The Golden Season by Connie Brockway Page B

thought him a bore. They were entirely unsuited. “Is she very unhappy do you think?”
    “No,” Eleanor said thoughtfully. “If she was, she might be more inclined to take advice. She actually seems in prime spirits of late and as like to thumb her nose at Society as bend to its rules.”
    “Perhaps she is simply going through an odd patch and shall pass out of it soon. Or maybe she’s breeding again,” Lydia suggested thoughtfully. “She certainly looks in glowing health.”
    “Let us hope not,” Eleanor declared. “She has not seen Gerry in three months.”
    “Who’s breeding?” Emily asked in a muzzy voice.
    “No one, dear,” Eleanor said. “We were simply speculating.”
    “That would be one good thing about you marrying, Lydie,” Emily said. “I should very much like a baby to dandle.” Emily’s face softened with sentiment. “I never had a baby to dandle.”
    “Neither have I,” Eleanor said, though a good deal more happily. Eleanor had always said she’d no desire to procreate.
    “Then we are alike, Eleanor,” Emily said. Neither woman seemed to notice anything odd in a former inmate of an insane asylum calling the Duchess of Grenville by her first name. Not that Emily would ever do so in public.
    Except for those times she had “misplaced something in her reticule,” she was very circumspect. She had, as she had once pointed out, been raised to be a lady, not a madwoman.
    “You are much nicer than I, Emily,” Eleanor said dryly.
    “You don’t know how nice you are, Eleanor,” Emily protested.
    Eleanor sniffed but nonetheless looked pleased.
    The coach drew to a halt and the door opened with a flourish as the footman hurried to pull out the velvet-covered steps. They disembarked and Lydia paused, looking up the granite stairs to the entrance of the great house, where the door stood open. Within the entry hall, shadowy figures intermingled and waited.
    They were waiting for her.
    It was not vanity that made her think this; it was experience. Ever since she’d made her debut, she had been at the center of the public’s attention. From birth, she’d been on display. Her parents had well equipped her for the life she was to lead; her manners were exquisite, her deportment gracious. By ten, she knew to speak when spoken to, to be decorative when not, and what words would best please an aged princess or a gruff prime minister.
    But on the day her parents were driving up to an acquaintance’s villa high in the Swiss Alps and their carriage had overturned on a mountain pass, killing them both, everything had changed.
    One week she’d been surrounded by affection, elegance, adventure, and laughter—the next plunged into a world of muted colors, of ticking clocks and hushed corridors. There had been no distraction from her grief. The servants, the governess, the dancing instructor, and the housekeepers were all very kind. Very solicitous. Very . . . separate.
    When Eleanor had arrived to sponsor her debut in Society, she’d sobbed with gratitude. And when she’d been presented at court and saw again the familiar expressions of approval and admiration, she’d felt she’d been delivered back into the world of the living.
    She’d exerted herself to be the center of excitement and conversation and people, so that she would always be wanted, anticipated, and welcomed. She never made the mistake of taking Society’s approval for granted.
    And now her future hung in the balance and those social skills that had always come so effortlessly seemed suddenly to have abandoned her. An unnatural tautness settled about the mouth that wore smiles so easily, and an unusual stiffness accompanied her usually graceful step. She briefly closed her eyes, conjuring up a pair of strong phantom arms to enfold her.
    And just like that, her balance was restored and her sense of humor came to her aid. She was husband-hunting, not dying. And really, she told herself, it could not begin to approach the