Lady Claire Is All That by Maya Rodale

Author:Maya Rodale [Rodale, Maya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

This author does not even know where to begin with recounting the adventures of the Cavendish sisters at Lady Winterbourne’s garden party. The sooner the Duchess of Durham marries them off, the better.

—Fashionable Intelligence, The London Weekly

The breakfast room, Durham House

There were three somewhat contrite Cavendish sisters at breakfast the following morning. Bridget and Amelia’s exploits at the garden party would certainly be covered at length in all the papers, but Claire hoped that her time with Fox had gone unnoticed.

Her hopes were quickly dashed by the duchess, or rather the newspaper she read from:

“If it weren’t bad enough that every paper is reporting on Lady Bridget and Lady Amelia’s spill in the lake, The London Weekly is suggesting that Lady Claire and Lord Fox were spotted behind a hedge together.”

“How shocking,” Lady Amelia declared, with a mischievous glimmer in her eye.

“How improper,” Bridget murmured, while smirking.

“How absurd,” Claire scoffed in the uncharacteristically illogical hope that she could convince everyone the report was false by pretending it was.

“No, it’s excellent,” the duchess declared. Claire choked on her tea.

“How do you figure that, Your Grace?”

“How many times must I tell you that he’s a catch?” the duchess asked impatiently. “And I would rather the ton gossip about a potential suitable match than . . . whatever one would call their behavior.” Here, she waved in the general direction of Bridget and Amelia, the ladies of the lake.

“Entertaining,” Amelia said.

“Outlandish,” the duchess replied.

“Or charming,” Bridget suggested.

“Scandalous,” the duchess declared. “And the last thing this family needs is more scandal.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Pendleton, the butler.

“There is a caller for Lady Claire. Are you at home?”

“Who is calling at such an early hour?” the duchess inquired.

“Mr. Benedict Williams.”

“I am not aware of him,” the duchess said, which is all she needed to say in order to convey that he was not a person of consequence and thus not a suitable caller. Just wait until the duchess learned the reason he was calling . . .

“Who is this Mr. Benedict Williams?”

“He is an esteemed mathematician and academic. The Duke of Ashbrooke introduced us and suggested that we collaborate on a paper for publication detailing the intricate workings and immense possibilities in the design for his analytical engine.”

“I’m not certain that ladies of your station write papers for publication.”

“This one will,” Claire replied.

“Perhaps as long as your name isn’t on it . . .” the duchess said thoughtfully.

Claire pursed her lips, as she had seen the duchess do when confronted by a situation that did not please her. The thought of all her hard work being credited to someone else—even Mr. Williams, whom she liked—made her heart rebel. She realized in that moment that she didn’t just want the liberty to indulge her interests, but she wanted to share her ideas with the world and receive acknowledgment for them. But at the breakfast table with a caller waiting was not the time to argue the point.

Besides, she didn’t want to

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