But Talia had been the diamond. Talia had been the darling of ton events. Beatrice had merely kept her friend company. It had been enough, though, to satisfy Lady Fortescue, who had rather bizarrely convinced herself that her daughter was a popular debutante.
Now that the buffer of Natalia had been removed and Ben was settled with thriving estates, Lady Fortescue was free to pin all her expectations, hopes, and attentions on Beatrice.
The tutor in comportment that Mama had asked to come and stay with them would no doubt be out here soon, his little rat nose sniffing Beatrice out.
When the weaselly little man had arrived a se’nnight past, Beatrice had been prepared to listen to his lectures on decorum along with having her walking, her movements with a fan, her very existence scrutinised.
But the experience had been even more humiliating than she’d been dreading.
The Frenchman had walked in, studied her in silence for what seemed like an eternity, then shrugged his slight shoulders and turned to face Mama with a sneer.
“This is what you expect me to work with?” he’d asked, whilst Beatrice’s cheeks had burned with humiliation. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Beatrice had been forced to blink back tears as her mother, instead of throwing the brute out on his backside, had pleaded with him to help, lauding his many wonderful talents and pandering to the man’s oversized ego.
Lord, but it was embarrassing. Beatrice had long been well aware of her faults. To find that they horrified a stranger so much stung.
And it wasn’t that Lady Fortescue was cruel. At least not on purpose.
If she were, if she were a wicked parent like those in Beatrice’s much-adored novels, then she’d at least have an interesting, tragic past.
But, no. Mama loved her and wanted the best for her. She thought that having one’s faults laid bare to be demolished by a little French rat was a good thing.
She wanted Beatrice married. Settled and happy.
And Beatrice wanted that, too. But where she would be happy to marry for love, Mama wanted glory. A match befitting the Fortescue name and fortune.
Unfortunately for them both, Beatrice didn’t have the ability or even the desire to secure such a match.
And time was running out. The conversation with Mama after her Christmas Ball was at the forefront of Bea’s mind, as it had been since they’d had it.
Beatrice had always believed that her money would be hers to control upon reaching her majority. Had made the grandest of plans. Had made the most wonderful of promises.
Only to find out that her money couldn’t be secured until she was married.
Beatrice knew that her mother was fond of such deals, given the agreement she’d made with Ben before his marriage to Natalia. But though Beatrice had no memory of her father, he’d always sounded like a sensible man. Not given to ludicrous deals about marriage.
Beatrice had always known she would be pursued by the very worst sort of fortune hunter because of her overly generous dowry. Now she found herself in the awful position of needing to marry, just so she could have access to her own funds!
The sound of footsteps outside the shed snapped Bea out of her maudlin thoughts, and she hurried over to peer through the cracked, wooden door.
Just as she’d feared, Monsieur Bisset was scurrying around the garden paths, his beady little eyes searching her out.
He turned toward the walled rose gardens, only just beginning to bloom now as the weather was warming for spring, and Beatrice seized her opportunity.
She opened the shed door and darted out, lifting her muslin skirts and running in the opposite direction.
She would stay in the small woodland area that bordered their estate for a while then come back at luncheon to deal with the consequences of skipping her dance lessons.
The whole thing was pointless, in any case, Bea told herself as she scurried toward the iron gate that would lead to the wooded area. She’d spent years in finishing school learning all this stuff. It hadn’t made her a diamond of the first water then, and it certainly wouldn’t now.
The life of a spinster, which Mama seemed to think of as worse than death itself, actually rather appealed to Beatrice.
She was too shy to imagine herself ever feeling comfortable in a man’s company.
And while her inheritance was almost obscenely large, it hinged on her being married. Beatrice would far rather live alone and modestly than have to marry just to live in luxury for the rest of her life.
And yes, Mama wanted grandchildren, but Ben and Natalia could provide them. Technicalities aside.
None of this seemed to get through to her mother though, Bea reminded herself as she entered the woods and drew to a breathless stop. She’d been trying for years. Season after failed season, she would sit in the drawing room watching Mama’s face fall in disappointment as afternoons went by with no posies sent to her, no invitations to ride in the park, and only a smattering of visitors who were either there from a sense of duty or because they were within an inch of debtors’ prison.
If only Lady Fortescue could accept her daughter’s limitations, they’d both be better for it.
Some girls, like Natalia, were built for romantic stories. Why, she and Ben had fallen in love pretending to be engaged, for goodness sake!
And then there were girls like Beatrice, who would never find themselves in a romantic –
“Ouch.”
Beatrice’s thoughts came to a crashing halt at the same time she crashed into something big and solid, something that shouldn’t have been in the path in the first place.
She landed in an undignified heap and glared up at whatever it was she’d bumped into.
A horse stood placidly
