Captivated By a Lady's Charm (Lords of Honor #2)(2)

Her other sister hovered at her side, giving her a gentle look. “Go on,” she urged, giving her a slight nudge. “I am having a splendid time.”

A twinkle lit Penelope’s keen, blue eyes. “You’re a dreadful liar.” She gentled that charge with a smile.

Prudence managed a half-grin and then gave another shove. “Go on. Perhaps you, as the ever logical one, can convince Mama that at least a faint pink would be permitted.”

An inelegant snort escaped Penelope. “Indeed we shall see.”

Though they both knew there was a greater hope of Mother hopping upon a hired hack and flying it through the sky. The rules had been clearly enumerated by their mama to each of them, while sitting in a neat row like geese upon the Tidemore pond.

No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages. You are to be everything and all things proper. All the time.

Those words had become a mantra so familiar in their household that the Tidemore girls had taken to concluding their mother’s prayer with a firm “Amen”. Of which she was wholly unappreciative each time.

Alas, Mama’s expectations extended from the dramatic; do not run off to Gretna Greene with a gentleman who has plans of revenge against your brother, as had been the case with Patrina, to wear white, and only white, every day of the entire Season. Her mother was of the erroneous opinion that dull, purifying color would allow Prudence to blend and meld with the other innocent misses in the market for a husband. She snorted. There was a greater possibility of her marrying a marquess like her eldest sister than her or any of the Tidemore brood escaping gossip.

From across the shop, Poppy glanced back. She held up a bolt of ivory ruffled muslin, earning a sharp glance from the shopkeeper. The fabric slid from her sister’s fingers and back to the table.

The bell atop the shop door tinkled. Without even turning, her skin pricked with the arrival of more young debutantes and their proper mamas. Prudence slipped down the row and inched carefully along the table. As she made her way further and further from her mother and sisters and the blasted fabric, inching closer to that door, the desire to escape through it, jingling bell be damned, hit her like a life force.

How had she ever truly wanted a London Season?

“…they say her sister was enceinte when she wed the marquess…”

Prudence pursed her lips as the none-too-subtle whispers of that proper trio carried over to her.

The whispers will be furious. And loud…

At the time, Prudence hadn’t understood what her mother had meant in terms of loud whispers. Whyever would any woman or man want to whisper loudly. Unless they wished those words to be overheard. Now she knew. It was so those whispers were clearly heard.

Miserable harpies. Every last one of them.

“The next one is making her Come Out.”

As that trio of mean girls and their mama peered about, Prudence attempted to blend with the wall. Their gazes, instead, fell upon Poppy and Penelope now bickering about another swatch of white fabric.

Really, what was there to bicker over in terms of a material that was entirely the same in color and texture? She chose to focus instead on that inane conversation rather than the inevitability of making her Come Out with those loud whispers and more mean ladies and their equally harsh mamas.

A beleaguered sigh escaped her. This was to be her penance. She had been a rotten child. In fact, if her former governess now turned sister-in-law hadn’t instructed the word horrid out of her two years earlier, that would have been the perfect word choice. For she had been a horrid, miserable brat. It made a young woman wish she’d been a better person before a scandal and not because of it.

Prudence cast a glance out the window and stared longingly at the uncharacteristically quiet London streets. The thick white of the winter sky mocked her. Even the blasted sky is white. She peered past the fabrics lining the crystal pane to the occasional fleck of white. And this white she did not mind. For this white was…magical.

Her heart thundered hard in her chest. Snow. Snow portended great things. It had come to represent the talisman of hope and new beginnings. That uncommon, and all the more miraculous for it, snow had guided her eldest sister to love. Well, a snowball fight, if one wanted to be truly precise, had brought her sister Patrina together with her husband, Weston. But it was far more romantic to think on those flecks of white falling from the sky. Her feet twitched with a physical urge to take flight once again and she cast a glance past the trio of mean girls now being attended by one of Madame Bisset’s seamstresses.

Her sisters and mother continued to peruse the bolts of white fabric upon the table. As though feeling her gaze, Penelope glanced back. Their eyes locked and a silent understanding passed between them. She gave the faintest, imperceptible nod and then turned a question on their mother. With a frown, the Dowager Countess of Sinclair drummed her fingertips upon the fabric and then shoved it back. Her sister shot another quick look over her shoulder. She winked and then hastily returned her attention to their mama.

Before the mantra of “No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages. You are to be everything and all things proper. All the time” could kill the somewhat scandalous act, Prudence pressed the handle and hurried outside. She held her breath as that damning jingle thundered in the quiet. Luckily, peering through the front window of the shop, she found her mother and sisters thoroughly embroiled in the pressing business of selecting a white gown.