Karen Harbaugh (19 page)

It was in the middle of a quadrille, I think, when I looked up past my partner’s shoulder and almost stumbled. I apologized hastily, and when the dance was over, I hurried as decorously as I could to Samantha, who had just been released by her partner amid fulsome compliments. I waited until she sent him to procure some lemonade.

“Samantha! You did not tell me your brother was in town again!” I whispered fiercely.

“No! Is he?” she exclaimed. “I did not know! Where did you see him?”

There was no need for me to point him out:

Lucas was threading his way through the crowd toward us. A small tremor went through me at the sight of his tall figure. I looked away, hoping he did not see me. Silly of me, since he
was
coming toward us. But I did
not
seem to be able to think very coherently at that point.

“Lucas!” cried Samantha, and seemed about to throw herself upon her brother’s impeccable cravat. He deftly caught her hands before she could do so.

“Good Lord, Samantha, I’ve never seen one so inclined to maul a person about as you! And at a ball, of all places!” He shook his head. “And yes, I know. You
are
glad to see me, and when did I get into town!”

She giggled. “Yes, and you can let go of my hands, you odious creature! I promise not to rumple your neckcloth, truly. But stay! You are totally ignoring Georgia; she is here at the ball, too!”

I could not hide behind Samantha; Lucas looked above her head at me, and I came out from behind. “I am happy to see you again,” I said. He took my hand and bowed over it, very elegantly.

He smiled and his eyes grew warm, just as Mr. Landsbury’s did when he looked at Samantha. “I think I can hardly ignore her, Sam. May I reserve the next dance. Miss Georgia?” he said gallantly.

I blushed and stammered, “I—I don’t know. That is, the next one is a waltz, and I think I need to have Lady Stoneham’s permission before I can.” I
had
been approved to dance the waltz at Almack’s already, but I was unsure if it was only there I could waltz or if that approval extended elsewhere as well.

“We shall see,” he returned, and promptly left my side. I felt bewildered at his sudden departure and looked at Samantha questioningly. She only gazed at me with what seemed to be a laugh in her eyes. Lucas returned with Lady Stoneham.

“Of course you may dance the waltz, silly girl!” Lady Stoneham smiled at me. “Once you have been approved to dance it at Almack’s, you may dance it anywhere. Now, no more missishness, and do enjoy your dance with Lord Ashcombe.” She waved a hand at us and bustled away.

Lucas took my hand and led me out to the floor. As his hand went about my waist, I shivered but managed to get my wits about me; this was nothing more than a dance, after all. I felt shy all of a sudden and could not look at him above his neckcloth. “Yes, I do think I tied it quite well, if I say so myself,” said Lucas after a while.

I looked up at him. “I’m sorry if I have not much conversation right now.”

His brows raised, but he smiled and said, “And I am sorry I did not have a chance to see how you were recuperating before I left. I am glad to see you well.”

My eyes fell. “Yes,” I said tonelessly.

His voice softened. “Did you mind so much?”

I felt confused and a little panicky. I attempted a laugh. “To be sure, it was not all that pleasant to be ill, but as you see, I am fully recovered. And— and I have got the fan you sent me; I have brought it, you see.”

“Glad you like it.” His voice sounded withdrawn;

I looked in his eyes, and they seemed cooler than before.

“Indeed I do!” I chattered on. “I have not seen anything like it, and so beautifully painted, too!”

He murmured something appropriate, and I chattered on like a skitter wit. I felt like a fool. It was with a feeling of relief that I left the dance floor. It made the situation no better to discover, as he brought me back to Lady Stoneham, that Caroline Emmett-Johns was talking with Amelia next to her. Her eyes flickered here and there around the ballroom until she saw Lucas beside me. Unless I wanted to be horridly rude, I had no choice but to introduce them.

“I am pleased to meet you, Lord Ashcombe,” said Caroline after I made the introduction. She looked at him demurely from beneath her eyelashes and smiled dulcetly. He grinned in his engaging way, and I felt curiously bereft. I did not deceive myself. Caroline was a very pretty girl, tall and slender, with her honey-blond curls and light blue eyes. Her jonquil gown with the gauze overdress was cut close to her form, and the décolletage and tiny puffed sleeves revealed a good expanse of creamy whiteness. How could he not admire her? My thoughts were confirmed as he asked her for the next dance, and she threw me a triumphant glance as he led her to the dance floor.

I put on my most brilliant smile, determined not to let the sight of Caroline dancing indecently close to Lucas ruin my enjoyment of the ball. I transferred my gaze to a young man just to the side of the couple, gave him a scintillating smile, and mentally willed him to offer me a dance. This he seemed to do quite willingly, and I continued to dance my way through the rest of the night, as others claimed me for a dance as well.

If I was not bubbling with exclamations of pleasure when we departed, I think I expressed a suitable amount of appreciation. Somehow, I did not care to let Lady Stoneham or Amelia know that I was retiring with a raging headache.

* * * *

Samantha had been right. Caroline’s demeanor went through a change overnight. Now that I was no longer useful to her, now that she had received an introduction to Lucas, she no longer had a need to be so kind.

Not that it mattered to me, I said to myself. After the Greshams’ ball, I was surprised to find that some of my dance partners came to call on me. I did not know why they should, for after the last dance I had with Lucas, I did nothing but chatter what I thought were inanities. I smiled to myself while my callers and I exchanged commonplaces. I wondered how quickly they would leave if I dared discuss Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s essays with them. Of course I did not, for Lady Stoneham had been kind to me, and I did not want to scandalize her.

But then, Caroline’s demeanor did begin to matter. First there were the schoolgirl pranks— brambles in one’s bed, being short-sheeted, et cetera. I had experienced them before when I had been a new student at Miss Angstead’s, and it was easy to tell where the inspiration for these tricks came from. Caroline’s eager looks when she visited and the whispers between her and Amelia were evidence enough for me. I had a difficult time not being ill at the sight of Caroline’s falsely smiling face whenever others were around.

Indeed, I had a difficult time not being ill at the sight of Lucas squiring her around. For an intelligent man, he was singularly blind to her true nature, I thought. She had only to smile at him from a distance and he would cross the room to her. I noticed that other men would as well, but they had the excuse of not being all that intelligent, so it was easy to see how they would succumb to her stratagems.

I thought at first to relate my encounters with Caroline to Mama in a letter. But I did not. I wrote frequently, mostly for my own amusement, for Mama and Sir Jeremy were in Vienna, and it took a long time for letters to travel that far. I did not want to worry her; she deserved her happiness, and I was surely old enough to control my own life. So my letters were filled only with gossip, what I wore, and what I did at balls and routs.

* * * *

I still did see Lucas when I went out with Samantha, but although he was friendly enough, he kept his distance. I, meanwhile, was polite. Samantha noticed this, for during a ride in Hyde Park, she laid a hand on my arm and said tentatively, “I do not mean to pry, Georgia, but, well, you do still like Lucas, do you not?”

I laughed and said in a brittle voice, “Why, of course. I can hardly dislike a brother of yours, Samantha. That would make things quite uncomfortable between you and me, and I would not want that.”

She gazed at me seriously. “That is not quite what I mean. I mean, well, are you
fond
of him?”

I was not sure how to answer her. “Fond” was not the word for it. And I knew at this moment I felt vulnerable—Samantha was his sister, after all. How much of our conversation reached his ears each day? I did not know. And how could I let any idea of my feelings for him reach him when I knew him to be besotted with Caroline? I pinned on a smile. “Fond ... well, I would not put it that way. Certainly I would call him a friend. Somewhat the way you are my friend, Samantha.” There. I had not lied, nor had I revealed my true feelings.

Samantha seemed to ponder this. “He is very fond of you, Georgia. More, I think, than as a friend.”

My heart beat a little faster, but I remembered Caroline waltzing in his arms with effortless grace at the last ball, so I shrugged carelessly and said, “
I
would not know it, and I am sure you are mistaken. Why, you only need eyes in your head to see how taken up he is with Caroline Emmett-Johns! She has gone with him in his phaeton dozens of times; she told me so herself!”

“Once, actually,” replied Samantha with a small smile. “Hardly dozens.”

“And of course, he never fails to dance twice with her,” I continued relentlessly. “She is tall and quite lovely; it is not surprising that
any
man would want to dance attendance on her.

“But so are you beautiful!” exclaimed my friend.

I smiled at her and patted her hand. “You are very kind, Samantha. But my figure is only good, my hair is not and never shall be a fashionable color, and as for my face—while Sir Jeremy once said I was getting to look somewhat like Mama—I know I shall never achieve her looks.”

Samantha shook her head, smiling. “If you persist in having a fit of the dismals, I suppose I cannot convince you. Perhaps Lucas—”

“Don’t you dare—!” I gasped.

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t!” she said mischievously. She turned a deaf ear to my remonstrances.

* * * *

I could not tell if Samantha had listened to me or not, for though Lucas paid me a little more attention, his attentions to Caroline also seemed to grow greater. Proportionally, I seemed to be shunned more and more by Caroline and Amelia. Not that I cared, I told myself. Not, that is, until the accidents began to happen.

It was on the night of Lady Amberley’s ball for her daughter Sophia that the maid who attended both Amelia and myself gave a loud shriek as she pulled my mint-green dress from my wardrobe. “Oh, miss!” she cried, pointing a trembling finger at the dress she had laid on my bed. “Oh, miss!”

I approached it cautiously, in case there might have been a spider on it. I saw nothing of the sort and raised an eyebrow at her. “What is it, Annie? I don’t see anything.”

“It’s ruined! Oh, miss, I swear I didn’t do it! It was perfect when I last took it out! Oh, lawks, miss! Please don’t have me turned away!” She started sobbing hysterically.

“Now, Annie, get hold of yourself!” I shook her shoulders gently and made her sit down. “No one is going to turn you away. Only tell me what is wrong.”

She ran a trembling hand over the dress and pulled it forward. She did not have to point it out:

just to the left of center, there was a tremendous slash in it that split it from bodice to hem. For a few moments I could only blink in shock. I drew in a breath. “Oh, heavens!” I whispered to myself. I could not imagine anyone committing such a wanton act of destruction. “Annie, how could this happen?”

“I don’t know, miss!” the maid cried, weeping. “Please, what will you tell the mistress? I couldn’t have done such a thing—’twas my favorite of your dresses, miss, like a princess’s! Oh, please don’t say I did it, for I swear I did not!”

“Hush, now!” I commanded. “I won’t tell Lady Stoneham anything but that it was my fault, that— that it was a bit small, and it split when I put it on.”

Annie shook her head dolefully. “She’ll never believe you, miss. It’s not that sort of tear.”

“Well, then, I’ll tell her I was clumsy and it ripped when I stepped on it.” I patted her on her thin shoulders. “Whatever I say, you shall not be at fault, I assure you.”

“But what will you wear to Lady Amberley’s?”

I stopped. There was nothing I had not worn already to a ball; the new dresses I was to have for the next ones were due tomorrow. The only thing I could think of was to cry off from this one, saying I had the headache. Only . . . Perhaps this was precisely what the mysterious vandal wanted me to do. I sat up decisively. “Annie, please fetch her ladyship to me. I want to show her this. And—stop wailing now, do!—I promise I’ll say it was my fault.”

A moment later Lady Stoneham bustled in, a worried frown in place of her usual placid vagueness. “My dear Georgia, Annie is so upset, I cannot make heads or tails of what she is saying!”

“It’s this dress, ma’am. I’m afraid I was terribly clumsy, and it ripped right through to the hem!” I hung my head, guilt personified. “I well deserve missing Lady Amberley’s ball, I know, but the floors have just been waxed, and I’m afraid the rug slipped out from under me. Indeed, my new dresses have not arrived, so unless I wear something I have worn before, I do not see how I can attend.”

Lady Stoneham spread the skirt of the dress and gasped in horror. “Oh, my dear girl! You say you slipped, but I cannot see—! Oh, dear! This beautiful dress!” She threw up her hands, then started to wring them. “It is too late to ask for your new dresses from Miss Strachey’s. I shall have to agree that you shall have to—

“But stay! I think I may have it!” Her eyes had suddenly lost their usual vagueness and grew sharp and assessing. She pushed Annie out the door. “Go and fetch my sewing basket, swiftly, girl!” She turned to my wardrobe and started pushing aside one dress after another. “Ah, here it is!” She pulled out a white petticoat and laid it next to the dress. Annie appeared, puffing, with my lady’s workbasket. Quickly Lady Stoneham seized a pair of scissors and cut another slash to the right of center, identical to the one on the left. She then clipped off the ruffles that lined both neck and hem.