The entrance hall was full of people. Footmen hauling trunks. Maids with armloads of linen. A man had his walking stick tangled in the curtain’s sash. Two gentlemen in the corner could not agree on how to remove a coat.
She would have laughed if she had not been gripping the banister so hard.
Caroline was lounging on a settee by the window, six months pregnant, directing people with one hand. John leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed. He caught Valeria’s eye.Breathe,he mouthed.
She had not had this many eyes on her since her first Season. Every man in this room wanted to marry her.
“Breathe,” she muttered to herself, gripping the banister.
She had spent a full year getting ready for this. Twelve months of mourning. She wore black every day without complaint. Whatever Gordon had done, she would not give the ton a reason to call her improper.
People watched a widow. They watched how long she mourned, how she mourned, whether she mourned enough or too much. Valeria gave them nothing to talk about. She wore black, and she stayed at Thornhill, and she did not attend a single social event for twelve months.
But she used the time. She ate. Three meals a day, sometimes four, real food, as much as she wanted. The first week, she made herself sick because her stomach had shrunk so much that a full plate made her nauseous. She kept eating anyway.
By the second month, the hollows under her cheekbones had started to fill out. By the fourth, her collarbones stopped poking through her clothes. By the sixth, she could look in the mirror without flinching.
She looked like a person again. She had done that herself. No one helped her. No one needed to.
She walked the grounds whenever she pleased. Hours, sometimes. No permission. The first time she reached the end of the garden and back without being stopped, she sat on a bench and cried for ten minutes. After that, it got easier.
She wrote to Bridget and Caroline without anyone standing over her shoulder. She stayed up late reading books Gordon would not have approved of. She slept without listening for footsteps. She found out she liked coffee in the morning, not tea. She had never been allowed to pick.
And she planned. Every detail. Every game, every rule. Her terms. Herchoice.
Bridget helped from Evesbury. Her letters were long and practical and full of advice about guest lists and wines and which families not to invite. She included a list of men she had personally vetted, annotated in her sharp handwriting.Lord Barton: harmless, drinks too much, decent teeth. Sir Marcus Hale: ambitious, watch the hands. Mr. Ashworth: writes poetry, probably cries at sunsets, safe.Valeria read the list three times and kept it in her desk drawer.
Caroline took charge of the decorations and the menu. She was enormous and could barely manage the stairs. Her husband Richard trailed her from room to room, looking worried, but she ignored him completely. She had opinions on flowers and tablecloths and the arrangement of candles that she delivered with the authority of a general planning a campaign.
Valeria let her. Caroline needed to be in charge of something, and Valeria needed someone else to care about the napkins.
John offered to vet the gentlemen personally, by which he meant fight them. Valeria said no. He argued. She said no again. He sulked for two days and then showed up with a fencing foil andasked if he could at least test their reflexes. She said no to that, too.
“You are taking all the fun out of this,” he complained.
“This is not supposed to be fun for you.”
“Everything is fun for me. That is my gift.”
“Your gift is being annoying. Go help Caroline with the flowers.”
He went. She heard him complaining about it from the other end of the house.
She watched them from the top of the stairs. These men had come from all over England. Some had traveled for days. Some had brought valets and trunks full of clothes and cases of wine, as though this were a holiday rather than a competition. One man had brought a dog, which was currently being chased out of the kitchens by Mrs. Grady, who had opinions about dogs near her roast chicken.
They were here for her. All of them. Because she had written a letter and sealed it and sent it out into the world, and the world had answered. A year ago, she had not been allowed to walk in her own garden. Now she had twenty-three men in her entrance hall fighting over who would carry her trunks.
Caroline caught her eye from below.Get on with it.
Valeria let go of the banister and went down.
The room quieted. Two dozen men turned to face her. She recognized a few. Lord Barton. He had spilled wine on her glove once at a ball and spent all night apologizing. Sir Marcus Hale, whose land bordered Thornhill. He wanted the money, probably. There was a young viscount whose name she could not remember. His ears were pink.
Near the window, a tall man with red sideburns was writing something in a notebook. She would learn his name later. Mr. Ashworth. He wrote poetry. It was bad poetry, but the effort was sweet. Beside him, a grey-haired gentleman sat in a chair he had clearly claimed within seconds of arriving. Sir Humphrey Dalton. He had already found the wine.
“Is that all of them?” Valeria whispered to Caroline.
“Twenty-three confirmed. One more is expected this afternoon. A Mr. Edward something. His brother wrote the letter.”
