Page 1 of A Duke's Temptation Poetess
Chapter 1
True to form, this ball was a disaster for her, and worse, perhaps, one of her own making. Lady Clarissa Bentley perched primly at the edge of the ballroom in the company of a few other wallflowers. Together, Clarissa thought they made a rather lovely garden.Of the most undesirable overgrowth,she thought dryly.We are all young women standing at the door of spinster-dom.
Clarissa absentmindedly twirled her pen between her fingers. It was no ordinary pen, but the recent invention of John Scheffer. Hispenographicfountain pen was a clever creation, which kept ink its chamber and eliminated the need for both penknives and inkwells. It was truly the implement of choice for any serious writer. Admittedly, Clarissa was not yet a serious writer, far from it, but she held hope that someday she would be a great poet.
From across the room, Clarissa met the one gaze she had no desire to meet. To Clarissa’s credit, it was difficult not to notice her mother. She had chosen to wear a white gown decorated with scarlet embroidery and ribbons, and massive white feathers, dyed red at the ends. No one could possibly miss seeing her in the crowd. Her mother, Lady Bentley, was a tall, slender woman with sharp, stately features.
Clarissa looked a great deal like her. They shared the same thick, dark brown hair and hazel-green eyes. Mother and daughter were even of a similar height. However, their bearings could not be more different. Clarissa’s mother was a lady people referred to aseffortlessly elegantandgentle on the eyes.
Clarissa was a little intimidated by her mother sometimes. The woman bore her grief and pain silently and well, but Clarissa was not, and never had been that sort of woman. Clarissa felt as if she were always bursting with feelings.
As Lady Bentley approached, Clarissa inwardly winced. She felt the sudden urge to hide her pen and the small notebook that she always kept close at hand. “Here you are,” her mother said.
“Indeed,” Clarissa said.
Lady Bentley tipped her chin up and narrowed her eyes. “Have you forgotten that this is the last event of the Season?”
Of course, she had not. How could she when her mother reminded her of that unfortunate detail so often? Clarissa averted her gaze to the open page of her notebook, her eyes idly tracing the wide, sweeping curves of her letters. Handwriting was a sort of art, too.
“And you have already resigned yourself to the corner,” Lady Bentley said, “when you could be dancing and having conversations with any number of fine gentlemen. Do you not want to get married?”
Clarissa sighed. Her mother already knew Clarissa’s feelings on the matter, but she seemed to believe that if she argued enough and asked that dreaded question enough, Clarissa’s feelings would change. Clarissa was suddenly quite aware of Amelia Westwood sitting nearby. Lady Amelia had a penchant for gossip, and although the young woman’s head was turned away, Clarissa sensed that the other woman was listening intently.
“I do want to be married,” Clarissa said softly.
Marriageconsumed her thoughts ever since girlhood when she had sneaked away from her governess’s watchful eye and hid in her father’s library reading old chivalric romances of Tristan and Isolde, Guinevere and Lancelot, Astrophel and Stella. How often had she dreamed of being a desired heroine with her own noble knight racing to her rescue atop a strong, white steed.
“But I am realistic with my expectations,” Clarissa said, cutting her eyes towards Lady Amelia.
Lady Bentley frowned, her gaze sharpening. She turned her attention to Lady Amelia. “And you have resigned yourself to an evening of solitude, also?”
Clarissa’s mother had a way of speaking that managed to be both cutting and pleasant at the same time. Sometimes, Clarissa admired that about her mother. She had a certain authority about her which commanded respect. Under the eye of Clarissa’s watchful mother, Lady Amelia smiled sheepishly and fled towards the circle of dancers.
The other woman who remained in the corner was Lady Emma, but it seemed as though she had gained the attention of a handsome suitor. Lord Henry, if Clarissa was not mistaken.
“Father left me barely any dowery to speak of,” Clarissa said. “I have nothing to draw a suitor to me, and this is my fourth Season. You must know it is impossible for me to find a husband.”
Her mother knew this already, but Clarissa thought that if she mentioned her lack of prospects enough, eventually, her mother would recognize them for what they were.
“So you are going to remain in this corner for the rest of the night?” her mother asked. “And consign yourself to spinster-dom orworse?”
Worsewas doubtlessly the position of a governess, and as loathe as Clarissa was to admit it, she shared her mother’s reservations. Clarissa doubted that she would ever become a good poet if she were a governess and tasked with watching over the education of someone’s young children. She would not possibly have the time to pursue both.
However, she could find no other solution to her situation. Although her prospects were poor, she could wed, but previous Seasons had proven that it was difficult to find a husband who would take her with such a pittance of a dowry, much less respect her inclination of being a bluestocking. A governess would be a means to survive, and although the position was hardly ideal, it was better than being destitute.
She should like to be a poet, but even if she were to find some publisher interested in her work, Clarissa knew that her poems would not be published at once. Money would not arrive for some time. How would she sustain herself in the meantime? And suppose that the poems did not sell at all?
Clarissa was unsure if she could bear the shame of having poured her entire being, heart and soul, into her poems only to have London’s readership find them lacking.
“If you would spend more time trying to find a proper suitor and less time writing, you might very well be wed already,” Clarissa’s mother said. “It does not suit a lady to write anyway, especially not one who is in a situation as financially precarious as yours is.”
As Lady Bentley leaned closer, Clarissa covertly shut the cover of the book. Despite her desires to become a renowned poet, Clarissa did not want anyone to see her writings before they were finished. She especially did not wish for her mother to see them; undoubtedly, Lady Bentley would respond scathingly to their contents. Clarissa could not imagine that her mother had a fondness for poetry, much less her own daughter’s.
“Many great women have been exemplary writers,” Clarissa said.
“I would not say that you are a great woman,” Lady Bentley said. “Great women have money, power, and influence.”
Clarissa tried not to show how badly that hurt, but something must have shown on her face, for Lady Bentley’s expression softened just a little.
