Before the Storm (11 page)

Afterwards, he led her back to Venetia, who watched them both from the side of the dance floor with mingled amusement and concern. ‘I have been very much enjoying the company of my little cousin, Mademoiselle Wrotham’ he said in English with a low bow. ‘She has grown quite charming since the last time that I beheld her.’ He turned to Clementine with a blandly innocent smile. ‘I am seeing your mother next week, Mademoiselle Violette, and can hardly wait to tell her how enchanting you looked this evening.’

Clementine’s heart ran cold but before she could muster the wits to make a proper reply, he had bowed again, turned on his red glossy heel and walked away. ‘My goodness, Venetia! Who is that man?’ she demanded, her cheeks turning crimson with horror and shame under her heavy rouge as she watched him walk off then pause to speak to a pretty girl in a rose pink silk dress, who looked back over her pale shoulder at Clementine and laughed as he bent to whisper in her ear.

Venetia laughed and unfurled her ostrich feather fan. ‘That’s Jules’ cousin, Antoine. He’s very handsome underneath that mask, you know.’ She discreetly pointed with her fan. ‘Do look, Clementine! There’s the Duchess of Devonshire! How pretty she is in that pale yellow dress! And just look at how she has done her hair! How old is she now? Thirty? She doesn’t look it at all.’

‘Never mind the Duchess!’ Clementine exclaimed impatiently. ‘I think Antoine knows that we are all frauds! Oh, what shall we do? If he tells someone, we are all undone and will never been invited anywhere again!’

‘Do?’ Venetia laughed again. ‘My dear, we shall do nothing at all! Jules and Antoine are the best of friends and from what I know of him, he probably thinks it is all the most delightful joke.’ She gave Clementine a sidelong look as she continued to stare at Eugène and the pretty girl in pink, who were still talking, while surrounded by a swirl of dancers. ‘She is his sister,’ she said with a smile. ‘So you can stop glaring at them both.’

Clementine flushed beneath her mask. ‘I wasn’t glaring,’ she protested before conceding a smile. ‘Much.’

Chapter Nine

Venetia and Jules were married at the fashionable church of St George’s on Hanover Square on a sunny August morning that caused the stained glass windows that lined the church’s walls to blaze with a fury of light and colour that tumbled like a broken rainbow on to the stone pavings on the floor. It was a beautiful ceremony, with the bride looking suitably gorgeous in a flounced cream silk dress, patterned all over with flowers and with a wide blue velvet sash around her now noticeably thickening waist. She had decided not to powder her bright crimson hair for the occasion and wore it backcombed and ringleted with roses and orange blossom pinned to the muslin
pouf
placed on top.

Clementine, Eliza and Phoebe acted as her attendants and stood to the side dressed in long sleeved white muslin gowns with matching pink velvet sashes around their waists and sweet little pink rose nosegays in their hands. Clementine could not help but be moved as she watched her friend blushing and smiling as she repeated the words that would bind her to Comte Jules, pale and nervous looking in a blue velvet suit and cream silk waistcoat embroidered with roses and forget-me-nots, forever.

It was not the first wedding of the day though - early that morning, in front of just two witnesses, Venetia and Jules had been married in a Catholic ceremony in the private chapel of the French ambassador. Catholicism was still very much outlawed in England but Venetia’s parents had insisted upon this first ceremony to ensure that the marriage was equally valid in both France and England: their daughter’s noble husband was not going to be allowed to slip through their fingers.

Clementine allowed her eyes to wander over the few wedding guests as the couple said their vows but did not see the engaging Antoine that she had met at Lady D’Eversley’s ball. She was far too shy to ask Venetia what had become of him and could only suppose that he had returned to Paris and his own life.

When the ceremony was over, they rushed forward to kiss and congratulate Venetia who clung to each of them as though her life depended on it. ‘Oh, I am so happy,’ she whispered to Clementine. ‘It’s terrifying too though.’ She and Jules were due to set out for Paris that very evening, stopping for the night at a hotel in Dover before crossing the Channel in the morning. ‘I wonder when we will all meet again? You will all come and visit, won’t you?’ She was smiling but her trembling voice betrayed how scared she actually was at the prospect of going away for good.

Clementine smiled. ‘Of course. Just try keeping us away from Paris and all those shops.’ She stepped aside as Jules, still pale but smiling now as if with relief, came forward to take his wife’s hand. To the sound of joyful organ music, he led her proudly back down the aisle as their guests filed out after them, to emerge blinking and half blinded from the dusty gloom into bright summer sunshine.

Phoebe heaved a sigh and turned to the others, while shading her eyes with her hand. ‘Which of us do you think will get married next?’ she asked with a grin. ‘Mama is talking about taking Matilda and I back to Bath again soon to see if we can catch husbands as easily as Venetia did.’

Eliza shook her head, fastening her lips rather primly. ‘I love her dearly but I do not like Venetia’s manner of getting a husband,’ she whispered with a meaningful look after the happy couple who were hurrying hand in hand down the church’s steps to a yellow and black carriage that waited for them at the bottom. A trail of white and pink flowers that had fallen from Venetia’s bouquet followed them, blowing this way and that in the dusty breeze. ‘Imagine if he had abandoned her and the baby?’

Phoebe smiled. ‘Very true but our lovely Venetia does not exactly want for admirers does she?’ They linked arms and made their way carefully down the steps, admiring the way that their soft white muslin skirts frothed and billowed against each other. ‘I am sure she would have had no difficulty finding another husband.’

‘I wish that I had your confidence,’ Eliza replied with a shrug before darting a shrewd look at her friend. ‘Surely it isn’t something that you would consider attempting yourself?’

‘Why not?’ Phoebe responded, laughing. ‘You said that you wouldn’t let religion stand between you and the perfect match and I feel the same way about my virtue.’

Eliza stopped dead in her tracks and stared at her friend in shock. ‘You cannot possibly be serious, my dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘That is a very risky stratagem indeed!’ She stared at Phoebe, thinking not for the first time that there was a lot that she didn’t know about her best friend. She’d suspected for a while now that Phoebe had a secret that she was keeping from all of them and now she found herself wondering what was really going on behind the other girl’s candid blue eyes.

Phoebe shrugged. ‘Well, we shall see, won’t we?’ She allowed the footman to help her up into the waiting carriage and moved aside to make room for Eliza. ‘Oh, come now! There’s no need to look at me as though I am some sort of fallen woman!’ she whispered reprovingly as soon as the door had shut behind them and the carriage had begun to rumble away towards Lord Wrotham’s over heated rented mansion on Bloomsbury Square. ‘It’s just that getting a husband is such a miserable and awkward business that it seems like madness to place even more barriers and restrictions in the way.’

‘What you see as a restriction, I see as protection,’ Eliza whispered back, blushing a little with embarrassment and annoyance. ‘I fear for you, Phoebe if this is indeed the path that you have chosen for yourself.’

‘You need have no fears for me!’ Phoebe replied breezily, looking out of the window and smiling down at a passing urchin. ‘I know what I am doing. The question is - do you?’

Eliza stiffened. ‘I’m certainly not employing any vulgar strategies to secure myself a husband,’ she retorted angrily. ‘That’s not what men want.’

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t they?’ Her eyes danced with mirth as she reached across the carriage to take her friend’s hand, well aware that Eliza was having to fight the irresistible urge to snatch it away from her. ‘Oh don’t be angry with me,’ she said. ‘I’m not a complete disgrace.’

‘No?’ Eliza stared balefully at her friend, before eventually her gaze faltered and tears began to well in her eyes. ‘Sometimes I think that I will never get married,’ she whispered, her fingers repeatedly folding and pleating the soft muslin of her skirt. ‘Papa wants me to be introduced to the sons of some of his business associates but Mama won’t hear of it as she has set her heart on my marrying some rich man with a country estate and a house in Mayfair. If he also happens to have a title then so much the better.’ She drew a ragged breath and looked at her friend. ‘They argue about it all the time. Mama won’t accept that the husband that she wants for me just doesn’t exist and for my part, I am starting to think that perhaps Papa is right. Perhaps there is just no point going on with this, when they demonstrate over and over again that they just don’t want us.’

Phoebe silently pulled a small linen handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to her friend. ‘Don’t give up,’ she said after a moment as she sympathetically watched Eliza dry her eyes. ‘The right husbands are out there somewhere. We just need to find where they are hiding.’ The carriage pulled up outside the Wrotham’s house and a footman who had been watching from the open doorway, ran forward to open their door and let down the metal steps with a satisfying clatter.
 

The wedding breakfast was suitably lavish, with two dozen guests sitting around a vast table that was weighed down with food and highly polished silverware. Each guest had a liveried footman, specially hired for the occasion, who stood behind their chair and darted forward and replenished their glass with champagne whenever it began to look empty.
 

As usual, Mrs Knowles had arrived determined to be criticise and find fault, but even she could find nothing to say in the face of such ostentatious hospitality. Her expression radiated envy though - not just of the splendour of the wedding party but of the wedding itself. She could hardly bear to look at Lady Wrotham as she lolled in a crimson silk dress, drunk with champagne and happiness at the far end of the table, radiating triumph that despite all the odds she had managed to successfully marry off her daughter.

‘It had better be you next,’ she muttered at Phoebe as Lord Wrotham drunkenly stood up to toast the happy couple. ‘I absolutely couldn’t bear it if the next wedding that I go to is for one of those Garland girls.’ She looked Venetia over, her sharp dark eyes missing nothing and raised one over-plucked brow when she noted how thick the girl’s waist was beneath the blue velvet sash. ‘Well, well, well.’

Phoebe rolled her eyes. ‘I’d better accept the first man who offers then,’ she replied in a low voice. ‘No matter who he is.’ For a brief moment, her eyes met those of George Garland across the table before they both quickly looked away again.

Venetia and Jules left for Dover soon after the meal was finished. Venetia had drunk far too many glasses of champagne and was tearful and emotional as she said goodbye to her family and friends. ‘You promise that you’ll come to Paris?’ she demanded of Clementine, clinging to her hands and sobbing. ‘I’ll be so lonely there without you all.’

‘You’ll make new friends,’ Clementine said with a laugh, leaning forward to kiss Venetia’s flushed violet scented cheek. ‘And we’ll try to visit as often as possible.’

‘Yes, come and visit,’ Jules said unexpectedly, making them both look up at him in surprise. ‘It would be a pleasure to welcome you to our home and perhaps show you Paris and Versailles?’ He went as pink as the carnations in the large nosegay he wore pinned to his chest. ‘Mademoiselle Roche knows Paris very well. I am sure that she could be compelled to chaperone you.’

‘That’s very kind of you, monsieur,’ Clementine murmured with downcast eyes. She had never managed to warm to Jules, despite all of Venetia’s attempts to make her like him and his obvious blush when he mentioned her governess just made her distrust him all the more. Sidonie had never told her what had happened between them in Paris, but she was absolutely certain that it was something more than just a brief and minor acquaintance.

They all went outside to cheerfully wave the newly married pair off when they left for France. A small group of curious passersby had gathered on the pavement and shouted florid compliments to Venetia as laughing and blushing she bundled up her silk skirts and jumped up into the carriage. ‘Goodbye! Goodbye!’ she called from the open window, weeping, laughing and blowing kisses to them all. ‘Remember that you promised to visit!’

They stood and watched until the carriage had gone around the corner and vanished from sight then slowly and rather dejectedly wandered back into the house. Now that Venetia and Jules had gone, they all felt sadly flat and the cold remnants of the once sumptuous feast that was now being cleared away by maids looked greasy and repulsive to their tired, hung over eyes.

‘Mama has informed me that it is my duty to marry next,’ Phoebe announced with a laugh, taking a full glass of champagne from a passing footman and wryly toasting Eliza and Clementine. ‘She declared that she absolutely won’t be able to bear it if the next wedding she has to go to is one of yours.’

‘She’s in luck then,’ Eliza replied gloomily. ‘Because by the looks of things, none of us will be getting married at all.’

Chapter Ten

It was unbearably hot summer that year and London soon began to choke as the heat rose from the boiling pavements and thickened the already filthy, stagnant air. For the Knowles ladies in their stuffy little house in the centre of Bloomsbury, life was very unpleasant and they spent most of the long hot days lounging around their tiny sitting room in thin muslin dresses, quarrelling with each other and crossly calling for iced water and lemonade in between fitful, uncomfortable naps.