Page 18 of How to Start a Scandal

Felicity stared at a final spinning top with a smile hovering on her lips in expectation. Hedgehog, adorned in a blue-sprigged cap with bits of lace at the edge, flew into the air with a sprightliness his corpulent frame would not suggest him capable of and landed upon the top with an audible thunk.

Felicity threw her head back with laughter. Her glee was such that Violet found herself chuckling at the child’s mirth.

‘I believe Hedgehog will grow weary if we keep making him run about,’ Violet said.

Felicity reached for her cat and drew him towards her. He allowed the action with the bland expression of complete resignation at his fate.

‘Are you getting tired, my dear one?’ Felicity cooed.

The cat hung in her arms without moving. She hugged him closer to her like a doll and kissed the top of his head.

‘We could change his bonnet.’ Felicity fingered the lace edge of his current adornment.

Hedgehog issued forth a soul-deep sigh.

‘I believe he looks fine as he is,’ Violet said quickly to spare the creature another ridiculous hat. Felicity had been eyeing a feathered hat that looked as though it might drive Hedgehog to distraction.

‘Do you think so?’ Felicity lifted the cat into the air and scrutinised him. For his part, Hedgehog dangled from her hands by the undersides of his arms, his pink belly jutting out, exposed.

‘Quite,’ Violet replied. ‘The blue flowers are very fetching.’

Felicity gave a quiet hum, suggesting she did not agree with Violet’s assessment. Regardless, she set him down where he promptly rolled on to his side and nestled against her knee.

Felicity scratched under his chin and the sawing purr of his contentment filled the room. ‘Why don’t you have children, Aunt Violet?’

The question was so bold, so beyond anything ever considered polite in a child that it took Violet aback.

‘I’m not married,’ she replied without thought.

‘Why aren’t you married?’ Felicity looked up from the cat.

‘Such questions are not proper for a child to be asking,’ Violet scolded in a gentle tone. They were hardly proper questions for anyone to be asking.

‘I’m hardly proper and we both know it,’ Felicity stated matter-of-factly. ‘Are you afraid to answer?’

Foolish irritation nipped at Violet’s nerves. She shouldn’t let a child get to her and yet she hated the challenge hanging in the air. ‘Of course not. I simply haven’t met the right man.’

‘Do you want to get married?’ Felicity fired the question almost as soon as Violet replied.

Violet hesitated in her answer. To be truthful and say no would doubtless result in a new barrage of questions. ‘Some day I think marriage would be nice,’ she lied.

Never would it be nice, especially when it would require that she empty the contents of her heart on to the table prior to any discussion of marriage. Even if she wanted to wed, no gentleman would want her. She was completely ruined.

Felicity’s unwavering stare remained fixed on Violet. ‘Mother says you haven’t wed because you’re too plump.’

Violet swallowed down an indignant gasp. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Men don’t like plump women.’ Felicity lowered her attention to Hedgehog once more and scratched her fingers over his bonnet just behind his ears. ‘That’s why Mother said I’m not allowed to eat more than one sweet at a time, lest I end up like Aunt Violet and be too plump to ever wed.’

‘I see,’ Violet replied. And she did see. So clearly that it made tears sting in her eyes.

She was being used as an example for her nieces.

Self-relegated wallflower who put off marriage after her debut deemed too plump to wed.

In the next instalment of the Lady Observer: How not to attract a sought-after suitor...

Now, that would be a headline.