How to Be a Wallflower

A Would-Be Wallflowers Novel

Eloisa James

• Publisher: Avon
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9780063139541
• Print ISBN:
  9780063139534
• Subtopic: Literature General

From New York Times bestseller Eloisa James, a new Regency-set novel in which a heiress with the goal of being a wallflower engages a rugged American in a scorchingly sensual, witty wager that tests whether clothing does indeed make the man—or the wallflower! A perfect companion story to Eloisa's My American Duchess.

Miss Cleopatra Lewis is about to be launched in society by her aristocratic grandfather. But since she has no intention of marrying, she visits a costume emporium specifically to order unflattering dresses guaranteed to put off any prospective suitors.

Powerful and charismatic Jacob Astor Addison is in London, acquiring businesses to add to his theatrical holdings in America—as well as buying an emerald for a young lady back in Boston. He’s furious when a she-devil masquerading as an English lady steals Quimby’s Costume Emporium from under his nose.

Jake strikes a devil’s bargain, offering to design her “wallflower wardrobe” and giving Cleo the chance to design his. Cleo can’t resist the fun of clothing the rough-hewn American in feathers and flowers. And somehow in the middle of their lively competition, Jake becomes her closest friend.

It isn’t until Cleo becomes the toast of all society that Jake realizes she’s stolen his fiercely guarded heart. But unlike the noblemen at her feet, he doesn’t belong in her refined and cultured world.

Caught between the demands of honor and desire, Jake would give up everything to be with the woman he loves—if she’ll have him!

Cleo's unconventional background and Jake's American roots cause a stir in the rigid social hierarchy of Regency England.

Chapter One

Germain’s Hotel

Mayfair, London

March 15, 1815

Miss Cleopatra Lewis looked at her reflection with satisfaction. Her hair was pulled into a dowdy knot, and the jet beads encircling the high neck of her gown made her skin look sallow rather than interestingly pale.

On the other hand, the black fabric made her hair turn from auburn to fire red.

“I need a turban,” she told her dresser, who was scowling as if Cleo’s appearance gave her indigestion.

“You must be jesting!” Gussie cried with all the horror of Lady Macbeth confronting her cowardly husband. “You’re trying to provoke me.”

Cleo allowed a chill to creep into her voice. Years of managing her own fortune—including Lewis Commodes, the wildly successful, if indelicate, business she had inherited from her father—meant that she had long practice in squashing rebellion. Though Gussie, who had dressed her mother before her, had all the boldness of a member of the family.

“I am resolved, Gussie. A turban, if you please.”

“You’ll look a proper quiz!” Gussie retorted. “Not that you don’t already, with that high neck.”

“That’s the idea,” Cleo said, mustering patience. “I plan to be a wallflower while living in London, and it’s important to dress for the role.” She gave her maid an apologetic smile. “My appearance won’t reflect your abilities.”

“You look like a crow as got his head stuck into a red paint pot.”

“I am in mourning,” Cleo pointed out.

“Your mother—heaven rest her—has been gone almost these ten months, so half mourning at the most. Your mourning gowns were respectable but never frumpish.” Gussie sucked in a dramatic breath. “It’s more than I can bear.”

“You must bear it, just as I must bear the tiresome series of events that makes up the London Season,” Cleo said. “I promised my mother I would debut. But that doesn’t mean I have to collect a train of followers who will waste my time. The obvious solution is to become a wallflower.”

“Barbarous,” Gussie moaned. But she began poking through a trunk to the side of the dressing table. “The only turban we have is a Mameluke cap, out of date these three years!”

“Think of it as a new role. I couldn’t have a better maid, given your background in the theater,” Cleo said encouragingly.

“You as a wallflower is a casting choice that I would never make. You was never meant to be a wallflower.” Gussie straightened, holding a limp length of gray fabric. “I didn’t care for this cap even when your mother dressed it up with feathers.”

“Costumes make the role,” Cleo reminded her. “Just think of how many plump Henry VIIIs turn out to be lean and hungry without their padding.”

“What of your grandfather?” Gussie demanded, shaking out the layers of gray muslin that made up the turban. “The viscount will probably be mortified to find you looking like a quiz. You know how your mother regretted being estranged from him. Mrs. Lewis would want you to make the old gentleman happy, especially since you still haven’t managed to meet him.”

Gussie’s right, her mother announced, deep in the recesses of Cleo’s mind. Cleo had been somewhat dismayed to find that in the months after Julia’s death, some errant part of her memory persistently offered up her mother’s commentary.

It was because Cleo missed her so much, of course. Julia had dazzled: clever, witty, beautiful. Erratic, but always entertaining.

“I’ll wear an ordinary gown to meet him tonight,” Cleo promised. “He and I have exchanged several letters. I warned the viscount that I have no wish to marry, and that I plan to be a wallflower when I join him at society events. He indicated that he will happily sit with me at the side of the room.”

From what Cleo had gleaned through their correspondence, her grandfather, Viscount Falconer, was lonely and desperately sad about Julia’s death. Unfortunately, his daughter hadn’t bothered to stay in touch with her family after she married—and then it was suddenly too late. Julia had died without even knowing that her mother had passed away a few years ago.

One of Julia’s last wishes had been that her parents would launch their granddaughter into society, a prospect that Cleo did not find exciting. She would prefer to spend her time expanding Lewis Commodes into one of the most powerful business concerns in Europe, as well as learning French, improving her vocabulary, and visiting Paris once Napoleon was evicted.

The prospect of joining the viscount for the Season didn’t make her nervous. Julia might have been a free spirit, but she periodically recalled that she was the daughter of a viscount. Cleo had mastered ladylike comportment by the age of ten.

Yet even at that age, Cleo had preferred to shadow her father in his office rather than practice quadrilles with a dance master imported from London to Manchester at huge expense. A yawning feeling of boredom loomed at the very thought of accompanying her grandfather to one ball, let alone night after night of them.

Gussie was entertaining no such foibles. “You can try to be a wallflower.” She started to fit the cap over the hair coiled at Cleo’s neck. “It’ll never work. It’ll be like when I played the flower seller in My Fairest Lady! You’ll walk into a ballroom. There across the room you’ll see a tall man with piercing eyes—”

“I’ll promptly look the other way,” Cleo interrupted. “Don’t forget that Reggie Bottleneck played the hero, Gussie, and he got two women with child, though the production only had a four-month run.”

Gussie grimaced. “Not his piercing eyes. Better ones.”

“I know too much about men,” Cleo told her. “I don’t need one of them getting in my way, not to mention claiming my fortune. Just look at all the men who Mother . . . well, with whom she was acquainted.” Not to mention that rat she’d been betrothed to.

“May heaven rest her, your mother had a tender heart for a leading man. Drat it!” Gussie muttered as the turban dislodged a couple of hairpins and Cleo’s curls sprang free.

A soft heart was a tactful description. Julia rarely met a handsome actor whom she didn’t instantly adore—and invite to her bed, both during her marriage and after her husband’s passing. Cleo had decided early in life that nurturing illusions about her mother would be disastrous.

Her levelheadedness was precisely why her father had left his fortune to his fourteen-year-old daughter, rather than to his wife. On occasion, Cleo had made use of it by paying off a particularly fervent lover who wouldn’t accept that Julia had lost interest in him.

Cleo’s opinion of the male sex had fallen lower and lower as actor after actor strode through her mother’s bedchamber door.

“I’m not tenderhearted, like my mother,” she said flatly. “I’m . . . I’m inimical to men.”

“Word of the day?” Gussie asked. “I’m thinking ‘inimical’ means you don’t like men, which, begging my pardon, miss, we both know isn’t true. You were betrothed to Foster Beacham only a year ago.”

“Briefly,” Cleo stated.

“You can’t let one broken engagement sour you on the pack of them.”

“I shan’t. I would simply prefer to cater to my own interests rather than someone else’s. Still, Lord Falconer is my only relative, and I shall enjoy spending time with him. Which reminds me that I meant to send a note asking him to recommend a modiste. I need everything from gowns to parasols in—in wallflower mode, if you see what I mean.”

“Your mother hated drab clothing.” Gussie paused. “Heaven rest her.”

“You needn’t say that quite so often,” Cleo said.

“Mrs. Lewis wasn’t restful, was she? I hope that she’s at peace now.”

“Mother’s version of heaven likely includes a great many handsome actors, and as many romantic plays as anyone can watch.”

That’s right, Julia murmured, with a naughty chuckle.

“Half mourning suits my mood,” Cleo said, prompted by her mother’s commentary. “I needn’t want to wear black any longer, but I miss her.”

Gussie put her hand on Cleo’s shoulder for a moment. “The sadness will go away with time. You do realize that French modistes won’t want to dress a wallflower?”

“They will create whatever garments I require,” Cleo stated, confident in the power of the almighty pound.

“We’d do better with a costumier. My dear friend Martha Quimby has her own emporium and outfits the best theater companies. It was her da’s, but she renamed it after herself when he died. Drury Lane Theatre Company won’t buy costumes from anyone else.”

“I don’t want to stand out,” Cleo warned.

“That’s not how it worked in My Fairest Lady, nor yet in that other play your mother loved so much, So Dear to My Heart. Remember The Highland Rogue? The heroine—”

“Exactly: those are heroines,” Cleo interrupted. “Think of me as a bit player, Gussie. I need to be costumed accordingly.”

“...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Epilogue
• A Historical Note About Opium, Clippers, and Commodes
• About the Author
• Also by Eloisa James
• Copyright
• About the Publisher