Miss Delacourt Has Her Day (5 page)

“She is the widow of one Lord Derby, Earl of Derby. Why do you ask?” Grandaunt asked in a light, bantering tone that fooled no one, Ginny least of all.

“Her name is Rebecca, is it not?”

“And what if it is?” her grandaunt puffed as she went around pulling out imaginary imperfections in the hem of Madame Badeau’s most recent work.

“It’s nothing really, only that Lord Crenshaw mentioned her. I think it best if I stay abreast of who is who in London this season”

Grandaunt Regina straightened and treated Ginny to a piercing glare. “Ginerva Delacourt! Since when is my grandson `Lord Crenshaw’ to you? And why this sudden interest in titles and who is who? We have a copy of Burke’s Peerage for that!” Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. “What has gotten into you?” she mused aloud, more as if she were addressing the question to herself than to Ginny.

“Why, Grandaunt, haven’t you been pleading with me to learn the ways of Society? Now that I am ready to do so, you do not like it. I do believe you are getting forgetful,” she said in a teasing manner she hoped would sweeten her words a little. Heaven forfend she tell the truth and admit she was petrified that Anthony might cry off and marry his cousin’s widow or, worse, Lady Derby, if she did not win his uncle’s approval.

True, a gentleman, unless roped into it by the likes of the former Miss Barrington, did not cry off from an engagement, and Anthony was nothing if not a gentleman. However, there would be few to demur should he choose a more suitable lady over an insignificant vicar’s daughter. Did the upper crust of society not refer to a short-lived scandal as a seven-days’ wonder? If Anthony cried off, it would be but a seven-hours’ wonder, she had no doubt.

“Oh, Grandaunt,” she cried, “what am Ito do?”

“Madame Badeau, please leave us,” Grandaunt ordered.

“But, Your Grace, la jeune femme is full of pins, encore!”

“I am well aware of this,” the dowager duchess hissed through her teeth. “Retire to the kitchen, and bespeak yourself a cup of tea. You may return when you have drunk it.”

“Humph!” was all Madame Badeau had time to say before she was hastened out the door.

Madame Badeau had spoken the truth with regard to the pins holding Ginny’s garments together, and Ginny remained still, as any sudden move could bring sharp disaster to her sensitive skin. Nevertheless, she jerked in surprise when her grandaunt returned to her side and tenderly placed a hand on Ginny’s cheek.

“Heaven knows it took long enough, but I love you just the way you are, Ginerva Delacourt. And, more to the point, so does he”

Tears sprang to Ginny’s eyes. “Thank you, Grandaunt, but we both know it is not enough”

Madame Badeau had been long departed and Ginny was dressing for the evening’s engagements-a soiree and two routs-when there came a rap at the door.

“Nan, do please see to that,” Ginny asked the young girl who had been securing Ginny’s curls so that they bounced around her head a la Caro Lamb.

Nan spat out a mouthful of pins into her hand and ran to the door. Ginny sighed and repressed a desire to scold the girl, who was not a servant at all and truly couldn’t be expected to have refined manners. She had come to live with Ginny and her father many years ago and would have had no place to go if Ginny hadn’t brought her along to Grandaunt’s as her “lady-inwaiting” upon her father’s death little more than three years ago.

In the past, Ginny wouldn’t have cared two pins about Nan’s manners nor her skills as an abigail, but she found that her need to be unexceptionable in every way in the eyes of her future mama-in-law was making her highly critical. However, when Nan placed a piece of thick, folded paper into her hands, she forgot about everything but what it might contain.

With trembling fingers, Ginny slid her finger beneath the heavy wax seal imprinted with an ornate letter C and opened the creamy parchment folds to reveal a pair of verses. Her heart skipped a beat; the works of Shakespeare were highly prized since she and Anthony had been quarantined at Lucinda Barrington’s abode, but it took only a moment to realize these lines were of more recent advent. While Nan continued with her hair, Ginny read the beautiful verses, then read them again. And again.

-‘Jusqu’a ce soir, A.

Surely Anthony had penned the beautiful verses himself. Her heart, suffused with joy, felt lighter than it had since the night he had asked her to be his wife.

“Oh, them’s just lovely words, aren’t they?” Nan said in a breathless voice as she read over Ginny’s shoulder. Nan had admired Sir Anthony from the moment she had met him years before, and the fact that Ginny was to marry him was her dearest wish. For that reason Ginny hadn’t revealed to Nan any of the doubts she was feeling with regard to her ultimate suitability as the future Duchess of Marcross.

“‘Jusku see sour.’ What does that mean, Miss?”

“It means `until tonight,’” Ginny answered, “and that he will be in attendance at one or more of the parties I shall be attending, as well. I do hope it is the soiree. There is no dancing at a rout, and I so want to tell him how very much I cherish his poem.”

“Why ever can’t you tell him at the rout? What is the difference between it and a sour-ay, anyway? They both sound frenchy to me,” Nan said, wrinkling her nose.

“Routs are rather taxing,” Ginny replied, carefully folding up the poem and placing it in the drawer of her dressing table. “If, during the long wait in the queue of carriages, one doesn’t give up the idea of ever gaining entrance to the house, one is obliged to push one’s way up the staircase, wishing all the while she had never come, only to be hastened through the house by the press of people at one’s back, down the hall, and on down the stairs for the interminable wait for one’s carriage to reappear. And all this for the chance to bid good evening to your host and hostess and have a cordial of ratafia, if one should be so lucky. Lord Crenshaw could be a mere foot or two away, and I would never get near him.”

“If you ask me, miss, those routs sound about as painful as gittin’ burned with the curling tongs! You couldn’t git me near one of those for a thousand pound! Why doesn’t Sir Anthony take you up in his own carriage?”

“It is to be `Lord Crenshaw’ for the time being, Nan,” Ginny chastised. “At least until the duke dies, and then it will be `Your Grace.’ ” The very words made Ginny feel a bit sick to her stomach. “As for why he is to meet us rather than attend us, well, it is a rather difficult situation. It will be his first public appearance since the death of his cousin. It wasn’t seemly to announce our betrothal on the heels of such a tragedy, and I daresay Lord Crenshaw hasn’t had time to send notice to the papers”

Yet he had made time to write her that lovely bit of poetry. As much as she cherished his words of love, she felt a shadow of doubt. How long would it take to dash off a short note, sand it, fold it, and apply his seal? Surely not nearly as long as it must have taken to write the poem. Ginny pushed the unworthy thought from her mind and tried to recapture the thread of conversation.

“You should jist tell that of windbag never no mind about the routs,” Nan urged. “And you only want to go to the sour-ay!”

“If by `old windbag’ you mean Grandaunt Regina,” Ginny reprimanded, “would that it were so simple.” Ginny sighed. There would be many routs to attend once she became a duchess and many more at which she would stand as hostess, pinned in the gimlet glare of her exacting mother-in-law. It was imperative she learn all she could as to how these things were done.

As Nan tied the tapes at the back of her gown, Ginny scrutinized its suitability in the pier glass. It was white, as were all the evening gowns worn by the young ladies in their debutante season. Before her fateful return to the country, Ginny had finally been presented to the Queen, as well, yet she was no young miss just out of the schoolroom, and she loathed that she wouldn’t be allowed to wear colors for evening until after her wedding day.

As a means to stave off ennui, this ensemble was as different from her wedding gown as possible. Instead of fine-as-silk muslin, it was satin. Instead of a moderate neckline, it was quite low. Instead of rows of pin-tucks and embroidered flowers, the waist was excessively high, leaving very little bodice at all to hold up the puffed sleeves trimmed with silverspangled lace. Her gowns for later in the season would make more allowances for the heat, but being as it was still May, the white velvet ribbon that separated the bodice from the skirt and the yards and yards of ruched velvet at the hem did not look terribly out of place. It was all a bit too fussy for Ginny, but she owned that Grandaunt had impeccable taste and knew what would be most appropriate for a young lady betrothed to a future duke.

However, when it was finally time to depart, it was a bit of an art to get the new gown all gathered up into the carriage, being as it was fuller around the hem than most and the satin quite stiff.

“Don’t fret about it, my dear,” Grandaunt insisted. “In my day it was necessary to kneel in the carriage so one’s headdress wasn’t knocked from your head, balanced as they were on those monstrously high wigs. And the skirts! They were a hundred times more voluminous than yours and contained enormous hoops. It’s a wonder they remained intact long enough to arrive anywhere. More often than not, we wore each gown but the once, so it did not signify.”

Ginny, whose father had felt it scandalous to have a new gown made up but once a season, feared she would never grow accustomed to a life of privilege. The gown in which she was clad would doubtless feed a crofter’s entire family for a month or more. Once she was Duchess of Marcross, she would find a way to help those less fortunate. She would start by wearing each and every gown at least twice. She hoped Anthony would not think it made her look a dowd.

“Now then, Ginerva, we must first stop at the Worthingtons’ rout. Thomasina will never forgive me if I miss her do. Then it will be the Radcliffs’ rout, and the soiree last, so you might dance as long as you wish.”

“Oh, I am glad! I so hoped to save the Hadleys and the dancing for last!”

“Yes, well, I feel I was a bit hasty in sending Anthony off in the middle of a contretemps, but I see that you are in better spirits now.” Grandaunt patted Ginny on the knee. “Hopefully you will have a chance to clear things up a bit, though, if I am not wrong, I believe you received a missive from him. Would I be too much of a nosy one to ask what he wrote?”

Grandaunt was never wrong, even when she was. What’s more, Ginny had never known her to care one jot for whether or not she was intruding on one’s privacy. Clearly she was giving Ginny a wide berth, and Ginny feared it meant that her grandaunt was feeling more than a little anxiety. Ginny drew a deep breath and chose her words carefully.

“Yes, he wrote to say he would be attending one of the do’s we go to tonight, but I can’t be sure which one”

“Never you fear! I took it upon myself to dispatch my own note. He will be at the soiree, and you shall have your dance”

“Grandaunt, you are so kind!” Ginny wondered what accounted for it. Grandaunt was not above high-handed meddling-in fact, she rather wallowed in it-but it was not like her to be so thoughtful in her methods. Yet, Ginny owned, Grandaunt above all else wished for her grandson’s happiness and would stop at nothing to achieve it, apparently even if it meant stooping to kindness. Ginny prayed she was still deemed essential to Anthony’s happiness in Grandaunt’s mind. After reading Anthony’s poem, she knew she was in his.