CHAPTER1
MARCH 1814
“‘Women have no ideas, except personal ones,’” Lady Phoebe Winters recited, leaning forward in indignant earnestness. “Andthen, the article continues. I will not force you to sit through the entirety of it, but will summarize to tell you that it does admit that, in fact, women do have moretendernessthan men — oh yes.”
She snorted and continued as her friends looked on, allowing her tirade to continue. “But then — and I have committed this to memory, so impactful the words were — ‘Women admire in men those qualities which are necessary to their own deficiencies — courage, the power of taking the lead, activity, strength, everything in short which may be called the sexual distinction of man’s mind, and which flatters the tenderness and wraps a guiding arm around the weakness of his associate.’
“Can you believe such drivel? If only I could respond with the truth. For thetruthis that women are stronger than men could ever be. We must endure while always maintaining the facade that everything is perfect, that there is nothing of which we are concerned. And all of this while looking immaculate, maintaining perfect manners, and hiding all of our true feelings. I wish I could show him a true demonstration of strength and courage, that is for certain.”
Phoebe finished her recounting and sat back against the soft green silk cushions of the sofa, her chest heaving as anger flowed through her veins anew. After retelling what she had read that morning with her breakfast, incredulity seeped out of every pore as she seethed and her ire began festering anew.
When she had first read the words, while she was certainly not completely surprised, she had nearly spit her coffee all over the paper. She had at first shoved the paper away but could not help herself from picking it up once more to continue.
Now she looked around at the faces of her friends, women she had been so sure would wholeheartedly agree with her, but they stared back at her with sympathy more than anything. Her stomach began to sink as disappointment crept in.
“You agree with me — do you not?” she demanded, raising an eyebrow as she looked at them all, challenging them to refute her.
“We do agree with you, Phoebe,” Elizabeth reassured her, leaning forward from her place next to her on the corner of the sofa, placing a hand on her knee. “Of course we do, you know that. It is only that articles such as that you quoted are not particularlyunbelievable. In fact, I would be surprised were anything ever written to the contrary.”
Phoebe loved Elizabeth, truly she did, but damn her endless practicality.
“How can you say that?” she demanded, as the fire next to her flashing, accentuating her words as if it agreed with her.
“How can I not?” Elizabeth replied, waving an elegant hand in the air. Elizabeth’s strength was her steadiness, and she held an air of refinement that was unmatched by nearly any other woman Phoebe had ever met. “It is the way of the world, Phoebe. It is set in place by men. It is how they see women, and they write their own viewpoints without fear of retribution.”
Phoebe crossed her arms over her chest and took in the rest of them. Julia, sitting in the chair across from her, sent a sweet smile her way, while Sarah leaned forward in the seat beside Julia.
“It is galling, Phoebe, truly it is,” Sarah said, a long tendril of her soft, cinnamon brown hair brushing the side of her temple as she leaned forward slightly. “The ways of the nobility … well, they have certainly been a surprise to me since I arrived in London, to say the least. But these are the rules of society, are they not? You have to play amongst them, or you risk getting hurt.”
Phoebe worried her bottom lip, a habit that was becoming all too familiar as at times it left her lips painfully dry.
“But who made the rules?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” responded Elizabeth.
“These rules you speak of, that we must conform to — how did they come about? They are notrules, so much as conventions that have become part of our lives because we all agree to follow them, because no one speaks otherwise. And why do we not? Because we are afraid.”
Phoebe pushed away from the mahogany sofa and started pacing the Aubusson carpet lining the floor of their current meeting place, one of the Earl of Torrington’s drawing rooms. Phoebe and the three women who convened together had found themselves seated amongst the wallflowers one time too many. But unlike the other woman who bordered the dance floors with them, they were not cast aside due to their unattractiveness, nor their shyness or unsuitability.
No, it was rather that none of them had much interest in the games of theton, the whispers, the flirtations, the giggles behind the fans. One night over a glass or two of sherry, they found that their very disdain for what was considered to be attractive and desirable by most was, in fact, what drew them together.
They far preferred their lively conversations and debates to watching others make fools of themselves, and so at events such as these, balls and parties and the like, they would often ensconce themselves in a nearby room where they could speak without fear of social derision.
Tonight, however, went far beyond simple conversation for Phoebe. If these three women, who she now counted as the closest people in the entire world to her, did not understand, then who would?
“It was not always this way, was it?” she ventured to her friends. “Men have always been the leaders, the warriors, it is true, but there have been times when women held much more power than we do now. In the Roman era, women possessed great influence over the decisions of men. Only three hundred years ago, some women held fortresses, fought on battlefields alongside their husbands and brothers.”
Phoebe was now waving her hands emphatically, needing them to understand the importance of what she spoke. “Half the world is composed of women. However, men seem to be able to say whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever form they choose. Men — of the nobility, at least — receive education, the power of a title, the financial independence to do whatever they seek. And yet women are bred only to please men. We sit and listen to the drivel such as that in the article, and we are expected to not only believe it but to follow it. Why?”
Julia looked up at her, chin in hand, a riot of blonde curls cascading from the top of her head about her pixie face. She was tiny, almost childlike and angelic, yet she held an inner strength that Phoebe knew few could rival.
“I suppose,” Julia began slowly, “we follow it because it is what we know. Because no one is doing any different. Because no other woman is challenging it.”
Looking at the nods of the other two, Phoebe stopped her pacing and simply stared at them, a niggling thought tugging at the corner of her brain. What Julia said was true. No one questioned such opinions. No one presented any other way of thinking. The newspapers may employ writers of a wide variety of opinions, true, but besides a different political stance, what else truly separated one writer from the other? They all held the same ignorant opinions — when it came to women, at any rate. The wife of a Whig was held to the very same expectations as the wife of a Tory.
“Exactly,” Sarah agreed with Julia, a grin covering her freckled face. “No one has ever spoken out otherwise. So why would any hold an opinion to the contrary? Your thoughts are very opposed to most others, Phoebe, truly, you must know that. I know your parents raised you to be a woman who creates her own opinions, but you are an exception, as you well know.”
Phoebe nodded slowly, the words of her friends causing an idea to form in her mind. Another public voice was required to provide a different way of thinking, to give women the opportunity to receive knowledge outside of what had been instilled in them since childhood.