Page 21 of Anything But a Duke
“I went to speak to potential investors, Mama.”
“And what did they say?” Her mother learned forward in her chair.
“Nothing for certain.” Diana’s throat burned. “They will give me their final decision via letter. By the end of the week.”
“Why could they make no determination today?”
“There were three of them. Perhaps they need time to consider.”
“Which invention did you take? Not one of your outlandish ones, I hope.”
“Invention is supposed to be outlandish, Mama. Beyond what anyone else has ever conceived.”
Despite how passionately she made the argument, Diana feared her mother was right. Some of her early inventions had been rather... unusual. But she’d learned through trial and error. Now she strove for practicality.Thatwas the one quality her father never understood.
“I’ve designed a cleaning apparatus.”
“Pardon?” After a brief glance around the dusty drawing room that their single housemaid hadn’t yet gotten to, her mother gave Diana an affronted look.
“I have a prototype in my workshop if you’d like to see.”
“I do love the creative spark you inherited from your father.” Her mother reached out and laid a hand gently on Diana’s.
“I wish to succeed where he failed.” Diana worked to keep her voice calm. Such conversations were familiar. Her mother made no secret of the distaste she harbored for her daughter’s “pastime.”
More often than not, she urged Diana to marry well, to do what she’d been born for, but Diana couldn’t bear more talk of husband hunting.
“I want to find funding for this invention.” Shoulders back, hands clasped tightly in her lap, she added, “I know that once people use it, they’ll understand its value. Mama, I can triumph as no lady inventor ever has.”
“Always full of fine ideas and so much zeal.” Her mother’s face softened and her mouth curved in a gentle smile. She reached out and cupped Diana’s chin in her palm. “I hope you will continue to have both after you’re wed.”
Diana pulled away and rose from the settee. She approached the window, wishing she was sketching in the park across the square or visiting with a friend at the coffeehouse nearby. She longed to escape to her workshop. Why revisit an argument she and her mother had repeated a hundred times?
There was no way to win. Diana couldn’t satisfy her mother without forfeiting everything. Yet her mother didn’t seem to understand the essential point.
“If I could turn a profit with one of my inventions, our troubles would come to an end. The money I could bring in—”
“I will not have my daughter earning wages like an office clerk.”
Diana wheeled around to face her mother. “Then who will, Mama? Dom? You?”
Returning to the settee, Diana perched on the edge and folded her hands in her lap. “Just one opportunity. That’s all I need. The system I’ve designed isn’t frivolous. It’s something everyone could use, whether household servants in Belgravia or a bachelor who works in the City and can’t afford a maid of his own.”
After a moment, her mother let out a raspy breath. Her shoulders sagged and Diana clamored for any explanation that might make her understand.
“But the investors did not see merit in your device.” Her mother’s words landed as sharply as she intended.
“I don’t know that for certain.” Diana tugged nervously at the edge of her sleeve and felt the delicate lace trim give way. “They have not made a final decision.”
“But they could have agreed today, could they not?”
Diana looked up. Her mother’s gaze was too intense, too knowing.
“You’ve pursued your pastime long enough,” her mother said tightly. She nudged her chin toward the invitation discarded on a table nearby. “Go to the reunion and the Merton’s ball. Allow Lady Elizabeth’s mother to take you under her wing.”
Diana reached for the invitation and her hands shook as she fumbled to return the cream square to its elegantly printed linen envelope.
“Don’t waste any more time, Diana.”
