Once and Always Read online

  Tonight, she entertained once again, and I was asked to play the piano for her friends. I played, but while I did, I sang the song you and I wrote when we were children—we called it “Sisters Forever,” remember? I could tell from the blank expression on Grandmama’s face that she was most annoyed with me. When her friends left, she informed me that she had decided to send me to Devonshire for an entire week.

  If I provoke her again, I’ve a notion she’ll send me off to Brussels or somewhere for an entire month. Still, I shall persevere. Enough about that for now.

  How shocked you must have been to learn that your engagement to Lord Fielding had been announced. How upset Andrew would be if he but knew it. However, since all that is settled now and nothing is to come of it, you must enjoy your new gowns and not feel badly that you haven’t been able to observe a proper period of mourning for Mama and Papa. I wear black gloves, which Grandmama says is the proper way of mourning in England, although there are some who dress in black for six months and then in gray for the next six months.

  Grandmama does not believe in flouting propriety, and even if she accepted my assurances that you are already betrothed to Andrew, which you are, I would not be able to make my come-out until next spring. She says a full year must pass after a close family member dies before one is permitted to attend anything except quiet, informal affairs. I do not mind in the least, because the prospect of balls and all that goes with them seems very frightening. You must write and tell me if it is quite as bad as it seems.

  Grandmama will be going to London from time to time to attend the theater, which she likes very well, and she promised I may accompany her now and then. I will send word to you as soon as I know when that will be, and we will contrive a way to meet.

  I must go now, for Grandmama has hired a tutor to teach me how to go on in society when I do make my come-out. There is so much to learn that it makes my head spin. . . .

  Victoria put the letter in a drawer, glanced at the clock on the mantel and sighed. She knew very well what Dorothy meant by her last paragraph, because Miss Flossie Wilson had been drilling rules of comportment and propriety into her own head for nearly two weeks, and it was time now for another lesson.

  “There you are,” Miss Flossie beamed as Victoria entered the salon. “Today, I think we ought to go over the correct forms of address as they apply to members of the peerage. We can’t risk your making a mistake at your ball tomorrow night.”

  Suppressing the wild urge to snatch up her skirts and flee from the house, Victoria sat down near Charles, across from Miss Flossie. For nearly two weeks, Miss Flossie had dragged her from dressmaker to milliner to mantua-maker in between seemingly interminable lessons on comportment, dancing, and French. During these lessons, Miss Flossie listened to Victoria’s diction, observed her every mannerism, and questioned her on her accomplishments and interests, all the while nodding her curly head and fluttering her fingers in a manner that reminded Victoria of a fidgety little bird.

  “Now, then,” Miss Flossie chirped. “I shall begin with dukes. As I told you yesterday, a duke is the highest nonroyal title in the British peerage. Dukes are technically ‘princes,’ but although it may seem to you that a prince is higher in rank, you must remember that royal sons are born princes, but are raised to the rank of duke. Our dear Charles,” she finished triumphantly and unnecessarily, “is a duke!”

  “Yes,” Victoria agreed, returning Uncle Charles’s sympathetic smile.

  “After a duke comes a marquess. A marquess is the heir to a dukedom. And that is why our dear Jason is called a marquess! Then comes an earl, a viscount, and lastly a baron. Shall I write all this down for you, dear?”

  “No,” Victoria assured her hastily. “I have it in my mind.”

  “You are such a clever child,” Miss Flossie said approvingly. “Now, then, on to forms of address. When you speak to a duke, you must call him ‘your grace’; never," she warned in dire tones, “address a duke as ‘my lord.’ A duchess is also addressed as ‘your grace.’ However, you may call all the other peers ‘my lord’ and their wives ‘my lady,’ which is the proper form of address for them. When you are a duchess, you will be addressed as ‘your grace,’ ” she finished triumphantly. “Isn’t that exciting.”

  “Yes,” Victoria mumbled uncomfortably. Uncle Charles had explained to her why it was necessary for society to think her betrothal to Jason was real and, since Flossie Wilson was such a chatterbox, he had decided that Flossie must believe as everyone else did.

  “I have obtained permission from the patronesses of Almack’s for you to dance the waltz at your come out, my dear. But enough on that subject. Now, shall we look over a section of Debrett’s Peerage?” But Victoria was spared that agony by Northrup, who stepped into the salon, cleared his throat, and announced the arrival of Countess Collingwood.

  “Show her in, Northrup,” Uncle Charles said jovially.

  Caroline Collingwood walked into the salon, noted the open etiquette books and the volume of Debrett’s Peerage, and cast a conspiratorial smile at Victoria. “I was hoping you might accompany me for a drive in the park,” she told Victoria.

  “I’d love it above everything!” Victoria exclaimed. “Would you mind terribly, Miss Flossie? Uncle Charles?” Both gave their permission and Victoria rushed upstairs to tidy her hair and fetch her bonnet.

  Waiting for her, Caroline turned politely to the two older occupants of the salon. “I imagine you must be very eager for tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, yes, very,” Miss Flossie averred, nodding her blond curls energetically. “Victoria is a delightful young lady, which I don’t have to tell you, who are already acquainted with her. Such charming manners she has, so easy and conversable. And what eyes! Such a lovely figure, too. I have every confidence she’ll be a great success. I can’t help wishing she was blond, however.” Miss Flossie sighed and bobbed her head dejectedly, oblivious to Lady Collingwood’s mahogany tresses. “Blond is all the rage, you know.” Her birdlike gaze darted to Charles. “Do you recall Lord Hornby as a youth? I used to think he was the handsomest man alive. He had red hair and such nice address. His brother was so very short . . .” And so she continued, leaping from topic to topic as though from branch to branch.

  * * *

  Victoria looked around at the park and leaned back in the open carriage, closing her eyes in sheer bliss. “How peaceful it is here,” she said to Caroline, “and how kind you’ve been to come to my rescue so many afternoons with these drives in the park.”

  “What were you studying when I arrived?”

  “The correct forms of address for members of the peerage and their wives.”

  “And have you mastered it?” Caroline asked.

  “Absolutely,” Victoria said, suppressing a tired, irreverent giggle. “All I have to do is call the men ‘my lord,’ as if they are God, and their wives ‘my lady,’ as if I am their maid.”

  Caroline’s laughter brought an answering chuckle from Victoria. “The thing I find hardest is French,” she admitted. “My mother taught Dorothy and me to read it, and I do that well enough, but I cannot call the right words to mind when I try to speak it.”

  Caroline, who spoke fluent French, tried to help. “Sometimes it is best to learn a language in useful phrases, rather than single words; then you needn’t think how to put them together, and the rest can come later. For example, how would you ask me for writing materials in French?”

  “Mon pot d’encre veut vous emprunter votre stylo?” Victoria ventured.

  Caroline’s lips trembled with mirth. “You have just said, ‘My inkpot wishes to borrow your pen.’ ”

  “At least I was close,” Victoria said, and they both burst into gales of mirth.

  The occupants of the other carriages in the park turned at the musical sound of their gaiety and it was again noted that the dashing Countess Collingwood was showing particular partiality for Lady Victoria Seaton—a fact that had already added considerably to Victoria’s