Page 3 of Oddity of the Ton
How many times had Papa told hernotto contradict her mother, even when Mother was in the wrong?
“I quite despair of you, Eleanor. If it were up to me, I’d…”
Eleanor was spared the knowledge of what Mother would do,if it were up to her, by the arrival of Countess Fairchild.
“Lady Howard, I came to…” She hesitated. “Forgive me, am I interrupting?”
“Nothing of importance, countess.”
“Then might I tempt you with some refreshment? And your daughter…”
Eleanor flicked her gaze toward her mother, who, earlier that evening in the carriage, had delivered a lecture on the fit of her dress and her ungainly figure brought about by overindulgence.
“I-I’m not hungry, countess,” she stammered. “Thank you.”
Her stomach let out a low growl.
“Are you sure?” the countess asked.
“Eleanor intends to secure herself a dance partner,” her mother said. “Don’t you, darling?”.
“Yes, Mother,” Eleanor said flatly.
Her mother gave a satisfied nod, took the countess’s arm, then headed for the side room where the buffet had been laid out.
Eleanor resumed her attention on the dancers, and her heart gave a little flutter as Whitcombe swept past.
Nobody could prevent her from admiring him—from relishing the way he moved to the music, as if it flowed through his veins, or how his lithe, athletic body formed such perfect outlines as he danced.
The human form—which exuded such vitality—was the most delectable subject to draw and paint. And Whitcombe was not merely a physical form—but a beating heart, rich, warm, blood, and sinew and muscle, binding the bones together. And a living, breathing soul, which, together with the physical form, had created the perfect human being.
Each time she observed him, she saw a little more—a crease around the eyes when he smiled, a ripple of muscles beneath his perfectly tailored jacket. And she committed every tiny detail to memory so that she might capture him in her sketches and portraits.
Why, then, could she never recall more than a few steps of a quadrille?
Her breath hitched as he approached, hand in hand with Arabella Ponsford.
Their eyes met, and Eleanor’s stomach somersaulted. She held her breath as she lost herself in his sapphire gaze. For a moment, an invisible thread stretched across the air between them, and her heart began to soar, buoyed with hope.
Then his partner whispered in his ear. His gaze hardened and he curled his lip into a sneer.
Eleanor’s heart plummeted. She turned away, biting her lip to stem the tears threatening to sting her eyes.
What a fool she was! The brief connection was nothing more than a fancy—which she should have grown out of the day she left the nursery.
Even if he were to want her, he could never give her the life she craved—a life where she could be herself, not Society’s, nor Mother’s, ideal of a young woman. Her dream was to live in peace, away from noise and people, where she could be free to paint. Not the soulless little landscapes that adorned the walls of the dullest parlors in London, but paintings thatmeantsomething—paintings that portrayed the subject as it ought to be portrayed, not as Society expected.
Marriage would destroy that dream. No husband wanted a wife unable to conform. Men wanted wives to provide them with cash the day they married, give them an heir within a year of uttering the vows, then associate themselves with the other matriarchs of Society to indulge in idle gossip, embroidery, and tea parties, while they sought pleasure in the arms of another.
That was the truth of marriage. Andthatwas Eleanor’s idea of hell—a prison inescapable except by death.
But a secret voice still whispered in the back of her mind that she could withstand any prison to be loved byhim.
Chapter Two
Devil’s toes—could lifeget any worse?
Every bloody party was the same—a silt-filled pond in which he was the trout that all the preening misses and their overbearing mamas wished to hook, net, then gut before slapping him on a platter to pick at.
