Page 4 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
“This morning I intervened on behalf of a chimney sweep’s apprentice stuck in a flue in Holborn. The boy survived,” Anne said, seeing consternation fill her mother’s eyes. “I was able to persuade the building’s owner to open up the wall to cut him out.”
“Of course you did.” Her mother puffed out her chest. “That’s my girl.”
“But the owner was very resistant to damaging his building on account of a lowly sweep, and in order to sway him, I had to be a bit”—Anne waved a hand, searching for the right word—“fervent.”
The countess arched an eyebrow. “Fervent?”
“You might even say vehement.”
“What did you say, darling?”
Anne knotted her hands. “I might have shouted that he should be ashamed of himself, that he had no right to call himself a Christian, and if he didn’t let us open up that wall, I would make sure his name was on the front page of every newspaper in London tomorrow. In front of a crowd of two hundred,” she added in a rush.
The countess flipped open her fan. “Considering a child’s life was at stake, I think you had the right of it.”
“Yes, and in truth, I wouldn’t do anything differently, if that is what it took to save the boy. But a cartoon is to be printed tomorrow, picturing me dressed in a Roman helmet, towering over a cowering man. I am shown prodding him with a spear and reciting a version of my speech. The caption reads, ‘Lady W, London’s very own virago.’”
“How do you know this?” her mother demanded.
“A messenger came by the Ladies’ Society’s offices today.”
“Darling, perhaps it’s not as bad as you—”
“It is. I saw it.” Anne looked away, feeling tears forming in her eyes.
Her mother stepped forward and took her hands. “Oh, darling, I know it’s unpleasant. But this cartoon will be forgotten in a week’s time. You’ll see. Besides, you should wear this as a badge of honor. If someone isn’t saying something nasty about you, it only means you aren’t worth remarking upon.”
Anne sighed. Her mother would have considered it an honor, just as her mother could have worn this dress with her head held high. Anne had always marveled at her mother’s (and sister’s) unwavering confidence.
But she just wasn’t like that.
“The point is,” Anne said, “I’m not much in the mood for a ball.”
“Have you considered,” Lady Cheltenham said carefully, “that a little diversion might be exactly what you need?”
“I doubt I’ll find any tonight. I’ll probably spend most of the evening standing in the corner, as usual.”
Her mother snorted. “You do not stand in the corner so much as hide in the corner. If you would stop doing that, your dance card would be full every night.”
“Mama,” Anne protested, “my dance card has never been full. Not even once.”
“That’s because when you came out, you spent all of three weeks on the Marriage Mart before accepting the first proposal you received. And you spent most of those three weeks hiding in the ladies’ retiring room.”
This was a difficult point to argue, as her mother’s facts were essentially correct. Not that she had drawn the right conclusion. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have accepted Lord Wynters?”
“Not if that was what you truly wanted. Just that there was no need to be so hasty about it.”
Anne struggled to keep a note of accusation out of her voice. “It’s just that—you were the one who always used to comment on how I was going to be a countess someday. Or sometimes you would say marchioness.” She bit her lip. “I understood my duty. When Lord Wynters proposed, I knew it was my only chance to marry someone of the rank and standing you and Papa expected—”
“Oh, my darling child.” Her mother’s eyes were full of sorrow as she took Anne’s hands and pressed them. “How I wish I had never said a word. Had I known how thoroughly you misunderstood me—” The countess broke off, looking down. “The point is, had you given it a little more time, you would have had a dozen proposals from which to choose.”
“No, I wouldn’t have. I’m not like you, Mama. I’m… boring and plain.”
Her mother had been hailed as the most beautiful woman of her generation, with her honey-blonde hair and her stunning blue eyes. The Astley eyes, they were called, as five of Anne’s six siblings also had them.
Anne, on the other hand, had plain brown hair and plain brown eyes. She was the only daughter not to inherit her mother’s beautiful eyes.
And she knew vanity to be a sin, but sometimes she felt like a plow horse in a family of unicorns.
