Page 63 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

“For which I sincerely apologize,” Daniel said. “I blame her health. She’s still overtired from her journey.”

“Frail health as well.” The squire clucked. “Might have guessed it given”—he glanced at Stella’s hair—“all that.”

“Yes,” Stella agreed, offended by his remark to the point of blatant incivility. “I am a questionable specimen. No better a breeding prospect than my mare, I daresay.”

Mrs. Trent gasped in horror.

Amanda lost all color. She sagged in her chair as though she would swoon.

Daniel went as red as a beetroot. “Stella!”

Clamping her mouth shut, Stella returned to her meal. A pit formed in her stomach, making it nearly impossible to swallow down the remainder of her potatoes. She knew that she’d gone too far. She’d been not only uncivil but dangerously indecorous.

Squire Smalljoy took his leave soon after, not even bothering to remain long enough to share a glass of port with Daniel in his book room. Daniel followed the squire from the dining room, apologizing profusely.

Stella remained in her seat, under the molten glare of Mrs. Trent, the possible repercussions of her too-candid words sinking in with a sickening clarity.

How many times these last several months had she had cause to regret her behavior? And yet some small, mutinous part of her soul persisted in pushing her to do too much, to say too much, to take risks she shouldn’t. It had become a habit with her. One that had no more place in Derbyshire than it had in London or Hampshire.

In the past, her lapses had fleeting consequences. But not this time. Whatever happened when her brother returned, Stella had the sickening premonition that, henceforward, her life would never be the same.

Sixteen

The following morning, Stella entered Daniel’s book room, hands clasped in front of her in what she hoped was a suitably penitent posture. Her brother awaited her within, seated behind his heavy, carved oak desk.

He had ordered her to meet him here at half past nine to discuss her future. There had been no discussing anything last night. On returning to the dining room, Daniel had been too angry to even look at Stella. Instead, he’d sent her to her room while he remained to deal with the chaos Stella had wrought among the Trents. Amanda had required sal volatile to revive her, and Mrs. Trent had been up in arms.

“My daughter’s tender sensibilities have been thoroughly outraged, sir!” she’d declared. “I little thought such vulgarity would be present in a clergyman’s home!”

Stella had been relieved to make her escape. But the humiliation had still stung her to her soul. She couldn’t recall when she’d last been ordered to bed like a disobedient child. Nor when she’d last been summoned to stand in front of Daniel’s desk like a prisoner awaiting sentence.

“Well, brother?” she prompted after a prolonged period of taut silence. “You wished to speak with me?”

Daniel’s anger didn’t appear to have lessened overnight. He regarded her from behind his desk with barely controlled fury. There were shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. “Your behavior last night was inexcusable,” he said. “To speak as you did, addressing a gentleman of Squire Smalljoy’s station in such an indecent manner. And in front of my betrothed! Had you taken leave of your senses?”

Stella remained standing in front of him. He hadn’t offered for her to sit. She didn’t particularly want to. With luck, their interview would be brief. She didn’t think she could bear a lengthy scolding. “It was badly done of me,” she acknowledged. “But you must own that I had ample provocation.”

“What right had you to consider yourself provoked? Squire Smalljoy is a pillar of the community. He might have made you a capable husband. But no longer. After how you comported yourself last evening, the man wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”

“A state of affairs which suits me very well.”

“You’re two-and-twenty, Stella. Soon to be three-and-twenty. Have you no appreciation for the perilousness of your situation?”

“My situation is more than tolerable,” she said. “I’m in good health. I’m possessed of wonderful friends, and an excellent mare. And I—”

“None of which fulfills your duty on this earth. A woman’s purpose is to marry and produce children. It’s all that matters in God’s eyes.”

Stella had heard this assertion before, too many times to count. It never failed to grate. “On that fact, brother, we must agree to differ.”

“What then, pray? Do you propose to remain a burden on me for the rest of your life? To continue to live here at the vicarage, inspiring the village gossips with your rebellious ways, and stirring talk with the way you look?”

She flinched inwardly. “I can’t help the way I look.”

“You could be small and quiet as the squire said. You could be an asset to me instead of a liability. Had you given the sum Father left you to the church instead of parading yourself in London—”

“Not this old argument again.”

“It would have been a start,” he said. “Had you remained in Fostonbury, nursing the sick and tending to the poor, you’d have done more to merit my regard than—”