Art and Artifice Read Free Page B

then, I
had no idea Lord Robert was so determined to marry.”
    “Surely he gave you some sign,” Ariadne said,
reaching for a comfit. “A lock of hair, a passionate letter.” She
popped the chewy confection into her mouth as if she feared the
sugar would speckle her pink muslin gown if she tarried.
    “Not a word,” Emily assured her. “We haven’t
set eyes on each other since I went away to Barnsley. Apparently
His Grace and Lady Minerva had some inkling. They said Lord Robert
has been visiting frequently of late.” A shame Lord Robert hadn’t
thought to spend as much time with the woman he intended to marry!
She would have dissuaded him from the notion.
    Priscilla rose to pace the room. Her hair was
as bright as the gilt chairs, and the blue of her muslin day dress
with its white lace collar was a perfect match for the blue
walls.
    “Then all is not lost,” she said. “We have
only to convince Lord Robert that you must wait until after the
Season.”
    “We must convince Lord Robert that I am not
the woman for him,” Emily corrected her, back pressed against the
hard wood of her chair. “I don’t wish to marry, Pris. I thought I
made that clear.”
    Ariadne and Daphne exchanged looks. “But Lord
Snedley says it is the duty and privilege of all young ladies to
marry,” Daphne protested. “Unless they wish to enter a nunnery or
Convent Garden.”
    Emily refrained from commenting on the advice
of the mysterious lord who had taken Society by storm. Lord
Pompadour Snedley’s Guide to London’s Beau Monde ,
illustrated and annotated, had been all the rage, even at the
Barnsley School. Certainly Daphne had memorized the volume in the
last few days before graduation.
    “Surely we can reason with Lord Robert,”
Ariadne protested. “You told us you had been betrothed for years.
If your father approves, it must be a decent match. Why refuse him,
sight unseen?”
    Until that moment, she’d always approved of
Ariadne’s logic. Oh, she might get the odd fancy from time to time.
She was an author, after all. Her mind positively brimmed with
knowledge from the plays, poetry, and books she’d read. But in the
face of such logic, how was Emily to admit that it wasn’t logic
that moved her. Her! The one who prided herself on never succumbing
to emotions!
    As if Priscilla sensed her weakening, she
came to sit near Emily on one of the delicate little chairs.
“Perhaps this isn’t so horrid,” she said. “Some people might even
say you’re fortunate. With his family connections, Lord Robert is
quite a catch.”
    “Perhaps,” Emily acknowledged. “But I don’t
know why I must catch him. I’m not a tremendous heiress; I bring
only a small estate from my mother to a marriage. And if it’s a
duke’s consequence he craves, there must be other dukes with
marriageable daughters.”
    “Not as many as you might think,” Priscilla
said with a sigh. “I’m having trouble enough finding one who is
eligible.”
    Daphne leaned across the tea table, blue eyes
widening. “Oh, Priscilla, have you set your sights on a duke,
then?”
    By the way Priscilla’s head lifted, Emily
knew it for the truth. “They are generally old and crotchety,
Pris,” she reminded her, “except for His Grace, course.”
    “You are referring to the royal dukes, the
brothers of the Prince,” Priscilla said with a sniff. “Of course I
would not settle for one of those. I rather thought I’d seek
introduction to the Duke of Rottenford. He’s said to be rather
dashing.”
    “He’s the youngest of the bachelor dukes and
has a fortune of ten thousand pounds per annum and a seat just
outside London,” Ariadne said. “I read it in DeBrett’s
Peerage .”
    “You see?” Priscilla said with a sigh. “He’s
perfect. And if you took the trouble to look into your engagement
further, Emily, you might find that it is every bit as good. It
will put you in the best position. You can flirt, and no one can
get peeved because they’ll all know