Free A Worthy Wife by Bárbara Metzger Page B

favorite was the tiny jockey-style cap with the blue feather that curled down, almost to the corner of her mouth. No, he really liked the straw bonnet with the silk forget-me-nots peeping under the brim. The lace-trimmed satin, though, lent her a sophistication and maturity befitting a married woman. Aurora was laughing as he and Marie discussed her finer points: It was good to see her so carefree.
    “We’ll take them all,” he announced. “And parasols to match.”
    Aurora thought parasols were as silly an affectation as his looking glass, but naturally she did not say that. “Oh, I don’t burn, so I have no need for a sunshade.”
    The parasols were not for the sun, it seemed, but to protect her from the stares and scrutiny of the gabble-mongers when they drove through the park.
    “Surely no one would be so rude.”
    “Ruder,” Kenyon swore, and Marie agreed. “They’ll all be on tenterhooks to get a glimpse of the new countess, especially after word of the unconventional wedding arrives, which it will, every dowager and debutante having a bosom bow in Bath. You’ll be happy to shield your face from their inspections. On the other hand, don’t use the parasols too much. I want everyone to see what a beautiful bride I have.”
    He thought she was beautiful? Aurora floated to the carriage, not even noticing which new bonnet she wore.

Chapter Nine
    “And remember, don’t admire any of Hortense’s treasures overmuch,” Kenyon warned Aurora as they passed through the doorway of Lady Anstruther-Jones’s house. “She’ll simply give you a fan or a hair comb if you don’t express interest in anything grander, and that will be fine.”
    In the marbled entry a footman took Kenyon aside to remove his boots, while a maidservant showed Aurora into a bamboo-papered chamber where she was offered a selection of soft-soled silk slippers. She chose a pair with turned-up toes, feeling that the more exotic, the better. She was a Troglodytes troglodytes, a common wren in the midst of peacocks. She might borrow a plume or two.
    The butler who then bowed them into Lady Anstruther-Jones’s presence wore a jeweled turban, the maids who sat on pillows near their mistress, ready to pour tea or serve the honey cakes, wore flowing robes of rainbow hues, and the viscountess herself wore an abbey’s worth of gems at her throat and wrists and ears. She was a tiny woman for all that power, all that wealth, Aurora thought, and dwarfed by the ballroom-size room she inhabited. She was not rendered insignificant by the high ceilings or the thick white carpets, however, not with her loose saffron yellow pantaloons, which were eminently sensible for sitting on the floor.
    “Don’t even think of ordering a pair,” Kenyon whispered, as Aurora gaped at the sight of a female in trousers, bobbling her curtsy and missing the introductions altogether.
    She must have made the correct response, though, for they were invited to sit on adjoining pillows at some distance from their hostess. Aurora saw no way of doing so gracefully. She tried kneeling, then sinking sideways, only just managing to land on the pillow. Kenyon and her ladyship were sitting cross-legged, she saw, but her dress’s skirt was just too narrow. With her feet sticking out in front of her like a jointed doll on a shelf, she fretted about her ankles showing. And the gaudy slippers made her feel like a court jester, not a courtly lady.
    Sensing her anxiety, Kenyon spoke softly, for her ears only. “Relax. You outrank the old besom now.”
    So she did! Aurora wriggled her toes, just for the fun of it. She need not have fussed anyway. Lady Anstruther-Jones held a cane and wore spectacles with black lenses. The viscountess was blind, and they had brought her a painting!
    Aurora scowled at Kenyon, who shrugged. “I haven’t visited in ages, and I never heard why she stopped doing the social rounds. I’m not the one au courant with all the talk; she is. And her loss of sight