Free A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde

opened. A small flock of servants in assorted liveries hurried out. The crowd’s massed murmuring turned awed, and excited. People crammed, craned, and crowded—or at least they attempted to crowd. The footmen, prepared with staves and very firm manners, descended the steps to keep the way open for the lady patronesses.
    First to emerge was Sarah Villiers, Lady Jersey. Swaddled in burgundy velvet, with white plumes nodding above her ruffled bonnet, Lady Jersey was the acknowledged queen of the patronesses. They might all have some say in what happened inAlmack’s, but Lady Jersey’s word reigned over the rest, and she made sure the whole world knew it.
    Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, garbed in forest green and a positive acre of fur, came up beside her. Delicate, pale, and younger by far than most of the rest of the patronesses, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell was reckoned to have her position because Lady Jersey knew she could always count on her vote and agreement, no matter what the question. But Rosalind saw something in the keen way the young woman turned her face toward the crowd, and wondered.
    The Princess Esterhazy glided forth from the doorway. Lady Sefton bustled. The Countess Lieven rolled her dark, imperious eyes in an attitude of exaggerated suffering. She also picked up her hems with ostentatious fastidiousness before descending the stairs.
    Rosalind unlatched the carriage door and waited.
    Lady Blanchard did not appear. The footmen closed the doors. Rosalind frowned, but composed herself to patience. She also remembered to raise the window glass again.
    Around the carriage, the crowd began to crack apart. The bystanders on the walks drained away first, presumably prodded by the cold and encroaching dark, as well as the looming necessity of dressing for dinner and the evening’s entertainments. The scrum of carriages loosened much more slowly, urged on by the shouts of drivers and postilions.
    But Almack’s doors remained closed.
    All around, church bells began their ponderous tolling of the hour. Rosalind shifted on her seat. What could possibly be keeping Lady Blanchard so far behind the others? The memory of their conversation that afternoon filled her. How could it not? Especially after Lady Blanchard had made it so clear she meant to use her position at Almack’s for her own purposes. Rosalindremained certain those purposes included leaving London behind for good and all, but what else did they include?
    As Rosalind contemplated this unpleasant question, the driver, Preston, called down from his box. “Shall I go speak to the porter, miss? Perhaps he can find out what’s keeping her ladyship?”
    Rosalind shook herself. This idle speculation served no purpose. “Thank you, Preston, but I’ll go.”
    â€œYes, miss.” Preston climbed off his perch and opened the door to help her out.
    â€œShe’s probably just been detained on some matter of committee business,” Rosalind ventured. Never mind that all the rest of the committee had already gone.
    Preston touched his hat. “That’s sure to be it, miss. These meetings do take up a mountain of Lady Blanchard’s time.”
    Rosalind picked her way across the cobbles and around the frozen puddles. As she did, she performed several small adjustments to her attitude. By the time she reached the doors, she had assumed an air that managed to be brisk, unassuming, and completely at home all at once. Almack’s might fill others with terror, but not Miss Rosalind Thorne. She did still belong here. Although it was not quite on the same terms as in earlier days, she knew everyone. Oh, not the patronesses, but all the others—the ones who kept the door, who staffed the rooms and made sure the patronesses’ plans were fulfilled, down to the last detail. These were the persons who constituted Rosalind’s Almack’s now.
    â€œGood evening, Molloy,” Rosalind said to the porter at the door.