Page 3 of The Trouble with True Love

Evie gave a chuckle of laughter and set Clara’s correspondence on her desk. “Is there anything else you need, Miss Deverill?”

“No, Evie, you go on. But I would ask you not to tell Mr. Beale the news about my brother. If it becomes necessary to inform him, I will decide when and how to do so.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The secretary departed, and Clara finished putting Lady Truelove’s correspondence into her portfolio. She then added Irene’s telegram, a stack of notepaper, and a fountain pen, and left her office, ignoring the editor’s malevolent glare as she departed. On the sidewalk, she turned left and started up Belford Row as if she knew just where she was going, though in truth, she really had no idea.

It had to be somewhere quiet, she decided as she walked, a place with no distractions or interruptions or cranky editors, where she could compose the advice column in peace.

She paused at the corner, and as she glanced to her right to check for traffic, she spied a sign for Mrs. Mott’s Tea Emporium halfway down the block.

Mrs. Mott’s, she decided, would suit her purpose admirably, for at this hour it was bound to be empty and quiet. She turned her steps in that direction, and when she entered the tiny shop a few minutes later, she found that it lived up to her expectations. The place was empty but for a pair of gentlemen who didn’t even look up from their tea as she came in.

The waitress led her to a table beside that of the two men, but with a thick cluster of potted palms between them and herself, their presence wasn’t likely to prove a distraction. She sat down, ordered a cream tea, and pulled out the letters and stationery supplies from her portfolio. Bracing herself to finally conquer the task she’d been putting off all week, she chose an envelope from the pile in front of her and pulled out the letter.

Dear Lady Truelove,

I am a girl of noble family and strong social position, and I wish to marry, but though my parents provided a sizable dowry and launched me into society last season, I was unable to find a husband. I am painfully shy, you see, and because of that, I proved a social failure.

At every ball or party, I stood against the wall, agonized because I was being overlooked and yet terrified that some young man would notice me. And whenever I was presented to any member of the opposite sex, particularly one I found attractive, my shyness overwhelmed me. I stammered, I blushed, I could think of nothing to say, and I ended up making an utter fool of myself at every turn. This, I hardly need add, did not make a favorable impression on any of the young men introduced to me.

Another London season is about to begin, and I am terrified that I will fail again. What if I meet no one? What if I die a lonely spinster? I am writing to you, Lady Truelove, in the desperate hope that you can suggest ways I might become more attractive to gentlemen and overcome my shyness with them. Can you help me? Signed, A Devastated Debutante.

Clara was more sympathetic to this girl’s plight than the girl herself could ever have dreamed. With only a few changes, this letter might well have been written by her own hand, and she would have dearly liked to assist this girl, but what assistance could she give? If she knew any method for overcoming shyness and transforming from wallflower to shining social success, she’d have employed it on herself, found a husband of her own, and been off on her own honeymoon long before now. With reluctance, she set aside the letter from the Devastated Debutante and picked up another from the pile.

Dear Lady Truelove,

Having reached my twenty-fifth year, I have decided it is time for me to choose a wife, and since I have very specific requirements, my search for a bride will require your assistance. My circumstances are straitened, so she must possess a substantial dowry. In addition, she must be very pretty, for it would be unthinkable that I should have to wed a plain girl—

Clara stopped reading with a sound of disdain. Having been deemed a plain girl herself by most of the men who met her, and having had no dowry at all to offer until very recently, she was not the least bit sympathetic to this shallow young man’s predicament. She ripped his letter in half, set it to one side, and tried again.

Dear Lady Truelove,

I am in such desperate straits that I don’t know if you can even help me. I am in love with a young lady, but she takes no notice of me, for I am not, sadly, the most eloquent or handsome of men. I am writing to solicit your advice on how I might gain her attention, initiate conversation, and begin my courtship. I would be grateful for any suggestions you can offer. Yours, Speechless in South Kensington.

Clara stared down at the inked lines before her, lines that once again demonstrated why putting her in charge of Lady Truelove was laughable. What advice could she offer any of these people?

She looked up, staring across the empty tables of the tea shop, thinking of the countless times she’d stood to the side of a ballroom with the other wallflowers, of the parties where she’d lingered unnoticed in a corner of the room. What did she know of gaining the attentions of the opposite sex? Of initiating conversation? Of courtship?

She shoved aside the pile of letters and leaned forward, plunking her elbow on the table and resting her forehead on the heels of her hands, swamped by inadequacy. She couldn’t do this, at least not alone.

“Dear God,” she whispered, desperate for a bit of divine guidance. “I’m in over my head, and I could really use some help.”

“Indeed?” a male voice murmured, a voice that was deep, low, and quite obviously amused. “How might I be of assistance?”

Chapter 2

Clara bolted upright in her chair, but when the voice came again, she realized it was not the Almighty who had uttered such prescient words, but one of the two gentlemen seated at the table on the other side of the potted palms. Though he was facing her direction, he was not looking at her, and she realized that he had not been speaking to her at all, but to his companion. He was also, quite obviously, a mortal man.

Mortal, perhaps, she thought as she angled her head for a better view of him between the palm fronds, but certainly good-looking enough to be a god.

His hair, short but unruly, was of dark, burnished gold and seemed to catch and hold every glimmer of light through the windows of the tea shop. His eyes, the clear, azure blue of a Grecian sea, were focused completely on his companion, granting Clara the undeniable treat of studying him unobserved. His face, of perfect symmetry, lean planes, and chiseled contours, seemed as unyielding as a marble statue, but then he smiled, and at the sheer, dazzling brilliance of it, Clara’s heart turned over in her chest.

“I’m happy to help,” he said, “but I hope it’s not money you need. I’m absolutely flat at present.”

His companion said something in reply, but Clara didn’t catch it, for her attention was fully occupied by the man opposite. And who could blame her? It wasn’t every day that a golden, windblown Adonis came down from Mount Olympus to grace an obscure little tea shop in Holborn.

His body—what she could see of it above the table—was sheathed in the fine white linen and dark gray morning coat of a proper English gentleman, and yet, his wide shoulders and tapering torso made his physique seem far more suited to some ancient Olympiad or Roman coliseum than the civilized London of 1893.

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