Miss Darby's Duenna (6 page)

“So I have often been told,” acknowledged Sir Harry with a smile.

“Lady Hawthorne accompanies us to Covent Garden tonight,” Olivia told him. “May we hope to see you there?”

Sir Harry’s smile faded. “No, er, that is, I should have liked to, of course, but a previous engagement—can’t be broken at this late date—you understand—”

“Of course. I should not dream of inconveniencing you,” replied Olivia stiffly, never suspecting that Sir Harry was likely to find the night’s entertainment very inconvenient indeed.

Chapter Five

These troublesome disguises which we wear.

JOHN MILTON,
Paradise Lost

As her maid applied the finishing touches to her coiffure, Olivia looked forward to the evening’s
divertissement
with a variety of conflicting emotions. To be sure, she would have been less than female had she not enjoyed being the object of so much admiration from no less a personage than the marquess of Mannerly; and yet her pleasure in her own success was considerably lessened by the fact that Sir Harry, while quick to warn her away from the marquess, was not sufficiently disturbed by the connection to squire her about London himself. From
on dits
he had let fall in Leicestershire, she had the impression that Sir Harry frequented Covent Garden quite often while in Town. Perhaps, she thought wistfully, it had been in the hopes of seeing him there that she had accepted Lord Mannerly’s invitation so eagerly. How, she wondered, might Harry react when he discovered that she had deliberately defied him, and had accepted the marquess’s escort? A little shiver of anticipation coursed through her as she imagined Sir Harry in a jealous rage, declaring his undying love for her.

Alas, a light tap on her door banished this thrilling image.

“Olivia?” Mrs. Darby’s voice permeated the heavy wooden paneling. “Are you ready, my dear? Lady Hawthorne is here, and Lord Mannerly should arrive at any minute.”

“Coming, Mama.” Turning to her pier glass, Miss Darby paused to study her reflection critically. It was, of course, impossible to judge one’s own appearance objectively, but Olivia thought she looked well enough in a cleverly designed evening gown with a low-cut bodice of black velvet over a skirt of filmy white crepe. Was it too much to hope, she wondered wistfully as she pulled on her long white kid gloves, that Harry might think her pretty? She made a moue at her image and turned away. Whatever the shortcomings in her appearance, staring into her looking glass was unlikely to alter them.

She allowed her maid to drape her velvet evening cloak over her shoulders, then followed her mother down the curved staircase. There was Lady Hawthorne, resplendent in plum-colored velvet cut high to the throat in direct contradiction to the current fashion for décolletage. Her powdered locks were dressed with purple ostrich plumes which, combined with the lady’s already impressive height, were guaranteed to block the view of anyone unfortunate enough to be seated behind her.

“Lady Hawthorne,” said Olivia, making her curtsy to this vision. “You look quite splendid. I trust you rested well this afternoon?”

“Quite well, thank you. Come and give me a kiss, my child.”

Obediently, Olivia touched her lips to the dowager’s cheek. The dutiful peck acted upon her with all the force of an electric shock. A strange sensation, entirely new and yet somehow familiar, washed over her, leaving her unnerved and shaken. Olivia would have searched Lady Hawthorne’s face for any sign that the older woman was aware of the current which had seemed to pass between them, but at that moment Lord Mannerly was announced, and the moment was lost.

Olivia hastily composed herself as the marquess made his bow to Georgina, who was looking exceptionally fine in a gown of willow green satin. Upon seeing Olivia, Lord Mannerly lost interest in the flame-haired charmer and crossed the hall to seize Olivia’s hands in a warm grasp.

“Ah, Miss Darby! You are in such glowing looks tonight that I can only suppose your betrothed intends to honor us with his presence.”

“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Olivia replied, hoping her disappointment could not be heard in her voice. “He has already made plans.”

“My grandson has no great love for the stage,” put in the dowager firmly.

Lord Mannerly’s black brows rose in mild surprise. “Has he not? But I have seen him at Covent Garden on numerous occasions. Or can it be that Sir Harry is not a lover of drama, but of the fair Violetta?”

“Who is Violetta?” asked Olivia, all at sea.

“An actress, Miss Darby. She is generally held to be a great beauty, and her comedic talent often draws comparisons to Mrs. Jordan in her younger days.”

“Oh,” said Olivia, wishing she had not asked.

“And now, since we are all here,” said Lord Mannerly, noting with satisfaction that Miss Darby had lost some of her sparkle, “may I suggest we go? I should prefer to arrive ahead of the crush.”

Finding the ladies in agreement, Lord Mannerly bid farewell to Mrs. Darby, promising to return her charges before the hour was too far advanced, then turned to offer his arm to Lady Hawthorne, the highest ranking lady among his guests. This scene almost proved too much for Georgina, who was hard pressed to stifle a giggle at the sight of her brother accepting the escort of the dashing marquess.   What, she wondered, would be Lord Mannerly’s reaction if he discovered that the lady on his arm was no lady at all, but a man—a man whom, if her brother were to be believed, the marquess hated? Lord Mannerly did not strike her as a gentleman with a lively sense of humor. He would no doubt be livid at being made a laughingstock. Georgina could well imagine the marquess in a towering rage, and in the end, it was nothing less than her fear of Sir Harry’s exposure and subsequent humiliation which compelled Miss Hawthorne to keep her countenance.

Once outside, Lord Mannerly handed the person he believed to be the dowager Lady Hawthorne into the elegant crested carriage waiting beside the curb. Sir Harry, in the meantime, had discovered there were certain advantages to his masquerade, as when he had demanded—and received—a kiss of Miss Darby. Quick to press his advantage, he took his place on the upholstered seat and, when Olivia was handed up behind him, reached out to take her hand.

“Come and sit beside me, my dear,” he urged, patting the seat beside him.

Since Miss Darby was too well-bred to deny this request, Sir Harry was rewarded with her company for the length of the drive, while Lord Mannerly had to content himself with Georgina in the seat opposite.

Upon reaching the theater, Lord Mannerly ushered his ladies inside, where they retired to the ladies’ cloak room to divest themselves of their outer garments. Sir Harry, his disguise affording him unprecedented access to this
sanctum sanctorum,
was not unnaturally mesmerized by the sight of so much feminine beauty primping and preening before the full-length mirrors, until he turned and beheld his fiancée in all her black-and-white splendor.

“I say—that is, my dear Miss Darby, surely you do not intend to go out in public dressed like that!”

All Olivia’s earlier doubts about her attire came flooding back. “ ‘Tis the black bodice, is it not?” she said, frowning at her reflection. “Does it make me look as if I were in mourning?”

“I never saw anyone look less funereal,” the dowager informed her roundly. “Why, the neckline is cut so low it’s positively indecent!”

Since Olivia’s décolletage was in fact quite respectable, she felt compelled to point out the injustice of this charge. “But my lady, this dress is quite modest, compared to some.”

Looking about him at the expanse of white flesh on display, Sir Harry was forced to concede the point. “Well, don’t come crying to me when you catch your death of cold,” muttered her indignant ladyship.

Olivia’s ordeal, however, was far from over. When she rejoined Lord Mannerly in the lobby, he bent upon her a look filled with consternation.

“My dear Miss Darby, surely you do not intend to wear that gown to the theater!” he murmured in an undervoice.

“Is it truly so dreadful?” asked Olivia, filled with remorse. “I did wonder about the black bodice, but Madame Girot said—”

“Clearly this Madame Girot is no patron of the arts,” replied the marquess, dismissing the unfortunate modiste with a careless wave of his white-gloved hand. “How else could she expect me to follow the play with such an Incomparable seated beside me?”

Relief flooded Miss Darby’s countenance, and beneath the much-maligned black velvet bodice, her heart beat faster. “Fie on you, my lord,” she scolded playfully. “And how can
I
watch the play, with you turning my head so shamelessly?”

“Harrumph!”

Olivia turned to find a disapproving Lady Hawthorne emerging from the cloak room, followed by a wide-eyed Georgina.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Hawthorne. I should have waited for you.”

“No doubt you were busy,” replied the old lady, glowering at Lord Mannerly.

As the quartet took their places in Lord Mannerly’s box, Sir Harry discovered there was a price to be paid for his earlier
coup
in procuring a seat beside Olivia, for Lord Mannerly, having thus been forewarned, was forearmed against this maneuver. He was careful to seat grandmother and granddaughter together in the front of his box, leaving himself to sit beside Miss Darby in the rear. Sir Harry, who was well aware of the shadows cloaking the back of the box, and who, over the course of his checkered London career, had had more than one opportunity to steal a kiss under the cover thereof, was understandably less than pleased with this turn of events.

“Surely you cannot wish to sit in the back, my dear,” he protested in his best falsetto. “Exchange places with me, Miss Darby, so that you may have a better view of the stage.”

“No, no, this is quite all right,” insisted Olivia, although the ostrich plumes adorning Sir Harry’s powdered wig did in fact obscure much of the stage. “I remember your remarking on how long it has been since you have been to the theater, my lady, and I could not bring myself to deprive you of your excellent vantage point.”

Having used this very excuse to procure an invitation to join the party, Sir Harry could hardly inform his betrothed that he had visited Covent Garden less than a se’ennight earlier, and had already seen the company’s production of
Twelfth Night.
Thus hoist on his own petard, he had no choice but to accept the seating arrangements without further protest.

At last the curtain rose on the first act, revealing the famed comedienne Violetta as an unlikely shipwreck victim, her sodden garments clinging to her every curve while her ebony curls remained miraculously dry.

“Oh, how lovely she is!” Olivia remarked enviously, leaning nearer the marquess in order to see past Sir Harry’s plumes.

“Do you find her so?” asked Lord Mannerly. “She is accounted a great beauty, but I confess in my present company, I find the fair Violetta’s charm quite escapes me.”

Whatever Olivia might have said to this piece of flattery was drowned out by a fit of coughing from the front of the box. Mannerly was right, damn his eyes, thought Sir Harry. Compared to his Livvy, Violetta’s beauty seemed overblown, as if she were trying a bit too hard to enchant. Finding nothing on the stage to interest him, he had no alternative but to listen to Lord Mannerly pay flowery compliments to his fiancée. When at last the curtain fell signaling the interim, Sir Harry judged it high time to put an end to the provoking
tête-à-tête.

“Miss Darby, my dear, my poor old bones feel quite stiff,” he said, lending authenticity to the claim by rising unsteadily to his feet. “Will you give me your arm for a turn about the lobby?”

Olivia obediently rose and offered the dowager her escort. As the pair moved toward the curtained entrance to the box, Lord Mannerly followed Miss Darby’s progress appreciatively. It was, he considered, one of the happier consequences of the current fashion for narrow skirts that the gentle sway of a lady’s hips was evident as she walked—a sight which had been concealed by fuller skirts twenty years earlier when, as a lad of sixteen, he had first discovered the gentler sex. Shifting his gaze slightly, he noticed that the alluring motion was curiously absent from Lady Hawthorne’s shuffling gait. Curious, too, that while the old lady and her grandson were so much alike in other ways. Lady Hawthorne was a tall woman, while Sir Harry’s height was not much above the average: In fact, Mannerly supposed them to be very nearly of a height, perhaps about five feet nine inches.

“An interesting woman, your grandmother,” he remarked idly to Georgina. “She seems quite attached to Miss Darby.”

“Yes, I believe he—that is, Grandmama is very fond of Olivia,” improvised that young lady, although her grandmother and Miss Darby had in fact never met. Only Georgina’s hands, nervously twisting the strings of her reticule around one gloved finger, betrayed her agitation at finding herself alone with her brother’s adversary. “The engagement is one of long standing, you know.”

Lord Mannerly nodded. “Miss Darby once intimated as much.” He judged it time to turn the subject, but had little experience in—or indeed, desire for—conversing with schoolgirls.  “And what of you, Miss Hawthorne? Have you any long-standing arrangements of your own?”

“Yes—well, the attachment is not long-standing, but I am to marry Mr. James Collier, the vicar of our parish.”

The marquess’s only response was a snort of derisive laughter.

Georgina’s eyes narrowed. “You find this amusing, my lord?”

“Vastly. Never have I met anyone who looked less suited to a living in the Church. The flames of hell, my dear, could bum no brighter than your fiery locks.”

Up came Miss Hawthorne’s chin, all nervousness replaced by outrage. “And never have
I
received such an unhandsome compliment!”

“You must acquit me, Miss Hawthorne. I assure you, I never pay compliments. I speak only the truth as I see it.”

Georgina gave a disdainful sniff. “I see. Then I suppose the praise you see fit to lavish on Miss Darby is something in the way of a scientific observation.”