As the husband hunter establishes herself in a circle of acquaintance in London, she may not at first observe any disparities of fortune among the gentlemen who solicit her hand for a dance or vie to bring her into supper. A nobody from nowhere, heir to nothing, may be as charming, well-spoken, and fashionable as the next man, as sought after by hostesses to make up their numbers. But the husband hunter must beware, the more attractive this nobody, the graver the danger he poses to her happiness. He is as unacceptable to her family as an islander living in a hut next door to Robinson Crusoe. Whether the family is of long standing in the peerage or newly risen into the realm of gentility, it is the chief concern of her parents to secure their daughter’s station in life.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
The following afternoon, Lord Wynford himself accompanied Octavia and Harriet and the Luxborough party to the Royal Institution. Whether the brother and sister had spoken of Octavia’s situation or not, Harriet suspected that Wynford meant to observe his sister more closely. He might be excessively protective, but Harriet could not accuse him of being indifferent to Octavia’s happiness.
They arrived in good time and made their way through the lobby and into the theater. Lord Wynford had returned to his usual understated elegance, and Octavia wore a becoming gown of pale blue wool that set off her fair complexion and dark hair. But she refused to look at or speak to her brother.
When they reached the row of seats Harriet preferred, Octavia went ahead with her new friends, so as to avoid sitting next to her brother. Wynford appeared not to notice, reserving his civility for Harriet. It was the merest politeness, but a novel sensation flustered her briefly at being the object of a gentleman’s attentions. She had for so long followed her charges in and out of rooms, she had forgotten any other arrangement.
“I’m in disgrace,” Wynford confided to Harriet.
“What have you done?” she asked. She expected him to confess that he had pressed Octavia to confide in him, and that the girl had refused.
“I suggested the blue gown.”
“Suggested?” Harriet challenged him. “Admit it, you would not permit her to leave the house in...”
“A striped sarcenet better suited to a country picnic or a shop awning.”
Harriet did not understand him. It was an odd remark from a man who had worn stripes the night before. And they plainly disagreed on how to guide a young woman to sound judgment.
Their conversation was interrupted by an exchange of greetings with some of Lady Luxborough’s acquaintances. Necessary introductions were made, and Harriet read in the other ladies’ faces their astonishment at her companion’s name and rank.
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Miss Swanley?” he asked as she scrupulously tucked away her reticule and gloves.
“Not at all.”
“Then perhaps it is the heat of the room that brings that pink color into your cheeks.”
“Am I so obvious?” she asked. “A governess, you know, is obliged to remain invisible. I’m afraid appearing with you, even in your sister’s company, smacks of putting myself forward.”
“Surely, your friends know you better,” he suggested gently.
“It is Lady Luxborough’s friends in whose eyes I have trespassed.”
It was not quite a rebuke, but it checked him briefly, and before he offered a rejoinder, Perry came bounding up the aisle.
Perry gave Harriet the briefest of nods. Octavia still refused to look her brother’s way.
“Quick, man,” Perry said to Wynford. “The marchioness is here. I’ve brought a waistcoat. No time to lose.” He waved a garment in a startling shade of purple.
“Pardon me,” Wynford said to Harriet, and followed Perry to the upper reaches of the theater.
“Hah,” Octavia said, turning to Harriet.
“I gather that you and your brother have had a falling-out.”
“He makes no sense. One evening he can wear a waistcoat striped like a tiger, and the next day he tells me I can’t go near stripes.”
“Baffling, I agree,” said Harriet. “What explains it, do you think?” She had not missed Perry’s reference to a marchioness, though she could not imagine why a man of Wynford’s usual restrained dress should don the peacock hues of the previous century for a woman.
“It’s downright provoking if you ask me, Miss Swanley. If you don’t have a brother, you can have mine.”
There were still a few minutes before the hour, and Anne and Camille engaged Octavia in a discussion of the merits of the young gentlemen from the previous evening.
“There were some quite handsome,” Octavia acknowledged, “and your brother Ned is the best dancer, far better than...anyone else.” Octavia grew quiet. “I suppose he didn’t ask me to dance again because... Oh well, I daresay, I will learn to dance in the London way.”
“Oh no,” Camille hastened to reassure her. “That’s just Ned’s way. He is scrupulously polite. He dances with each girl once.”
As Octavia weighed this alternate interpretation of the evening, John Jowers appeared at the end of their row and bowed.
“You,” said Octavia.
“I’m glad you came for another lecture, Miss Davenham. Today Wallis is going to talk about the movement of the planets.”
“I thought astronomy was about stars,” Octavia said with an obvious sense of grievance.
Mr. Jowers obliged the ladies to stand and shift their positions, and took a seat beside Octavia. “Stars are fine to look at,” he said, “but it’s the planets that explain everything.”
“I really prefer stars,” Octavia insisted. “Planets are what—lumps of dirt and rock?”
Undeterred by Octavia’s apparent distaste for the topic, Mr. Jowers launched into an explanation of the Newtonian modification of Kepler’s third law of motion. He was deep into mathematical details of mass and gravity and the semimajor axes of elliptical orbits when Lord Wynford, wearing the shocking purple waistcoat, slipped back into place beside Harriet.
He had no sooner seated himself than a woman entered the hall, drawing all eyes. There was no denying the elegance of her satin pelisse in a rich myrtle-green trimmed with fur. Her face was striking under the brim of a bronze silk bonnet, and her bold gaze went at once to Wynford.
Beside Harriet, Octavia gave a small start of surprise. “Oh,” she said, “that’s how one is supposed to dress.”
The striking marchioness obviously had a sense of style, but it was just the sort to mislead the novice into fatal imitation. Before Harriet could correct Octavia’s notion that the dress appropriate to a woman well past thirty should be her model, the woman reached them and stopped.
Wynford stood. “Marchioness.”
“Cousin.” She withdrew a gloved hand from a rich chinchilla muff and extended it to Wynford. “I did not know you had scientific interests.” Her amused glance flickered over the outrageous waistcoat.
“Hardly,” he said with curt civility. “I merely accompany my...sister and her...companion.”
“Your sister,” said the marchioness. “You must make us acquainted.”
Wynford made the introductions with stiff correctness, relegating Harriet to the role of governess rather than relation without a blink. Harriet had not seen him so ill at ease and so little able to conceal it, his brusque manner at odds with his words. He did not wish his sister to become acquainted with the Frenchwoman.
“Ah, little cousin,” said the marchioness to Octavia with a sly smile. “We shall become acquainted, n’est-ce pas? Your mother was my cousin, too.”
“Marchioness, you will want your seat,” said Wynford, “as the lecture begins promptly with the hour.”
Harriet quietly abandoned the notion that she would learn much from Mr. Wallis’s lecture. Gravity might be the universal law that governed everything, from apples or the coins in one’s pocket to the planets in their orbits around the sun, but other laws governed the motion of hearts.