Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
“ W here are the coaches going? Oh, I see,” Annabelle commented, peering out of the carriage window. “Look at that too, that one has covered up its crest. I wonder who it is?”
Instead of pulling up outside the Duke of Blackwell’s London house, vehicles were directed along a passage at the side of the house and into a massive coachhouse where guests could disembark with comfort and discretion before proceeding into the house through a shielding avenue of trees.
Frederick only smiled indulgently at Annabelle’s curious chatter, letting her form her own first impressions of the place and people. At his direction, their cloaks were left behind them in the carriage.
“How strange it all is!” Annabelle mused as they walked together through the avenue of spruces, the air around them stirred by only a mild June breeze and the needles of the trees glinting with the last sunlight of the day.
“You’ve seen nothing yet, Annabelle,” Frederick reminded her with a hint of a smile. “Remember what I said in the coach earlier: observe but don’t react, even if you see things that might be considered scandalous in another place and company. I will be near you and no harm will come to you here but this is also no place for the prudery your brother has fed you.”
Annabelle nodded, doubting whether she would be scandalized or not. Could anything again ever shock her as much as catching Frederick with that woman on the first day of her visit to Heartwick Hall? He evidently still thought her only one step up from a schoolgirl, when she was actually one-and-twenty.
They entered the house through the open French windows of a large reception room bordering the gardens. The room already blazed with candles even though the sun was at least an hour from setting. Around the room were dotted other couples, groups and some single men and women, all elegantly dressed and masked as Frederick and Annabelle.
“Everyone is so…good-looking,” Annabelle observed to Frederick in a whisper. “I have never seen so many handsome men and women in one place.”
It was true. Everyone she could see, whether younger or older, men or women, was of pleasing aspect, well-dressed and radiating a deep physical confidence.
“Why do you think I brought you?” he whispered back. “You fit in perfectly.”
Annabelle did not know whether it was a compliment or not. She did not feel as though she fitted in and was reserving judgement on whether she wanted to, after Frederick’s warnings. He, however, did fit in here. It as though she were seeing Frederick back among his native people when she had only previously met him in foreign lands, among other tribes.
While the Duke of Heartwick in a mask seemed barely disguised at all to Annabelle, she still could not make out the identities of any other guests. Even the servants were masked as well as uniformed. Perhaps it was all part of the evening’s games, like at a more normal masquerade. The atmosphere had a dreamlike quality.
“I assume we are not to be presented to Lord Blackwell?” Annabelle queried as Frederick guided her out into the hallway and continued their tour, following the sound of music.
He shook his head with a sound of amusement.
“Certainly not. Names and titles are only exchanged discreetly here if they are not already known. But Edwin will find us eventually and you will have your chance to speak with him. He is a decent enough man by his own moral codes, if not those of society at large. Do not fear him but have no care for your usual guest etiquette either.”
They now walked into a small ballroom from where the music Annabelle had heard earlier was emanating. Despite the relatively early hour, several couples were already moving to the strains of the masked orchestra, some dancing indecently close to one another, or even embracing deliberately as they whirled together.
Although Annabelle felt her eyes widen, she remembered Frederick’s earlier words and said nothing aloud, even when faced with a couple where the woman had buried her face in her partner’s neck and his hand on her back was far too low for public decency.
“Are they married?” she couldn’t help whispering to Frederick as they continued their walk away from the couples and across the ballroom.
“Yes,” he answered, his eyes alive with laughter. “But not to each other.”
Annabelle drew a sharp breath and held more tightly to Frederick’s arm. Disapproval was not a strong enough word for what Stephen would make of this gathering.
Frederick led her now through several connected dining rooms where a massive spread of food and drink was laid out on various serving tables. She saw whole roast boar with apples in their mouths, multiple dishes of salmon and piles of roe, an entire table of roasted chickens and other birds with different stuffings. Was that actually a peacock in the centre?! The colored feathers surrounding its dish certainly implied as much.
“Are you hungry yet?” Frederick asked and Annabel shook her head, very definitely, partly in sympathy for the peacock.
Laughing guests were already eating and drinking in several of the rooms. In one chamber a man appeared to be consuming a slice of cake as large as his own head while his friends cheered him on. In another room, a full-bodied woman in a violet evening dress and matching gloves was lying back on a table as a man carefully poured champagne directly into her mouth.
Since she had declined to eat yet, Frederick took them back through the ballroom again and this time into the conservatory. It led to an orangery and then other glasshouses full of exotic plants, the air of each one hotter than the one before.
Behind some of the bushes and shrubs, Annabelle thought she detected movement, but it was only when she heard the sound of a woman’s cry that it occurred to her what might be happening under cover of the potted undergrowth. Now she was truly shocked and froze in her tracks, clinging to Frederick
“Ah, I assumed it might be too early for such festivities out here but evidently not,” Frederick commented urbanely, although he rapidly steered them back to the ballroom once more and picked up two glasses of champagne on the way. “Here, drink this.”
Annabelle did as she was told and sipped the effervescent liquid as her heart raced. The sound she had just heard had been very similar to the cry she recalled coming from Frederick’s bedroom that day. At the time she had mistaken it for pain, but believed she knew better now even if she did not entirely understand the nature of such noises.
“I know your eyes, sir. I feel sure we have met before,” said a woman with ash-blonde hair, a dress cut even lower than Annabelle’s, and an owl mask.
Approaching them boldly, she reached out to take Frederick’s other arm in a gesture of familiarity that matched her words.
“Maybe,” he acknowledged with a polite smile. “But I am already engaged tonight, as you see.”
“Ah, but you have two arms, and I do not mind sharing you,” purred the woman, pressing into Frederick, and smiling mischievously at Annabelle.
“There will be no sharing tonight,” he said firmly but pleasantly as he disentangled himself. “I am sure you will have no problem finding an alternative companion who pleases you equally.”
“Oh, very well,” sighed the woman, pretending to be piqued. “But next time, you are mine and I shall not be gainsaid. Don’t forget.”
“You’re a one-woman man tonight, are you, Heartwick?” interrupted an another voice behind them, this time deep and male. “That’s a rare event.”
As Annabelle jumped, Frederick laid his hand over hers on his arm in a gesture of reassurance that soothed her as well as sending disturbing surges of sensation into her belly.
“Blackwell,” Frederick smiled in greeting, identifying his host in the black-clad man who had surprised Annabelle. “I see your party is already in full swing. I thought we might even be too early.”
Annabelle automatically dropped a small curtsey as the Duke of Blackwell’s dark eyes took in her form. When she raised her gaze to his, his expression was amused but appreciative.
“It is early in the season,” shrugged Duke Edwin. “No one is weary yet and most are eager to socialize so games are progressing a little faster than usual. Speaking of which, Lady Gordney is here and asked after you, Frederick.”
“Did she, indeed?” Frederick said rather thoughtfully to himself and Annabelle felt a vague disquiet.
She remembered Lady Gordney all too well as one of Frederick’s women friends last year. A widow of independent means, the Dowager Marchioness of Gordney needed only observe the forms of social convention to remain respectable and the relationship had been an open secret. Mutual friends had deliberately invited them both to the same parties or ordered a single carriage after a ball, assuming they would leave together.
If Delia, Lady Gordney was here tonight then Annabelle knew that there was some level on which she could not compete for Frederick’s interest. Annabelle would feel as she had with the sultry Lady Coltenay at the Yardley ball but even more strongly given Frederick’s connection with Lady Gordney, and more distinctly in this more sensual environment where partners might well do more than merely dance together.
Frederick might still feel bound to look after Annabelle in this strange environment, given his promises to both her and her brother. However, he would not really want to be at her side and they would both feel that disappointment.
“Apparently Lady Gordney has missed you greatly this winter,” the Duke of Blackwell continued. “I told her you would be here alone but now see that she may be disappointed by the failure in my intelligence. Shall I let her down for you? I would be only too happy to comfort her.”
“I will let her down myself,” Frederick replied, his expression hard for Annabelle to read. “If she wishes to seek comfort, I’m sure she will find a suitable arm to lean on. Do you know where she is?”
“Over there, near the conservatory,” Duke Edwin directed with a nod of his head. “I suspect she was hoping you would want to view the orchids with her.”
Frederick laughed and released Annabelle’s arm, an alarming development that only made her want to cling on to him. It was rather like suddenly finding herself in open water rather than on the deck of a ship. What if the water was too rough to swim?
“Look after Lady Annabelle for me please, Edwin. This is her first visit to your house, remember. I would like her to look forward to a second.”
“Ah yes, I remember that you have a brother who might not approve of your presence here tonight, Lady Annabelle,” said the Duke of Blackwell, offering her his arm in lieu of Frederick’s. “You might find we are not so dreadful as he believes.”
Always well-mannered, Annabelle took Duke Edwin’s arm but cast her eyes at Frederick in alarm which only seemed to amuse him again. He bent his head and whispered in her ear before he moved off.
“Tonight is your best chance to practice everything I have taught you. Don’t waste it.”
She nodded acquiescence since there was nothing else she could do and turned to her host with another polite smile.
“I noticed that even your orchestra and servants are masked tonight,” she observed, in what she hoped was a neutral and inoffensive comment. “I confess I have never seen a party quite like this before.”
“Yes, I find people behave so differently and interestingly when they find themselves anonymous, and among others equally anonymous – or at least imagining themselves so. I do like to see how their behavior diverges when they feel safe from the mores and judgements of the ton.”
“Are they really so very different when everyone is masked?” Annabelle asked curiously and her host nodded.
“Yes, in the main. It is a great relief to some and a great opportunity to others. You, however, my dear, masked or unmasked, appear to be very much the same young woman I encountered in Hyde Park with the Duke of Heartwick.”
“I don’t know how to be any different,” said Annabelle, feeling as though she had to give some excuse or explanation.
“You are perfectly natural and charming, my dear,” Duke Edwin told her with a smile. “With or without the mask. They are qualities that few possess in such abundance and I am sure your escort tonight appreciates them both equally.”
Annabelle nodded her thanks at what she assumed was a compliment and then found her eyes straying to the doorway by the conservatory where blond-haired Frederick appeared to be rapt, in deep conversation with a very attractive auburn-headed woman in a puce dress, her décolletage and hair ornamented with strings of fine pearls.
Well, from the attentiveness of his gaze and animation of his words, Frederick certainly appreciated Lady Gordney. Annabelle felt her stomach drop as she watched them. Had she really ever imagined that she would hold Frederick’s full attention tonight in this place, in the presence of such sophisticated and experienced women?
“Lady Gordney is very beautiful,” she commented to their host, who laughed again, and nodded in agreement.
“Every man here would concur and most are only too ready to partner the dowager marchioness on the dance floor, or for a walk among the orchids, should Duke Frederick not wish to press his advantage.”
Either he did not appreciate the sadness his words brought her, or he did not believe in sheltering her from it. He was also clearly among the men who would gladly step into Frederick’s place beside Lady Gordney, should he choose to vacate it.
Annabelle knew she could not hope to understand someone like the Duke of Blackwell if she could not even understand Frederick. As she was about to change the subject and ask about the poor peacock served up in the buffet room, she heard her name.
“Lady Annabelle? Is that really you? Yes, it is. Now my night is complete and the clock has not even struck nine. Blackwell, you do attract the most extraordinary selection of people to your parties. I congratulate you on the variety of your acquaintance!”
Disoriented, Annabelle turned, amazed and a little alarmed to be recognized at this gathering despite her mask. She instantly and instinctively relaxed when she saw the slim man with light-brown hair above a harlequin mask, his hazel eyes sparkling through it.
“Lord Darrington!” she exclaimed with delight and then noticed the other familiar man at his side.
While out of military dress tonight and wearing a finely tailored blue wool suit with a harlequin mask that exactly matched his friend’s, Annabelle was sure she recognized him from the Duke and Duchess of Yardley’s ball too.
“Captain Rawlings?” Annabelle added more hesitantly, in case she was wrong, or he perhaps did not wish to be identified.
Both men, however, appeared delighted to have found her and that she both recognized and remembered them.
“Now we have the ideal dance partner, Jacob,” Oswald Quince remarked. “Didn’t I tell you that the right woman always appears at Edwin’s gatherings?”
“You gentlemen know Lady Annabelle from the wider world, I gather,” said Duke Edwin. “Duke Frederick has left her with me as a jewel of precious worth, to be guarded from marauding blackguards, among whom neither of you are numbered, I know.”
The three men shared a smile as though at some running joke that Annabelle was not party to. She hoped that she had not done anything to make herself appear foolish or silly.
“Lady Annabelle is indeed a kindred spirit,” Oswald Quince declared. “You may leave her safely with me, Edwin. She will only be in danger of too much dancing. You will give me the first dance, won’t you, Lady Annabelle? Jacob is a fine dancer but does not have my conversation.”
Annabelle found herself now at ease and laughing, despite her strange surroundings and whatever might be happening in that corner between Frederick and Lady Gordney. How wonderful it was to find Lord Darrington here.
“Remember, I will be ready to offer respite from Oswald when his stream of gossiping becomes too much,” jested Captain Rawlings with a bow to Annabelle. “In the meantime, I will go and greet a fellow officer I believe I have spotted.”
“Major Owens?” suggested the Duke of Blackwell. “Yes, he is here tonight. I shall accompany you.”
Evidently judging Oswald Quince a suitable substitute guardian for Annabelle’s comfort and virtue, their host departed with Captain Rawlings, leaving Annabelle and Oswald to watch the dance.
“Frederick told me that those two are both married to other people,” Annabelle confided to Oswald as the too-closely entwined pair waltzed by them. “I’m not sure whether I was shocked, or only shocked that no one else was shocked because I am so used to it.”
Lord Darrington nodded, grinning. He did not think her a foolish child.
“Better than that fact, or worse, depending on whose judgement you take, her husband and his wife are also here tonight and they are all good friends,” he told her, causing Annabelle to giggle and clap a hand to her mouth to muffle the sound.
“I could never have imagined such a thing,” she admitted.
“Do you judge them?” he asked her curiously and she shook her head after a moment’s thought.
“No. It does not seem to me that anyone is being hurt or dishonored, if all concerned are content with the situation. I do not understand, and cannot imagine that I would be so understanding, but I cannot judge others.”
He smiled at this, seeming pleased with her answer.
“What about you?” Annabelle probed. “What attitude do you take?”
“I take the attitude that life is hard enough, especially for those who do not, or cannot, live entirely by society’s rules. I will not judge other adults who behave honestly and fairly and hope they will extend the same understanding to me.”
“You put that so well, Lord Darrington,” she commented, struck by his compassion and clarity of thought. “I agree with you entirely.”
“See? Didn’t I say we were kindred spirits? Now, if the next dance is something merry, we shall have it, shan’t we?”
Annabelle nodded without hesitation. It was so very easy to be with Oswald Quince and she thought again of Frederick’s questions in the coach after the Yardley House ball. Could she see this man as a potential husband?
He would be a bright, amiable and kind companion, she had no doubt. But was there something missing? She had a sense that there might be. As her reluctant eye again fell on Frederick and Lady Gordney, she recalled once more how different it felt to dance with Frederick, compared to Oswald Quince.
No one and nothing felt quite like dancing with Frederick and never had. Annabelle sighed at this fact and tried to put it from her mind. What did it mean anyway? It was only dancing.
“Come on,” Oswald said, taking her hand. “Listen. I think it’s actually going to be a quadrille next. We must take our places.”
“Marvelous!” Annabelle agreed and followed him onto the dance floor.