Reticence [a.i.] (Bridgerton/Regency Era AU)

Chapter 3: The Language of Flowers

"So! You and the Duke?!" Mallory blushed as she sat down in the parlor next to her best friend.

"Oh, that? Last night? That was nothing. Amelia blushed.

"If it truly was nothing, then let me see your dance card from last night!"

"That, my good lady, is an act of impropriety and we will not be having that" Amelia scoffed.

"No, the impropriety here is having the Duke on your dance card three times after you just met! You didn't even look at any of the other men there!"

"It was not three!"

"If it was, he'd better be calling at your house today. With flowers." Mallory smirked, "He's absolutely smitten with you."

"Oh? And what about you and Luke? I heard from around the Ton that there are bets as to when he'll propose to you."

Mallory nearly choked on her cup of tea. "First of all, my dear Amelia, gossiping is a sin. Secondly, Luke, as in Luke Hemmings of Dover?! The man I see on the same level as Harry and Ernie? Never."

"Well, if you aren't marrying Luke like everyone thinks you are, who did you have your eye on last night?"

"Lord Irwin" she blushed.  "At least... I think so. One can never tell after only a first meeting."

"Irwin?! But he's even older than the Duke!"

"I know!" Mallory giggled. "But we shared a brief conversation and I haven't stopped thinking about it"

"He should call then."

"I doubt he will."

"If he thought that conversation as half as engaging as you did, and if he's a true gentleman, he will," Amelia reassured her friend.

Mallory gave a small smile to her best friend as they finished their tea and moved to begin stitching some lace in the other room. She let her thoughts wander as she stitched. She still didn't have a true answer for Lord Irwin's question he had posed the night before. As she sat, stitching and thinking, the bouquets slowly began to arrive that morning. And there were several.

"Mal! Look at all of these!" Hattie exclaimed as the servants came in carrying several arrangements and placing them in the breakfast room where they had gathered. Their servants placed them in front of the windows and the Huxleys had a small garden gathered in vases where the girls had been stitching a few minutes earlier. Their lace was a lost cause as soon as the first bouquet arrived, however. Mallory looked at the collection with wide eyes and began to read over the cards sent with them, inviting her to various picnics, luncheons, parties, and asking to Call on her.

Of course, there was a bouquet from the Hemmings congratulating her on her debut. Most of them were formalities to congratulate her and win her favor as the Diamond. She chuckled to herself and was taken aback by the number of callers she was going to have within the next few days. She had never truly had to reject anyone until now, so she started making a mental list of her impressions of all the men who had sent flowers. 

She hadn't even danced with this many people at the ball, this was just what the etiquette dictates gentlemen should do. The bouquets were mostly white, a supposed symbol of Malloy's purity and innocence as a debutante. It took everything in her not to roll her eyes at the garden of whites, eggshells, and off-whites that had collected before her. 

"Amelia, have you had any flowers sent?" Malloy called to her best friend, still attempting to work on her own lace.

"I left before any arrived this morning." She sighed. "There's probably some, out of jealousy I suspect, since I had the Duke on my dance card twice." she blushed.