Chapter Eight
Eleanor and Georgina stood on the black-and-white marbled floor of the entrance hall in the Earl of Lark’s town house. Eleanor caught a glimpse of her pale reflection in a towering gilded mirror that stood above a pier table.
She looked sickly. The green dress she wore didn’t really help her complexion any, either.
“Are you certain about this?” Georgina asked quietly.
They’d given the butler their card and were waiting on his return. Eleanor half expected to be told that the ladies of the house weren’t at home. They’d exchanged a few obligatory calls with Lady Sarah and her mother when the Townsends had first come to Edinburgh, but their acquaintance had lapsed somewhat since then.
Though Eleanor was here, ostensibly, to mingle with proper Society and meet eligible gentlemen, she was much more at home reading about insects, or searching for insects, or preserving insects, than she was amidst the foreign specimens of ballrooms and drawing rooms. She went to occasional social events to keep up appearances, but she was far from popular.
“I don’t have any other choice.”
“Do you think he’d actually reveal Cecil’s identity if you don’t help him?”
It was a good question. One she’d dwelt on during the sleepless hours of the night. One she didn’t know the answer to. But she’d recognized that gleam in his eye—ambition, want, something fierce that she couldn’t quite name. James MacGregor was a man intent on climbing to the top.
And she didn’t want to be the one he pushed off the mountain to get there.
He really wasn’t asking much. She could ease him into the ways of Society and then give him an opportunity to meet Lady Sarah. And if he was able to woo her, as he, in his egoism, seemed to have no doubt of, and if they married, what was wrong with that? Aristocratic marriages weren’t about love. Ambition, want, greed, pride—they were all just different names for the same thing.
Aristocratic marriages were about advancement. Not affection.
At least, not often.
There was no reason to feel like she was doing something devious. No reason to feel guilty.
“Should we dispose of him?” Georgina whispered.
Eleanor stared at her blankly. “What? Do you mean kill him?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “I mean…I don’t know…kidnap him and lock him in a crate going to India or some such thing.”
How did her sister come up with such mad ideas? Eleanor hadn’t forgotten that dressing up as Cecil had been Georgina’s scheme. Eleanor might have been angry with her for planting the seed in her mind if she hadn’t felt so perfectly…right…so perfectly accomplished, giving her lecture and showing off her cabinets.
“And how is that not killing him?”
Her sister shrugged. “Someone would hear him, at some point. I think.”
“With murder in the balance, I don’t believe I think is good enough.” She shook her head. “No, we’ll just grit our teeth and get on with it. The sooner James MacGregor has what he wants, the sooner he’ll be out of our lives.”
The butler stepped back into the entrance hall. “Lady Lark and Lady Sarah will see you.”
Eleanor’s stomach jumped, and they were shown into a drawing room with silk-papered walls of white-and-pale-green stripes. The furniture—a settee and some scattered armchairs—matched the walls. The room smelled like lavender, and Eleanor noticed pastille burners framing the mantel.
The two women were on the settee, both very beautiful, both with perfect poise, and hands folded primly in their laps. The two of them looked like plates straight out of Ackermann’s Repository—fashionable, pretty, their chestnut hair coiled in immaculate ringlets.
Lady Sarah smiled warmly. Lady Lark observed them more coolly, though not unkindly.
They greeted one another and Georgina and Eleanor took the chairs next to the settee.
“Are you enjoying Edinburgh?” Lady Sarah asked. “You’ve not been here long, I recall?”
“No, a few weeks,” Georgina said.
In social situations, her younger sister often took the lead. Eleanor had always had difficulty making small talk, and she was naturally reserved with people she didn’t know well.
“London is larger, I know, but we’re quite fond of it here,” Lady Sarah said.
“It is a beautiful view, to see the castle over the city. I’d love to explore it,” Georgina replied easily.
“Quite right. Perhaps one day it will be open for touring.”
Lady Lark eyed Eleanor. “And will your brother and his new wife come to Town this winter as well? They’re not in residence now, are they?”
She smiled stiffly. “No, and I doubt it. They much prefer the country life.”
Georgina jumped in to fill the silence that descended. “Your gloves are lovely, Lady Sarah. Where did you find them?”
Eleanor let the conversation fade as they began discussing the best shops in town, and then moved on to what dressmaker Lady Sarah used. She stared at Lady Sarah’s gloves—soft kid leather, embroidered with pale-blue silk flowers. The well-made gloves fit her hands perfectly.
Her mind drifted to James MacGregor. Everything in this drawing room fit as perfectly as those gloves—every gilded painting, every trinket on the mantel and tables, every occupant on every piece of furniture. Would he fit here, too? Or would this quiet properness stifle him?
She thought of MacGregor trying to rest on the spindly legged settee—he’d have to go about it gently. If he ever threw himself down with too much force he’d probably smash the thing into pieces. She thought of those large hands engulfing a teacup—it would look like a child’s toy. He could hunch his shoulders or try to appear as meek as he wanted—he’d never look like he belonged.
Then she thought of Icarus, doomed for his pride, doomed for his wanting, doomed to plummet back to earth for flying too high.
But maybe, for some, the thrill of the flight was worth the risk of the fall?
She shook her head slightly. She didn’t know what drove James MacGregor, nor did she wish to know.
If the troublesome man wanted to surround himself with pretty, spindly, breakable things, it was really none of her concern.
And as soon as she’d helped him along in the wooing of Lady Sarah, she would be done with him, and he would no longer trouble her thoughts.
Eleanor cleared her throat. The three other women glanced at her. “You were just speaking of the milliner’s?” she asked Lady Sarah.
The woman’s forehead wrinkled in confusion but she nodded.
“I fear I’m in desperate need of a new bonnet. When will you be there next?”
It was forward of her, perhaps, but Lady Sarah was a kind woman. She hoped if the unimaginable happened, and Lady Sarah was attracted to James MacGregor, the pugilist wouldn’t run roughshod over that kindness.
“We could go there tomorrow, if it’s agreeable to you,” she said.
“Yes,” Eleanor replied. “Perfectly.”