Encounter with Mr. Bad Luck

ENCOUNTER WITH MR. BAD LUCK

  Michelle Marcos

  Copyright 2013 by Michelle Marcos

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  About the Author

  One

  Blackheath, England

  1872

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you. It's lethal." Isha Elmwood snatched the jar of Granville's Rouge Pomade from her mother's hand.

  "Isha, for heaven's sake, give that back to me," Lady Elmwood replied, barely disguising the note of despair in her voice. She tapped her ring finger onto the dark pink cream, and leaned forward over Maryan's face. "We haven't much time. We have to get your sister ready for tonight's ball."

  Isha adjusted her spectacles. "But Mama, rouge is poisonous."

  Maryan latched onto her mother's wrist, leaving a smudge of color swathed across her cheek. "Poisonous?"

  Lady Elmwood expelled an irritated sigh. "It's not poisonous. Ladies have been using rouge since the days of Pharaoh."

  Isha cocked an eyebrow. "They've been dying since the days of Pharaoh too, haven't they?"

  Maryan pushed her mother's hand away. "I don't want any of that on my face."

  "Don't listen to your sister, Maryan. There's nothing wrong with rouge. It's all just nonsense she reads in those books from your father's library."

  "It's not nonsense!" The crease between Isha's eyebrows smoothed over as she accessed her flawless memory to the precise words she gleaned from Pickett's Guide to Modern Chemistry. "The red pigmentation found in rouge is derived from different sources, the safest of which comes from vegetables such as safflower or sandalwood. But the cosmetic unguent is typically compounded with vermilion, which is composed of mercury and sulfur, two elements which have been known to be lethal to people and animals." She picked up the little pot of rouge like it was an arching scorpion. "I couldn't be able to guess what sort of red pigmentation Granville's uses."

  "You can't believe everything you read in books, Isha. Those dusty old pages were written by dusty old men who had very little interest in real life. I don't wonder whether most of it is all just made up."

  Isha pursed her lips, a familiar grief spreading through her heart. "Dusty old men? Is that what you thought of Papa?"

  "If your father were here today, I'm certain he'd agree with me."

  Maryan bolted from the bench, the pale yellow ruffles on her dress flouncing in equal petulance. "Well, I don't care," she said, awkwardly wiping the magenta streak from her cheek. "No more cosmetics."

  Lady Elmwood pinned her fists to her hips. "No more cosmetics? Have you gone mad? This is your coming out! Do you have any idea what kind of competition you'll be up against? There will be dozens more young ladies at the ball with far more money than we have to spend on costlier cosmetics and dresses. Tonight is the most important night of your life, Maryan. When you're standing next to any one of those other girls, I want you to glow."

  Isha stood beside her sister, her own indigo dress grayed with age. "It's not as if she needs it, Mama. She's seventeen. Maryan is already very beautiful, even au naturel."

  Lady Elmwood shot a withering look at Isha. "I've heard quite enough from you today, Isha. If you had used a daub or two of rouge when you'd had your coming out, perhaps you'd be married by now and we wouldn't find ourselves in such ominous straits. As it is, Maryan is all we have to keep us from the almshouse. So if you don't want to lose your home, let alone all your precious old books, you'll learn to be more help than hindrance."

  Isha cast her face to the floor. It was a familiar shame, one she wore like an old, comfortable dress. She had failed to secure a husband when she had her best chance, back when she was Maryan's age. In the stretch of years since her own coming out, she had doffed the gown of debutante and donned the shawl of spinster. There wasn't a man alive now who would want to marry a woman over twenty-nine with bad eyes and a plain face. Not to mention a disreputable hunger for knowledge in subjects that others consider a yawning bore—biology, zoology, and yes, chemistry.

  Isha's lack of a husband and children was the crowning defeat of her life—probably the worst shame any woman could carry. As her mother was fond of saying, the only thing that remembered childless spinsters was a lonely and untended gravestone. Even if Isha's life was a failure, she could live with that. After all, she was much more inclined to a life of academic pursuits, like her father, than to household management, like her mother. But the real disgrace was that she had also failed her mother and her sister, who were forced to live in genteel poverty since Papa's death two years ago. Though he was a scholar of considerable fame, Sir Rupert's renown never brought him much wealth. Financially, they were comfortable during the grieving years following his death. But without a man to look after them, the money had just about run out. Maryan's Season—this ball—was their last and best opportunity to be looked after in Mama's dotage.

  And her own, Isha noted with despair.