Free No Place for a Dame by Connie Brockway

his shoulders slightly bunched forward as though uncomfortable with his size. Avery supposed him to be fresh out of his teens and that a last minute spurt of growth had made him self-conscious and awkward. He had a nice, open sort of face, his nose snubbed and freckled, his jaw a trifle heavy, and his carefully combed flaxen hair already receding from a high forehead.
    “Come, Vedder, let us leave these two young bucks to trade confidence of the sort we did at that age,” Giles said, and led Vedder towards the settee occupied by Lady Demsforth and her daughter.
    For a moment, Avery and the young man stood silently regarding one another. Lord Neville seemed to be waiting for something. She couldn’t imagine what.
    “You are an academic then, Mr. Quinn?” he finally asked.
    “I am a scientist.”
    “I see. And what do you study?”
    “The stars.”
    “My uncle likes stars.” He looked at her expectantly but she could not think what to reply to this.
    She did not simply like stars. They were her life. But she very much doubted Lord Neville wanted to hear about Fraunhofer lines. Her gaze drifted uneasily around the drawing room looking for inspiration, noting the marble mantle, the white painted woodwork, the light green damask-covered furnishings. Should she perhaps comment on how chilly the room felt? Did men say things like that to one another?
    Lord Neville cleared his throat. “You must be very smart to have attracted Lord Strand’s notice at so young an age.”
    “I am.” She reseated the spectacles on the bridge of her nose.
    Once more they fell silent, she with mounting frustration, he with an increasingly sympathetic expression.
    Why was he looking at her like that? As though he felt sorry for her. Why should he feel sorry for her? She had discovered a comet. What had he ever done? She glared at Giles. He’d put her in this fix. He caught her eye and gave the smallest jerk of his chin in Neville’s direction. Fine.
    “You must be great friends with Lord Strand,” she said.
    “What? No.” The lad looked taken aback. Now what had she said? “I mean, not great friends. Why do you say that?”
    “Well, here he is back in town but a few days and after being thrown over by his fiancée and here you are. I should think only a friend of long standing and intimacy would present themselves thus.”
    She watched in fascination as Neville’s ears once more grew crimson. She bet an anatomist would enjoy dissecting his arterial system.…
    Neville cleared his throat, glanced at her, cleared his throat again and stared, stricken mute. Suddenly, she felt impatient with the inanity of it all and frustrated and rueful that she’d unintentionally discomforted this nice boy.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Strand is right. I oughtn’t be allowed out in polite company.”
    He searched her face and whatever he found there seemed to reassure him, for he blew out a gusty sigh and his whole large, well-dressed, ungainly body relaxed. He grinned ruefully. “No, no, you are quite correct.” He glanced around before looking back down into her face. “But as the old marquess and my father were at school together, and my father once made some mention of how nice it would be should one of his children wed one of the marquess’s and the old marquess didn’t bother to disagree, my mother feels a bargain has all but been struck—and let me tell you she was not happy when Lucy was displaced by Miss North—and that it gives us permission to arrive here so precipitously upon Strand’s return to London and stay far too long.”
    Avery regarded him quizzically.
    “What I mean to say, Mr. Quinn, is that we are being unconscionably forward. But my mother wanted to steal a march on the other Society ladies with marriageable daughters.”
    Avery furrowed her brow.
    “Now that Strand’s once more in the market for a bride.”
    Avery stared at him in dawning horror. “You mean we might expect