The Awakening Of Miss Henley. Julia Justiss

       Chapter One

      ‘Who did you say was calling?’ Emma Henley asked, looking up at the maid who’d interrupted her avid study of the new travel journal recently lent to her by her friend Temperance Lattimar, now the Countess of Fensworth.

      ‘I didn’t catch the name, miss,’ the maid said. ‘Someone important, which was why Lady Henley sent me to fetch you.’

      For a moment, Emma considered refusing, then closed the volume with regret. ‘Someone “important”?’ she repeated under her breath. Why her mama continued to insist she receive visitors with her, Emma couldn’t imagine. As she was now embarked on her fifth Season, it wasn’t as if all the society doyennes hadn’t had ample opportunity to look her over. And who of importance would call this early in the morning?

      ‘Very well, Marie,’ she said with a sigh, ‘tell her I will be down in a moment.’

      ‘You look right fetching in that new turquoise gown with your hair up in that twist of curls,’ the maid said. ‘I should think you’d want to be showing off to important visitors.’

      ‘I do appreciate your efforts,’ Emma said, smiling at the girl as she curtsied. Sweet Marie, she thought, watching the maid walk out, who in the face of all indications to the contrary, seemed to remain as optimistic about her charge’s chances of marrying as Emma’s ever-hopeful mama, despite the fact that Emma had gone through five years on the Marriage Mart still unwed.

      Not that she hadn’t had opportunities, she thought as she checked herself in the glass, tucking an errant pin back into her curls. But a lifetime of witnessing her parents’ union, in which each spouse went their own way, had left her with little enthusiasm for the married state. Papa contented himself with his clubs and his mistresses, Mama with her admirers and her circle of friends. Added to that disinclination was the sad fact that her older sister had received all her mama’s famous beauty, leaving Emma tall, plain and unremarkable, and the happy fact that an aunt had given her a competence that would allow her to remain independent without having to marry. Those two factors meant she was able to be as choosy about her prospects as a well-dowered Incomparable.

      Confident she could avoid penury even if she didn’t marry, she had not once been tempted to accept any of the several offers made to a girl her own mother described as ‘not pretty enough to tempt a rake and not rich enough to tempt a fortune hunter.’ Her sister, Cecilia, might have dazzled the son of a duke, but Emma knew well her tall, lanky figure, long, pale face and drab brown hair were unlikely to inspire a man with ardour. She simply refused to succumb to the traditional fate of a plain wife, contenting herself with home and children and looking the other way while her husband pursued prettier women.

      No, she thought, smoothing the lace at her sleeves as she proceeded to the stairs, she wanted a much more interesting life than managing a household and keeping track of servants, nursery maids and a pack of squalling brats. Or filling her days with calls and shopping and her evenings with endless, and endlessly repetitive, balls, musicales and soirées attended by the same people doing the same things, year after year.

      When her friend Temperance introduced her last Season to Lady Lyndlington and her Ladies’ Committee, whose purpose was to write letters in support of the reforms introduced by her husband’s group in Parliament, Emma felt she’d finally found her calling. Women might not yet be able to vote or sit in Parliament, but as a member of the Ladies’ Committee, she could do her part for the betterment of her country.

      Now, she wouldn’t consider taking on the burdens of marriage and motherhood unless her spouse were a man of purpose like Lord Lyndlington, who believed a wife his equal and supported her involvement in the reform movement.

      A rather unlikely prospect, she conceded with another sigh. If only she could convince Mama to give up her useless husband-hunting! But by the end of this Season, if not before, she told herself firmly as she reached the main floor and turned towards the front parlour, she would dig in her heels and simply refuse to go through another. She would finally secure a home for herself and her friends to share, where they could eschew society and devote their time to the political causes they believed in so passionately.

      ‘Not in there, miss.’ Haines, their butler, stepped forward from his post to arrest her progress. ‘Lady Henley wanted you in the Green Salon.’

      ‘The Green Salon?’ she echoed. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Yes, miss. She was quite insistent.’

      Puzzled, Emma shook her head. Her mama normally received ‘important’ visitors in the large front parlour, the smaller Green Salon at the back of the house, overlooking the garden, being reserved for calls by friends or for family gatherings. Wondering who might have arrived that would induce her mother to choose that more intimate space, Emma walked past the front parlour and entered the Green Salon.

      Where she found, not Lady Henley and some bosom friend, but Mr Paxton Nullford, pacing nervously before the hearth.

      Alarmed and irritated in equal measures, she whirled about, intending to immediately