enamored with being unknown enough to wander the streets. At home, her midnight locks and deep green eyes were too easily recognized, even with a cap and spectacles. There were so many people in London, and the wealthy kept themselves so far above the rest, no one Lanora helped as Mrs. Smith had any notion who she really was.
Mrs. Smith was much preferable to her evening role, duke’s daughter. Maintaining that frigid façade was an endless strain. Lanora had little choice, though, if she wanted to survive the season unattached and go on to have a home of her own. All she wished was to keep living the unfettered life she’d enjoyed since her father began his work a dozen years ago.
Besides, the smiling faces and pleasant conversation offered by her so-called peers were as much a pretense as her coolness. No one in London knew her, so how could they like her? Their warmth sprang from regard for her father’s title, or his wealth, or both. Perhaps even from his notoriety as a scholar, but never from caring for Lanora. She’d learned well enough from her charitable works at home the lengths to which his assets would drive people. For most, Lanora was a chance for money, renown or power, nothing more.
“Now you’re wearing your, no-one-loves-me-for-who-I-really-am look.” Grace reseated herself.
“You know me too well.” Lanora sought her earlier light mood.
“I know you very well. You’re like a sister to me, and I assure you there are many people who love you.”
“Here, in this house, and in Father’s country manor, yes.” Lanora waved a hand toward the windows. “Out there? No. They will never come to know me. All they see is Lady Lanora, only child to Lord Robert, Duke of Solworth.”
“You give them no chance to know you.” Grace’s voice took on an imploring note, “If you would, you may find you come to enjoy the company of some of them. Perhaps even a gentleman. You’re too young to have decided never to marry.”
Lanora let out a sigh. “Not this lecture. Not again.”
Grace’s mouth flattened in a mutinous line, but she shrugged. “Well then, about Mrs. Smith--”
