The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School

Miss Peabody made an uncomfortable little whimper in her throat. Ryan shaded his eyes as a party of white-clad young people came hurrying toward him.

He recognized the men from his Harvard days: Quentin Peabody, famous for his tennis serve and infamous for his phenomenal stomach, which held vast quantities of liquor. His brother Bronson, so attractive he was almost pretty, was deeply studious and well-liked. Foster Candy, a braying ass of a fellow—or a veritable hog when it came to wallowing in the gossip pit—and Robert Hallowell whose only memorable quality was his family’s wealth. And finally Chad Easterbrook, Abel’s son and heir. He was graced with a godlike handsomeness and a frighteningly vacant mind.

They arrived in a tumble of laughter and introductions, and Ryan made the acquaintance of the ladies—Lydia Haven and Isadora’s sister, Arabella, who resembled a fashion doll in a dressmaker’s shop.

“What a pleasure to see you, Calhoun,” Quentin declared in the lazy, academic drawl of the longtime university man. “You made quite the stir when you lit out from Harvard, old chap. Quite the stir.”

“People at Harvard are easily stirred.” Ryan gestured at Journey. “I’d like you all to make the acquaintance of my business partner, Mr. Journey Calhoun.”

They just stared. Then Foster stepped forward, bowing from the waist. “The pleasure is ours,” he shouted, enunciating each word carefully. “I am sure.”

Journey grinned. “I’m African, sir. Not deaf.”

Their laughter had a nervous edge, but Quentin managed to turn the attention from Journey to Isadora. She sat like a statue, her face pale, her eyes cast down. The liveliness that had animated her moments ago had vanished.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Quentin asked with a gamin chuckle, “Or is it true? Is my sister actually to be found in conversation with a gentleman rather than with her nose in a book?”

The others laughed. Isadora managed a tight, uncomfortable smile.

“Oh, do stop,” Arabella protested prettily, shaking a white lace fan. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing poor Izzie?”

Isadora responded by sneezing violently into her handkerchief.

“Bless you,” Chad Easterbrook murmured automatically.

She sent him a tremulous smile, shy and curiously sweet. Judging by Chad’s expression, he had no appreciation of what was immediately apparent to anyone with half a brain—the poor girl was quite thoroughly in love with him.

“How was your croquet match?” she asked softly, her voice wavering a little.

“Oh, capital,” Chad said. Offhandedly he added, “Though you were missed, of course.”

“Yes, indeed.” Lydia Haven brushed out a flounce in her white dress. “You certainly were. It is always so amusing to have you around, Izzie.”

“Thank you. But…as I was compelled to inform Chad, I’m unwell. I’m…ah…” She sneezed again, pressing the rumpled handkerchief to her reddened nose.

“What can be keeping the refreshments?” Bronson wondered aloud. “I asked for lemonade to be served out here. I’ll go inquire.”

The women gathered in the gazebo, and the men wandered away, Foster and Robert lighting their pipes. They fell into conversation, none of it terribly interesting. Ryan realized he’d had a better time discussing navigation with Isadora. He listened with only one ear to the men’s talk. Until Foster addressed him directly.

“I’m told—though, of course, I have no experience of this—that as soon as a gentleman leaves the college, he finds himself in quite a calamity.”

Ryan lifted one eyebrow. “I’ve done all right.”

“But isn’t it true that all your tailors and gaming friends, so generous to Harvard men, are apt to call in their markers?” Foster persisted, his eyes narrowing with slyness. “Perhaps not. Perhaps they sent their dun notes to your dear mama.”

Ryan flexed his fist and took a step toward him. Journey planted himself in his path. “Easy, Skipper,” he said quietly. “Remember why we came here. Remember what’s important.”

Ryan took a deep breath. He had to stay focused on the business venture.

He ignored the talk until Isadora’s name came up.

“There’s a family joke, you know,” said Quentin in a low voice, “that our parents had to tie a codfish cake around Izzie’s neck to get the cat to play with her.”

Foster Candy made a choked sound of amusement. “There, old stick, I daresay I’d charge a steeper price than a fish cake!”

“Lemonade,” Bronson called, helping the butler wheel a wooden cart across the lawn.

The refreshments arrived and the talk started up again, but the drink tasted bitter to Ryan. As he stood back and watched the laughing, white-clad croquet party and Isadora sitting like a black crow on her stool, he wished he had never come here.

“She lives in hell,” he muttered to Journey.

“There are many kinds of hell. Some worse than others.”

Ryan knew Journey was thinking of his family, still in bondage in Virginia, their only hope of freedom resting with the fortunes of the Silver Swan. Yet Isadora Peabody suffered in her own way; that was apparent enough. While Southern families institutionalized their inhumanity, claiming a moral right to keep slaves and justifying it in the oddest of fashions, this proper Yankee society had its own subtle brand of torture.

It was a calculated cruelty, razor sharp, aimed at the most vulnerable. Miss Isadora had no defenses against the biting cleverness of her croquet-playing, lemonade-drinking peers. Timid socially, yet gifted with a fierce intellect, she was regarded as an aberration. Different and not to be trusted.

She was regarded as “poor Izzie.” But already Ryan realized she was “not-so-dumb Dora.”

Chad Easterbrook, vast in his mental absence, clearly had no notion that she worshiped him. Perhaps, then, it was the perfect match, Ryan mused cynically, leaning against a pergola and watching as Isadora sneezed yet again, and Chad blessed her and she gazed up at him as if he’d offered her the moon on a platter. He was capable of only selfish thought, and she suffered from an excess of thoughtfulness. Between the two of them they made a whole person. Possibly even an interesting person.

Except that it was clear to Ryan that they were not a couple. Lydia Haven commandeered the young man’s attention with all the determination of a battle chief leading a charge. He was hers, following her across the lawn like a trained spaniel and leaving Isadora to snuffle ungraciously into her handkerchief.

“We should go,” Ryan said. “Miss Peabody,” he continued, taking her hand and bowing, lifting it to his lips. “Your offer was more than kind, and for that I thank you. Good day.”

“But we haven’t—you can’t—”

Feeling terrible, he left her stammering. He heard one of the other young women sigh. He and Journey found their own way out and Ryan was relieved to leave the stifling atmosphere of the Peabody mansion behind.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Journey asked.

“Don’t you dare suggest it,” Ryan said, adding in his best Boston accent, “old chap.”

“But she speaks six languages—”

“No.”

“She’s miserable here—”

“No.”

“She’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the ladies you brought aboard last ni—”

“Damn it,” Ryan almost shouted, “no.”

Isadora refused to take no for an answer. So what if Ryan Calhoun turned out to be as shallow and mocking as Quentin and his friends? He had something she wanted—a way out of Boston. And she was determined to get it.

As she waited in the brick-fronted Merchants’ Exchange offices of Abel Easterbrook, she allowed herself a brief, satisfying moment of gloating. Though he didn’t know it, Captain Calhoun himself had given her the key to obtaining the post.