especially after receiving their instructions from the dowager duchess, through Marston and Bigelow. Ian was terrified of all three of them, and Maisie knew another social misstep would end her own career. Ian insisted on holding Fitz's lead in the park, lest Miss Randolph be tugged or tripped. Maisie wanted to fuss for hours over Miss Randolph's hair and clothes.
Sonia swayed the pair to her way of doing things with two simple sentences: "Lady Atterbury does not pay your wages. I do." After all, she was Allison Harkness's daughter. So she got to Astley's Amphitheater and the Menagerie and London Bridge and the cathedrals with no one the wiser, and struck up friendships with flower girls and piemen and the Watch and a kindly old gentleman who fed the squirrels in the park. He didn't even mind that Fitz chased the squirrels away, as long as he didn't catch any.
Lady Atterbury was pleased with her granddaughter's progress. Bigelow judged her passable, and Marston was relieved there were no further Incidents. With more than a fortnight still to go before the ball, they deemed her ready to get her feet wet with minor socializing, to test the waters, so to speak, at small, private gatherings of the dowager's set. Sonia nearly drowned from boredom.
Lady Atterbury's crowd was not comprised of the great hostesses of the day, the Almack's patronesses and such. Her coterie contained instead those powerful figures' mothers and aunts and belles mères. The old beldams were therefore an even greater force to be reckoned with. They got together of an afternoon for silver loo, charitable committee meetings, musicales, poetry readings, and scientific dissertations. They also served up the latest gossip along with their tea and culture.
Sonia was not expected to participate in the conversations, thank goodness. In fact, she was often waved away to a secluded corner after her appearance and demeanor were scrutinized, lest her innocent ears be sullied. Many of the ladies refused to carry their ear trumpets, however, so the conversations were perforce loud enough not only to reach Sonia, but to rise above Herr Mitteldorf's performance on the harpsichord. Few of the grandes dames could rise without a footman's help after the performance, in fact, and fewer could see Herr Mitteldorf at all without their spectacles or looking glasses. Sonia thought she must be the only one there with all of her teeth, until she noticed another young woman across the way, concentrating not on the music or the chitchat, but on the book in her lap.
The young woman read her way through a lecture on the electrical properties of wool carpets, and through a dramatic presentation of an endlessly epic poem by a lisping young man with flowing locks.
Sonia made sure she sat near the young lady at the next gathering, a report from the directors of St. Bartleby's Institute for the Destitute, to which no one listened. The girl, for she could not be much older than Sonia, did not raise her eyes from her book, but she did reach into her reticule and pull out a matching purple-covered volume. "Here," she said, "you'll need this."
"This" was a purple-prosed gothic from the Minerva Press, and the young woman was Blanche Carstairs.
"Lady Blanche if you care for those things," Sonia's new friend and literary advisor introduced herself at the intermission. "I'm a countess in my own right, but don't let that bother you. I don't. It's one of those ancient land-grant titles that can pass through the female line. That's my aunt over there, the one in puce who is snoring."
Blanche—they were quickly on a first-name basis—was a drab, graceless type of girl, with little conversation and less fashion sense, but she knew everything. She flipped the pages of her book. "They think I'm not listening, so they say anything. Like how you're expected to make a grand alliance, despite coming from the gentry, if you don't make a mull of things."
Sonia gasped in indignation, but
Sonia swayed the pair to her way of doing things with two simple sentences: "Lady Atterbury does not pay your wages. I do." After all, she was Allison Harkness's daughter. So she got to Astley's Amphitheater and the Menagerie and London Bridge and the cathedrals with no one the wiser, and struck up friendships with flower girls and piemen and the Watch and a kindly old gentleman who fed the squirrels in the park. He didn't even mind that Fitz chased the squirrels away, as long as he didn't catch any.
Lady Atterbury was pleased with her granddaughter's progress. Bigelow judged her passable, and Marston was relieved there were no further Incidents. With more than a fortnight still to go before the ball, they deemed her ready to get her feet wet with minor socializing, to test the waters, so to speak, at small, private gatherings of the dowager's set. Sonia nearly drowned from boredom.
Lady Atterbury's crowd was not comprised of the great hostesses of the day, the Almack's patronesses and such. Her coterie contained instead those powerful figures' mothers and aunts and belles mères. The old beldams were therefore an even greater force to be reckoned with. They got together of an afternoon for silver loo, charitable committee meetings, musicales, poetry readings, and scientific dissertations. They also served up the latest gossip along with their tea and culture.
Sonia was not expected to participate in the conversations, thank goodness. In fact, she was often waved away to a secluded corner after her appearance and demeanor were scrutinized, lest her innocent ears be sullied. Many of the ladies refused to carry their ear trumpets, however, so the conversations were perforce loud enough not only to reach Sonia, but to rise above Herr Mitteldorf's performance on the harpsichord. Few of the grandes dames could rise without a footman's help after the performance, in fact, and fewer could see Herr Mitteldorf at all without their spectacles or looking glasses. Sonia thought she must be the only one there with all of her teeth, until she noticed another young woman across the way, concentrating not on the music or the chitchat, but on the book in her lap.
The young woman read her way through a lecture on the electrical properties of wool carpets, and through a dramatic presentation of an endlessly epic poem by a lisping young man with flowing locks.
Sonia made sure she sat near the young lady at the next gathering, a report from the directors of St. Bartleby's Institute for the Destitute, to which no one listened. The girl, for she could not be much older than Sonia, did not raise her eyes from her book, but she did reach into her reticule and pull out a matching purple-covered volume. "Here," she said, "you'll need this."
"This" was a purple-prosed gothic from the Minerva Press, and the young woman was Blanche Carstairs.
"Lady Blanche if you care for those things," Sonia's new friend and literary advisor introduced herself at the intermission. "I'm a countess in my own right, but don't let that bother you. I don't. It's one of those ancient land-grant titles that can pass through the female line. That's my aunt over there, the one in puce who is snoring."
Blanche—they were quickly on a first-name basis—was a drab, graceless type of girl, with little conversation and less fashion sense, but she knew everything. She flipped the pages of her book. "They think I'm not listening, so they say anything. Like how you're expected to make a grand alliance, despite coming from the gentry, if you don't make a mull of things."
Sonia gasped in indignation, but
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