“Are they here? I should wish to bid them good evening.” Julian looked around the crowd, but did not see them.
“Indeed, their first night out since father passed. It’s quite the occasion.” Rascomb gestured over to the far wall, where the older matrons, spinsters, and wallflowers dwelled.
Julian frowned. “Surely your sister will be dancing.”
It was Rascomb’s turn to frown. “If someone asks her, but she is quite on the shelf.”
“I say!” said the man Julian couldn’t remember.
“Uncalled for, Rascomb,” said another.
“But she is very beautiful, are you not providing an ample dowry?” Julian asked, ignoring the calls of Rascomb’s rudeness at his sister’s expense.
Finally, he caught sight of Miss Ophelia, who looked a vision this evening. She was in dark blue silk, trimmed with a contrasting white lace that ran in patterns across the bell of her skirt. Her shining blonde hair was done up with matching silk ribbons, curled and braided in ways he could not track. She was beautiful in her drawing room, a serious crease between her eyebrows, but here, she was dazzling.
“Of course I will provide a reasonable dowry, but if you must know, she is eight-and-twenty now.” Rascomb lowered his voice to whisper her age.
When he was a younger man, full of London norms and social cues, he would have likely been just as callous about a woman’s age as Rascomb was. But now, it didn’t seem to matter. There was the issue of childbirth yes, of course, continuing a family line and whatnot, but he’d seen woman her age and much older dominate the taverns and parties in the new world. Beauty paired with a comely spirit made age irrelevant.
“Why would that affect her prospects?” Julian asked, a question he had not meant to say aloud.
“Excellent point, sir!” the man Julian could not remember exclaimed, and Julian did not care for the spark that seemed to flare in the man’s eyes. The reason why Julian could not remember this man was because he was bland. His voice, his features, his bearing, all as forgettable as the fifth gingerbread man. They all looked the same on a tray at a bakery.
“By all means, should you wish to dance with her and break up the monotony of her day, I give my support.” Rascomb looked over at his sister.
Julian knew his morals and beliefs had changed due to his years of travel. No longer could he subscribe to the Sunday preacher’s ideas of natural order for women—or other men! There was no hierarchy to adhere to that placed him at the top. He’d met the peoples of the Amazon who ventured out to trade—for he was not a big enough fool to venture into that green hell—who spoke of groups led by women, and also ones where women fought side by side with the men. Also of tribes where it was the men who cared for the children once they ceased to nurse at their mothers’ breasts.
There was no God-given order to life. And he’d also learned that life was precarious, precious, and chaotic. There was no room for manufactured rules that benefited the few, when the many were ubiquitous. It was why he dreaded returning to the Royal Geographical Society, as it was there that Sir Robert espoused his King James Bible-based ideas that women needed to be servile. Where Sir Robert had listened as others espoused the ideas of finding the elusive men whose faces were in their torsos and possessed the minds of small children, as their forebears had once suspected.
And to men who put ideas first and proof second, there was no explaining nor convincing.
“Then I shall be the first to dance with the maiden,” said the bland, forgettable man.
Julian scowled as he watched him weave through the crowd. “Have they been introduced?”
“Fairport? Ages ago. Never thought he was much interested after my other sister married Garrett Preston.” Rascomb turned to watch the spectacle of prying a woman out of the wallflower nest.
Given what Julian had seen of Miss Ophelia so far, he expected to see her reject the man’s overtures. Fairport, apparently, was his name. Julian repeated it to himself in order to make sure he remembered it. While he didn’t like the man, it was still useful to know who belonged where. And Fairport was a member of the RGS. In the coming months, his good favor could be a deciding vote on whether or not Julian obtained another commission. “Your other sister—Miss Portia Bridewell—she married Garrett Preston?”
“Indeed. He is a barrister and will likely become a member of the House of Commons soon. Ambitious fellow. Hardworking.”
Julian clucked his appreciation. He remembered Garrett Preston as a timid and whiny child who hated attending his father’s lectures at RGS. The other son, the older one, had been the paragon of an earl’s son, which was likely why Garrett had rebelled. Not that it mattered. It only made Julian feel old and out of touch. His inner self felt the same as it always had—yearning for adventure, clean air, and a singleness of purpose.
But he’d spotted flashes of silver in his stubble not long ago, and no doubt if he grew out his beard, it would be a speckle of salt and pepper colors. He didn’t belong in a ballroom as a bachelor.
“Sir Julian, could I persuade you to meet my family?” another man asked. What was his name? “Fecund” was all he could come up with, but he knew it wasn’t correct.
“I should be delighted,” Julian answered with as much respect as he could muster. Still, all he could think was “fecund.” No, Lund! The man was Frances, Lord Lund. That was it. He shook his head and followed him through the maze of dark trousers and swirls of fabrics. He hoped he was being introduced to a spouse, and not daughters.
*
Ophelia blinked atthe man asking her to dance. But she could almost feel her mother’s glee as she watched from one chair over. It had been ages since she’d danced. They’d been in Zermatt for the Season one year, then her father died, so they’d not been at the next Season, and then here they were, returning. She hadn’t expected to dance at all, given her age. Given her strange pursuits.
But here was Lord Fairport, asking for a twirl about the room.
“I hadn’t even picked up a dance card,” Ophelia said.
“Then may I assume it isn’t yet full?” Fairport said, and his little joke made him a touch more interesting than before.
