Her Secondhand Groom(2)
“Let’s try something else first,” he said, using his toe to check the softness of the ground around the rut. It wasn’t quite soft enough where it would be possible for one to rock the carriage while the other tried to push it, but it wasn’t so hard they couldn’t try to dig out the wheel.
“Eh?” Cruxley fairly shouted, cupping his hand around his ear like a giant shell.
Patrick glanced at his girls who were giggling and screaming playfully as they continued to chase each other around. “I think we should try to free the wheel without breaking it first,” he said loudly.
Cruxley nodded but didn’t look too convinced.
Ignoring his overly opinionated coachman, Patrick went inside the carriage and lifted up the seat cushion to see what tools might be stored there, hoping to find a shovel or something that could be used like one. Not finding what he was looking for, he selected a gardening tool he’d often seen his tenants use for cropping. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. Scowling at Cruxley’s laziness, Patrick started swinging what he was certain was called a hoe at the ground in an effort to break up or beat down the earth that seemed to have swallowed the bottom fifth of the carriage wheel.
***
Juliet Hughes looked down at her lot of younger brothers and sisters and forced a smile. “How about if we go for a walk?” she suggested, her smile turning genuine as her siblings nodded their heads in excitement. For the last year she’d taken to teaching her younger siblings to read, write, and any other academic she could think of as a way to earn her keep.
Her father was the son of a second son of a baronet, the only claim to gentry her family could cling to. And cling to that scrap of prestige they had. At twelve, Juliet’s parents borrowed enough money to send her away to Sloan’s School for Young Ladies in an effort to allow Juliet a chance to mingle with the more eminent members of Society and snag a titled and wealthy husband. That, however, did not work out so well.
Instead of fulfilling her mother’s dream of being the most sought after debutante, Juliet went virtually unnoticed. Not completely unnoticed, mind you. She was noticed by several unsavory sorts, usually lecherous older men or beautiful young ladies who couldn’t spare a kind word if their lives depended upon it.
After one Season that ended with nothing more than two carriage rides in Hyde Park accompanied by men old enough to be her grandfather, her parents insisted she return home. Since she’d come home bearing the shame of not having found a suitable husband, she’d taken to teaching her younger siblings to read, write, and do sums as best she could. Some days were challenging, but it made it all worthwhile to see her brothers and sisters finally make sense of something she was trying to teach them and grin with a sense of accomplishment.
It also helped to alleviate her guilt knowing her parents had borrowed an enormous sum in order to send her off. Not that her parents fired figurative arrows covered heavily with guilt at her that she’d wasted all their money and credit on a useless education and a fruitless Season when her sister, Henrietta, would have made such better use of their funds, but she at least felt that by educating her younger siblings, then her education wasn’t entirely wasted.
Henrietta going to a prestigious girl’s school and participating in a Season would have been met with the coveted results: marriage. Henrietta was everything Juliet wasn’t. Henrietta was slender with a medium height and build. She had the face of an angel decorated with pale blue eyes, pink pouty lips, and porcelain skin that had a brushstroke of pink across each cheek.
Juliet still resembled a girl in many ways with her awkward appearance. Her frame, though tall and slim, lacked the pronounced curves most other young ladies had. Her complexion was the color of honey, making her pale grey eyes and full, red lips more noticeable. Her hair was a dirty blonde and was so thick no matter what she did with it, it slipped free of all its pins no more than an hour after she put it up. To complete the ensemble, she wore spectacles. And not the little delicate ones some ladies and gentlemen wore; no, these were large and clunky. The silver rims were extraordinarily thick. They had to be in order to accommodate the thick, heavy lenses that rested inside. The weight of this hideous, but necessary, piece of apparel was enough that no matter how she moved her face―even if it was just a little―they’d either slide down her nose or stay situated at the top of her nose tipping to the right or left to a rather irritating degree.
No, Juliet Hughes was not an attractive debutante who took London by storm and had the gentlemen prancing after her. She was the shy, plain debutante who blended in with the wallpaper.