Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She’d begun a fight with Darien in Alywen’s shop so she might not appear fascinated. She’d teased him that she preferred scholarly men like his cousin, provoking that furious, most unsettling kiss.
And he had not called in the days since, leaving Henrietta with a strange, restless ache under her skin that she didn’t know how to soothe.
It would be best if she had no more to do with him, Henrietta told herself. All that should concern her about Darien was the welfare of Lady Celeste’s child.
“You’re home!” Marsibel smiled with eagerness as Henrietta entered the blue parlor of Hines House. “Just in time to dress for the Bicclesfield ball.”
Oh, that dratted ball. Darien had instructed her to save him a dance. Did he remember? Would he make good on his promise? The thought of being held by him made Henrietta’s heart skitter.
“Er. I’ve had a rather busy day, dear. The Minerva Society shipped off our crates of shoes and clothing for the settlers in Sierra Leone.
A new donor sent an extremely generous donation to the Benevolence Hospital, so I’ve been buying supplies.
The Sons of Africa have reviewed and endorsed our petition to Parliament calling for full abolition.
And Lady Bess approved my notes for my debate.
I thought I might spend a quiet evening with my sisters, reading about Etruscan art. ”
“Your gowns arrived from the dressmaker’s today,” Marsibel said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Don’t you want to see them?”
Part of her didn’t. The broadsides and cartoons had already linked her name with Darien’s in the most mortifying fashion.
Some supposed Lord Daring was pursuing Miss Hop-Higher for a loan from Sir Grasping.
Others predicted that London’s reigning rake, having ravished all the gently born daughters within reach, was moving on to the rising bourgeoisie.
Miss Hop-Higher, in all these depictions, was a feather-brained ninny, flattered by Lord Daring’s avaricious suit and unaware that the elegant libertine had lowered his sights considerably. And in all of them, she wore the most appalling gowns.
Clarinda and Aunt Althea stood arguing in Henrietta’s dressing room while Duprix opened boxes with the reverence of a priestess performing sacred rites.
“You must allow that he has the most exquisite taste, Althea.” Clarinda ran a hand over piles of fine muslins and silks.
“But to allow a man to purchase her clothing? It isn’t done!” Althea cried.
“Of course I had the bill sent to me, Aunt Althea,” Henrietta said. “Lord Darien only had a hand in the selection.”
“You may leave the matter of ma’mselle’s clothing to me, mesdames,” Duprix said. She hustled Henrietta behind the dressing screen to extract her from the worn round gown she had worn to her meetings that day.
“All this fuss about gowns simply illustrates Miss Wollstonecraft’s point about vanity,” Henrietta grumbled as Duprix tied a rump pad around her waist.
“Ma’mselle will not sulk when she is in something that becomes her.
” Duprix tied on a lilac petticoat, then held open a pool of yellow silk for Henrietta to step into.
With a few deft pins the maid fastened the bodice to the open robe, then tied up the short train.
She fluffed the tiny ruffle that lined the bodice and peeked out at the sleeves, then stepped back to study the graceful retroussé effect in the back.
“Hetty,” Marsibel breathed.
Duprix clapped her hands together. “Finally! How clever M’seiur Daring is.”
Henrietta moved to the glass, and the dress swam gracefully with her. “I look exactly like the fashion plate.”
“The corsage requires something.” Duprix advanced with two half-moon pads and tucked them into the bodice of the gown. Henrietta, for the first time in her life, had a bosom.
Duprix smiled. “I think M’sieur Daring will like the effect, n’est ce pas?”
“You look divine.” Clarinda touched her fingers to her lips. “The colors suit you perfectly. Hetty, dear, I wish I had said something long before this.”
“She looks like Covent Garden wares,” Aunt Althea yelped.
Henrietta stared at the transformation. Beneath the beautiful gown, she was her plain old self, but she felt alive with new possibilities.
Darien had flattered and paid court to her because he wanted access to her uncle. She knew that now. But the woman in her glass wasn’t a silly Miss Hop-Higher, taken in by blandishments. She looked like a woman of means and influence.
She looked like a woman who might be welcomed if not into Polite Society, then at least by the Daughters of Minerva.
“I predict our Hetty will be a smashing success,” Clarinda sang as she led the women downstairs, where they meant to dine before the ball.
“I do not wish to be a success,” Henrietta protested. “I wish for my debate to be well-attended, and for Hodge to sell me his mill, and for—”
“No business tonight, Hetty.” Marsibel entwined their arms as they went into the parlor where Sir Pelton and Sir Jasper were waiting. “Tonight, you will be light and gay and dance with every young man who asks you. Not even Miss Wollstonecraft can think it a crime to be young and merry.”
Henrietta’s confidence ebbed as they waited in a long line of carriages before the rows of stately homes that lined Grosvenor Square. It ebbed further as they entered a vast marbled foyer that reminded her of the Ellesmere home and waited at the top of an enormous staircase to be announced.
Jasper, with patient resignation, shifted on his heeled shoes while Clarinda, her hair powdered gray and dotted with small bows in the fashion of Marie Antoinette, waited with a seraphic smile on her face.
She had chosen an open robe with a pinned bodice and crossed sash designed to flaunt, in the most fetching manner, that she was in the family way.
Henrietta clung to Charley, who blew loud sighs and tapped the tip of his walking stick on the parquet floor.
At last, the footman announced their names, and the whispers rose around them like the rustlings of her expensive silk dress as Charley dragged her gracelessly down the stairs.
“Yellow!”
“Very French—”
“Her hair—”
“Did you hear Lord Daring—?”
“With a bluestocking? No!”
Oh, why had she ever consented to a Season?
This wasn’t her place. There would be some new and damning cartoon tomorrow, ridiculing her dress or her manner or her reform efforts, making it all the more difficult to rally support for her causes.
She ought to have stayed home reading to her sisters and working on her debate.
Though the ballroom was already crowded, despite the high ceiling with its frescoes of frolicking Olympians, Henrietta felt every eye directed toward her.
“Don’t leave me,” she muttered to Charley through a clenched smile. Even she could feel the disgrace of being a wallflower at her first and possibly only ball.
“You’ve got Clarinda, and Marsi’s right behind us,” Charley said. “I’ll be in the card room when you’re ready to leave. I hope they have a card room. Try not to be too much of a goose.”
Henrietta looked around for reinforcements as her brother melted away.
Clarinda maneuvered her husband to a group of society matrons and began introductions, ignoring their displeasure at making the acquaintance of a mill owner.
So the wall of resistance extended to Jasper, too, her hard-working father who never turned away a soul in need.
Henrietta, gnashing her teeth as she waited for Marsi, startled when she heard a deep, familiar voice at her elbow.
“Shall we join the first dance? The lines will be forming soon.”
A shiver of pure delight ran down her back, oblivious to all her attempts to stifle it.
“Darien! You’re not shot yet.”
“And won’t be, if I have my way. I nearly sent a note telling you to wear the yellow and violet, but I trusted your maid to know her work.” His eyes moved with approval over her décolletage, and a wash of heat followed the shiver. She wished she had not left her stole in the cloakroom.
“I thought you detested these functions,” she said.
“You promised me a dance.” He placed her hand on his arm and walked her about the room. “Is Sir Pelton with you?”
“Yes, there on the stairs.” He wanted something from her uncle; that was the reason for his attentions. She must not lose her head, even if his nearness wreaked havoc on her senses. How could he be so calm, so aloof, when he kissed her the way he had in his study?
Because he kissed women all the time. Kisses meant nothing to him. It was only she who still felt his lips on hers. She could think of little else.
“Ought you be here? What if Lord Alfred finds you?”
“Not even a hothead like Freddy would issue a challenge in a crowded ballroom,” Darien said. “Why did you tell Celeste to give my child to the Benevolence Hospital?”
Eyes followed them on their promenade, and confusion clouded the heat blooming through her. Darien was beautifully turned out in deep purple satin and an amber waistcoat, as though he had designed his dress to echo hers.
“You said she wouldn’t see your solicitor. And Mary Ann means to stay on as a wet nurse. The babe would be safe there, well provided for.”
“I told you I didn’t want any child of mine raised in an orphanage.”
His voice, though low, was a whip, and his fingers clenched painfully over hers.
Henrietta set her teeth so she did not wince and betray anything to the eyes watching them.
She was sure she detected the sallow face and avaricious eyes of Lord Pinochle among them.
She had quite forgotten his grudge against her among all the competing distractions.
“Raised as a pauper?” He was truly furious with her. “My solicitor will arrange for a family to take it in. A good family.”