Page 9 of Oddity of the Ton
She slipped out of bed and padded across the floor to the window overlooking the garden. Her gaze fell upon a rosebush, the soft pink blooms reminding her of a pair of lips. Then she gave a start, as the full extent of her dream crashed into her consciousness.
Heat warming her face, she retreated, as if she feared he would materialize in the garden to mock her from below.
Montague…
She’d called him Montague.
And he’d called hermy darling—before humiliating her in front of everyone.
Perhaps it was best to be invisible. For as much as she yearned for him, she couldn’t bear to look at him. Not the real thing—not yet. It pained her to look into anyone’s eyes—not the physical pain when she scratched herself on a thorn bush, or stubbed her toe. Mother regularly admonished her for her clumsiness. It was a different pain—an unfathomable agony that burned in her soul, as if she were laid bare before the onlooker, exposing herself to ridicule and rejection. Or hanging from a precipice, doomed to fall.
Ridicule was something she weathered and had accustomed herself to. But rejection…
Rejection was something she could never survive.
At least while she admired him from a distance—from the safety of obscurity—she was spared the pain of admitting that, to him, she was nothing.
And she was spared the pain of the rest of the world knowing of her childish infatuation for a man who didn’t even know she existed.
By the time Harriet returned with the tea, Eleanor had managed to don her undergarments without tearing anything, and was holding up her gown to the light.
“Here, let me.” Harriet placed the teacup on the dressing table and plucked the gown from Eleanor’s hands. Eleanor raised her arms while Harriet slipped the gown over her head. Then she stood, like an obedient child, while her maid fastened the ties, adjusted her lace tuck, and smoothed the dress into place, her soft, delicate hands caressing the fabric. Then she led Eleanor to the dressing table, sat her down, and proceeded to brush her hair.
Eleanor closed her eyes and let her body relax. This was her favorite part of the day, when the house was quiet, save for the distant sounds of activity as the servants set about their tasks, and she could relish Harriet’s tender care—the smooth, repetitive motion of the brush running through her hair at just the right amount of pressure, unraveling the tangles that always seemed to amass overnight.
A gentle hand touched her shoulder, and she opened her eyes to see Harriet’s warm, kind ones looking at her in the mirror.
“Drink your tea before it gets cold, miss. I made it how you like it.”
Obediently, Eleanor lifted the teacup and inhaled the aroma of cinnamon and honey. “Cook didn’t see you with this, did she?”
“No, miss. I was careful not to get caught.”
According to Mother, young ladies were only supposed to take milk or lemon with their tea, and Eleanor’s eccentricities in taste reduced her already limited prospects for making a successful match.
As if a man would take heed of how a woman took her tea!
But perhaps they did—yet another custom everybody but her seemed to understand. Eleanor took milk with her tea in Mother’s presence to avoid disapproval, but the taste and sensation—the way the liquid coated her throat—always brought about such nausea that she had to fight not to expel it. On one occasion, while taking tea with Mother at Countess Fairchild’s, Eleanor had, under the pretense of admiring their hostess’s aspidistra in the orangery, tipped her tea into a plant pot.
Houseplants were obliging in that respect. If onlyshe’dbeen born a houseplant, she could sit quietly in a corner, accompanied only by her thoughts, with no expectations to mingle, make friends, or make herself look presentable to attract a suitor.
She let out a small sigh.
“Are you well, miss?”
Eleanor glanced at her maid’s reflection. “I was wishing I were a houseplant, Harriet.”
Rather than returning the ridicule or disapproval she’d earn from her family—even Papa, if he were in Mother’s presence—Harriet merely smiled. “Is that because they aren’t required to attend parties?”
Eleanor nodded.
“What about the poor plants that reside in a ballroom?” Harriet asked. “They’re forced to endure a party. And, unlike you, they lack the means to leave the room.”
“Then I wish I were a houseplant with legs.”
Harriet let out a laugh. “How would you carry the pot with you, if you were to leave the room?”
“I’d find a way—anythingto avoid a party.”
