“Indeed, Anna, you are looking in the first bloom of beauty tonight. I have no doubt you will have every eligible gentleman buzzing around you.” Lady Trumbull slanted a glowering glance at Olivia. “Unlike some, who make no effort to display a sweet disposition. Lady Knowlton mentioned to me this morning that she overhea
rd you contradicting Lord Howell over some detail of parliamentary procedure.”
“He had his facts wrong,” she replied calmly. Her mother’s criticism had long since lost its sting. “On several points.”
“That has nothing to do with the matter,” exclaimed the baroness. “A lady is expected to offer compliments, not corrections, when a gentleman offers his opinion.”
“Even when he is a pompous ass?” muttered Olivia under her breath. It was a good thing her mother had not heard of her spirited exchange with Lord Wrexham the other evening. It would have required a sea of smelling salts to bring her back to life.
From behind the baroness’s back, Anna twitched another quick warning sign.
Olivia tweaked a brow, but refrained from further comment.
“You are sure you do not wish to change your mind and come along?” asked Anna.
“No, no. I think I shall just sit by the fire for a bit and catch up on some correspondence before turning in for an early night.” Though in truth, her candle would likely be burning until well into the wee hours of morning. The book from St. Andrews had clarified the main problem in her essay, but if she didn’t—as Caro put it—stop dawdling, she would be in danger of missing tomorrow’s deadline. And seeing how Mr. Hurley was most pleased with the attention his new columnist was attracting, she did not wish to disappoint him.
“Anna, do step away from your sister before you catch a sniffle. It would never do for your admirers to see you with a red nose.”
“Yes, go,” urged Olivia before edging back into the shadows of the little parlor.
“A lady is expected to be prompt,” began the baroness as she gathered her shawl and hustled Anna toward the foyer. “A lady is expected to be charming. A lady is expected to be…“
A lady is expected to be an utter bore, mouthed Olivia. Which was why she was quite content to be an aging bluestocking rather than a belle of the ball. At least there were two thoughts to rub together inside her head…even if the friction sometimes set off sparks.
Without the fire of ideas, life would seem awfully cold.
After stirring the coals in the hearth to a cheery blaze, she sat down at her desk and opened her portfolio of papers. Neatly folded atop her notes was the latest edition of the Morning Gazette.
“Hell’s bells,” she muttered, after finishing the column that Anna had carefully circled in red.
A lady is expected to have more sense than to pen a parody and leave it lying around where her sister might find the dratted thing.
No matter that it was her sister who ought to have a peal rung over her head, Olivia could not help feeling a twinge of guilt at the part she had played in fanning the flames of the farce.
Apparently now, with this new twist, it was hot enough to make the front page news.
The formal retraction, had it appeared on its own, would have put an end to the nonsense once and for all. But Mr. Hurley, who possessed the nose of a bloodhound when it came to scenting a good story, had seen fit to publish an addendum.
“Hell,” she echoed, on reading over the fine print. “And damnation.” Perhaps it was merely a clever joke, penned by a skilled writer. She, of all people, should know how language could be manipulated to create an infinite range of emotion.
And yet, there was something so poignantly raw and real about the short paragraph that Olivia didn’t doubt it was written from the heart. She might be an aging bluestocking now, but she still recalled with painful clarity what it was like as a child to feel alone and vulnerable.
As for the prospect of a cold, unfeeling mother, a “Steel Corset” who held rules and regulations in such high regard…
She expelled a sigh, thinking of her late father, and how wonderfully free of constraint he had been in encouraging his daughters to explore the world.
Oh yes, I know what it is like to lose a beloved parent.
Uncapping her ink well, Olivia set to composing a second response to the unknown young gentleman.
“Stop fussing! You are the one who told me to show some bottom,” pointed out Prescott.
“Yes—but I didn’t mean for you to risk having it paddled from here to Hades.” Lucy grimaced. “This isn’t a good idea, Scottie.”
“Neither is having the Steel Corset for a mother,” he retorted.
Unable to think of a reply, she looked away and began to twist at the end of her braids.