after everything she’s been through in recent years.
If her heart is truly ice, as some claim, it stands to reason that it would shatter more easily when broken...
In other observations, Lady Norrick’s gown was quite the thing. So many beads adorned her dress she had to keep sitting to alleviate its pressing weight...
And on went the article, further educating those who had been unable to attend on how very fine Lady Norrick’s gown was...
April 1814
There it was—between a cataloged detail of the lobster patties and a thorough description of Lady Norrick’s ball gown lay the entire tale of Lady Eleanor Murray’s most humiliating moment.
And a perpetual reminder of that blasted moniker.
Ice Queen, indeed.
Inside she was anything but ice, with untethered emotion lashing and writhing until an aching knot settled in the back of her throat.
But ladies were not to show emotion—and she was, after all, a Murray. Murrays were strong. They did not show fear. And they certainly did not concede to hurt, no matter how it twisted within one’s soul.
She stared down at the crinkled page in her hands. The corners of the paper fluttered and called to attention the way she trembled.
She wanted to read the story again and wished for the usual: a detailed account of dinner, as always very thorough, told through the eyes of the Lady Observer, and trifling little on-dits that did not include her. Simple, ineffectual tales—like pointing out someone who had had two glasses of champagne instead of one, or whose reticule might have been left behind after the guests departed, followed by speculation as to why it had been left with such haste.
But the words of the story had not changed. Lady Alice had swept late into the Season, bright and beautiful and devoid of the desperation clawing at Eleanor. Every man had been drawn to her—including Hugh.
Eleanor’s heart gave an ugly twinge.
Not Hugh. Lord Ledsey. She no longer held the right to address him or even think of him so informally. That right belonged to Lady Alice now. To make matters worse, Lady Alice was such a kind soul, and so lovely a person, it rendered her impossible to dislike. How very vexing.
The life Eleanor had envisioned with Hugh—summers at Ledsey Manor, the Season spent at Ledsey Place, freedom from having to plod along in the dreaded search for a suitable husband—all of it now belonged to Alice.
Eleanor’s throat went tight. Dash it—she was about to cry.
A delicate knock sounded at her closed door.
She quickly shoved the paper under the pillow of her bed, blinked her eyes clear and grabbed up a book. “Enter.”
The Countess of Westix swept into the room, followed by a footman carrying a large boxed parcel. Eleanor’s mother indicated the dressing table with a wave of her hand and then addressed her daughter. “I’d like a word with you.”
The footman obediently placed the parcel on the seat before Eleanor’s dressing table and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Eleanor eyed the curious package first, and then her mother. The Countess wore a lavender evening gown sparkling with beadwork over a net of black lace. She was lovely, despite the silver in her golden hair, which had been coiffured to its usual state of perfection. There was not a wrinkle of worry or anger on her smooth face, but still Eleanor’s stomach gave a familiar wrench—as it did any time her mother entered her room.
A lecture was forthcoming.
But what of the curious gift?
Her mother regarded the book Eleanor held. “What are you reading?”
“The Festival of St. Jago,” Eleanor replied slowly.
Surely her mother had not come into her room to discuss her selection of literature?
The Countess tilted her head dramatically to the side. “Upside down?”
Eleanor focused on the page for the first time. It stared up at her from its flipped position. Exactly upside down.
Drat.
“Perhaps you were reading something else?”
The Countess of Westix lifted her brow in the way she always did when it was obvious she’d spotted a lie. That look had plagued Eleanor through the course of her very rigid childhood. Or at least after Evander had been sent to school, following the incident with their father, since when life had become impossibly strict.
Eleanor set the book aside with careful measure. The Lady Observer gave an incriminating crackle from beneath her pillow.
The Countess sat on the bed beside her daughter. “I read it, too. And I’ve heard the rumors—what they say about you.”
Eleanor pressed a fingernail into the pad of her thumb until it hurt more than her mortification. It was a trick she’d used as a girl, when emotion threatened to overwhelm her, as though she could pinch the feeling out of herself with the sharp sensation.
She did not want to be having this abysmal conversation with her mother, having to relive the awful moment ad nauseam. Hadn’t the experience itself been torment enough?
“I’m proud of you, daughter. You’ve maintained your composure.”
The Countess settled her hand on Eleanor’s arm. The touch was as awkward as it was foreign. Her mother immediately drew away her cold, dry fingers and tucked the offending appendage against her waist.
“It is I who is ashamed.”
The shock of those words left Eleanor speechless. Her mother was without even a modicum of impropriety.
“I did not have a good marriage with your father, God rest his soul.” The Countess regarded Eleanor with a cool look. “He came from a strong clan before his family was elevated to the English nobility. It was his belief that all emotion was weakness, indicative of one who was baseborn, and his family had worked too hard to climb high to be considered common. Murrays are strong. They do not show fear.”
Eleanor bit back a bitter smile. She knew those words well and had spent a lifetime listening to them being recited. After all, she knew the story well enough. Her father had not allowed any of the ton to look down on them for being Scottish, for not having been members of the nobility since the dawn of time.
“I gave up a piece of myself when I married your father,” said her mother. “I didn’t realize...” Her eyes became glossy. She pursed her lips and gave a long, slow blink before resuming. “I didn’t realize I would be making my children give a piece of themselves away as well.”
This show of such emotion left Eleanor wanting to squirm on the bed with discomfort.
