Chapter 4

Asummons to her brother’s study didn’t necessarily mean anything of consequence. Sometimes, Ivy’s brother had a question about an expense he thought Ivy had knowledge of. Other times, he asked if she had anyone she wished him to invite to dinner. Once or twice, he had even asked her opinion on a household matter when her sister-in-law was not readily available for something he considered a “domestic concern.”

Ivy suspected this particular meeting, requested a quarter of an hour before dinner, had something to do with the invitation from the duchess and duke. She hadn’t yet put her gloves on, carrying them with her as she went down the stairs to her brother’s domain. The study, which had belonged to their father, didn’t look as it had during Ivy’s growing up years.

When her father had sat behind the desk in the evenings, he’d been surrounded by a halo of light. His eyesight wasn’t the best, so he kept bright lamps on the desk to illuminate papers or books placed on its surface. A surface Ivy couldn’t truly remember seeing, as it had always been covered in documents, notes, magnifying glasses, and cast-iron paperweights shaped like exotic animals.

William kept the desk spotless. The wood had been polished until it gleamed, and not a single thing rested on its surface unless the earl was using it at that very moment. Consequently, that evening only a single sheet of paper, cut to a small square, rested before him on the desk.

He never dithered in speech when he had a topic in mind, so when he spoke without any sort of polite conversation, Ivy wasn’t surprised. “I met with His Grace, the Duke of Montfort, this afternoon. From what Fanny has said, this will not come as a surprise.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She sat without being invited. William often forgot to let others know they could sit in his presence. She did not take it personally, but would not wait upon him to remember, either. “I had a visit from Lady Josephine and the invitation from the duchess this morning.”

Her gaze drifted to look behind him, and she wondered if feeling lonely after looking at bookshelves was a common affliction.

The loneliness she felt in her own home often took her by surprise.

Her father’s shelves had overflowed with books, globes, maps, and trinkets from his travels. The disarray wasn’t touched by servants, except for light dusting, as the late earl had known where everything was precisely because there was no reason to it.

“Ordering it to someone else’s arbitrary idea of organization would undo everything,” he’d said once when Ivy offered to tidy the shelves for him, thinking he didn’t trust a maid to do the job.

William’s shelves were nearly empty. He had a few tall books with dark red leather binding, a small bust of a philosopher he rather liked, and a tidy collection of poetry he had never read but had been a gift from the Prince Regent. His Royal Highness apparently rather liked poetry and tried to share his fondness for it with others.

“The invitation was a surprise, I take it?” he asked.

Ivy directed her gaze to her brother. “It was, yes. I haven’t spoken to Her Grace for some time, though Lady Josephine and I are frequently guests at the same parties.”

“It comes at a good time,” her brother said, tapping the paper in front of him with his finger. “I intended to have this conversation with you when we adjourned to the country. I have looked over the numbers, Ivy, and I have decided you must marry.”

She stilled, her lungs trying to close up while her thoughts caught up with what her ears had heard. “I beg your pardon. Did you say marry?” And what had numbers to do with such a thing as matrimony?

“Yes. The sooner you do, the better.” He tapped the paper again. “While you have ample funds to set up a comfortable household in some less fashionable place, Bath or York, perhaps, I think it a shame for the income to do nothing other than pay your bills for the remainder of your life. Though you would be a comfortable spinster, you would still be a spinster. The money would go nowhere, be passed on to no one, and you would be too much of a novelty in any neighborhood where you settled. You would be a spectacle.”

The bleak prediction for her future shook Ivy’s tongue free at last. “I have no intention of remaining a spinster, William. I haven’t met the man I wish to marry yet, but I would like to marry someday.”

She needn’t be alone. She could have her sisters with her—if he’d only release her funds.

“That is a relief of sorts.” He sat back in his large chair and laced his fingers together on the desk. “Though it changes nothing. A woman with her own household and funds, living independent of guardians and family, is an object of curiosity. Already, Fanny and I worry over your habits. We have checked many of your odd impulses, but without our direction, you are likely to slip into greater instances of peculiarity rather than conform to the expectations Society has for marriageable women. Thank goodness we haven’t seen the same level of oddities in the younger girls.”

Her mouth opened and closed without a sound. Her brother thought her odd? So odd, in fact, that he didn’t think she should live on her own?

“You require the supervision of a responsible husband,” he went on, tone certain and expression bland. “A man who will oversee your funds and ensure you conform to the duties and behaviors of your sex.”

A laugh that had nothing to do with amusement escaped her throat. “You do not trust me to set up house or be responsible for myself? Not in the least?”

Women her age supervised households as mistress and housekeeper, taught as governesses, ran schools, arranged social calendars, and even ran businesses. Most of her friends from youth were married with children, managing estates, assisting their husbands’ political careers, and even traveling the world.

“I trust you to have good intentions,” her brother corrected with an air of consolation. “Your lack of experience and the evidence of your behavior to date, however, show you unlikely to do more than become?—”

“An object of curiosity,” she said, repeating his earlier words. “What do you think I will do? Start a scandal? Wear my nightgown in public? Take up hunting in Hyde Park?”

Just once she would like her brother, like anyone, to tell her she had done well. A kind word of praise had become so rare to her that she had come to crave even the smallest of compliments.

His expression turned from bland to unamused, which was rather different, though Ivy couldn’t have explained how.

“It is rude to interrupt,” he said. “It is worrying you came up with a list of such absurd behaviors without pause. No, Ivy, I do not expect you to become a fool. I do expect you will portray yourself, perhaps convert yourself entirely, into a creature no man will wish to marry, if you are left to your own habits and strange ways.”

“What horrible thing is that?” she asked, her bare fingers gripping the arms of the chair so fiercely her knuckles turned white. “A witch? A progressive? Perhaps—” she put her hand over her heart for emphasis, as she knew her brother despised one sort of woman above all “—a female emancipationist?”

His eyelids fell halfway closed and his lips thinned. “You think yourself amusing, Ivy, but you are proving my point. An independently-minded woman is a danger to herself and the foundations of our society. Our father indulged you past the point of reason. I had hoped Fanny’s example and my own influence upon you would improve your behavior and unorthodox mannerisms.” He sighed as though he was the one whose character and entire identity had been called into question. “Thank the Lord your sisters are not nearly so stubborn as you.”

The censure hurt, and it remained up to her to find a balm for the pain. No one else would.

Ivy wanted to stand and pace the room, as she had when she and her father shared friendly debates in the past. William would see such movement as agitation on her part, or perhaps even think pacing an unladylike display of emotion.

“I am capable of living independently,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage, and she felt she did well at sounding reasonable rather than furious. “Even more so, I think I could set up a proper house for myself and my sisters.”

His eyebrows raised at that, and Ivy realized she was skating perilously close to the line William had drawn for appropriate behavior. He wasn’t as strict as Fanny, but she had no wish to push him to that point.

Softening her tone, she tried for a pleading air rather than continue to give voice to her shock. “Perhaps you would explain to me, if you would be so kind, why this is a conversation we must have now. Have I committed some terrible misdeed that requires immediate expulsion from your household? Or is there another pressing reason you think marriage the solution to a problem I have no awareness of existing?”

“Fanny needs to turn her attention to our own daughters,” he said, referencing his two female children. The two little boys were both away at school until the family returned to their country house. “Florence and Henrietta are at an age when they need their mother’s guidance.”

The girls were thirteen and eleven, and as Fanny had mostly ignored them since their birth, William’s comment made little sense. They were too young to enter Society and they had an excellent governess.

“The less time Fanny spends worrying over your unmarried state and your social standing, the better.” He finally picked up the paper and held it out to her over the desk, requiring Ivy stand to take the single sheet from him. “As you are not ready to manage yourself, and Fanny has done all she can for you, I decided it best we stop delaying the inevitable and find you a suitable husband. Preferably before you are considered on the shelf, though luckily your blood and your dowry extend the time frame for such a thing considerably.”

The paper bore three columns. The first was a list of numbers which appeared to be an estimation of household expenses for a woman living in Bath. The second column was a list with the heading “benefits of marriage,” and the last was a list of “points against spinsterhood.”

She would have laughed had the matter not concerned her entire future.

“There isn’t anyone I wish to marry.” She tried to ignore the way the paper blurred as her eyes grew damp. She couldn’t think of a gentleman who had shown more than a passing interest in speaking with her, let alone offering courtship.

A pair of warm brown eyes and the lilt of an Irish accent briefly came to mind, but she shook her head impatiently. A single encounter with a man she nearly injured by dropping an object on his head didn”t mark the start of a lifelong romance. Lord Dunmore had seemed pleasant enough, and certainly handsome, but he was a stranger who hadn’t even hinted at hoping to see her again.

He had already spent far too much time in her thoughts. He might not even be a good person. He could hate children and be the sort of man who always refused to eat chocolate cake because he considered it “too rich.” Perhaps he drank to excess. Or kicked puppies.

Her brother’s voice broke into her ridiculous suppositions with an unpleasant tone of impatience.

“Are you even listening to me, Ivy?”

Ivy shook her head and raised her gaze from the paper she’d pretended to study. “I am terribly sorry. My mind was taken away by the absurdity of this interview.”

Oh, dear.

He frowned, the expression breaking his indifferent mask at last. His disapproval didn’t strike her as any better than his previous attitude. “Being inattentive is not mannerly, Ivy. I will forgive you this once, as it seems my decision has shocked your delicate sensibilities.”

She bit her tongue and simply stared at him, waiting until he exhaled a rather put-upon sigh through his nose, making his nostrils flare far more than anyone would find reasonable.

“Before your thoughts took leave of our conversation, I said it does not matter whether you have a current prospect or not. Finding a husband is a simple matter when one is practical rather than sentimental.”

Was it with such brilliantly inane comments that her half-brother had won himself a wife? If Fanny had conversations such as these with William on a consistent schedule, it was no wonder the woman lacked sympathetic virtues.

“You cannot force me to marry,” she said with a measure of calm she did not feel. Legally, her brother had to care for her, especially while holding her inheritance in trust. William also believed in upholding obligations, and he considered himself obligated to her and her sisters, due to their father’s wishes and will.

“Do not act as though I am some sort of fictitious villain.” He remained perfectly calm. A true villain would have laughed somewhat maniacally by now, like Iago from Othello. Or at least issued some terrible threat with a swirl of a black and scarlet cloak.

William didn’t have enough imagination to own such a cloak, let alone know how to wield it dramatically.

“No one will force you to do anything. The idea is unpleasant.” He stood, and she remained sitting, staring up at him across the desk. “Take the summer to think things over, if you wish. But you will marry if you want access to your funds and to set up your own household.”

“It wouldn’t be mine,” she argued. “It would be my husband’s.”

“Even better. All the joy of putting things to order without any of the worry over grocer’s bills.” He patted the top of his desk. “Come now, Ivy. You had to know this day would come. We cannot continue to chaperone you everywhere, nor devote so much time to you, when we have our own worries and children to attend to, not to mention settling the futures of Juniper and Betony. It is time for you to accept your future as a lady, not act like a spoiled child.”

The last two words, spoken with a whip-like crack, stung her heart. Spoiled? Never. Perhaps she had been coddled and cared for once, when her father was yet alive. She’d also been educated, debated, praised, and encouraged. But not spoiled.

How she wished to go back to the way things were.

“Come now. We are late for dinner.”

Fanny abhorred tardiness, even if there were no guests present.

He came around the desk and offered her a hand. Ivy ignored it. Perhaps it was a childish thing to do, but she wasn’t yet wearing her gloves. Putting them on gave her all the excuse she needed to avoid touching her brother, who withdrew his arm and gestured for her to precede him out the door.

Marriage. And she had the summer to think things over. Then what? Pick a gentleman from the crowded ballrooms the way she selected a hat from a stand?

The summer no longer seemed long enough, Clairvoir Castle or not, because it sounded as though it would be her last summer as a free woman.

She had better make the most of it.