Her Heart's Captain (10 page)

But she was too dizzy to follow the thought. She had to concentrate on what her sister-in-law had just said. Something about Wyndham having two diamonds …

“Well,” she said, smiling a little too brightly and focussing her eyes on her sister-in-law's face a little too intently, “I don't like to be the one to ex … toll the virtues of m' own daughter, but I'll admit that she's con … sidered to be Wyndham's gem.” Her speech was just a trifle thick, and she went bravely on. “Don't want to give you th' idea that Jenny is not a pretty li'l thing. Very pretty li'l thing. Speaking eyes, you know … even if she hasn't Andrea's air. But she's very clever … very clever in her quiet way.” She gave another unexpected giggle. “Y'know, Dulcie, I do b'lieve I'm just the sli … slightest bit foxed …”

Lady Rowcliffe had heard enough to give her cause for an attack of nervous anxiety. She soon excused herself and returned to her room, her brow creased with worry. Had Tris fallen top-over-tail for a dull, colorless little country mouse? All the signs were unpropitious. If Andrea (whom Lady Rowcliffe found to be a rather average, provincial, overly forward sort of girl) could put Jenny Garvin in the shade, then Miss Jenny Garvin didn't promise to be very impressive.

She went into her room and sank onto the bed with a sigh. She'd often tried to imagine what Tris's wife would be like. Her fondest dream was that the girl would be someone with whom she could feel congenial. She yearned for someone with whom she could share intimacies and on whom she could lavish affection—someone who could be the daughter she'd never had. What a joy it would be to be able to help the girl set up a home, to buy her gifts, to exchange gossip, to share to some extent in the upbringing of her grandchildren. With the right wife for Tris, life would be richer not only for him but for her, too. The wife and the mother-in-law could care for each other, advise each other, console each other and, when Tris was away on long voyages, ease the other's loneliness. But a shy little dab of a country girl, without personality or spirit, would not be at all what Lady Rowcliffe had in mind.

She was quite certain that Tris had been hasty. How could he, a man of sophistication and intelligence, have made such a mistake? She knew that there was no accounting for taste—especially in matters of the heart—but she'd hoped her son had better sense than to lose his heart to a nonentity.

But wait
, she cautioned herself,
I haven't even laid eyes on the girl as yet
! How ludicrous to make a judgment on the basis of the scraps of information she'd gleaned from a dizzy, befuddled Sally. (She felt not a shred of guilt for having plied poor Sally with wine; she'd probably be a livelier, more spirited hostess than she'd ever been in her life.) Dulcie Allenby was not the sort of woman who would let other people make judgments for her. She would see the girl for herself, and until then, she would keep an open mind.

She jumped up from the bed and rang for her maid. She had better begin to dress for dinner. As she paced about the room waiting for her abigail to answer her summons, she felt time passing too slowly. She could hardly wait for dinner time to take a look at the girl for herself.

Lady Rowcliffe was not the only one who awaited the appointed hour with anxiety. Lady Garvin and Jenny, both ill-at-ease at the prospect of facing the detestable captain, had spent the afternoon discussing the situation. They'd agreed that it would be a most difficult evening. Lady Garvin had declared that, for Robbie's sake, she would not reveal her dislike, but she would avoid outright hypocrisy when in the company of “that inhuman monster” by speaking of nothing but her son in his presence. She would merely extol her son's virtues and avoid participation in any discussion of the captain, his voyages, his career or his character. Jenny, however, had made up her mind to avoid any discussion at all. She didn't say this to her mother, but she was determined that, while the captain was at hand, she would utter absolutely nothing but polite monosyllables.

Lady Garvin insisted that they begin preparing for the occasion in mid-afternoon, and Jenny dutifully retired to her room to dress. But she accomplished all the preliminaries in short order, having had to spend very little time dressing her hair. All the other ladies she knew—her mother, Andrea, Lady Clement, everyone—sat at their dressing tables for hours while their hairdressers crimped, teased, and curled their hair into elaborate coiffures. Jenny, however, didn't like crimping. She merely plaited her long locks into one tight braid and twisted it into a knot at the back of her head. In recognition of the formality of this occasion (and to avoid hearing her mother describe her again as a dowd), she made one concession to fashion—she left the lower half of her tail of hair unbraided and let it fall from the knot and lie curled over one shoulder. It was, for her, a daring departure from her usual restraint, and it was quite good enough, she decided, for the likes of Captain Allenby and his
haut-monde
mother.

With her undergarments on and her hair dressed, she had only to slip into the new apricot-silk evening dress which her mother had had made for her. There was still plenty of time before the family was due to depart for the Hall—two hours, in fact. Rather than pace about the room in all her finery while waiting for the appointed time, she postponed putting on the dress. She wrapped herself in a dressing gown and sat down on her window seat with a copy of Scott's
Guy Mannering
, which she'd just purchased'. But the agitation of her spirit was so great that the novel failed to grasp her attention.

After a while, she put the book aside and took out her new gown. She shook the tissue paper from the sleeves and slipped it on, but a glance at herself in the mirror appalled her. The dress was
dreadful
. With its tiny sleeves and low-cut bosom all one could see
was flesh
! The revealing
décolletage
and the high waist accented her breasts and made her entire form seem shockingly seductive. At the fitting, when she'd suggested to her mother that the dress was a bit too daring, her mother had merely shrugged. “That's how young ladies are
noticed
, my love. You may as well accustom yourself to it, for you cannot spend your life hiding away from people's stares,” she'd declared and had complimented Mrs. Elvin, the dressmaker, on her handiwork.

But Jenny
couldn't
appear in public in this vulgar creation. She would die of embarrassment. Good Lord, in such a dress she'd appear to be trying to
catch
Captain Allenby's eye instead of trying to avoid it! Desperately, she ransacked her drawers until she found a square of lace. With trembling fingers, she folded it into a triangle and pinned it, pointed end down, into the center of the
décolletage
. She studied herself critically in the mirror. The lace, while not quite blending with the trim of the gown, nevertheless managed to cover the cleavage of her breasts—a small salve to her sense of modesty. But even when wearing her longest gloves, her upper arms would be uncomfortably bare, and her neck and shoulders would remain much too daringly exposed. While wearing this dress she would not be able to feel a moment's comfort or relaxation, and, in an abrupt act of determination, she pulled it off.

She stood, hesitant, in the center of the room, trying to decide what to do. Her mother would be furious with her, she knew, if she made an appearance in her old dove-grey poplin. But the poplin was her best gown and the one most appropriate for formal occasions. It had a ruche at the neck trimmed with the finest Alençon lace and a deep flounce at the bottom which moved gracefully when she walked. The sleeves were long and the neck high, and she was always comfortable when wearing it. Purposefully, she pulled it out of the wardrobe and put it on.

But this act of defiance would be quite useless, she knew, as soon as her mother looked at her. She would surely be sent back to her room to change. There was only one thing to do. She would hide here in her room until the very last minute, when it would be too late for her mother to send her back upstairs. This decided, she packed away the apricot silk, returned to the window seat, picked up
Guy Mannering
and waited.

Lady Garvin, having changed her own gown twice (her indecision having been caused by a desire to make a good impression on the famous Lady Rowcliffe, whose gown would undoubtedly put all the Wyndham ladies' finery in the shade), was late, herself, in coming downstairs. After she'd looked Robbie over carefully (uttering exclamations of approval over his pale yellow breeches, his well-cut coat of deep blue superfine and the impressive chapeau bras he carried under his arm), she realized that Jenny had not yet come down. In considerable irritation, she sent a housemaid to fetch the girl at once. “I shall never be able to look Lady Rowcliffe in the eye if we're so
gauche
as to keep them all waiting,” she said to Robbie impatiently.

Jenny appeared at the top of the stairway, but Lady Garvin, being helped into her cloak by the butler, was facing the other way. Robbie, however, blinked up at her. “I thought,” he said in surprise, “that you'd gotten a new—”

Jenny put a finger to her lips and shook her head at him warningly as she ran down the stairs. She snatched up her own cloak, threw it quickly over her shoulders and said, “I'm quite ready, Mama.”

“At last,” her mother said, scarcely glancing over her shoulder. “Come along, then. This evening shall be ordeal enough without our being the very last to make an appearance.” And, herding her offspring out the door before her, she hurried to the waiting carriage.

Chapter Eight

They
were
the last to arrive. But the
faux pas
was not noticed in the crush of people in the entryway, for the vicar's family had arrived just before them. Mr. and Mrs. Boyce were accompanied by their son Tobias and their two daughters; and, with the butler, two footmen, the host and Andrea's noisy little lap dog milling about, the Garvins' entrance only added to the general gaiety. While the butler and footmen took the wraps, Lord Clement greeted the last arrivals.

Jenny hung back, hoping that Lord Clement would lead her mother away before a footman reached for her cloak and revealed to her mother what she'd done. But Toby Boyce came up behind her to do the service for her. “I like your new way with your hair,” he murmured into her ear.

Jenny tried to cling to her cloak. “Go along, Toby,” she whispered. “No need to play the gallant with me. You don't wish to keep the notable Captain Allenby waiting to meet you, do you?”

Tobias Boyce, the vicar's eldest son, was a friend of long standing. He was a snub-nosed, blond, freckled youth with a pair of broad shoulders, an easy disposition and a talent for drawing. Despite his ready smile and appealingly open face, he was a disappointment to almost everyone: to his father because he could settle on nothing for a career; to his mother because he was incredibly lazy; and to himself because he couldn't win the one prize he wanted more than anything else in the world—Andrea. But he and Jenny had always been comfortable with each other, for each one gave to the other words of admiration which they heard from no one else. Tonight, preferring Jenny's company to that of his parents' or his sisters', he intended to escort his friend into the drawing room. “Trying to hide away, my girl?” he asked,
sotto voce
, tugging at her cloak. “Don't you want to meet the so-admirable Allenby either?”

“Don't you?” she asked in surprise.

“Not particularly,” he confided. “Andrea is so overjoyed at his presence in this house that it's put me completely off. She's so captivated she's even neglecting her precious Lumpkin.” He bent down and picked up the little dog and tucked him under his arm.

“Come now, Toby, you're not jealous, are—?
Oh
!”

The exclamation was caused by the abrupt removal of her cloak. A footman had come up beside her while she'd been looking at Toby as he tried to calm the yapping dog, and he'd whipped the cloak off with such expertise that she'd been unable to clutch it. Her cry made everyone look round.

“Good God!” her mother gasped, seeing for the first time that her daughter was garbed in the dove-grey dress. “Jenny, you goosecap! Why haven't you put on—?”

But Robbie, eager to make his way to the drawing room to meet his captain, put a hand on his mother's arm. In belated realization that this was neither the time nor the place to discuss matters of attire, Lady Garvin clamped her mouth shut. She threw the daughter a scathing look—a look that promised retribution later—and went off on Lord Clement's arm, all the others but Toby following.

“
What
haven't you put on?” Toby asked rudely, handing the wildly barking Lumpkin to the footman and offering Jenny an arm.

“None of your business, you chinch,” she muttered, reluctantly permitting him to lead her down the hall.

Toby leered down at her. “If you've forgotten to wear your petticoat, young lady, I shall refuse to escort you further.”

She gave him a rather shaky grin. “Don't try to distract me with nonsense, Toby. The evening is bound to be an ordeal for me and shall require my full concentration.”

His eyebrows rose. “Really? Why is that?”

She could already hear the babble of voices from the drawing room, her mother's high-pitched laugh above the rest. “Captain Allenby,” Lady Garvin was gushing, “this is
indeed
a great and long-anticipated honor …”

So much for my mother's avoidance of hypocrisy
, Jenny said to herself as her stomach did a flip-flop in disgust and nervousness.

Toby looked down at her curiously. “Why is tonight such an ordeal?” he persisted.

But she couldn't answer, for they'd arrived at the doorway. She looked away from his questioning gaze and into the room. Her first impression was of a confusing array of color and movement, for the room, though large, seemed crowded to capacity. Almost all the faces were familiar, but Jenny had never seen them draped in such festive elegance. They were all in their finest clothes, carefully coiffed and dazzlingly bejeweled. A good number of Lady Clement's domestic staff was moving among them, offering glasses of sherry or trays of little pastry shells filled with savory-smelling fish pastes. But before she could take in all the details, she became aware that she was being closely observed by a tall man standing in the center of the room.