The Golden Season Read Free Page B

mine.” She gave a delicate shudder. “But, yes, I suppose I might have to consider marrying,” she finished.
    “Surely things have not come to that?” Emily cried softly.
    “I’m afraid so, Emily.” Lady Lydia nodded. “We must face facts and the fact seems clear: I must wed,” she finished in sepulchral tones.
    Easier said than done, Terwilliger thought unhappily.
    “What is it now, Terwilliger?” Lady Lydia demanded, seeing his glum expression. “Has the earth opened up and swallowed my town house?”
    “May I speak frankly?” he asked, certain he was about to overstep himself. But he had three daughters, all of whom he’d successfully married off, and he was confident he knew something about matchmaking. Even though he did not belong to the exalted ranks to which Lady Lydia did, he surmised that when all was said and done the concerns and requirements of the ton’s bachelors were simply amplifications of those from his own strata. But most of all he felt compelled to offer advice because he felt partially responsible for her current predicament.
    “By all means.”
    “Lady Lydia, for years you have been turning down marriage proposals from the finest and wealthiest gentlemen of the ton . I do not think of an eligible bachelor who would risk humiliation by tendering a second offer.”
    “I am sure there exist a few men who have not yet proposed marriage to me.” Her tone was dry.
    “True,” Terwilliger said slowly, “but given the quality of those whom you’ve already turned down, I doubt someone with a lesser pedigree would think he would receive a different answer than his betters. You are famously unattainable, I am afraid.”
    “You don’t think anyone will offer for me?” The idea clearly startled her.
    He cleared his throat, trying to find the line between candidness and delicacy. “I think that the men who would suit your particular requirements are just as famously proud as you. Once it is known that you are in financial straits, the reason for your accessibility will be evident.”
    “But everyone marries to better their situation,” she said. “Either financially or socially. I may not bring wealth to the union, but I still have an ancient and honorable name.”
    “Very true,” he said. “But the manner in which you have deported yourself these last years has given the polite world reason to believe that you consider yourself above dynastic politics. You have made a reputation as someone who need only please herself and does not concern herself with the choices of others.”
    “And so I am. Or rather, have been,” she corrected herself.
    “Exactly. Have been, ” he said. “There are those who will take malicious delight in the necessity that drives your marital ambitions. Including former suitors and rivals.” He sought for some nicer way to phrase the next, but in the end, Terwilliger proved himself a banker. “They might seek to decrease your value in the eyes of potential suitors.”
    Such smallness not only repelled her but fascinated her. “In what way could they do this?”
    “By mocking your past refusal to marry as pretentious and suggesting that you are desperate.”
    “I am.”
    “Such ruthless honesty. Few men would want their future wife to be the subject of their friends’ derision or consider themselves the only choice left to a desperate woman.”
    She inhaled at the ugly words. “No. I can see that they would not.”
    “Don’t misunderstand me, Lady Lydia,” he hurried on. “I have no doubt you will entertain many offers once it is known you are interested in matrimony, but those gentlemen who come up to scratch might not be of the sort you could have chosen had you done the responsible thing and married years ago.”
    “And just what sort of gentlemen do you imagine now will be paying me court?”
    “Well,” he said, picking his way carefully. “I would expect them to be either men who would be happy with the name and cachet you bring to the