“You’re sorely mistaken. I loathe plum pudding,” Sarani had said and steered the subject away. “And you, have you had a season?”
“This was meant to be my first.” The girl had tried to hide the flash of disappointment behind careless bravado. “But after mourning for so long for Papa and my brothers, Mama wished to wait until Rhystan returned. I suppose she knew he’d be back this season, because I was presented to the queen after Easter along with a hundred other girls, so I’m officially out. But who needs parties anyway? All you get are stuffy ballrooms, silly smelly sirs, and warm lemonade.”
Sarani had blinked, more pieces of the puzzle falling into place. So the dowager duchess had intended her son to return. The timing of Ravenna’s presentation at court as well as the interviews of potential brides were part of a meticulous scheme to see the Duke of Embry settled. After all, any enviable match of a duke would only help his unmarried younger sister. An odd feeling had squeezed against Sarani’s ribs.
Was it pity? For Rhystan, Ravenna, or herself?
“Silly smelly sirs?” she’d asked, shaking off the strange reaction.
“Have you ever noticed how gentlemen think that bathing means dabbing oneself with copious amounts of perfume and calling it done?” Ravenna had wrinkled her nose with an affected huff of disgust. “It’s bloody awful. Like putting rose water on a pile of refuse and expecting a perfectly clean lady to dance with it.”
Sarani had burst into laughter, though a part of her had wondered whether Ravenna’s marriage prospects had all been put on hold because of Rhystan. He’d been gallivanting who-knew-where while his sister languished in a state of painful limbo, waiting to be presented to society by her only remaining brother, the duke. And he had not been there.
Then again, Rhystan had been running from his own demons. From expectation.
Daughters and sons of the aristocracy were pawns to be played at will—to increase fortunes, to gain a title, to strengthen an alliance. Even she had not been spared from the crushing weight of duty, until she’d had no choice. She had run from Talbot and Vikram, unwilling to be prey either to a smarmy rotter or an underhanded assassin.
Rhystan had run from his birthright and mother.
That didn’t mean she trusted him, just that she empathized.
Swallowing past the growing lump of nausea in her throat, Sarani stood at the threshold of the staircase of the dowager duchess’s home leading down into the lavish ballroom, her stomach in its usual knots. This “intimate” welcome home party was yet another ploy by the duchess to make her son come to his senses and select a woman of her choosing. Sarani could feel it.
She hadn’t seen Rhystan in days. Apparently, he’d been busy dealing with some estate issues with his solicitor. Though he hadn’t shared anything with her, she could see the strain of it in his features whenever she did see him. Admittedly, the burden of the charade was wearing also on her. Pasting a smile on her face, she approached Fullerton.
“Lady Sara Lockhart,” the butler intoned as she descended.
She felt the gazes flock and settle on her as though she were some circus oddity or breed of rare creature that the Duke of Embry had brought back from his travels. It was India, for heaven’s sake, she wanted to scream, not some uncivilized hellhole. Even as she thought it, she almost laughed. Most of these narrowminded people likely viewed her birthplace and home as worse than that.
Propaganda…it was a dangerous weapon.
Though the people in this room might not suspect her mixed origins, she knew they had already judged her harshly for having been raised in the colonized east…a place full of murderous heretics, according to the Times, which would undoubtedly have tainted her somehow. British news commentary denounced colonial society everywhere, often portraying its people, even in their own colonies, as mad and promiscuous.
Now walking among these hubristically superior English nobles, Sarani had never felt more like Miss Swartz in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Even now, she could see the author’s written words in her mind’s eye: “Marry that mulatto woman? I don’t like the color, sir.”
Gracious, if they only knew the truth…
Would they snub her as well?
Sarani held her head high, catching the eye of the dowager duchess, who stood surrounded by fawning admirers. The ice in the woman’s glare did not dissipate, and Sarani felt the scrape of it like a blade. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes and leave, she approached and bowed her head in greeting, curtsying elegantly.
“My lady,” she murmured.
Haughty brows vaulted to the dowager duchess’s hairline. “The proper address is Your Grace, but I suppose you should be forgiven considering where you’re from. The wilds, truly.”
Sarani felt her cheeks heat with shame as the entire entourage twittered behind their fans. Of course, she knew how to address a duchess, but nerves had twisted her tongue. The dowager’s venom was hidden behind a patronizing, sugary smile, but Sarani would not fall prey to such an obvious trap. The woman clearly wanted to establish how unsuitable Sarani was as a match for her son in her eyes, royal or not.
“As you say, Your Grace, my apologies,” she replied sweetly. “Though some of the Indian princes would beg to differ with that assessment.”
“Oh, have you met many Indian princes, my lady?” a young blond-haired woman blurted out. “I’ve heard that their clothes are studded with rubies and emeralds.”
Sarani held the dowager duchess’s eyes for an extended beat before smiling gently at the girl who had spoken and then gone pink as though she’d crossed some unforgivable line. Perhaps she had from the looks of the other ladies. Sarani gave a wide smile. “Yes, and they do. They’re quite ostentatious, truly, some of the displays of wealth. Rubies as big as one’s fist and emeralds the size of plums.”
“I cannot even imagine!” the girl exclaimed.
“They are uncivilized,” another lady scoffed with a look of affront. “Truly, I do not know how my father expects me to mingle with heathens from the colonies. It is insufferable.”
Sarani detected the scorn in the woman’s tone and the tangible derision in her pale eyes. Undeniably pretty, she was dressed in a gorgeous gown, her heart-shaped face twisted into a sneer. Sarani would put money on this being one of her so-called rivals.
Lifting one shoulder in an elegant shrug, she straightened her spine, her brow lifting in an arch that would rival the Dowager Duchess of Embry’s. “I am certain we have not been introduced. Do remind me, since I have been in the insufferable colonies, what is the proper etiquette again?”
The lady went red, opening her mouth to spew some scathing retort, but closed it as her eyes flicked—along with everyone else’s—to the ballroom entrance.