The only other answer was that she was attempting to charm him with her coy looks and fluttering eyelashes as a way to discourage Ellen and put her in her place. It rankled Joseph more than he would have expected. Such behavior should be miles beneath Lady Margaret.
“How are preparations for your step-mother’s ball proceeding?” Ellen asked, the picture of grace and politeness.
Lady Margaret widened her eyes at Ellen as if offended. “The duchess is quite busy with her plans,” she said, tilting her chin up so that she could look down her nose at Ellen. “Not that they are anything you should concern yourself with.”
Ellen looked slightly cowed, which enraged Joseph to a disproportionate degree. Still, she forged on, sweet as could be with, “The offer might not be much, but if there is anything that Her Grace needs that I could help her with, do pass along my willingness to be of assistance.”
Lady Margaret laughed out loud, glancing to Lady Millicent and Lady Prudence. “I shall most certainly pass along your offer, Miss Garrett,” she said with too much mirth, then added, “if she should decide to stage a Wild West show in the middle of the ballroom. But only if she cannot engage Annie Oakley herself to entertain her guests.”
Ellen laughed along with Lady Margaret, as if she had meant her jab as a silly jest between the two of them. Her eyes shone with desperation, though. “However I may be of service,” she said, a definite burr in her voice.
“I can think of a few ways you could be of service,” Lady Prudence said. “It seems you already have experience with mucking out stalls.” She and Lady Millicent shared an additional laugh.
Ellen lost her smile entirely. That seemed to be the cue Lady Margaret was waiting for to take her leave. “Good day, Mr. Rathborne-Paxton,” she said with a smile for Joseph, then walked on, failing to acknowledge Ellen.
Joseph was so angry he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from shaking. Lady Margaret might have been the daughter of a duke, but any grocer’s wife or seamstress in a shop would have behaved with more decorum than she had. If his own mother had witnessed that sort of behavior, she wouldn’t have let it stand.
“Insufferable,” he muttered under his breath.
His anger changed to something else as soon as he saw the forlorn look on Ellen’s face. It pierced his heart as intensely as an arrow fired at close range.
“I am bitterly sorry you had to endure that, Miss Garrett,” he said, securing her hand more comfortably in his arm, then walking on with her. “Lady Margaret is a petty…word I dare not say in your presence.”
“You can say ‘bitch’ in front of me,” Ellen said with a sigh. “I’ve heard much worse on my father’s ranch.”
She might have given Joseph leave to use foul language around her, but Ellen’s spirits had clearly been badly damaged. Instead of taking her directly on to the seating area, the moment Joseph detected the first signs of tears in her eyes, he steered her off the path and toward a building that seemed to be some sort of kitchen preparing refreshments.
He drew her around to the back of the small building, then stood her with her back against the wall so that she would not be seen by anyone passing.
“I hate to see you suffering for women like that,” Joseph said in a tender voice. He cradled her face and swiped his thumb over her cheek as though she were already crying. The gesture came as a bit of a surprise to him—he hadn’t realized he had that in him—but it didn’t seem to improve Ellen’s spirits at all. “Are you quite certain you want to pursue any sort of friendship or approval from women like that?” he asked with a frown.
“Yes!” Ellen said with surprising vehemence. “Of course I want Lady Margaret and her crowd, and everyone else who is part of London society, to think highly of me and to be my friends.”
Joseph frowned even more at her answer. It seemed like throwing pearls after swine, as far as he was concerned.
“I just want to be on the inside for a change,” Ellen went on with a sigh before he could form his thoughts into words. “Perhaps you don’t understand the importance of finding a place in society, but it means everything.”
“Does it?” Joseph asked doubtfully.
Ellen gaped up at him for a moment. “Everywhere I have ever been and in every society I have ever seen, there is a pecking order among the women. Social survival depends on finding a place in that order, the higher up the better. It’s simply the way things are.”
Again, Joseph wasn’t certain about that. But some of the things Ellen had confessed to him earlier about the way she had been treated at home, before coming to London, echoed in his mind. She had been ostracized there as well.
Ellen sighed and crossed her arms, which had the unhappy result of putting more space between them. “I know that Lady Margaret is an absolute pill,” she said, glancing off to the side and not meeting Joseph’s eyes. “If I am honest, I don’t particularly care for her. But I have to have hope that that might change.”
She glanced to Joseph again, seeming to plead for understanding.
“Lady Margaret controls so much of the social world for ladies my age. Her approval means more than you might think. If I could just convince her that I am worthy of her attention, worthy of being invited to call on her, or if I could be seen to have positive interactions with her in public, it might change things for me. I might be looked upon with a bit more respect.”
Her words felt like wounds in Joseph’s heart. “But you are respected,” he said, knowing it wasn’t true, but wishing it to be so.
She sent him a flat look that said she knew he was fooling himself. Then she sighed. “All I have ever wanted, since the moment I realized I was an odd duck, was to fit in. All I want is to be accepted into society and treated like everyone else.”
Joseph swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “Lady Grayson liked you,” he reminded her. “That was a start.”
Ellen smiled at him, but there was no happiness in it. Her smile was pitying. “It was,” she said with a sigh. “Though I don’t think Lady Grayson on her own is enough to turn the tide for me.”
“Then we’ll try harder,” Joseph said, making up his mind then and there. He wasn’t certain he’d taken the whole idea of making Ellen over into a new woman seriously at first, but now he understood why it was necessary—not for him, but for her. “We’ll redouble our efforts,” he went on, his enthusiasm growing. “We’ll make certain you are seen at all the important places, looking and sounding like the epitome of grace and beauty. More society mavens than just Lady Grayson will take notice of you. The likes of Lady Margaret will be filling up your front table with calling cards in no time. And I can absolutely guarantee you that the Duchess of Westminster will send a personal invitation for you to attend her ball.”