Rondo Allegro (70 page)

Cover Design: Pati Nagle

Copy Editor: Tadiana Jones

Proofreader: Phyllis Radford

Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Digital edition: 20140810vnm
Digital edition: 20140907vnm

www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

Sherwood Smith writes SF, fantasy, and romance.

Book View Café
is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free
ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With
authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and
science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.

Book View Café
is good for readers because you can enjoy high-quality
DRM-free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.

Book View Café
is good for writers because 95% of the profit goes directly to the book’s author.

Book View Café
authors include
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.

www.bookviewcafe.com

Free Sample Chapter

Sherwood Smith

Book View Café Edition
August 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61138-193-1
Copyright © 2012 Sherwood Smith
www.bookviewcafe.com

It is said that the quadrille was first a military exercise
performed by pairs of horsemen before the admiring court. Only later did it
migrate to France in the form of a lively dance performed by two couples in
squares.

The more stately quadrille that came to England was still a
few years off when my story begins; imagine the opening strains playing a
sprightly air in celebration of the hunting season in the first year of the new
nineteenth century, deep in the county of Hampshire.

My first heroine, the Honorable Miss Clarissa Harlowe,
smiled to discover with the morning post the new edition of Wordsworth’s
Lyrical Poems
. She looked forward to
taking advantage of the last gasp of summery weather by reading in the garden,
but before she could excuse herself, the butler entered the ladies’ breakfast
room with a summons from his lordship for his eldest daughter.

Lord Chadwick seldom interfered in the lives of his
offspring. Clarissa’s step-mother and her half-siblings looked
surprised—everyone exhibited surprise except Aunt Sophia, who made a business
of folding her napkin, with enough smugness in her countenance to serve as
warning.

Clarissa went straight to the library, a room only used for
interviews. Her father stood before the fire, a tall, fair-haired, hawk-nosed
man dressed by preference in riding clothes. Not ordinarily given to any
pursuits that, as he put it, “rattled his brain,” he eyed his eldest daughter
with brow-wrinkled bafflement.

“Here, girl,” he greeted her, “that’s a fine gown.”

Clarissa smiled a little at the spurious compliment, and curtseyed.
“Thank you, Papa. You sent for me?”

“Now, girl—Clarissa—you’re deuced—ah, very modest, which is what
everyone wants in a girl, and you’ve prodigiously shining parts.”

To hear herself thus complimented for precisely those
intellectual qualities she’d been scolded for by her aunt might have inspired
another smile, except Clarissa now suspected she was not going to like the
intent of this interview.

“Shining parts, reading, and the like,” Lord Chadwick added,
with a vague wave of his riding whip toward the undisturbed books resting on
the shelves around them.

He eyed his daughter’s inquiring expression, harrumphed, and
took refuge in defense. “Your mother was always buried in a book. Which is why
I let your grandmother the duchess pick your governesses, though monstrous
interfering I found it, and as for that sour-faced French one, hey day! What a
fright that woman put me in every time she poked her nose into a room. As if
your step-mama couldn’t have found a better . . . well! What’s past is past, and I
don’t mean to be criticizing her grace.”

For a moment an expression akin to fear furrowed his
features, as if the redoubtable dowager were listening through the keyhole, and
he hastened on. “But here I thought it settled that you would make a match with
the Wilburfolde boy. Good thing on all sides. Doubtless your grandmother thinks
so as well, if only we knew,” he added somewhat hastily.

Ordinarily Clarissa would have been diverted. She alone of
her family was very fond of her awe-inspiring grandmother, but now with her
future at stake she turned the subject back, asking quietly, “Has Lord
Wilburfolde called on you to that end, Papa?”

Lord Chadwick took a couple of hasty strides across the
room, then paused to kick at a log in the fireplace with the tip of a glossy
boot. “Yes, with his Mama. Yesterday, while you and the girls was at the vicar’s.
Made his offer, with prodigious punctilio. I said I’d speak to you, and send
your answer over this afternoon.”

“Did you inform him that I have stated that I have no
present wish to marry, Papa?”

“I did. Lady Wilburfolde put that down to modesty. Said she
likes that in a lady. Wouldn’t want anyone at The Castle who was not
bien élevée,
and you were the finest
young lady in the parish, and there was a lot more on that order. Here, you don’t
mean to refuse, do you?” At Clarissa’s nod, he frowned. “I can’t write that!
Devil take it, what a monstrous position to put me in.”

“Papa,” Clarissa said softly, “when I was small you promised
I should not be made to marry anyone I did not favor.”

“Aye, and so I promised all you girls.” He flung his riding
whip on a side table and ran his fingers through his thinning blond locks. “But
you know, you’ve got to marry
someone
,
and out of all my pack of brats I thought you was the least headstrong and had
the most sense. What’s against young Wilburfolde?”

“Nothing at all,” Clarissa said, though she was thinking of
Lady Wilburfolde. But it seemed indelicate as well as impolite to refuse a
gentleman because one had taken a strong dislike to his mother. “We’ve scarcely
met above twice. But I was serious when I said that I do not wish to marry.”

Her father eyed her with baffled exasperation; the truth
was, of all his pack of brats she caused him the least trouble. She wasn’t a
Diamond like the rest, so one would have thought she’d be glad to find a
leg-shackle ready to hand. “Every girl says that,” he replied. “Until she’s
asked. The females are all agreed it’s a good match.”

Clarissa suppressed the urge to retort that
they
could marry him. She apologized,
temporized, and endured the short-lived storm of her father’s temper, for she
knew that it arose out of vexation, not real anger. Her Papa was too fond of
his family (and too indolent) to remain angry long.

Clarissa was dismissed to resume her breakfast while Lord
Chadwick went out to ride his temper into cheer again. As expected, her aunt
scolded with all the fretful vehemence of the person whose cherished project
has been smashed. Aunt Sophia’s tangled sentences about gratitude,
expectations, and the care older and wiser heads took for heedless youth showed
no sign of coming to a natural end, moving Clarissa’s pretty step-mother, who
cherished peace even more than Papa, to murmur, “Clarissa, dear, did I not
understand that you were agreed on this marriage?”

“Not I, Mama,” Clarissa replied firmly.

Lady Chadwick blinked, then turned to look at Aunt Sophia. “Well!
Odd, how one gets these impressions . . . wasn’t it you, Mrs. Latchmore, who said
so?”

Clarissa kept quiet. She knew that her aunt had been busy on
her behalf, and while she sympathized with her aunt—no one could wish to end up
an indigent widow, living on her younger brother’s charity—she was not willing
to sacrifice her life so that her aunt might make herself out to be a
matchmaker, a person of interest in county society.

Aunt Sophia raised her voice to the pitch of righteous
anger. “What, pray, is amiss with Lord Wilburfolde, that you should be so
nice
in your tastes
at your age
?”

Clarissa was caught. She could not, especially before the
wide eyes of her young half-sisters, declare that she had yet to meet a
gentleman with whom she wished to share anything more intimate than a book.

“I do not wish to be married,” was all she said.

o0o

Two months later, Clarissa reflected on how she ought to
have foreseen that a young lady setting herself up in opposition to her betters
would cause her aunt to ring such a peal that Papa would take steps to restore
order to his house.

Aunt Sophia ought to have foreseen that her brother would
remove
all
the causes of contention.

Clarissa had always wanted to travel, but the difficulties
in France had made that impossible. Papa told Clarissa that she could visit her
maternal aunt while peace was talked of, and told his sister that she would be
delighted to accompany her niece.

So here they were ensconced on her Papa's yacht in the
middle of winter weather.

Aunt Sophia put her cup down with a clatter.

“Clarissa!” Her voice sounded like the last, quivering gasp
of a dying Christian Martyr. “My love,” she added, clasping her hands fervently
to her impressive, lace-ruched bosom.

The drama of this gesture was missed by Clarissa, who was
gazing out the broad stern windows at the last of the harbor, diminishing
behind them.