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Lady Philomena ‘Mena’ Housley slowly edged her parasol to the left. With each inch, the delicious warmth of the day touched her skin like a warm caress, starting from her exposed wrist and spreading up her arm until it reached the corner of her face. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the sun’s rays, shivering as the heat spread through her body. In a flash, the light saturated her, and whether it was an illusion or not, she thought the air that filled her lungs warmer as well, the pungent smell of the park’s grass with hints of earth and bark made the wind’s aromatic scent divine.
Heaven.
A tap on her parasol made her straighten the device, and she didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know who stood behind her, watching her every move. Her chaperone, Mrs. Gale, walked around the blanket that Mena and her friends were sitting on and took to standing by a tree just a few feet away. The position offered her shade but also a fine place to watch Mena’s every move.
As though she would do something like stand, shed herself of her petticoats, and jump in the Serpentine… And turn into a fish. A small blue fish to match her eyes and perhaps golden stripes to go along with her hair. A beautiful fish with the entire ocean before her and the freedom to expose its depths.
But there were dangers in the ocean. What if her path crossed with that of a shark? Surely, the beast of the sea would try and eat her, wouldn’t it? She’d have to run, no swim, and hide. Perhaps she’d find some rocks to slip behind, a place too small for the shark to get her. “That’s a good idea.”
“Do you truly think it a good idea, Mena?” Lady Flora Brooks blinked dark blue eyes at her, her own parasol properly placed over her head. Only the very ends of her lilac hems were granted light. As the daughter of the Marquess of Edgenburg, one of the more powerful houses in London, she was everything Mrs. Gale wished Mena to be, poised and reticent, and though Mena tried, she failed again and again. Although only eighteen, Flora was already engaged, and Mena knew she’d make the perfect wife. The bonnet that covered her blond locks had the perfect bow beneath it. Mena’s, no matter what she did, always eventually became skewed.
“I think it’s a lovely idea,” their other friend Mrs. Grace Dunnington said with a smile. She was nineteen, which made her younger than Mena’s twenty and one by two years. She was the wife of a railroad company owner. Mrs. Gale called her a powerful friend, but Mena only saw a friend. Grace’s eyes were brown with a knowing gleam, and her hair was chestnut. “I’m happy you agree with us, Mena. We all thought surely you’d fight the notion.”
Mena bit her lip and tried to find a way to gather the information she needed out of them without revealing that she’d lost track of the conversation just as she often did.
“But where would we host the party?” their final companion asked. At sixteen, Miss Lydia St. Cloud was the youngest of their quartet, but everyone liked her. At the daughter of a banker, she had a sharp mind and even sharper features. Like her father, she had dark hair and dark alluring eyes that were set in a beautiful face that one would take notice of. “Surely, you wouldn’t want to have your engagement party at your hotel.”
“No!”
“Philomena,” Ms. Gale hissed with a look that begged Mena to remember herself or at least simply disappear altogether.
“No engagement party,” Mena said. “No parties ever again or at least until the gossip dies.”
“The gossip will not die until you make the world forget.” Grace straightened her skirts over her knees. “Only another party will do such a thing.”
“Please.” Mena didn’t want to think about what a disaster her one and only party in London had been.
Last year, after spending nearly four years at an all-girls school in Hanover, Mena had finally had her long overdue debut that had taken place at her family’s hotel, which had formerly been the Housley Mansion until her father had decided to open its doors to the world. The Housley Hotel had been one of the finest inns in the city until her debut.
She still recalled the dreaded noises, the tiny squeaks that had filled the halls before a horde of rats had been let loose in the building. They’d come from nowhere and everywhere, like an army from the underworld sent to announce to the world what Mena had already known.
She was cursed.
There was no other way to explain what had occurred or all the many other things that had taken place in her life. Her mother had died when she was young and her father, who’d loved her with great abundance, had died a few years ago, leaving her to the care of an uncle she’d never met until recently. And though her uncle was a kind man, he’d sent her away for school. But he’d made it clear to her that she was always in his thoughts. He sent her letters and updates on the hotel and London. Uncle Creed, as he’d asked her to call him, had not inherited her father’s title, since officially he was not blood. Uncle Creed had been her father’s friend and as his friend, he’d ensured her care. Fine clothes and meals had been provided for her in Hanover, and she’d even had a carriage of her own to move around the city when she wished to. Creed had even managed to arrange her meeting with Prince George of Cumberland, who Mena thought highly of.
Uncle Creed was a wonderful man indeed, but when Mena had returned to London, she’d found out that the gossip rags accused her uncle of being a criminal and had been doing so for years.
She didn’t believe any of it.
He was simply too considerate of her feelings to be a villain. London was wrong about him, but that and the party had limited the suitors who’d come for her hand.
She was definitely cursed, though how she’d managed to get an offer from the Marquess of Durham, she still didn’t know.
Since the party, Uncle Creed had allowed her to aid in restoring her family’s hotel to its former glory. Because of his reputation, no one knew that it was actually Creed who owned it, so he allowed Mena to be seen by the public as the owner of the establishment. Once the hotel had been cleaned from top to bottom, she’d held grand dinner parties in the dining hall with ladies of the ton, meals with the lure of over a dozen courses from the best cooks in England. Mena found conversation easy when she remembered the long list of what not to say.
It was at the dinners that she’d met her friends… and the Marchioness of Durham. The Marquess’ mother had come once, and then again, and on her third visit she’d informed Mena that her son wished for them to marry.
She’d barely had time to think before Mrs. Gale, who looked ready to leap into a country dance on the table, cut in and told the Marchioness that Mena accepted. Mena hadn’t fought it at the time because there had been others around, but once it was discussed with her uncle, there had been no other choice.
And that was that.
For the last few months, Mrs. Gale had been enforcing every lady lesson Mena had ever learned in preparation for her coming marriage to the Marquess of Durham. He was a man she’d yet to meet and from all accounts, it seemed the rest of the world didn’t know much about him either, except for Lydia, who’d told her nothing more than she’d met him before at the bank and thought him a very good and kind man. Mena’s young friend hadn’t said more, though there had obviously been more to say. All she knew was that he’d once been a second son before his brother’s disappearance and now he was the heir to a wealthy title.
“Then perhaps a party at the Durham mansion will do,” Grace said. “But do not marry a Marquess and not have a party.”
“That is correct,” Mrs. Gale said from her place by the tree. “But you four need not worry about it. Lady Durham has already arranged the party to be two days after Lord Durham returns.”
Mena frowned. “Two days after he returns? But how am I to get to know him before then? Surely, he’d wish to at least to spend a month or so in my presence before we hosted a party.”
Mrs. Gale smiled. “There’s no need, dear. Once two people are engaged, there’s nothing short of death that can break it.” The words were true. The engagement would have to lead to marriage whether they wished for it or not. “You’ll meet at the party.”
“My marriage was arranged,” Flora said.
“As was mine,” Grace informed her.
Mena nodded in understanding, knowing it was her duty as a lady to marry for the betterment of her house, but still, it didn’t seem right to her. Who met their future husband at their engagement party?
Not Mena. No matter what it took, she planned to meet Durham before the party.