Vampyre Bride ✔️

XII⎮Mr. Beveridge's Maggot

"Do not fret, Miss Lucas," her ladyship declared, misinterpreting the sudden flush of color in Emma's cheeks that had bloomed at perceiving Winterly's knowing smirk, "we shall find you a respectable husband before the season draws to a close." With that she cast her eyes determinedly about the assembled crowd in front of the orchestra, ostensibly wasting no time in seeing that her resolve was met with a successful terminus.

And wasn't that exactly why they were all here? These furbelowed debutantes and fuddled coxcombs. To hunt themselves an eligible parti?

Emma determined that it was very likely that Lady Middleton was motivated to find her a beau, despite that she was quite on the shelf already, more out of a desire to avoid Winterly's cold glare than from any misplaced and, frankly, unwanted altruism on her part. For charitable the lady was not.

"And what manner of husband, pray, do you propose for a woman of Miss Lucas' intellectual capacity?" Winterly was becoming amused now, and Emma was not at all certain she enjoyed providing the fodder for his condescension.

"I know the very person!" Lord Middleton lifted his monocle and searched the sea of dandies, gowns, and perfectly coiffed heads. "I say, I rather think Mr. Wells would do pretty well."

"I should think not." Winterly's mouth quirked at the corner in response to Emma's pursed lips. "He is, after all, not a great reader; and Miss Lucas must find a partner of equal perspicacity." He then lowered his voice and, for Emma's ears alone, said, "And I understand him to be a ... confirmed bachelor."

She could scarcely credit what she was hearing. Surely he did not mean...?

"Male venery, Miss Lucas." His breath, his hushed disclosure, they way he protracted and emphasized the words, gently disturbed the hairs at her nape. And then he straightened, his countenance impassive; her mind, per contra, was left reeling from that shocking bit of intelligence.

"And are you a great reader?" Lady Middleton inquired, distastefully, examining Emma from the tail of her eye. 

How unobservant these people were. Could they not see the effect that Lord Winterly was having on her. Surely the whole room had noticed how he'd leaned in just then. How his wicked suggestion had imbrued her face with blood. 

"I hardly..." She swallowed, as yet mortified by their private exchange. 

He, however, appeared wholly unaffected. "She is indeed," Winterly opined, examining his cuticles.

"How misfortunate, my dear. I did not take you for a bluestocking." She gave an impertinent sniff. "Intelligence quite despoils the affect of beauty. One cannot be both, you understand." Her ladyship's nose therewith flared in further disapprobation, plainly convinced that Emma was neither. "It is as de trop in a woman as..." She was thoughtful a moment. "A beard or ... a balding pate. Quite unseemly." The lady beside her, Mrs. Something-or-other, with the insipid daughters, tittered her agreement.

Emma felt her outrage whelming in the pit of her belly. "You cannot mean that, ma'am?!" That anyone would belittle mental acuity in their own sex was outrageous. "I know of not a single person that would not appreciate wit in another."

"Perhaps not wit within the ranks of the educated nobility," she conceded, the baubles of her silly turban like a lurid cornucopia, "but education, come to that, is a virtue best not wasted on the bourgeoisie. The common man should, therefore, let his betters think for him."

That misguided and odious presumption was far too reminiscent of Miss Winterly's thoughts. It was no wonder that the two women, their contrasting ages notwithstanding, seemed to enjoy each other's deleterious society so well.