IX #3
Nell went with him into the hall and then went upstairs to discover that, as he had predicted, Rory was tucked up in bed and already asleep. “She’s dreadfully tired, Miss Lindale,” Sadie said in hushed tones. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she was to sleep clear through to morning, poor lamb.”
“Well, she is not to sleep so long, Sadie, and I depend upon you to see she is awake soon enough to have some tea and something to eat before she dresses for the ball.”
“Oh, ma’am, I doubt my lady should go out tonight at all.”
“The decision is not yours to make, however,” Nell said firmly. “The responsibility for seeing that she awakens at a reasonable hour I do leave to you, however. And I shall expect you to obey me, Sadie. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Flushing, young Sadie dropped a hasty curtsy, and Nell departed, satisfied that her charge would be up and dressed in time to leave for the ball when Huntley arrived.
For a short time she had feared that Rory’s foolhardiness would keep them from attending the ball altogether.
And Nell had never seen the inside of the prince’s Pavilion.
Mrs. Fitzherbert and the prince had been separated the year of Nell’s come-out and were not reunited until some three years later.
It was then that his highness had plunged into his startling new adventures in architecture.
The chief of these, of course, was the magnificent royal stables, which had been finished only some weeks before.
While the building of the stables was still in progress, however, it had occurred to the prince that with all the old and new friends who would be flocking around him and Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Pavilion itself would have to be enlarged.
In consequence, he had asked Henry Holland to prepare some designs, and it had been feared by many of Brighton’s worthy citizens that his highness would indulge his well-known penchant for oriental fantasy.
Instead, he had finally decided to project two new wings in a classical style from the eastern facade, the northern one to form a dining room and the southern one a conservatory or drawing room.
The prince had not denied himself his fantasies, however, for the whole of the interior had been transformed and completely decorated in the Chinese style.
Nell had heard a great deal about it from persons whose opinions as to its elegance and beauty differed widely, and she was most anxious to see the results for herself.
When the news reached her that evening that Huntley had arrived, she took a final hasty look at herself in the walnut-framed cheval glass, gave a twitch to her pale blue silk skirts to smooth the line at the curve of her hips, straightened the narrow, sapphire-colored bow just beneath her firm breasts, snatched up her velvet cloak, and hurried to her niece’s room.
“Rory, are you ready to depart?” she asked as she pushed open the door.
Then she stopped and stared at the radiant vision before her.
The Lady Aurora was not wearing the sort of plain white muslin gown that was the garb ordained for the debutante.
Instead, she had chosen a pale-yellow, low-cut silk that shimmered in the candlelight of her bedchamber and that clung seductively to every generous curve.
It was a gown destined to set men’s eyes popping, Nell thought, although since Rory was already betrothed, there was nothing really improper about it.
If it was not quite what people might expect, it was still extraordinarily becoming to its wearer, and she could not help a small gasp of admiration. Rory turned to face her.
“Do you like it?” She smoothed the emerald sash and twisted her head to see if it fell properly in the back. Then, drawing on emerald elbow-length gloves, she waited confidently for her aunt’s response.
“Oh, Rory, you look truly like a golden girl tonight!” Nell exclaimed. “It is an exquisite gown, and oh, my dear, if I had had your figure eight years ago, I might have named my destiny.”
Pleasure glowed on Rory’s lovely face, and she declared herself ready.
The look in Huntley’s eyes when he beheld them told Nell that he, too, was impressed with the younger girl’s appearance.
It occurred to her only then that she had said nothing to Rory about the afternoon’s incident.
She wondered if he would speak further of it, but he did not, and Rory herself seemed to have put the matter out of her mind entirely.
The brief journey to the Pavilion was enlivened by her excited questions about what she would see there and Huntley’s patient replies.
Nell began to look forward with more enthusiasm than ever to the evening ahead.
The carriage arrived at last, passing through the lodge gates to draw up to the porch, where they descended to join the throng of merry guests making their way into the Pavilion itself.
They followed the crowd through the entrance halls and a large gallery, then into a splendid salon and the famous Chinese gallery, which had been created by throwing the original dining room and library together into one enormous chamber.
The walls were hung with very beautiful Chinese paper and the rest of the gallery had been painted and decorated in a corresponding style.
After greeting their beaming host, Huntley guided the ladies toward the music room, explaining that a good many of the furnishings had come from London when the Chinese Room at Carlton House had been dismantled.
There were immense quantities of Chinese porcelain, chairs, stools, and sofas of bamboo, cabinets of Japanese lacquerwork, as well as other oriental decorations and curiosities of all kinds.
There were even Chinese costumes and weapons, and everything was illuminated by brilliant Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceilings.
It was as if, Nell confided to Huntley, his highness had sought to re-create the legendary land of Cathay that had been sought by explorers for so many hundreds of years.
“Do you like it?”
“I think it is enchanting,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“The oriental influence is a trifle overblown for my tastes,” he confessed with a rueful twinkle.
“I think Huntley Green would look a little odd tarted up with bamboo forests and scarlet peonies. And it would startle me to come upon an oriental fisherman fishing from a niche in one of my corridors.”
Nell chuckled appreciatively, but Rory grimaced and announced that there was no need to spoil everyone else’s pleasure just because he hadn’t got a romantic bone in his body. Nell stared at her.
“Surely you realized that his lordship was funning!”
“Don’t be a goose, Aunt Nell. You don’t think for a minute that he would allow bamboo-decorated wallpaper at his precious Huntley Green, do you?”
“Well, if you think you could actually live amidst all this,” Nell retorted, gesturing toward several cabinets loaded with fragile bric-a-brac, “let me tell you that you would soon change your mind. How do you suppose you would sleep in such a cluttered room?”
“You just said it was enchanting!”
“And so it is, my dear, here in the Pavilion. That doesn’t mean I should like to achieve a similar result in Upper Rock Gardens, I assure you.”
Rory looked for a moment as if she might like to continue the debate, but suddenly her cheeks glowed with an extra touch of color, and the sparkle in her eye was enough to inform Nell, even before she followed the direction of the girl’s steady gaze, that Rory had discovered her target for the evening.