The Bolingbroke Chit: A Regency Romance Read Free

Harlow Hoyden had observed, her sister now ranked among them—met regularly to discuss the trivial matter of gardening, Agatha rolled her eyes. Almost all of her parents’ conversation consisted of her father lecturing her mother on how to best cultivate flowers. Although Lady Bolingbroke’s interest in horticulture extended only to ensuring that the bouquet in the drawing room did not clash with the drapes, she always listened to these drawn-out speeches as if she found the information to be the most engrossing she had ever encountered. She considered it her duty as a wife to provide her husband with an attentive ear, even if her spouse could not provide her with attention-worthy material.
    This slavish devotion to tedious oration was another reason Lady Agatha discouraged suitors.
    “He was a little shocked by the result of the vote to admit Miss Harlow, for he did not think her membership application would be approved,” Lady Bolingbroke admitted with an apologetic glance at the duchess’s sister. “Like most men of his ilk, Lord Bolingbroke does not appreciate the value of change and allowing a woman into the august society is a rather large change. However, now that the watershed event has taken place, he’s determined to put a brave face on it and accord Miss Harlow all the respect she deserves as a fellow member of the society.”
    “How very broad-minded of him,” the duchess said with an ironic grin. “I’m sure Vinnie appreciates his forbearance.”
    Having followed Miss Harlow’s candidacy, which had caused quite a stir after a wager was placed in the betting book at Brooks’s that she would not succeed in her goal, Agatha knew how ardently the Duchess of Trent supported her sister’s cause and wasn’t at all surprised by the archness in her tone. That the other Harlow girl needed her twin’s ardent support was not in doubt, for the young woman had scandalized the ton with her determination to win entrée into the masculine domain. A more modest lady would have immediately declined the invitation, which had clearly been issued as a joke, but Vinnie Harlow used it as an opportunity to achieve her true goal: nabbing a husband. Everyone knew she was dangling after Felix Dryden, Marquess of Huntly, the famous naturalist who had recently returned from a two-year expedition to the South Seas. Her pursuit of such an eligible bachelor—he had wealth, good looks and a quick wit—would be unremarkable save for the fact that she had only just emerged from deep mourning for her fiancé, Sir Waldo Windbourne. The flagrant lack of respect for a man whose life had been tragically cut short offended all proper feeling.
    Ordinarily, Agatha’s supply of proper feeling ran short, a circumstance her mother frequently deplored as unnatural, but on the matter of Miss Lavinia Harlow and her hoydenish sister, she had a substantial surplus. She couldn’t say why exactly the behavior of the two girls affronted her so much, but there was something about them that set her teeth on edge.
    To be fair, Agatha had never actually paid much heed to Vinnie, for she had always seemed like the sensible twin, complying with the strictures of society without complaint like any proper young lady. But her zealous resolve to gain membership to the British Horticultural Society proved she was cut from the same cloth as her sister.
    “Oh, but I do appreciate his forbearance,” Miss Harlow insisted now with so much humility Agatha had little recourse but to doubt her sincerity. “I did not expect to gain admittance to such a prestigious organization and fully anticipate there will be a period of adjustment for everyone. I’m grateful for all the support I can get.”
    Just as Miss Harlow uttered the word support, reinforcements arrived in the form of Sir Charles Burton and the Earl of Moray, two members of the horticultural society who appeared to require no period of adjustment in accepting a woman among their ranks. The earl, in