Page 2 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

Jack’s eyebrows raised. That was the only thing in his expression that betrayed any of his thoughts on the matter. “How did you receive this piece of advice?”

“Poorly,” she muttered, looking out the window at the passing countryside. “How do they expect a woman to modulate her feelings at all times, everywhere she goes, if she is never allowed to express them anywhere?” She tugged at the strings of her reticule. “What am I to do, Jack? I cannot even sit on my hands to keep them still. It is uncouth. I have to keep them politely folded in my lap. No fidgeting at all.”

At this moment, she saw him bite the inside of one cheek. If he had been sitting next to her rather than across, she would have missed it completely.

“Are you amused by this?” she asked, accusatory tone slipping out. “You must understand how patently unfair it is to throw a thousand rules at a woman at one time.”

“You never complained about it in London,” he pointed out, but his eyes glimmered with humor rather than annoyance. “It is almost refreshing to see you finally expressing your concerns.”

“You were managing our entire family in London,” she said, looking out the window again. “I had no wish to add to the weight you carried with my own minor concerns. And I had the companion you hired for us. Or social tutor. Or whatever you want to call Mrs. Regan.”

The formidable woman had saved the ladies of the household many times. Mother, both of Emily’s sisters-in-law, and herself, had relied upon the woman’s guidance. Mrs. Regan was still in London helping the others.

“A former governess turned etiquette instructor is how she styles herself at present.” Jack’s demeanor changed somewhat, his eyebrows drawing together as he leaned toward her. “Emily. I thought you were gliding through all this as serenely as a Hyde Park swan.”

“Even after the trouble with that odious gentleman—who does not warrant that title in the least—during the Season?” Her gaze went from her brother’s concerned expression to her lap. “The gossip he stirred up to make all of us appear like backwards country bumpkins distressed you.”

For Emily, the whole thing had been a nightmare. Being gossiped about at a ball for turning down a boorish snob, a man who had stalked her from one place to the next and insisted his offer of marriage was the best she could hope to receive, had frayed her nerves to say the least. It had been Juniper’s intervention, along with the kindness of Jack’s other connected friends, that had saved Emily and their whole family from social ridicule.

“I never once blamed you for any of that,” Jack said, his voice soft in the carriage as it left the city roads for the countryside. “Never, Emily. You have always been a kind, graceful, mannerly young lady from all that I have seen. And remember, if you will, I worked in a duke’s household for several years.”

As sweet as it was for him to say such a thing, Emily doubted him. Jack looked at her as a protective, kindly older brother would. He could not see her defects as clearly as she did. Nor did he understand the lengths she went to in order to maintain a calm, pleasant facade. When he called her a “young lady,” she had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting him.

Of all the unmarried ladies gathered in the Fredericksons’ house that day, and in every gathering, she had taken part in since coming to York society, she was nearly always the eldest. If others present were older, they often appeared rather sad and resigned to remaining without matrimonial prospects.

Five-and-twenty was not ancient. Indeed, her own sisters-in-law were near that age when they married her eldest brothers. But here, in a world obsessed with the size of a woman’s marriage portion and her ability to rise higher in rank, she often felt more on the shelf than off.

Of course, her flesh-and-blood sisters, Mary and Anne, had both married at twenty. A double wedding for twin sisters, seven years ago now. The two of them were happy as larks, running households and tending their children. Emily missed them sorely.

She hadn’t exactly thought herself desperate for matrimonial happiness. Many a youngest daughter stayed at home as her parents aged, seeing to their needs, and might one day marry a widower or become the favorite aunt. She had never been in a hurry to leave the safety of her father’s home, and her parents hadn’t encouraged her to do so.

But that had changed, too.

“These are only a few habits you speak of,” Jack said when she remained silent. “Small adjustments in behavior. And if you wear gloves to pull a few weeds in our gardens, no brambles will harm you, and no one need ever know about your strategic campaign to eliminate your frustration through aggressive agricultural maneuvers.”

“Aggressive agricultural…” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You have been reading aloud with Juniper again in the evening. Without me. Haven’t you?”

He chuckled and did not look that least bit repentant. “I have. She enjoys holding the blankets up to her chin and shivering in horror while I read her gothic tales.”

“The vocabulary in gothic novels is so much more interesting than what I find in my books. Except for words like ‘elocution,’ which sounds rather awful come to think of it, there is never creative phrasing. It is all ‘propriety this’ and ‘mannerly that.’”

“I thought the gothic novels gave you unpleasant dreams?”

“They do. I think the etiquette books make for true nightmares, though.” She smirked a little. “Horrible dreams of arriving at important events dressed in the wrong gown, for example.” Jack chuckled. “But I can still feel as though I am missing out on excellent words.”

“You could try Keats.”

“Keats? Oh dear. Then I might start sighing over moonlight and dying of love before supper. That would hardly improve my reputation.”

Her brother laughed, though it was a brief sound that he swiftly smothered by putting his fist to his lips and clearing his throat. He laughed more of late. Which was good to see. He had spent most of the last several months utterly frustrated as he tried to help their whole family adjust to their new status.

Having their father unexpectedly inherit an earldom, elevating everyone’s status to the peerage, had proved the most challenging thing their family had yet faced. As the humblest of gentry, they had been comfortable. Survived well with good manners, polite behavior, and laughter with each other and their friends.

But now? Lady Emily, daughter of an earl, had to behave far differently than she had as Miss Sterling, daughter to a gentleman with a meager farm and no interest in Society.

It took a great deal of self-control to keep in her sigh as the carriage turned into the drive of her brother and sister-in-law’s cottage. A home she had heard others call “quaint” even though it was larger than the house where she had spent her childhood with six other siblings.

“Take heart, Emily,” her brother said softly as the vehicle rolled to a stop at the front door. “I know you have the intelligence and ability to conquer York society, and then we will meet London’s next Season with a new plan of attack.”