Page 5 of Miss Devon’s Choice

Her guests came into the room, already talking and laughing, at ease with one another. Three women her own age and a gentleman who was brother to one of them were soon settled in comfortable chairs. Taken separately, Rebecca could stand to pass an hour in their company. Having the group together, she usually had a headache after a quarter of an hour. She did not think there could be a more pompous, ridiculous gaggle of young people in London.

The niceties of greetings and pouring out completed, Rebecca took her seat and folded her hands in her lap.

“Perhaps you wonder why I have asked you here this afternoon. I have an announcement to make. If the gossip has not already reached your ears, you may now have the pleasure of spreading it far and wide. I am engaged to be married.”

A collective gasp rose from the group.

“I say,” the young man, a Mr. Gardiner, said loudly. “I did not even know anyone was in serious pursuit.”

“Yes, your curtsy was supposed to happen this season.” His sister, a red-headed heiress without a single original thought in her head, spoke with a slight whine in her voice.

“Will you not make your debut?” Miss Gilderoy, the daughter of a wealthy baron, asked plaintively. “But we were supposed to do it together.”

“I am certain I will still curtsy, but it will be as a married woman instead of a debutante.” Rebecca lifted her chin, putting on her most haughty expression. Pride and arrogance went a long way with these people. “The marriage has been negotiated between our families. Why go through the trouble of a courtship when things can be handled so much more efficiently?”

The young women registered varying degrees of horror, but Mr. Gardiner nodded at once, obviously approving of the idea.

“But who is your betrothed?” Miss Hatling posed that question, and she was probably the least irritating of the lot, if only because she pretended to possess a measure of sense. Still, the most arduous thing the lady read were the descriptions beneath fashion plates. A small measure of pretended sense would only get her so far.

This was what Rebecca had waited for. Their reactions to her announcement would aid in planning the future. She put on her most placid expression, unwilling to hint that the name she spoke meant nothing to her as yet. “The grandson of the Earl of Ivyford, Lord Easton.”

“I say, I’ve heard of him.” All eyes, including Rebecca’s turned to the lone man in their midst. Mr. Gardiner looked about. “I can’t be the only one to have heard the stories. He’s that viscount that trounced Richard Blanding. It was in my elder brother’s time. Four years ago, perhaps.”

Miss Gardiner started nodding. “Oh, I remember that. Our brother Percival was at the club when it happened.”

Rebecca’s eyebrows shot up despite her mask. “I haven’t heard that account. Do tell, Miss Gardiner.”

Miss Gardiner demurred to her brother, snapping open her fan as though it caused her distress to think on the story.

Mr. Gardiner, who had all the makings of a thespian, rubbed his hands together and sat forward slightly. “Percival told me the whole of it, as a warning you know. It seems the gentlemen in question, Blanding and Easton, were already at odds. Easton had an interest in Blanding’s cousin, a Miss Dorrington. Blanding didn’t like it and said so. Easton confronted him, and before long there was shouting, and then Easton threw his fist in Blanding’s face. There was a real row, it took several other gentlemen to pull them off each other. I understand Easton took the brunt of it. Got a new scar for his trouble, too.”

“A new scar?” Miss Hatling said, confused. Rebecca had caught that detail as well but didn’t think she could admit she’d never seen her intended to know anything about scars, old or new.

“Oh, yes. He has a most frightful countenance,” Miss Gardiner proclaimed, lowering her fan to share these details with a degree of relish. “I don’t know that I could marry a man for his wealth if he looked that way. Miss Devon is made of a stronger constitution than I.”

Rebecca’s stomach twisted unhelpfully. Frightful? Scars? And it sounded as though he had something of a temper.

“I understand he takes a great deal of his features from his mother’s family,” Mr. Gardiner added, not to be outdone by his sister’s information. “They’re Italian peasantry. My father said the earl’s son married beneath himself, and when his Italian woman didn’t take to the English winter, he fled across the Channel and never returned. Sent the son back, though.”

“Italians.” Miss Gilderoy sniffed disdainfully. “Such an odd lot. And hardly of any use during the fight against Napoleon.”

Despite the ignorance of her company, Rebecca had now learned that her intended husband was half-Italian, scarred, and apparently had a temper and propensity to commit violence on other men. But he was wealthy. Absurdly so, if her father was to be believed, and the heir to an earldom. None of the information truly helped her. If anything, it left her more troubled.

“We are being terribly rude,” Miss Gardiner said, putting a hand to her cheek as though mortified. “This is our Miss Devon’s betrothed we’ve been speaking of with such carelessness. I am certain she knows enough of his good qualities to have agreed to a union with him.”

Eyes turned in Rebecca’s direction. She forced an unconcerned smile and shrugged her shoulders. She’d planned for this turn in conversation. “Oh, I don’t mind it. We are not well acquainted yet, myself and Lord Easton. It is the very best of sense to not know too much before marriage. It makes it a great deal easier to ignore faults in a spouse if you know little to begin with.” Rebecca tried not to wrinkle her nose as she spoke the words against her personal inclinations. To be courted by a gentleman who wished for her hand had been a secret dream of hers.

They all began to murmur of the wisdom in that statement. Truly, Rebecca didn’t know what her aunt saw in these people. They were all nearly empty-headed. Who cared if they were fashionable or wealthy if they couldn’t hold an intelligent conversation?

At moments such as this, she missed her sisters terribly. They could spend hours discussing a book or laughing over the advertisements in the Post. Christine would go on an on about horses, and then make them laugh with her observations of society. Julia, her eldest sister, would discuss the needs of their neighbors and how best to be of service to others.

“I think it wise that the earl and his grandson decided not to make a showing this season,” Mr. Gardiner added suddenly. “Much cleverer to arrange a marriage in a more business-like manner. Especially since no one has seen Lord Easton the last several years. The man rarely goes out in company. They stay at their house in the country.”

“Where does he live?” Miss Hatling turned to Rebecca with the question, but luckily Mr. Gardiner kept talking.

“Dartford, in Kent.”

“Oh. At least you will be an easy distance from town, Miss Devon.”