The Taming of Lady Honoria by Jodi Henley

Chapter One
     
    Lady Honoria Cavanaugh drummed her heels on
the lavish Italianate marble floor, her magnificent legs naked for
all to see. The sweeping muslin skirts of her snowy white gown were
torn, stained with crumbs and smeared with gobs of clotted cream.
On a nearby sideboard, an overturned ewer of Devonshire's finest
shook in time to Honoria's piercing screams.
    "I hate this dress! It's ugly and I refuse to wear it. I look like an ape-leader—I shall die,"
she said, rolling to her feet, hand to her ivory brow, " die ,
of embarrassment." Tatters of fine muslin fell underfoot and were
trampled by her dainty jonquil boots.
    Her mother lifted a tiny silver bell. "You're
disturbing my kippers, dear."
    The doors to the east breakfast room flew
open and a man easily the size of a small mountain stood heaving in
the doorway. Wild black curls sprang from his scalp, giving him a
quizzical air.
    "M'lady?" he panted. "I came running."
    "Yes you did, dear boy—attend to Lady Honoria
and find her a new gown? It appears she's torn her…everything."
Lady Charlotte Sophia Cavanaugh snapped her paper out, picked up
her fork and turned her attention back to the platter of smoked
kippers and tomatoes. Her fork stabbed out.
    "Mother!"
    Lady Charlotte sliced her tomato into plump
tidbits with the side of her fork. "Honoria, don't be
unpleasant."
    "I do not want a new gown." Honoria
stomped her lovely foot. "I want the blue gown Emily
Stanhope-Thornton wore to the assembly last night. It's the latest
kick and I want it !"
    The paper snapped again, and Lady Charlotte
appeared over the top. Magnified by a pair of wire-rimmed
spectacles, her large hazel eyes regarded Honoria gravely. "Robbie,
love? Take Lady Honoria back to her chambers. Talk to me later,
dear."
    Honoria shoved past Robbie and ran out into
the hall, hands over her lovely face. Tears poured between her
fingers like torrents of summer rain. "You are so mean to
me! How can I have such an unfeeling parent?" She stopped at the
bottom of the stairs to the upper level and threw her hand out, one
fist clenched to her unfortunately minimal bosom. "Do not think to follow me, Robbie!"
    Robbie stopped at the tip of her outstretched
finger and shook his enormous head. He wasn't horrible to look at
if one liked a certain coarseness of feature, and Honoria had every
reason to believe his god-like musculature was real, but there was
a limit to what she was willing to put up with from the servants.
She ran up the staircase and clung to the newel post on the
landing, shoulders shaking under the onslaught of her tempestuous
emotions.
    "Despite what I told you when I was but a
girl, you are no friend, Robbie Macgregor! A real friend—doesn't,
doesn't…b-badger one so!" There! She'd said it, repudiating
what little remained of their childhood.
    Her enormous chamber was at the farthest
reach of the left wing, as far from the rest of the family as
possible. As her mother said, Honoria was loud and inclined to
shriek.
    She stomped into the room with her chest
heaving. The gilded pier glass she'd strategically placed across
from the door showed the futility of it all. She had a perfect
heart-shaped face and melting brown eyes, but they were useless without bosom. Her beauty didn't make up for the
horrible cheated feeling. No matter what she did, her chest didn't
heave in an interesting way and her boots pinched.
    The buttery jonquil leather had been shaped
to her measurements, but the soles were obviously meant for a
child. The narrow little slots were much too small.
    Honoria limped to the chaise lounge beside
the fireplace and sat, moving her foot first one way then another.
Surely it wasn't swollen? How horrible to think her delicate flesh
would be subjected to the indignity of tight shoes.
    Robbie loomed in the doorway, watching her.
"Can I do something for you, m'lady?"
    "Don't just stand there," she snapped. "Fetch
my maidservant."
    Robbie crossed the room to kneel at her feet.
The width of