Imogen
Ambermere, 1810
"En garde! Begone, you scoundrelly rascal!" screams Ian, future Earl of Lockley. His steel comes crashing down on mine with ferocious strength.
I draw myself up haughtily.
"Don't steal my lines, Ian," I shake a reproving finger at him. "You're the bandit, and I'm the prince, so you're the rascal here."
My brother draws up short, considering the matter gravely. "Yes, I suppose so. Except I don't think bandits care what insults they hurl, and you can't stop the fight to tell them off."
"I suppose you're right," I adjust the foil on the end of my dangerously slim fencing sword. "Though you could call me a scurvy knave or a peasant. Take that, peasant!"
I force him back with a series of thrusts and parries, but my older brother is too busy laughing to defend himself.
"Peasant?" he cackles. "Prince George would never say that to anyone. He has beautiful manners, you know. Much better than yours."
I brandish my sword. "I don't care. You can't be well-mannered while trying to kill someone, anyway. It doesn't make sense."
"Yes, it does." A flash of lightning-fast thrusts later, Ian has me cornered against the far wall of the long room we used as a practice gallery. "Courtesy is chivalry."
I drop my sword and throw my hands up in surrender. "That sounds like something Papa would say."
Ian still holds the point of his sword at my throat, frowning a little. "Yes. That doesn't make it wrong, Ginny."
I stick my tongue out at him. He hesitates for a moment, then drops his sword, grinning.
"Lord, you're still a child," he says, turning away. "I don't know what Mama is thinking, trying to turn you into a little lady."
"I could tell you that," I retort. I skip by his side, helping to pick up the swords. "It's because I'm going to get married."
"You're fourteen," says Ian grimly. "We are no longer in the Middle Ages, Lady Imogen. There's plenty of time yet for you to wear skirts and learn to curtsey."
I shudder. "Heaven forbid that day should ever come," I reply, surveying my breeches with satisfaction. "I think I would die if I could never fight with you again."
Ian's pleasant hazel eyes mellow and grow softer. "If I should ever see you refusing to fight me, I would call for a physician. It could only mean that you were dangerously ill.
"But now go take off those breeches and change into something respectable, please. Quickly, before Mama catches you and we are both scolded again!"
"I wish they made skirts for ladies to fence in," I giggle. "I swear, Mama is much more upset by the sight of breeches than of swords."
"Go!" My brother—and main conspirator—pushes me towards the stairs. "Don't make her accuse me of turning you into a hoyden again."
"She'll do that anyway," I predict gloomily. "But I don't care. You are the best brother in the world, my dearest, dearest Ian, and if not for you, I'd have run away years ago."
"And go where?" he snorts, wiping the swords clean on his shirttail. "No, don't answer that. You and I both know it will be to perdition."
I wrinkle my nose at him and flee to my room.
Fourteen is too old to refuse to be a lady, and breeches are scandalous on a female (gasp!) at any age.
But I think god has better things to do than send people to Hell just for wearing trousers. Only people like Mama and Lady Croft think impropriety is the greatest sin of all.
But what about murder, then? I think as I stalk back to my bedroom. Not to mention looting, pillaging, and playing cards in gaming halls?
My thoughts on relative morality are destined to remain unfulfilled. Just as I round the corner of the stairs leading up to my room, I hear a gasp.
"I-mo-gen! How could you?"
I sigh and turn my face up, squaring my shoulders. Mama stands at the head of the stairs, with her hand clasped to her heart.
"What are you wearing, my dearest girl?" she asks faintly. I shrug, sullen.
"The same thing I was wearing the last five times you caught me, Mama," I say unrepentantly. "Breeches. Shirtwaist. Boots. All stolen goods, as you know."
"And I know very well who allowed you to steal them, as well!" she snaps, her die-away tones turning to acid instantly. "Just wait until I see your brother. Just wait."
Another female figure appears at the head of the stairs, more dowdily dressed than Mama but twice as imposing. "You called, my lady?"
Mama draws herself up. As a mother, she may have failed me (as she tends to mention in her darker moods), but as Lady Enid, Countess of Lockley, her behavior is always above reproach.
"I did not call you, Graves, but since you are here, go to my dressing room and bring me my Chinese silk wrap, if you please," she says rapidly. Graves gives me a sour look and vanishes.
Having dispatched her dresser, Mama hurries down the stairs and pulls ungently at my elbow. I wince as she digs her nails into my skin.
"Up, up! Go to your room, Imogen, and do not let me see you again until you are dressed properly! When will you learn to behave yourself? Why, when I was your age, I could never—"
"What in god's name is happening here?" bellows an angry voice from the far side of the long corridor. "Is it too much to ask for peace in my house?"
Mama and I both fall perfectly still, but it is too late.
Heavy footsteps thunder ever closer, and then Papa appears at the head of the stairs.
There is a long silence. I can only hear Mama's shallow breaths coming quickly above my head.
"I see," says Papa eventually—his long, haughty nose twitches in distaste.
It is a punishment worse than death to me. I would have much preferred shouting or flogging. I am young enough still to remember being Papa's favorite.
Once, long ago, I believed he was the strongest, kindest, sweetest man alive, and he would love me forever, no matter what I did.
But I am fourteen now, and I suddenly realize something. Being old enough to behave like a lady means putting these childish dreams behind me.
"I'm sorry, Papa," I croak. I want to sound dignified, but my throat is full of misery. "I won't do it again. And I mean it this time," I add hurriedly.
I see his face as he turns away. It is more than disappointment that causes the deep grooves around his nose and mouth.
It is disgust.
I didn't know that, I think absently as Mama yanks me up the stairs and hustles me into the bedroom. I didn't know my father found me so disgusting that he could not speak to me.
"Shameless," mutters Mama under her breath, much quieter now that she knows Papa is nearby. "You are utterly shameless, and I do not know what I have ever done to deserve you."
Graves arrives with Mama's pretty dressing gown, far too late as usual. I stand shivering as the two of them bundle it around me.
"Get her into some decent clothes, Graves," hisses Mama. "And don't let me see her again for the rest of the day."
I catch a glimpse of the two of us in the room’s long beveled mirror, as different as chalk and cheese.
Me, with my wild red curls and a splotchy, spotted face flushed with my recent embarrassment, next to my pretty Mama, who is all limpid blue eyes and flaxen curls and fine lace.
I don't know what she's done to deserve me, either. I would have preferred to be a dainty little porcelain doll like her, the kind of daughter she could have loved.
But it is never going to be. She and I both know it. I see the look of despair on her face before she turns away.
And this is the day I learn I will never be a proper lady.
***
Imogen
London, three years later. . .
I lurk unobtrusively behind the potted palms provided with a lavish hand by the patronesses of Almack's, hoping I will die before the night ends.
And if this is a season, I think bitterly to myself, they can bloody well keep it.
It is my own fault, of course. I am too awkward, too unfashionable, and far too tall to become a success. Mama knew how it would turn out before I did.
Two decades ago, Mama had been a success in London, indeed the toast of all the young ladies in town. But she was a beauty, and despite her best efforts, I could not even get partners for a dance at a ball.
After all the expense of a coming out, as well. Despite Mama's dismal predictions, Papa did not spare any expense when launching his only daughter into the haut ton. I am just too much of an ugly duckling to make it worth his while.
My coming out ball was a grand success. Everyone says the Countess of Lockley looked like a resplendent dream, so the Earl could at least be proud of her.
It is only their daughter who is a disappointment.
Even Ian looked well in a dashing coat from Weston's, boots polished with champagne, and his hair swept into a Brutus pomade. He was always handsome, however.
Yet nobody wanted to dance with me, despite Ian’s instant popularity when we came to London for the season, despite all of Mama's influential friends and all the sons of Papa's old hunting cronies.
I would cry if I weren't so angry all the time.
What a waste. Of Papa's money, of everyone's time, of the rest of my life. Why can I not stay in the country and be left to be a disappointment in peace?
At least I wouldn't have to wear gowns for crying out loud.
Mama's choice for me tonight is a ghastly nightmare of pink muslin. The great modiste Madame Fanchon calls it “primrose.” I prefer to call it an abomination unto the eyes of the Lord.
Only pinks, yellows, and missish whites are considered suitable for young girls in their first season. Apparently, it is my fault that pink clashes so horribly with my red hair.
Add to that a scattering of freckles, an unseemly length of limb, and a tendency to stumble over my own skirts, and my fate is sealed.
"Doom. Doom and despair," says a sepulchral voice near my ear. That would be Ian pretending to be a ghost again.
I shoot him a dark look. "You may well say so. It's only ten, and the dancing goes on till two in the morning. If I cannot get a partner, I may as well be dead."
"If you hide behind the greenery, how will anyone ask you to dance?" says Ian in a reasonable tone. I wince.
Ian is mostly too busy riding with his friends or learning to box with Gentleman Jackson to notice my dire predicament during the London season. I do not blame him for that, of course.
Nobody asked me to dance, even when I sat in plain view with the rest of the young ladies. It was too humiliating to endure, so I began to hide elsewhere.
The tall ferns are one of my favorite sanctuaries. I could also find respite behind conveniently placed pillars, small curtained alcoves, and once, behind the japanned screen in a card room at Lady Jersey's house.
And if Mama chooses to ignore me in favor of her friends and admirers, well, I prefer it that way. It is more convenient for me, though I can only hope to escape her scolds for a while.
But she is a great deal better than those nagging older matrons who are forever hovering over their daughters, fiercely guarding their virtue against some men, pushing them into the arms of others. The hens and their downy little chicks, I like to call them in my head.
As for me, I will always be the lonely duckling, forever out of place.
Ian looks at my miserable face and punches me in the upper arm far too violently.
"Oh, cheer up, Ginny," he says carelessly. "None of these young idiots deserve you, anyway. I don't like to see you worry yourself."
"Well, I don't like to be stuffed into stupid gowns and made to come to parties," I fire back. "Yet here I am, Ian, so what are we supposed to do about it?"
He grimaces. "You should have been a boy."
And didn't I always know it, I think bitterly, peering out through the fronds of a graciously flowering fern long after he is gone. Unfortunately, nobody in my life has ever asked me what I want.
It is all so hideously unfair that I want to scream, which I almost do now.
Some blundering idiot bumps into me, his breath heavy with liquor and his eyes red and squinting. There is a ripping sound that strikes my heart cold with dread.
Oh, no. For goodness' sake.
"Oh, sorry," he says through an ungraceful burp. "Dreadfully sorry. I didn't see you there, miss."
I refrain from telling him that he is addressing Lady Imogen Lockley, only shooting him a dagger glance before I pick up the tattered remnants of my hem and dash toward a small alcove nearby.
"I say," he calls after me, "you'll fall on your face if you run like that!"
But I am already hunting through my silk reticule for the needle, scissors, and thread that Mama and her dresser Graves always insist I carry. I've had these accidents before, after all.
The terrible thing is that though I would have to confess I was hiding somewhere quiet, I would be scolded this time even though I wasn't the one to blame, I think furiously.
The drunken lout follows me to the secluded little alcove just as I pin up the torn flounce of my skirt. He leans heavily against the wall.
"I didn't catch your name," he says, a very poor attempt at gallantry given that he has the face of a boiled pudding and the figure to match.
"We have not been properly introduced, my lord," I say ungraciously, knowing full well that I am addressing the Marquis of Seymour, heir to a Dukedom and a fat prize on the matrimonial market.
Not that I care.
"But I would rather have your apology," I continue sharply. "You have quite ruined my gown and my pleasure in the evening."
His piggish red gaze drifts downwards, ignoring my flounces and embracing my ankles. I stiffen in genuine outrage.
"You're pretty, really," he says, with the air of a man making a startling discovery. And if I had a sword with me now, I would cheerfully run him through without hesitation.
I get to my feet, clutching my frail reticule to me like a shield. "Let me pass, sir."
"I think not." And with one lurch, he is in front of me, blocking my way out. His breath is stinking and hot on my face.
"Pretty girl," he says coaxingly, nearly slurring. "Tell me your name."
My fingers tighten on my reticule. I am so, so angry. I have been angry for so long and can no longer bear it.
At least, that's what I tell Ian later. I have to say something.
But the truth was, I enjoyed it. Shameless of me, I know.
There is a moment there, just a beautiful moment, when that swine Edgar Mountford, Marquis of Seymour, son of a duke and a most eligible bachelor, realizes exactly what will happen to him.
I don't know how it happened, myself. One moment, I am clutching my reticule, the picture of outraged maidenly propriety. The next second, my right fist sails through the air of its own volition and lands a hell of a right hook—flush on the pig's face—all in an extremely unmaidenly way.
He blinks, gapes, gasps, and staggers backward.
Then he falls to his knees with a resounding crash, and there is the end of me hiding.
Suddenly the tiny alcove is surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, all ready to sympathize with a drunken aristocrat bleeding profusely from his nose. And who is to blame?
Me. The answer to these sorts of questions is always going to be me.
I meet Ian's horrified gaze. He towers over the crowd, and when he spots me, he begins to push his way in to rescue his sister.
If only that were the end of it. All around us, a chorus of shocked whispers and muttered imprecations swells and subsides as Ian hustles me away and into our carriage.
I know I will remember these words forever.
"What on earth happened?"
"Good god, is that His Grace?"
"No, it's his son! The boy's hurt! Quickly, send for a doctor. He's bleeding!"
"But how in blazes did it happen? Was there fighting? Who would dare?"
"It was her! Lady Enid's daughter! I saw the whole thing!"
"Look at her! Her knuckles are practically dripping with his blood! Did you ever see such a thing?"
"Good heavens, she might have killed him. . ."
And then they are looking at me. They are all looking at me, and there is nowhere to hide anymore. They can all see what a terrible, disgraceful disappointment I am, and somebody is bound to tell Papa, and then—
And then Ian is there, and he takes me away. At least, that is something.
But I can still hear them, miles away and for hours afterward. I can still feel them all looking at me, and I know without being told that nothing will ever be the same again.
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