The Dowager Viscountess St. John shot up a hand. As one, they looked to her. The oldest member of their group, the mother of the Kearsley sisters, with daughters who ranged from five to twenty-five, the respected if eccentric matron did not make all meetings, but she’d proven devout and devoted. She was positioned on a pale-blue settee, seated between two of her daughters, Cora and Anwen. “If I might make a suggestion,” she began. “As dear Emma is off traveling for her honeymoon and Clara is otherwise busy with her music hall and—”
“Get to it, already, Mother,” Cora urged.
“I volunteer to lead the discussion pertaining to sexual relations,” the dowager viscountess finished.
The woman’s daughters visibly recoiled.
“Absolutely not,” Cora hissed. “I forbid it.”
The Kearsley mother bristled. “I beg your pardon. I have seven children and am quite adept at answering questions about the pleasure I found with your fath—”
Cora stuffed her fingers in her ears. “Laa-la-laa.”
“I’ll quit again,” Anwen vowed, her voice inordinately loud for the fact she had her palms clamped firmly over her ears.
“Well, I shall gouge my eyes out,” Brenna swore.
“I daresay that won’t help with what you’ll hear,” Isla Gately pointed out.
Valerie brought the gavel down hard, pounding it until the room had fallen quiet. “Sylvia would not approve of this,” she said quietly.
“I agree. She’d be as horrified as all of us at the idea of my mother instructing us on such matters,” Cora muttered.
Lady St. John frowned. “All women should be so lucky as to have a mother so free to speak of ‘such matters,’ as you call them.” A murmur of agreement rolled around the room, and the dowager viscountess preened. “Eh—see?” she asked, pointing out the other members to her daughter.
“I was speaking about the possibility of Annalee leaving,” Valerie said impatiently. She glared sharply at Annalee. “And neither do I approve.”
Another round of agreement rolled around the parlor.
It had been inevitable—with the spirited crew amongst them, the initial upset had been destined to give way to rebellion.
“This isn’t for Sylvia to know about,” Annalee spoke firmly, intending to quash those efforts. Sylvia, one of her dearest friends, was with child. Despite the world’s low opinion of Annalee—most of those ill thoughts true—she wasn’t so selfish as to be a burden for Sylvia at this delicate time. That was, any more selfish than she’d already been. “And . . . and . . . it doesn’t have to be forever.” It would just feel like forever. “I will go, and then . . . when she returns, I’ll come back.” She smiled. “It is that simple.” That was, if her soul managed to survive her departure.
Nay, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, simple about it.
Valerie took to her feet, drawing everyone’s attention her way. “First, I will say I do not believe you should go,” she said to the room at large. “It is not who we are.”
And yet, they were also nothing if the ladies present were barred from attending because of Annalee.
“It is my decision,” Annalee murmured, speaking the one statement she knew these women could understand and respect. Ultimately, they, who were denied choices over everything in life, honored one another’s control of self and their decisions.
Flattening her mouth, Valerie wrenched her gaze over to the window and shook her head, her disapproval more palpable than had she spoken it aloud.
“Where will you go?”
Oh, God. Isla’s quiet murmuring forced Annalee to think about the one thing her mind had been shying away from. Because . . . there was one place she’d have to go . . . because there were no other options. Not ones that didn’t compromise the women here, or their society. Annalee drew in a shaky breath, getting the air into her lungs to expel the loathsome words. “To my parents’,” she said, infusing all the tranquility she could manage into them.
If one had dropped an embroidering pin, one might have heard it strike the walnut planks, as quiet as the room fell.
“They will . . . have you?” Isla Gately asked the better, if blunt, question.
Olivia shoved an elbow into the younger woman’s side.
“Whaaat? I’m just asking,” Isla groused.
“No one is going anywhere.” That pronouncement echoed around the room. The dowager viscountess came to her feet. “My dear, we do not need a gentleman to salvage your reputation.”
“What are you suggesting, Mother?” Anwen asked, hope tingeing her query.
With all the members’ attention resting on her, the dowager viscountess glided across the room, headed on a path toward Annalee. “I’m suggesting Annalee go about as she has these past several days, attending respectable . . . if dull”—the dowager viscountess added under her breath—“affairs and reputable establishments.” Lady St. John reached Annalee’s chair.
Annalee craned her neck back. “I’ve attempted that. All I’ve managed to create is gossip.” That was, even more gossip.
The dowager viscountess’s eyes twinkled, and she slipped onto the arm of Annalee’s white upholstered French fauteuil and placed her hand on Annalee’s shoulder. “Ah, but that is because you, my dear, are a unicorn. Rare sightings do not make it a horse. Being a horse makes it a horse.”
“Unicorns are fictional creatures,” Brenna Kearsley, the bluestocking member of their group, and also one of the most literal-speaking ones, called to her mother. “Mythical.”
Mythical. Fictional. Both perfect words to describe the charade Annalee had attempted to take part in. Only . . .
What if she transformed herself? Yes, a partnership with the highly esteemed and prim Lord Darlington would have been the easier course, but if she continued to show herself in a new light . . .
“Rome was not built in a day, my dear,” Lady St. John murmured, squeezing Annalee’s shoulder gently.
“That is another cliché,” Brenna pointed out. “One that is— Owwww!” she exclaimed, glaring at her older sister Cora. “Whatever is that for?”
“Because Mama is making good points. Important ones. And you are taking away from her very vital messaging for Annalee,” Cora shot back. Cupping her hands about her mouth, she yelled across the room, “As you were, Mama!”
The dowager viscountess lifted her head. “Thank you, dearest.”
The older woman would not only support her daughters and join them in the revolutionary group but also fight to keep Annalee within the membership ranks? What would it be like to have a mother such as her?
“Now, my dear, he has rejected your offer, and to that I say . . . pooh on him.” The dowager threw her arms wide, like a veritable Cleopatra thwarting her male counterparts and calling her people to join her insurrection. “When they bring you a battle, the only course is to declare an all-out war!”
Wild hurrahs went up, feet stomped. Clapping commenced, along with whistles and cheering.
With the Mismatch Society come undone over this rebellion, Lady St. John leaned close and whispered in Annalee’s ear, “Instead of that defeatist attitude, dear, I’d think about how you can one-up the gentleman and make him regret ever daring to reject you.”