“Well.” Her friend took a thoughtful sip of champagne, her gaze momentarily distant. “I suppose someone must be the eccentric spinster aunt who scandalises family gatherings withinappropriate opinions and peculiar hobbies. It might as well be you.”
Despite herself, despite the weight of expectation and the suffocating heat of the ballroom, Penelope laughed. “I shall endeavour to live down to expectations in the most spectacular fashion possible.”
“See that you do.” Hyacinth glanced across the ballroom, her attention already shifting back to the assembled company with the focused intensity of a general surveying a battlefield. “Lord Denby is approaching Lady Winters for the second set. I knew he would choose her. She possesses that ethereal, fragile quality men seem to find utterly irresistible, even if her conversation could bore paint off walls.”
There she was—the Hyacinth who had announced at the Season’s start that this year, finally, she would secure a suitable husband. Penelope had watched her friend transform the pursuit of matrimony into something resembling military strategy, complete with careful reconnaissance and tactical planning.
“Have you narrowed your prospects yet?” Penelope asked, genuinely curious despite her own complete lack of matrimonial ambition.
“Three serious candidates.” Hyacinth ticked them off on gloved fingers with evident satisfaction. “Sir Edmund, naturally, who you have already dismissed with your characteristic cynicism. Then there is Mr. Hartford—a youngest son, admittedly, buthis eldest brother is terribly sickly and unlikely to produce an heir, so there remains considerable hope. And Lord Brightmore, though he has been disappointingly inattentive this evening.”
“Quite the arsenal you have assembled.”
“I prefer to think of it as prudent planning.” Hyacinth’s expression turned calculating in a way Penelope found both impressive and faintly depressing. “Sir Edmund possesses the superior estate—nearly three thousand acres in Gloucestershire, I am told. But Mr. Hartford has the more agreeable temperament and would likely interfere less with how I chose to run the household. Lord Brightmore has both title and considerable fortune, but he also comes with a mother who is notoriously difficult and would undoubtedly make my life a misery. One must weigh these factors with considerable care.”
Penelope studied her friend silently, searching for any trace of romantic feeling beneath all the practical calculation. She found none. Hyacinth approached the prospect of marriage the way a merchant might approach a particularly important business transaction—with shrewd assessment, clear-eyed pragmatism, and absolutely no room for sentiment.
It ought to have seemed cold, calculated, mercenary. Instead it simply seemed rather sad.
“What about affection?” The question escaped before Penelope could properly consider whether it was wise to ask. “Do any of them inspire... anything beyond purely strategic interest?”
Hyacinth’s brow furrowed in what appeared to be genuine confusion. “Affection?”
“Yes. You know—warmth, attraction, the desire to actually spend time in their company beyond what is strictly necessary for courtship and the production of heirs.”
“Penelope.” Her friend employed a patient tone typically reserved for very slow children or the slightly mad. “Affection is perfectly lovely in novels, I grant you. But this is real life. Marriage is a practical arrangement between families of compatible station. One chooses based on security of income, compatibility of temperament, and reasonable expectation of civilised cohabitation. Anything beyond that is merely fortunate coincidence, not something one can reasonably expect or plan for.”
The words fell between them like stones dropping into still water, creating ripples that spread outward into uncomfortable silence.
“How very pragmatic of you,” Penelope said quietly.
“How very naive of you to expect otherwise.” But Hyacinth’s expression had softened again, losing some of its sharp edges. “I know you harbour romantic notions, dearest. I know you have read entirely too many novels and convinced yourself that marriage ought to resemble the pages of some Gothic romance. But the truth is that most marriages are built on far more mundane foundations than passion or poetry. And they survive perfectly well nonetheless.”
Perhaps she was right. Penelope’s own parents maintained a relationship of comfortable companionship rather than grand romance. Her sisters all seemed content enough with their respective husbands, even if none of them appeared to have married for any reason more compelling than mutual suitability and appropriate family connections.
Still. Something in Penelope’s chest rebelled at the notion of choosing a husband the way one might choose a particularly serviceable and well-made pair of boots—practical, durable, designed to last many years with proper care and maintenance.
“Speaking of matrimonial prospects and romantic complications,” Hyacinth continued, her attention already drifting back toward the assembled crowd, “where is Marianne this evening? I have not seen her in absolutely ages. Not since last Season ended, come to think of it.”
The question struck with unexpected force. Penelope felt her chest tighten, felt her fingers curl reflexively against the fabric of her skirts. The worry she had been pushing down for weeks suddenly sharpened into fear.
“I do not know,” she admitted, and heard the strain in her own voice. “I have not seen her since last Season concluded. She was meant to return to London weeks ago—she wrote in July saying she was eager to come back to town. But then...” She trailed off, unable to articulate the growing unease that had been building since late summer.
It was not like Marianne to simply vanish. They had been corresponding regularly for years, sharing everything from inconsequential gossip to deeper confidences. Marianne’s letters had always been full of life, of feeling, of the sort of romantic sensibility that made Hyacinth scoff in derision, but that Penelope had always rather treasured.
Then, sometime in late summer, the letters had simply stopped. Penelope had written three times with no response.
“Her parents probably kept her at their country estate,” Hyacinth said with an airy dismissiveness that did nothing to ease Penelope’s concern. “You know how absurdly protective Lord Whitcombe is of his only daughter. He likely decided she needed another year away from London’s supposedly corrupting influence before facing the rigours of the marriage mart again. The man treats her as though she were made of spun glass.”
“Perhaps.” But the explanation did not quite satisfy. Marianne had been genuinely excited about returning to London, about resuming her place in society. Her last letter—the one that had arrived in July—had been full of anticipation. She had purchased new gowns. She had been practising new pieces on the pianoforte. She had mentioned a specific book she wanted to lend Penelope when they were reunited.
None of that suggested someone content to remain indefinitely in the countryside.
“I am certain she is perfectly well,” Hyacinth continued, already losing interest in the topic in favour of tracking LordBrightmore’s progress across the ballroom. “Probably just bored to tears in whatever remote corner of England the Whitcombes have exiled her to. You know how Marianne dramatises everything. She is likely writing tragic poetry about her isolation as we speak and—oh.”
The single syllable carried enough weight to yank Penelope’s attention sharply back to her friend.
“Oh?” she prompted.