Page 2 of A Match for Princess Pompous
“Are we expecting visitors?” she asked her parents. “Today is not an at-home day.”
They exchanged looks but not words. Odette could very easily translate; she knew her parents well. They were expecting someone but did not want to tell her whom.
Hooves and wheels sounded below. Father snapped to attention like a cadet, spinning on his heel to face the window.
Odette was fairly dying of curiosity. Who was the mysterious visitor? If Father had invited yet another young gentleman to make a clearly coerced and halfhearted attempt at courtship, she would be hard-pressed not to simply beg the poor soul to leave them all in peace.
“She’s here,” Father whispered.
She.Not a suitor, then. Her parents both rose and turned to face the door. An importantshe, apparently. Odette’s interest was fully piqued.
She, too, rose and watched the threshold, half expecting Queen Charlotte herself to step inside. The lady who entered, however, bore little resemblance to the current consort. She was far younger, likely only a decade older than Odette. Though this new arrival carried herself with confidence, hers was not the stone-stiff bearing of a monarch.
She swept her assessing gaze over the room’s occupants. First Mother, who received a quick, generic smile. Then Father, who was offered a nod. At last, the anonymous lady settled her eyes on Odette. This was no cursory glance or momentary burst of vague curiosity. Odette was thoroughly scrutinized, head to toe and most likely inside and out. The perusal ended with a simple, “Hmm.”
Odette didn’t know what to make of such a dismissive and dissatisfied evaluation. “Princess Pompous” was not universally liked, but people generally found her interesting at the very least.
The lady turned to face Father once more.
“What is your impression?” he asked her.
“She does not appear shy or easily intimidated. That will make things easier. She is pretty, which, though in a truly decent world wouldn’t matter in the least, will also prove beneficial. She has a dowry, I assume.”
They were discussingher.That was decidedly unexpected and more than a little rattling. Odette had learned these past months how to give the impression of cool confidence. She would simply do so again.
“My dowry is £5,000,” Odette said. “My eyes have been described as sparkling and my smile as captivating. I do notgenerally want for partners at any ball, am greeted whenever I take a ride about Hyde Park, but am granted a blessed degree of solitude during the day, since most potential suitors have decided to look elsewhere. Is there anything else you’d care to know, or would you prefer clinging to what you have surmised with a single glance?”
The lady, who had not in the course of Odette’s response turned in her direction, simply said, “And she is rather pert. That could either be an asset or a liability.”
“If you can find someone willing to take all that on, we would be greatly obliged,” Father said. “Her older sisters were far easier to marry off.”
Take all that on?Marry off?Odette looked from one of them to the other in succession.
“You don’t happen to have a miserly older relative in the country somewhere?” The lady posed the suggestion with not quite enough humor to convince Odette that she wasn’t at least partially in earnest.
“I am being sent away?” Odette carefully kept the hope from her voice.
“Nonsense,” Mother said. “We have six weeks left in this Season. That is time enough to make it a success.”
Father’s shoulders drooped. “The gentlemen aren’t precisely clamoring to win the regard of Princess Pompous. What else can we do that we haven’t already?”
“What else?” Odette asked in frustration. “What I have been suggesting for weeks: we can consider this Season to have been all that it could be and return home. We’ll return next year and begin again.”
Mother shook her head firmly. “You cannot leave having made the impression you have. Thetonwill continue whispering, the stories growing at every house party, every Yuletide gathering.By the time we return to London, you will not merely be an oddity, you will be a pariah. We must undo some of the damage.”
“If we can,” Father muttered.
Odette had worked very diligently at creating that “damage.” Undoing it was not in her plans at all.
“I believe I would like to speak with Miss Armistead,” the stranger said. “Alone, if you will.”
Father and Mother agreed readily and eagerly. Whatever scheme had been hatched clearly had both their support.
As soon as they stepped out and the door closed behind them, the stranger spoke again. “Introductions ought to have been made, but panic often subdues manners.”
“Panic?” Odette began to smile at the exaggeration, but stopped at the lady’s expression of absolute earnestness.
“It seems your parents have all but lost hope of you making a suitable match.” The lady’s assessing gaze swept over Odette once more. “I have been called upon to remedy that.”
