The music was too loud, the champagne too warm, and the polite smile plastered on Anna's face was beginning to cramp her jaw. Lord Harrington leaned in close, catching her eye. For a singular foolish second, she thought he might actually ask her to dance. Instead, his gaze darted over her shoulder. "Your sister, Arabella," he murmured, adjusting his perfectly starched cravat.
"Does she favor a waltz?" It was the fourth time tonight. Anna was not a woman, she was a waiting room. The season was not a romantic whirlwind of stolen glances and sweeping strings. It was an auction block. Anna stood near a cluster of wilting ferns, nursing a glass of lemonade that tasted entirely of sour lemons and regret.
The ballroom of the Earl of Stanhope was stifling. Two hundred bodies crammed into a space designed for half that, all radiating heat, ambition, and the cloying scent of heavily perfumed desperation. A few feet away, her sister Arabella held court. Arabella was a masterpiece of genetics and their mother's relentless grooming. She had hair the color of spun gold, eyes like clear summer skies, and a laugh that sounded like a silver bell.
Men orbited her. They brought her ices. They fought to write their names on her dance card. On the other side of the room, near the musicians, her youngest sister Cecilia was causing a different kind of stir. Cecilia was fire to Arabella's ice, dark-haired, vivacious, prone to laughing a little too loudly, and touching a gentleman's arm just a second too long.
And then there was Anna. She was 22, which in the eyes of the ton meant she was already standing with one foot in the grave of spinsterhood. She possessed brown hair that refused to hold a curl, and eyes the color of muddy river water. She was perfectly ordinary. She wore a gown of muted sage green, not because she liked the color, but because her mother had decreed that her dress must not clash with Arabella's radiant peach silk or Cecilia's bold crimson.
A shadow fell over her. "Miss Anna." Anna looked up. Lord Carmichael was standing before her. He was young, nervous, and sweating through his collar.
"Lord Carmichael," she said evenly. "A pleasant evening." "Indeed, splendid." He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. He looked over her head.
He looked to her left. He swallowed hard. Anna sighed internally. She knew the script by heart. She decided to save them both the time.
"Arabella has no more dances available before supper, my lord. However, she does take her tea in the park at 4:00 on Thursdays, usually near the Serpentine. She is particularly fond of candied almonds." Carmichael blinked, his cheeks turning a violent shade of pink. "I... I beg your pardon?"
"You came to ask about my sister. I am merely expediting the process. Candied almonds, Lord Carmichael. But not the ones from the corner shop on Bond Street. She finds them too sweet.
Get them from Gunter's." "I... thank you, Miss Anna." He bowed awkwardly and practically sprinted away. Anna took a slow sip of her terrible lemonade. She wasn't angry.
Anger required energy she didn't possess. It was just a bone-deep exhaustion. She was the gatekeeper, the convenient, invisible stepping stone men used to reach the glittering prizes of her family. "You slouched again?" Lady Hawthorne materialized beside her, her voice a sharp hiss masked beneath a serene aristocratic smile.
"I was standing perfectly straight, Mother," Anna said without looking at her. "If you were standing straight, would your shoulders look quite so broad?" her mother countered, snapping her fan open. "Did Lord Carmichael ask you to dance?" "No, he wanted to know about Arabella." Lady Hawthorne let out a sharp breath of approval.
"Good.
He has £3,000 a year. Not enough for Arabella, of course, but it keeps the competition fierce. You were polite, I hope." "Immaculately." "See that you stay that way." Her mother scanned the room, her eyes darting with the tactical precision of a general surveying a battlefield.
"We must secure a match for Arabella this season.
The estate is bleeding money, Anna. Your brother's debts are mounting. If Arabella doesn't land a titled man, we will be ruined. And if we are ruined, who will marry Cecilia?" "And what about me?" Anna didn't ask.
The answer was already understood.
Anna was the middle child, the plain one. Her purpose was not to marry well. Her purpose was to facilitate, to manage, to step aside. She was to be the maiden aunt who lived in the drafty wing of Arabella's future grand estate, helping to raise the children.
"I need some air," Anna murmured. "Do not stray far," her mother warned, already stepping away to intercept an aging viscount. "And pinch your cheeks.
You look like a corpse." Anna set her glass on a passing servant's tray and turned her back on the glittering room.
She walked down the long mirrored corridor. The music faded into a low thumping bass. She didn't go to the terrace. The terrace was where young debutantes went to be compromised. Instead, she pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Stanhope library.
It was dark, lit only by a single candelabra left burning on a massive mahogany desk, and it smelled of old paper, leather bindings, and silence. It was heaven. She let her shoulders drop. She reached up and pulled out two hairpins that had been digging mercilessly into her scalp, releasing a breath she felt she'd been holding since she stepped out of the carriage. "If you intend to take off the entire dress, I should warn you I have not yet finished my brandy."