Page 4 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Aunt Aurelia sniffed. “It will do your prospects no good, Margaret, if you are known to consort with that brute.” The sniff was followed by a sigh. “If only you would accept one of your suitors and get married. Heaven knows, you are not getting any younger.”
As Margaret entered the drawing room forty minutes later with her social smile pasted firmly in place, she reflected that, while she might not be getting any younger, her suitors were. The latest had just turned twenty-two and was the son of a man who had been courting her himself for the past two years.
She had refused the father in 1817, when he was plain Mr. Snowden. He was back paying court to her again last year, after his uncle died, making him a viscount. Apparently, he thought the new title might make him more acceptable to her. She refused him again.
Had he sent his son to court her this year? Margaret had a nasty feeling that was the case.
Margaret wanted to bar both Snowdens from her house after what happened to a friend of hers the year before. Aunt Aurelia would not hear of it.
“Lord Snowden was not involved in the attack on Mr. and Mrs. Ashby, Margaret. The magistrate was quite clear. And you know perfectly well that Mr. Snowden was led astray by villains. He was let off with a warning and was very sorry for his mistake.”
All of which was true, but not the whole story. Lord Snowden was friend to the Deffew brothers, who had kidnapped Margaret’s friend Regina with the help of a group of young men, including the son of one of them and Snowden’s own son. Young Deffew was now Lord Snowden’s ward, after his father and uncle died in the midst of their crimes.
Margaret did not believe Lord Snowden was entirely innocent of involvement in the affair. Still, it was true that the magistrate had released the young men. And it was easier to let Aunt Aurelia have her way, so here was young Mr. Snowden, in her drawing room again.
“You look delightful today, my lady,” said Mr. Snowden, with a courtly bow. At least he had more charm than his father, though she had no doubt he was firmly under his father’s thumb, and so would she be if she was foolish enough to take his suit seriously.
His eyes, with dark rings around the pale grey iris, reminded her of another man. His dark hair was similar, too, apart from the flash of white at one temple. “The Snowden streak”, he’d called it. “Most men of my family have it. Not my father, but my great-uncle had it, certainly, and so did Father’s cousin, I am told.”
Margaret wondered if the current Lord Snowden or his cousin had left a souvenir of Town night life to be raised in the House of Blossoms. It was the most likely explanation of the resemblance between Mr. Snowden and Mr. White.
The room, already filled with flowers sent in anticipation of their donors’ arrival, soon filled with the bouquet-senders themselves.
The suitors could be divided into four groups. The most obvious were the fortune hunters, for Margaret and her great aunt were the last of their family, and Margaret had inherited everything. Including Aunt Aurelia.
The fortune hunters were usually easy to recognize. If Margaret was in any doubt, her solicitor and the husbands of her closest friends would investigate to find out whether the man in question saw her only as a fat purse to keep him in idle luxury or to feed a gambling habit.
The title hunters were after a more subtle kind of wealth. The deaths of her brothers had left Margaret as the last surviving heir, and her title was one that could descend through a female if only a daughter remained in the direct line. Her sons, if she had sons, would inherit the earldom. Margaret suspected the Snowdens of lusting after her oak leaves.
The Snowdens also wanted Margaret’s land. Lord Snowden had been buying up property between her estate and his for years, ever since he’d taken over the management of the Snowden lands from his uncle. He waxed lyrical at every opportunity about the mining opportunities and the benefits of a canal.
No doubt there were others with a yen for her land.
By far the largest group simply gathered around Margaret because she was fashionable, though how that had come about, Margaret wasn’t certain. Her looks were nothing special, though they had certainly improved since she was seventeen, a shy debutante hiding in the corner, too tall and sturdy to be overlooked, but with a splodgy complexion, boringly straight hair that refused to take a curl, and no conversation.
Back then, she’d had only a small dowry and no particular connections—her father at that time being a wastrel younger son. Furthermore, her mother was suffering from the illness that later killed her, and for much of the Season, Margaret had been left to the dubious oversight of her father or one of her brothers.
Margaret had been ripe for exploitation then. Now, six years later, she was not only better dressed and better groomed but she had learned to project confidence, and not to give her trust easily. And to be as polite as necessary to the pack—or rather, the gaggle—of suitors, without giving any of them reason to believe she favored one more than any other.
None of Margaret’s special friends were in town to leaven the mix. So she was forced to amuse herself, as she usually did, by assigning points for compliments—or removing points for particularly inappropriate ones.
“More glorious than the sun,” was not applicable to any human woman, and not even original. In fact, it lost more points for being stolen from the Bible, a misappropriation that bordered on blasphemy.
The “deep pools of your eyes” had her wondering whether the would-be charmer had ever seen water.
She’d nearly lost all composure at references to her “angelic temper”. It was probably just as well Arial had not been present, for she could just imagine how amused her friend would be at such fudge.
Then there were the would-be poets, who’d insisted on reading her their effusions.
The sonnet that cast her as the fairy queen, and her suitors as her adoring court had nothing in its favor, apart from a rhyme at the end of each line.
Likewise, an ode to her dainty foot completely ignored the size of said appendage and had undoubtedly been repurposed. The author had probably written it for an actress.
Did they honestly believe she appreciated such fustian?
Mr. Snowden won two points. One for the laughing eyes he had turned on her at the “dainty foot” reference, and one for the good manners that prevented him from speaking his critique out loud. She would not appreciate a scuffle in her drawing room, and the poet was sensitive about his verses.
They came and they went, none staying longer than the customary thirty minutes, but the queue of new arrivals seeming endless. By the time the clock struck five and she could turn them all out, she had a headache from all the smiling.
