Page 1 of Seducing a Frigid Lady
Chapter 1
If Miss Priscilla Lloyd had known how many people would be at the dinner her best friend's parents were hosting, she likely would not have encouraged her father to go. Nor would she have gone herself. Miss Sophie Lyttleton, the daughter of a Viscount, just as Priscilla was, had assured her that there would only be a few guests at dinner. The words, if Priscilla remembered correctly, had been “just a few friends and relatives.”
Yet from the moment she set foot inside the Lyttleton townhouse, she was well aware that her friend had lied to her. Sophie would no doubt assure her she had done nothing but embellish the truth, as many members of thetonwere family or friends in some way, whether they liked it or not.
The intertwining connections built over years and years were the very thing that Priscilla liked to avoid because everybody was always talking about everybody else, always in everyone else's business, and discussing the latest gossip.
More often than not, she found her father at the very centre of said gossip, not physically but in the gossip itself, due to his constant need to be in the strangest business. Even more often than not, it worked out for him in the wealthiest of ways and brought brand new connections, but for weeks or even months before plans came to fruition, thetonwould be talking about whatever hair-brained, nutty scheme the Viscount Lloyd was up to now.
The more guests at an event, the more likely the talk was to turn towards her father, especially when he was in attendance and whetting the appetites of said members with glorious tales of what he intended to do next.
Priscilla was pretty certain that was exactly what would be happening the moment that a group of the men in the party called out to her father upon their arrival, waving him over with smiles and cheers as though the life of the party had arrived.
She was forced to grit her teeth and bare it, recognising only a few friends amongst the crowd and knowing that they would do their best to shield her father from all the others. There was little she could do herself.
“There is no need to look so worried, Prissy,” Lady Diane Bishop said. The Countess Bishop and Priscilla's aunt laid a gloved hand upon her forearm and gave a comforting squeeze. The two of them watched her father walk into the drawing room, where they were all to await the dinner gong. “Your father is a grown man, and he can take care of himself.”
Priscilla pursed her lips, not only because she knew that for the most part her aunt was right, but also because she hated it when anyone called her Prissy.
"I can't help but worry," Priscilla admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.
"You are the child, and he is the parent," Lady Diane pointed out, caressing her niece's face for only a second. "Whether you are a young lady now or not, he is supposed to take care of you, and that is exactly what he has always done."
Priscilla couldn't argue with that. Her father had always done right by her. More than that, he had always listened to her, and she knew that if she had really asked him to, he would not have attended that night, nor would he have made her attend.
"Now, where are our hosts? We must make our greetings." The lady slipped her hand into the crook of Priscilla's arm and held her with a vice-like grip as she began to encourage her around the room towards Lord and Lady Marsham, Sophie's parents.
“Ahh! Lady Bishop! Miss Priscilla! It is so good of you to join us!”
Lady Marsham greeted them both immediately upon seeing them cross the room towards her and her husband, who were already entertaining a small group of their guests in the centre of the room.
Lady Marsham, who was a few years younger than Lady Bishop, was beginning to get the first few streaks of grey in her brown hair. And there were a few wrinkles about her eyes, but other than that, she was a picture of health and beauty, dressed in a fine shade of lavender silk with diamonds on her tiara and around her neck.
She greeted the countess and Priscilla with a kiss upon each cheek before holding the younger at arm's length as if she wished to look at her. "You look more and more like your mother each day."
Priscilla had to grit her teeth at that. She had heard it so many times and even managed to see it for herself when she looked at her reflection, yet it never got any easier to hear.
All she had to test the theory by were the paintings of her mother that hung in every one of her father's residences and the very few memories she had of her mother who had died in childbirth when she was just four years old. She had little to go on save for the memory of a lullaby she could hear in a sweet voice when she went to sleep, and the softness of a caress upon her cheek.
"I am certain she was always much more handsome than I, Lady Marsham," Priscilla responded, bowing her head because she could not curtsey with the lady's hands still upon her shoulders. Feeling awkward and slightly embarrassed, she hoped she was wearing enough powder on her face to stop it from being obvious.
"I would have to disagree," Lady Marsham protested with a shake of her head. "Though she was a most handsome woman indeed."
Priscilla bit back a sharp retort, having no desireto talk about her mother; it was just too painful. Before she could do so, the Viscountess released her and began to gesture to another member of the party. "Lady Sophie, look who has arrived!"
Relief washed over Priscilla as the woman called over her daughter. With a quick curtsey to their hosts, Priscilla turned and hurried to meet her friend a little way off from them.
"Thank goodness you're here!" She hissed under her breath, glancing back over her shoulder to be sure that none of the elder members of the group had followed her.
"I would have been down sooner," Sophie responded, looking more than a little flustered. "But I was having a bit of a problem with my dress."
To look at her, nobody would have ever guessed. Looking like a much younger version of her mother with glossy brown hair and glistening green eyes, Sophie was quite the beauty, and she pulled off her pale mint green gown beautifully. Priscilla wasn’t quite so certain that she was matching up in the peach gown that her aunt had insisted she wear.
Linking her arm with her friends for emotional support, she squeezed her forearm affectionately and stated, “Nobody could ever tell.”
For a few moments, the two women simply smiled at each other. Priscilla had to admit that she had missed her friend.
“I am so glad that you and your father finally decided to show your faces in polite society again,” Sophie said affectionately and Priscilla struggled to stop herself from openly cringing at her words. She was beginning to sound an awful lot like her mother and even Lady Bishop.
