Chapter Two
June 28, 1817
Lady Jane Marden, only daughter to the Earl of Worchester, looked askance at her maid in the dressing table’s mirror. “Why must I wear my hair up tonight? I detest all these combs and pins.” The faint whine in her voice set even her teeth on edge.
Her maid, Anna, snorted as she stuck a tortoiseshell comb into Jane’s red tresses anyway. “It’s necessary, my lady. Your hair is too heavy otherwise. We can’t have it tumbling down in the middle of a conversation.”
“Of course not. It might ignite a war.” Jane rolled her eyes and couldn’t quite quell her penchant for sarcasm. But she submitted to the unique form of genteel torture known to the world as a toilette. Really, Anna was quite handy, and the twists and curls she’d coaxed from the updo pleased her. When the maid slipped emerald-encrusted pins into her locks, Jane sighed. Sure, the jewels complimented the bright hue of her hair marvelously, but that didn’t mean she liked the color any more. She’d had two and thirty years to accept that her hair would never be anything other than red, but oh how she wished it otherwise.
The equally detestable sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose had always vexed her. No amount of lemon juice could erase those spots from her fair skin, which had come from her mother’s side. Mama had Irish roots a few generations removed, for her grandmother had been the daughter of a high born noble. Along with the looks, Jane had inherited a slight temper that she constantly fought to contain as well as the insatiable curiosity to explore… everything. She was well read and possessed an imagination hindered only by her own abilities.
But her aversion to bugs of all kinds as well as the dark were all her own, carryovers from her childhood and always spending time alone. Except when her cousin Trevor and his family came to call. That boy had teased her mercilessly. Now, that boy was a man a few years older than she, and he was a favorite of her two brothers.
Ugh. Men.She renewed her focus on her image in the mirror and frowned. “Argh.” She poked a finger into her upswept coif. Her hair was heavy, and the comb teeth dug into her apparently sensitive scalp. “Perhaps I should wear a turban. One of those velvet affairs with an ostrich plume or perhaps a large, jeweled broach on the front.” It would prevent the need for combs plus hide her tresses.
Women with red hair were never in fashion. Last year, blondes were in favor; this year, brunettes were. Not to mention tall and willowy figures were always sought after regardless of personality or lock color; last year, petite, slim pocket misses had taken the Season by storm. No man ever preferred a red-haired short woman with too many curves because she couldn’t keep away from the tea tray. It was another gift from her heritage—the voluptuous body, not the penchant for sweets.
Of course, those curves hadn’t become the bane of her existence until her first engagement when she’d willingly given herself to her fiancé, and once that had occurred, she’d thought nothing of doing the same with her second betrothed…
Does that make me soiled goods now?
The sound of Anna’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Turbans are for older or ugly ladies.” She gave Jane a cheeky grin. “You are neither.” She finished the coiffure with one last sparkling pin. “In that watered green silk, the men will fall at your feet, my lady.”
“Ha!” Jane snorted but flashed a pleased smile. “I’d rather they try to steal a kiss or strike up an intelligent conversation.” She rather enjoyed kissing, and when done right, the act had the ability to transport a lady to another world… where heat and desire and everything wonderful resided. Then her humor faded. “That is if I wanted to attract anyone romantically.” Would her history prevent her from making another match should she want it?
“You don’t wish for a courtship or to wed?” The maid brought out a pearl choker with a large peridot stone in the middle. When she slipped it about Jane’s neck, the stone settled between her collarbones.
“Perhaps I’d encourage a courtship for the mere fun of it, the romance of it, but not the engagement. I haven’t been so fortunate in reaching the actual wedding portion of such.”
“That’s fate, not your fault.” Anna stood back and gave Jane a pair of elbow-length white gloves. “Your father is anxious for you to marry though.”
The heat of embarrassment went through her cheeks. Was her dismal love life talked about in the servants’ hall then? How disappointing. “I know he is, but I suppose I’m too picky to merely pluck a man from my circle of admirers.” She stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her gown. The gold embroidery in a Grecian pattern that lined the hem made her smile, as did the matching line of it around the square-cut bodice. “However, I fear that many of those men are only after the dowry Papa has placed on my head.”
Anna scoffed. “More incentive for a wider pool?”
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “If I don’t feel something in my heart, in my soul upon meeting a gentleman, I don’t want to put time into the relationship.” She’d given both freely when she’d been engaged twice, yet both of those men had died before their times. And her heart had broken with those deaths. Perhaps it couldn’t be mended for a third time.
I don’t have the strength to give all that I am and see those hopes wither if tragedy strikes again.
“Oh, my lady, such things you think.” The maid chuckled. “True love doesn’t happen in this world. Life is not a fairy story like the ones you favor. No one lives happily ever after. It’s a chore and fighting and bearing children.”
Jane huffed out a breath of frustration, for she adored every one of those tales, couldn’t have enough of them. Even now, every available flat surface in her bedroom lay covered with stacks of books. “It should be, for there’s already enough heartbreak in this world, enough destruction, enough grim news.” She looked at Anna while pulling on her gloves. “It’s too bad. Fairy stories give the reader hope and a sense of anticipation that the couple will fall in love, or the people in those tales will overcome all obstacles to have the life they’ve fought for.”
“Sounds like too much work.” The maid shrugged. “It’s not difficult. You find a man you get on with and hope for friendship. Love comes later if you’re lucky, but even if you’re not, at least you won’t be alone. You’ll have the man and his heirs.”
As if I don’t have a say in anything.“I suppose Papa does wish for grandchildren.” A trace of guilt moved through her chest, for she’d failed on that part, and neither of her brothers had wed as of yet.
“If you’re lucky, your man will put a babe in your belly at the first go ’round.” Anna shrugged. “Then you won’t need to lie with him again.”
How… dismal to think like that of the man she would wed. I want the love, the romance, the belonging. “You’re wrong.”
Or else she was flawed. Despite a bevy of female friends, loneliness did touch her life. Her father’s duty to the title kept him busy and rarely at home. Both of her older brothers had lives of their own, and both had taken residence in a townhouse of their own a few streets over. They often haunted the small surgery and clinic they’d opened in the Marylebone neighborhood. She was left to knock about the London townhouse with her maid for company, unless she lent a hand at the clinic. Despite having two brothers and doing what she could to lift injured soldiers’ spirits, she had no male friends, found it difficult to relate to the opposite sex. Though jokesters, her siblings were… well, crude and smelly at times.
It was the world she lived in, and men ruled that world. No amount of wishing would change that. Marriage was expected of her, and her father had been lenient through both her engagements and the deaths of her fiancés, yet her duty was coming due no matter what she wanted for her own life. If she’d had her druthers, she’d take her dowry and funnel it into her brothers’ clinic. One of the things she enjoyed was sitting with the men there and helping them change the way they thought about their new lives after an injury. Some needed support or placement with society, and if given the chance, she’d like to lend a hand with that aspect too. Or perhaps I shall raise funds for the clinic through the ton. She did have skill enough—as well as the figure—to make lecherous old men with more coin than God donate if he thought he might have a glimpse at her in a shadowy corner.
She heaved a sigh. All of that was a speculation, though. No doubt her father would cry foul. So would she on the marriage front unless she found a man who touched her soul.
“Well, I should go downstairs before Papa bellows.” Yet the excitement for the event had temporarily faded. Sometimes being caught between responsibility and her heart felt like a quagmire.