The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane Read Free Page A

Lady Emily, personal gratification
aside, do you not think the time has passed for schoolroom pranks?
You must be all of eighteen, and ready for your come-out. There
comes a time, sadly, when we must put away childish quirks and at
least outwardly behave as Society dictates. Though we can certainly
still think what we wish and occasionally—just to lend an air of
intrigue to our countenance—indulge in the odd devilment.”
    By now the portmanteau was safely in the back
of the gig and Tansy had retaken her seat.
    The younger girl’s eyes fairly danced. “I am
to be popped off, as Grandmama so vulgarly says, this Season. It is
ever so exciting to think of, but all I have been doing for weeks
on end, ever since I came to town, is standing for hours and hours
being fitted for the ugliest gowns imaginable. It is all so very
fatiguing, and I just had to do something or go mad. Aunt Ce-Ce has
charge of my wardrobe, you see—Grandmama being too frail for such
exertions—and Ce-Ce has the vilest taste. The modiste she favors is
so hungry for our favors she agrees to every horrid ruffle, and
spouts ecstasies about the absolute tons of lace Ce-Ce thinks must
smother everything I wear. And Ashley, the wretch, refuses to
listen to my complaints at all!”
    Lady Emily paused for breath, her emotions on
this so-near-to-her-heart subject having brought a becoming flush
to her cheeks.
    “So when I met Godfrey at the library,” she
resumed, explaining a brand of logic that smacked of a mind that
readily made five of two and two, “and again several times in the
mornings at the park, I decided to, well, to use him to remind
Ashley of my existence. He does sometimes forget me for months on
end, what with his clubs and hunting boxes, speeches in Parliament,
and the managing of all the estates, and—oh!—and any other excuse
he can find,” she wailed, thus condemning the unimpeachable
lifestyle of the Duke to the ranks of the pointlessly silly.
“Ashley is my brother,” she added somewhat unnecessarily.
    Tansy was busy trying to get the gig moving
again. “I don’t think I follow you.”
    “Ashley—he’s my brother,” repeated Lady
Emily.
    “That, my dear nodcock, I comprehend,” her
new confidant replied dryly. “What I cannot fathom is why you have
so little to say as to your style of dress, if we may pass over
your brother’s failings for the moment and fall back to the subject
of flounces and smothering lace. The tedium of fittings, and the
lack of social affairs for one who is not yet Out, I also
understand—for I have worked for part of a Season for a Miss Buxley
during her come-out.” A small smile appeared as she recalled her
sudden departure from that particular position. “Please enlighten
me as I try to raise Lazarus here from the dead so we can push off
for the Squire’s.”
    At that she yanked the dozing Dobbin—or
Horace—to a semblance of attention and the old cob, his hooves
fairly dragging with each step, set off at an even slower pace than
before.
    “The fact is,” Lady Emily willingly
explained, “my gowns are much the same as any now in the mode, I
suppose. There is just something, I cannot quite put my finger on
it, but Something rather Overpowering about them. I feel quite
dwarfed. There just seems to be so Much Gown and so Little Me! The
only things I’ve liked at all are this outfit and one other, my
riding habit. Grandmama picked both of them before informing Ashley
that one more trip to Bond Street with ‘that young
prattlebox’—that’s me,” she admitted artlessly, “and she would
surely be carried off by an apoplexy.”
    Tansy gave a chuckle and inwardly agreed with
the old lady’s opinion that young Lady Emily’s roundabout method of
speaking for five minutes to say what could have been said in less
than half the time—and with less than a quarter the drama—could be
a bit wearing.
    The turn to the right was in sight now,
finally, and Tansy tried with little success to coax