Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Evening
Valentina’s head poked out of the open carriage door and glanced about a Grosvenor Square gone dusky with encroaching night.
Happy violin music swept across her, alongside the chatter of a hundred or so guests. Her gaze lifted up and up and up the Duke and Duchess of Ripon’s mansion with its Palladian colonnade of white pillars framing front doors flung wide to arriving guests.
So, this was a duke’s London residence.
A sense of who the Windermeres were within London Society was only now beginning to sink in. They were wild and kind, but they held immense wealth and power, too.
Behind Delilah and Juliet, Valentina took the hand of an impassive footman and descended to cobblestones that glistened from a recent wash. Apparently, dukes cleaned, and possibly polished, their cobblestones—well, they had others do it, of course.
As she ascended front steps lit by opposing rows of candelabras, she reminded herself to breathe, even as her palms threatened to perspire through her borrowed white satin gloves.
It was all simply so grand and opulent and overwhelming.
Bouquets and boughs of summer roses invited guests inside with their fragrance.
Just inside the door, a servant offered to take her evening cape—rather, Juliet’s—leaving Valentina clad in an evening gown of coral silk, shaped to her every curve.
Her shoulders had never been so bare in public.
She’d protested that the ensemble was too fine, but Juliet had insisted that it was perfect for her and wouldn’t hear of having it returned.
But now, standing inside a duke’s mansion, nerves jangling through her, Valentina was glad for the dress.
Without it, she would have stood out as an oddity.
Everyone around her—lords and ladies, earls and countesses, dukes and duchesses, kings and queens for all she knew—was decked out in their finest silks and most sparkling jewels.
Delilah tossed a questioning glance over her shoulder as they stood in the receiving line, awaiting their turn to be greeted by the Duke and Duchess.
Valentina smiled—though it may have wobbled a bit—and nodded.
“How are you faring?” asked Delilah, a spark of concern in her eyes. “I know they’re a duke and duchess, but really, it’s only Tristan and Amelia. She’ll try to mother you—don’t let her—and he might grunt at you. A man of few words, to say the least.”
Juliet reached over and gave Valentina’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
She was most grateful for Delilah and Juliet.
She was also thankful that she wasn’t expected to speak for the entire night, which shouldn’t be an issue as Delilah and Juliet had volunteered to steer her clear of all Italians who might be in attendance. Delilah had said it would be a lark.
The Windermeres and their larks.
Apparently, they’d spent several months in Italy, riding out a scandal that had something to do with Delilah, Archie, and Eton College.
They’d been fuzzy on the details, though Delilah had grumbled something about Ravensworth beneath her breath.
Not that Valentina had any idea who or what a Ravensworth was.
The line before Valentina suddenly cleared, and Delilah and Juliet were to either side of her, each taking an arm and walking her forward.
In a few short steps, they stood before a man and woman—he massive and handsome and she tall and possessed of the signature Windermere blonde gorgeousness.
Without a doubt the Duke and Duchess of Ripon.
A more gorgeous couple Valentina had never seen. And judging by the bump in the Duchess’s dress, it appeared they would be adding a gorgeous child to their family in the coming months.
“Contessa,” said Delilah with a wink, “meet the Duke and Duchess of Ripon.”
Valentina dipped into a shallow curtsy. Or what passed for one, she supposed. She’d never been required to curtsy in all her life. Of course, she’d never met such personages in all her life who would require a curtsy. Small, but important distinction.
The Duke nodded and… Was that a grunt?
The Duchess stepped forward and took one of Valentina’s hands with a welcoming smile. “I hear you’re to sing for us tonight, Contessa,” she said. She didn’t wink like Delilah, but a twinkle certainly shone in her eyes.
“Si,” said Valentina, clutching the handle of her bag tighter. Instead of carrying a dainty reticule like all the other ladies in attendance, she carried a folio case filled with sheet music.
Earlier this evening, when Delilah and Juliet had been helping her get ready, Delilah had asked where she’d met Archie.
In a moment of distraction—for Tucker had become quite intent on wrangling the delicate silk bodice higher above her too-bounteous bosom, having, at last, to settle for a fichu for modesty—Valentina said, “The Five Graces.”
A look passed between Delilah and Juliet. A look that said she’d just confirmed their suspicions. “So, it was you,” said Delilah.
“Me?”
“Who we’ve heard singing in the night,” said Juliet.
Ah. “Erm, yes.”
Delilah clapped with delight. “You must sing at the musicale tonight.”
“Why?”
“Whyever not?”
If the Windermeres had a mantra, that would be it. Whyever not.
“You have talent,” said Juliet.
Valentina saw no choice available to her but to agree.
“I’ll inform Amelia to add you to the performance list,” said Delilah.
“As the final performer,” added Juliet. “She’ll be the best.”
After Delilah and Juliet left to finish their own preparations, Valentina had a moment to think, and in an instant, a decision came to her. She might be displaying her talent tonight for all the aristocracy…
But she wouldn’t be doing it alone.
So, she’d slipped into Archie’s bedroom and taken a few sheets of music. The Mozart she would need, and another, too.
Now, she gripped the case tightly. She’d refused to let a servant take it with her cape. Its cargo was too precious to let out of her sight. If everyone thought her an eccentric Italian contessa for carrying it, let them.
As she walked with Delilah and Juliet through the spacious mansion bedecked in all manner of sculptures and paintings, fine woods and marbles, again a sense of awe threatened to overwhelm her.
She was a guest at a duke and duchess’s musicale.
She didn’t think she would be telling her family.
Mama wouldn’t approve, as she disapproved of aristocrats in the general sense.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true.
After their meal this afternoon—was it only eight hours ago?—she’d caught Mama gazing upon Archie with an expression suspiciously close to approval.
And the thing was Archie hadn’t been his usual, overly charming self.
He’d been relaxed and showed genuine curiosity about the lives of her family.
In the end, she’d felt strangely proud to have brought him to meet them.
Though she suspected she would suffer endless rounds of teasing from her brothers about, “That time Valentina brought a nob to Sunday tea.”
Speaking of…
Where was the nob she’d brought to Sunday tea?
She glanced around the room they were passing through.
Room was too humble a word for this space with its gleaming mahogany floors and crystal chandeliers, which threw golden light onto every surface—be it marble tabletop, a mustache curved into a laugh, or a bare ivory shoulder caught in an ironic shrug.
Where she strolled with Delilah and Juliet guests mingled comfortably, while at the opposite end of the room chairs were assembled into straight rows for the musical portion of the evening.
It was a lovely, cultured gathering; everything and everyone proper and in their place.
Even so, Valentina thought she might prefer the loose raucous gatherings in Hampstead’s small assembly rooms. What they lacked in perfection, they made up for in fun—a concept with which much of the population of this room didn’t seem to be acquainted. Not like…
Archie.
Another scan of the room found no sign of him, but she’d known it before she’d looked. The composition of the air would be different were he here.
She hadn’t seen him since they’d arrived back at Casa Windermere in the late afternoon. Not since they’d…oh, they’d… Her body heated a few degrees… Not since their—oh, there was no better word for it, so help her—romp in his carriage.
This afternoon combined with last night… A possibility occurred to her.
She might be mad for Archie.
How else could she countenance her shameless behavior?
“You look a trifle flushed, Valentina,” said Juliet.
“Shall we deposit you in a quiet corner and fetch you a cup of punch?” asked Delilah, already escorting Valentina to said quiet corner. “There are even curtains you can hide behind if the situation gets sticky.”
“In fact, you might want to anyway,” said Juliet. “I’ve noted no fewer than five lords risking neck spasms while trying to get a better look at you.”
Delilah and Juliet deposited Valentina in the discreet corner and set to their task. She felt better here than she had since entering this mansion. The people milling about this room weren’t her people.
Then she felt it…
Archie’s presence.
She shifted, so she could see properly around the curtain, and swept her gaze over the room.
Her eyes landed on a pair of men just entering—one short and frowning; the other tall and golden and blithely smiling, utterly and completely in his element, dressed in evening blacks.
No few glances stole his way. Archie was simply that magnetic.
Valentina forgot to breathe as his gaze shifted and discreetly scanned the room, slowly making his way toward…
her. Their eyes locked, and the distance between them turned to nothing.
It was only he and she in this too-grand room.
The smile on his mouth fell not an increment, but the one in his eyes deepened as he gave her a slow, thorough up-and-down, taking in her evening finery.
A bold thought came to her.