Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(83)
She sighed in admiration over the overlong wealth of thick bronze hair brushing his loosely-tied neckcloth. Why couldn’t the gentleman who courted her look like that? She might even try to listen to them if they did.
Hearing an argument rising above the music, she decided maybe not. Even a dog handler would need to be a mute hermit for her to be comfortable.
What on earth had caused Lord Clayton to overreact in such a manner? It did not seem in character, although she would be the first to admit that she was not a keen judge of behavior. Unfortunately, out of self-preservation, she preferred shirking society to observing it.
She peered around the corner to verify no one lurked in the corridor, then darted toward the library. If she was fortunate, she might find a book and sneak up the back stairs to her room before anyone found her.
She grimaced as she slipped into the library and Lord Baldwin rose from a wing chair with a book and a rose in hand. As he spoke, the music faded, allowing in the noise of a large household filled with a hundred servants and guests.
Don’t you ever go in my pantry again or I’ll take this knife . . .
Drip, drip, ping. Drip, drip, drip, ping.
A waltz please! We need to practice . . .
E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E, G
You bastard, I thought you said there was no one out there . . .
Is she really gone?
The more emotional arguing and whispering escalated in her head, drowning out the lesser noises, nearly crippling all thought. Was that Lord Clayton shouting? At whom? Who was gone? While her suitor spoke, Aurelia tried to focus on the musical notes and shut out the unpleasantness.
Vaguely, realizing a reply was expected when Lord Baldwin stopped talking, she dipped a curtsy. “How very lovely to see you again, my lord.” Intent on no more than escape, Aurelia left the library and another bewildered suitor behind.
She hurried up to the privacy of her isolated bedchamber, only to find her sisters waiting. Well, she had expected no less. She shut and bolted the extra-thick door, then stubbornly sat on a chaise longue near the window overlooking a private, quiet park, and waited for the lecture to begin. At least there were no groveling gentlemen in here. If she allowed the music in the ballroom to fill her head, she could almost concentrate on her sisters and not the other voices. Who was playing now? She was more expert than Lydia.
“Did you accept Lord Clayton’s suit?” Lydia asked, trying on Aurelia’s diamond earrings and admiring them in the vanity mirror. Her round face and blond curls weren’t classically pretty but pleasant enough. At nineteen, she’d already had been presented and snared a suitor— because Aurelia had refused to go to London that season.
She didn’t know if she could put off her father’s demands that she return for the next season.
“Or Lord Baldwin’s?” Phoebe asked excitedly. “A spring wedding, just in time for my come-out would be wonderful!”
Phoebe was only seventeen. A shorter, plumper version of her older sisters, she was sweeter-natured but more impetuous.
“It won’t happen,” Lydia said in boredom. “You’d do better to expect mine.”
“Your betrothed will surely be home by spring,” Aurelia said reassuringly, trying to follow her sisters’ chatter while the din of a hundred voices buzzed in her head. “Do you have your music prepared for the musicale this evening? Lady Bennet has such a lovely voice!”
“You won’t even be there to listen!” Both her sisters glared at her. Accustomed to her behavior, though, they did not waste time bothering her again with questions she didn’t hear or wouldn’t answer.
“We waited until father and Rain were both in London to arrange this entertainment,” Lydia continued, her anger overriding the outside chatter. “We brought in all the eligible young men you haven’t rejected, the ones whom they would not invite. And you still cannot decide?”
“I don’t hear them,” Aurelia cried plaintively, hugging a pillow. “How can I marry someone I cannot hear?”
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s a benefit, not a detriment. We made sure they were all handsome. All you need do is look at them,” Phoebe said with a hint of desperation. “How will I ever compete with you next Season if you’re not taken?”
“You won’t,” Lydia said. “None of us can. We’ll have to put a sack over her head.”
“Or beans in my ears,” Aurelia said with a sigh. “Cook is threatening to knife someone again. Will one of you please calm troubled waters this time? I really don’t want to push Lord Rush down the stairs. He’s hovering on the landing.”
Again, they didn’t question her irrelevant response as everyone outside the family did. She hoped someday, when she was a maiden aunt, that they would come to accept her inability to deal with the world at large. Had she been a medieval lady, they could have bought her a place in a nunnery and gone on with their lives. As it was, she was perfectly useless and an obstacle to everyone’s happiness.
“I’ll go, if I can borrow your earrings for this evening.” Lydia turned her head back and forth to admire the flash and sparkle.
“By all means.” Remembering Lord Clayton’s unusual behavior, Aurelia added, “Phoebe, go with her. Some of the guests have been a little unruly in Rain’s absence. We’d best go everywhere in pairs.”