“Get away from me!” Prudhomme yelled, shoving her backward.
Clarissa fell back in her chair and stared at him in blind amazement, then glanced sharply toward the door as a rustling announced the arrival of someone.
Several someones, she amended, squinting at the array of colors and shapes standing just inside the door. It looked as if every servant in the house had heard Prudhomme’s shrieks and come running. No doubt her stepmother was there as well, Clarissa thought, and heaved a small sigh at the subsequent shocked silence. She couldn’t see well enough to know if those by the door were staring at her with pity or accusation, but she didn’t need eyesight to guess at Prudhomme’s expression. His rage was a living thing. It reached out to her across the few feet separating them, and then he exploded with verbal vitriol.
He was so angry, most of what Prudhomme said ran together into one mostly incomprehensible rant. Clarissa managed to decipher bits here and there—“clumsy idiot,” “bloody disaster,” and “danger to society” amongst them—but then, in the midst of his rant, she saw his dark arm rise and descend toward her. Clarissa froze, afraid he might be lashing out, but she wasn’t at all sure. It was so hard to tell without her spectacles.
By the time his fist got close enough that Clarissa could see that he was indeed attempting to strike her, it was too late to avoid the blow. Fortunately, the others had apparently suspected he was winding up, and had moved closer while he spoke. Several of them descended on the man midswing, preventing the blow. There was a blurry blending and shifting of color before her as they struggled. Clarissa heard Prudhomme’s curses and a grunt from one of the shapes, whom she suspected was Ffoulkes, the butler. Then there was much cursing as the kaleidoscope blur of bodies began to shift toward the door.
“Fie! Shame on you, Lord Prudhomme,” Clarissa’s stepmother cried, her voice clearly distressed as her lilac blur followed the mass of other colors to the door, then she added anxiously, “I hope once you calm down you shall see your way clear to forgiving Clarissa. I am sure she did not mean to set your wig on fire.”
Clarissa sank back in her chair with a sigh of disgust. She couldn’t believe that her stepmother would still hope to make a match with the man. She’d set his wig on fire, for heaven’s sake! And he’d tried to hit her! Though Clarissa should have known better than to think that would put Lydia off making a match. What did her stepmother care if she ended up married to an abusive mate?
“Clarissa!”
Sitting up abruptly, she turned to peer warily around as the lilac blur that was Lydia reentered the room and slammed the door behind her.
“How could you?”
“I did not do it on purpose, Lydia,” Clarissa said at once. “And it would never have happened at all if you would just let me wear my spectacles. Surely being graceful, even with spectacles, will get me more suitors than—”
“Never!” Lydia snapped. “How many times have I to tell you that girls with spectacles simply do not find husbands? I know of what I speak. It is better to be a little clumsy than bespectacled.”
“I set his wig on fire!” Clarissa cried with disbelief. “That is more than a little clumsy, and really, this is beyond ridiculous now. ’Tis becoming dangerous. He could have been badly burned.”
“Yes. He could have. Thank the good Lord he was not,” Lydia said, sounding suddenly calm. Clarissa nearly moaned aloud. She had quickly come to learn that when her stepmother went calm, it did not bode well for her.