Chapter One
“If you trod on my foot one more time,” Eleanor said pleasantly, “my hedgehog is going to bite you.”
His eyes widening, the earl she’d been dancing with stopped abruptly in his tracks. “I’m sorry, I fear I must have misheard you. Did you say – did you say hedgehog?”
“I am happy to report that your hearing is much better than your dancing, Lord Stanhope. I did indeed say ‘my hedgehog’.” Taking advantage of the earl’s temporary paralysis due to the absurdity of his partner claiming she had a pest in her pocket, Eleanor wrenched her hands free of his sweaty grasp and carefully pulled Henny out of the pocket she’d had fashioned in her ball gown specifically for her tiny little friend.
“This is Henny,” she said, holding the hedgehog aloft. “She’s curled in a ball right now because she is sleeping, but I can assure you that when she is awake her teeth are quite sharp and capable of doing considerable damage, as are her quills.”
“You – you have a rodent in your dress,” Lord Stanhope said, looking positively aghast. Eleanor’s eyes narrowed.
“Henny is not a rodent, she is an insectivore. It’s a common mistake, however if you look closely at the tip of her nose–”
“You’re mad. Absolutely barmy.” Lord Stanhope backed so quickly away that he bumped into another couple. “She has a rat!” he yelled, jabbing his finger at Eleanor and poor Henny, who had been roused by all the noise and was blinking drowsily in confusion. “She has a rat in her pocket!”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Eleanor said crossly. “I just told you, Henny is not a rodent, she’s an insectivore.”
“Is that a mouse?” a woman in green muslin screeched.
“Don’t be silly. Why on earth would I bring a mouse to a ball? Henny is a hedgehog. Can’t you see her quills?” But the damage had already been done, and as every head within twenty feet of Eleanor swiveled, she quickly slipped Henny back into her pocket and made a mad dash for the nearest exit, not caring who she had to shove out of her way to get there. She vaguely heard her mother calling her name, but not wanting to linger among the close-minded flock of arrogant pigeons a second longer she opened the first door she came across and immediately shut it behind her.
Red-faced and perspiring, Eleanor dabbed at her forehead with a handkerchief as she walked swiftly down a carpeted hallway and into an empty parlor. The fireplace was dormant and only a single candle glowed in the window, making it the perfect shadowy hideout. The faint scent of cigar smoke lingered in the air, revealing she hadn’t been the first person to find a quiet reprieve in the room, but that did not matter as long as she was the last. Exhaling a long, deep breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, she sat down on a plush velvet settee and, after a bit of coaxing, managed to draw a rather disgruntled Henny back out into the open.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized as she sat the hedgehog on her lap. “I know you don’t like loud noises, but I was afraid to leave you in my room. Not with that mean old tomcat lurking about.”
Eleanor and her mother were currently guests of Lord and Lady Hanover at their estate just outside of London. They’d arrived two days ago with plans to stay for a fortnight, but once Henny’s presence became widely known Eleanor would not be surprised if their invitation was revoked before the night was out.
“Blast and damn,” she muttered, borrowing one of her father’s favorite curses. As ill at ease at with social gatherings as his daughter, Lord Ward had remained at home, citing ‘business meetings’ that he needed to attend. Which was complete balderdash, of course, but since he was a man – and head of the household – he got to do what he wished while she, a lowly woman and daughter, had to obey whatever directive she was given.
It simply wasn’t fair. But then nothing ever was, particularly if you were female.
“I don’t understand why the lot of us don’t revolt, Henny.” Absently stroking a hand down the hedgehog’s prickly back – being mindful to pat in the direction of the quills – she stared hard at a painting above the mantle. “We bear the children, don’t we? Without us men would quite literally be nonexistent. And yet they control the money, and the politics, and the titles, and the laws. It’s absurd. Don’t you think?”
It was impossible to decipher the mind of a hedgehog, of course, but she took Henny’s quiet snuffle as a sign of concurrence.
“I knew you would agree with me. No one else does. They think I’m strange and my ideas eccentric.” Her gaze fell to her lap as an odd tightness overcame her throat. “And Mother wonders why no one has offered for my hand,” she muttered.
This time Henny purred, and the contended sound made Eleanor smile. No matter what the circumstances, her animals could always be counted on to lift her spirits. Which was why she planned to take the entire lot of them and move to the country when her third Season came to the same disappointing conclusion as all the rest.
She’d recently struck up a correspondence with an elderly aunt in Hampshire whose husband had passed over the winter. Aunt Biddy was in desperate need of a strong, able-bodied person to help care for her cottage and the surrounding land. Lady Ward had been trying to coax Aunt Biddy to London, but the old woman was stubborn and set in her ways. She refused to leave the place she’d called home for nearly six decades, and eventually Lady Ward had thrown up her hands.
‘If she won’t come to us, then there’s nothing else we can do’.
But that wasn’t precisely true, was it? As it turned out, Aunt Biddy’s stubbornness wasn’t the only trait she and her niece had in common. They both loved animals, and Aunt Biddy had agreed to house Eleanor and her menagerie in exchange for help around the farm. It would be hard work, she’d warned, but Eleanor wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. What scared her more was keeping them pristinely clean.
All she needed to do was get through one more Season with her sanity intact. If the little incident with Lord Stanhope was any indication it was going to be a challenge, but with an end in sight Eleanor was more than ready to rise to the occasion.
“I’ll be a spinster living in the country,” she told Henny happily. “Can you think of anything more divine?” For most women a reclusive life far from the glittering ballrooms of London would have been their worst nightmare, but for Eleanor it was a dream come true.
Now the only thing she needed to do was tell her mother.
“But that can wait, can’t it?” Setting Henny down on the sofa when the little hedgehog began to wiggle, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, a light smile gracing her lips as she imagined all of the ways her life would change for the better once she was free from the constraints of High Society.
There would be no more balls. Or ball gowns, for that matter. No more dancing. No more struggling to make polite conversation when all she wanted to do was discuss Sir William Horrocks’ latest invention, a variable speed batton that was going to revolutionize the power loom. No more hiding Henny in her pocket. Speaking of which…
“Ouch!” she exclaimed when she felt a sharp tug at the top of her head. Blindly reaching up to her hair, she gave a very unladylike curse when her fingers accidentally brushed against Henny’s prickly quills. With an alarmed squeal the hedgehog scurried down the side of the sofa and plopped onto the floor.
A beam of moonlight reflected off the shiny object Henny carried in her mouth as she scooted under a table and disappeared from sight. A shiny object that looked suspiciously like one of Eleanor’s diamond encrusted hairpins.
“Not another one!” she moaned. If she lost one more hairpin her mother would never let her go live with Aunt Biddy. “Henny, you damned thief, get back there this instant!”
Dropping to her hands and knees she tried to follow the hedgehog under the table, but of course she didn’t fit. Derriere in the air and face pressed to the ground, she squinted one eye closed as she searched for Henny underneath a chaise lounge. The parlor was well appointed and there were dozens of places a hedgehog could hide, which meant if she was going to retrieve her beloved pet she needed to do it quickly. Once Henny found a soft place to burrow into there was no telling when she would come out. Last year at Lady Markham’s dinner party she’d disappeared for nearly five hours!
Lady Ward had been thrilled when Eleanor had requested to stay longer. She’d thought her daughter wanted to spend more time with a viscount, but in reality Eleanor had needed the extra time to look for Henny. She’d eventually found her in the kitchens stuffed inside a bread box happily munching on day old crumpets, but there was no telling where she’d gotten off to this time.
“Henny! Oh Henny, please come back. I’m not cross with you. I promise.” Eleanor started to back out from underneath the table, but with a gasp of dismay she realized her dress was caught. She pulled a bit harder and was met with a sharp tearing sound. Oh dear. A lost hairpin was nothing compared to a ruined gown, particularly one that had cost as much as this.
Balancing crookedly on one elbow, she tried to peer behind her to see what she was snagged on, but her awkward position made it impossible to see past her voluminous skirts. Suffice it to say she was stuck. Stuck with her rump up in the air and her head under a table.
“Well this is a fine pickle. Henny, I’ve changed my mind. I am cross with you. Very cross.” But if the mischievous hedgehog heard – or cared – she gave no indication, and Eleanor struck her fist against the floor in frustration.
What was she going to do? Wait until someone found her, she supposed. And pray that someone was a maid and not a gossipy old hen who would gleefully spread the news of her embarrassing predicament far and wide. There was always the possibility her mother would come looking for her. All things considered, that was probably the best scenario. At least she knew Lady Ward would never whisper a word of this to anyone. In fact, she would probably demand the entire thing be stricken from both of their memories, just like the time Eleanor had jumped into a pond at Hyde Park in an attempt to rescue a floundering gosling.
‘We will never speak of this again,’ Lady Ward had furiously hissed as she’d draped her cloak around her daughter’s shoulders before quickly ushering her into their carriage.
And they hadn’t.
But it wasn’t Lady Ward who stepped into the parlor.
Nor was it Lady Ward’s voice that sent shivers of alarm rippling down Eleanor’s spine.
“Well, well, well,” a deep, husky masculine tone drawled. “What do we have here?”