Chapter Twenty #2
However, Phoebe was anything but calm and not in the least enthusiastic about this, and Atkins, who knew her mistress well, valiantly attempted to inspire some excitement about the night to come.
“There’ll be lots of handsome young gentlemen there, who’ll no doubt be asking you to dance, milady. You’ve got to look your best.”
Steady rain trickled down the sash windows, only adding to Phoebe’s gloom. It felt as though the whole world were as sad as she was.
“I really don’t care what I look like,” she replied with a sigh.
Her newest gown was laying on her bed, a mass of silvery embroidery on lemon satin and netting.
She couldn’t even bring herself to look at it.
The only person she wanted to see her thus apparelled was not going to want to be anywhere near her, and it was her own fault.
He was probably thinking she was typical of the badly brought up offspring of a cit.
“It’s such a pretty gown,” Atkins continued, her voice holding more than a hint of false cheer. “And if you wear your pearl necklace and earrings, we could put that little pearl tiara in your hair. That’d look so lovely, milady. You’ll be pretty as a picture.”
“It won’t matter.” Phoebe heaved a sigh. “He won’t see me.”
As she’d confided in Atkins the night before that she’d made a foolish mistake with Gabriel, although not the details of what she’d actually done, her maid was well aware of why she wasn’t keen to attend the ball.
“I reckon he’s bound to be there,” Atkins said, evidently working at being encouraging.
“All the ton go to these balls. I know, because Miss Parkins told me. She’s been dressing your aunt for years, so she knows all about balls and such.
” Atkins had been very much a country girl until she’d come to London with Phoebe.
Phoebe sighed again. “I’m sure you’re right, and he’ll be there, but I don’t think he’ll want anything to do with me. Not after what I said to him.”
Atkins finished fastening Phoebe’s stays. “He’ll come begging a dance with you all right, milady. He won’t be able to resist you by the time I’m done with you and you’re in that lovely new gown. Just you wait.”
Her muslin petticoat went on next, followed by the gown.
“Just stand in front of your cheval mirror and see how lovely you look,” Atkins wheedled. “And then I’ll put the finishing touches to your hair and face for you.”
Phoebe stood in front of the mirror, but she didn’t look.
The last thing she wanted to do at this ball was attract the attentions of any of the other hopeful young gentlemen who would be there.
The gentlemen who would see only the fact that she was an heiress, and not want to dance with her because they liked her.
She’d enjoy trampling on their toes. In fact, she might go out of her way to do so.
Atkins took the opportunity to sigh as well, no doubt in exasperation. She must have been thinking her mistress very distracted. “Better sit yourself down at your dressing table then,” she said. “And I’ll just tweak your hair.”
Phoebe, still miserable, dutifully obliged. But she still didn’t look at her reflection as Atkins made sure a few curls adorned her temples. The worry that she might look too tempting for fortune hunters refused to go away.
Atkins, a perfectionist, was still putting the finishing touches to her resigned mistress’s hair when Mattie came bursting in, a vision in pale blue that suited her fair coloring to perfection.
“You may go, Atkins,” she said, waving an imperious hand, and sat down on the end of Phoebe’s bed.
Phoebe swiveled around on the stool she’d been occupying and eyed her cousin with curiosity. She could always tell when Mattie had something important to tell her.
Mattie needed no further encouragement. “Isn’t he just divine?” she blurted out, clasping both hands under her chin. “And that accent. The way he says ‘Mees Mateelda.’ Oh, I could swoon, I swear I could.”
Phoebe wasn’t quite sure what to say to this, so she remained silent. She’d been too busy thinking about Gabriel to pay much attention to Mattie during the dance lessons.
Which was fine, as Mattie clearly didn’t require a reply. “Did you not think him the most handsome man you’ve ever seen?”
Well, no. Gabriel fitted that soubriquet nicely, thank you.
But she was not about to share that with Mattie, not now she’d decided her perfect man wasn’t interested in her.
Atkins had sworn to keep her secret, but Mattie was far less trustworthy.
So, she gave a tentative nod in answer to her cousin’s question, pushing aside the disloyalty this generated.
And after all, Senor Rodriguez was very handsome.
Mattie nodded with much enthusiasm, as though she too needed to answer the question, or rather to reinforce Phoebe’s somewhat unenthusiastic nod.
“And he dances divinely too. He told me he’s also a swordsman.
Imagine that. He fences.” She said this as though it was the height of achievement. It wasn’t. Saving orphans was.
But talk of fences brought Abner and that horrid, smelly attic of her to mind. A different sort of fence altogether. “Goodness,” Phoebe managed, for want of something to say.
More enthusiastic nodding. “If only he were going to the ball tonight. I’d throw caution to the wind and give him every dance, no matter what Mama said.”
As this could never happen, and even if Senor Rodriguez did turn up without an invitation, Aunt Fanny would easily put an angry stop to it, this also required no comment.
Instead, and in an attempt to silence Mattie, Phoebe draped a gossamer shawl about her shoulders and picked up her jeweled reticule. “Hadn’t we better go downstairs?”
Mattie’s face dissolved into a scowl. “I suppose so. I’d rather stay here and dance the night away, all on my own, with Senor Rodriguez. With Felipé. He said I could call him that. Dance the waltz with him.” She shivered. “Now that would be my perfect evening.”
Certain that the evening was not going to be anything like perfect, for her at least, Phoebe led the way down to the parlor where Aunt Fanny was already waiting for them.
As Lady Radnor’s large house was situated not far off in the opulent St James’s Square, on the north side of course, where the biggest houses were, the use of the carriage could have been seen as superfluous.
But ladies could not be seen walking to balls, especially not in the rain, so the carriage was waiting outside the house, four matched bays harnessed to it and poor Howden, the coachman, hunched on the driver’s seat in a voluminous caped coat.
At least he’d be able to return home in between dropping their party off and returning to collect them.
The three ladies mounted swiftly into the carriage while their footmen held wide umbrellas over their heads, and, once they were settled, Howden clicked to his horses. The carriage rumbled off through the puddles, rain rattling on its roof.
Within just a few minutes it was drawing up outside Radnor House where more footmen, looking damp but as though this didn’t matter to them, were ready with more umbrellas.
Aunt Fanny led the way into the house. They were fashionably late, as she liked to be, which meant they could make their entrance to the best effect, allowing the guests already there to admire them. Not something Phoebe relished.
*
Gabriel had arrived some twenty minutes earlier in the company of Ambrose.
Elliott, his valet, had made a herculean effort and adapted his second-best evening coat’s sleeve by sewing in a matching gusset to accommodate the splint on his right arm, and the only thing that gave away his injury was the thin black sling he was wearing and the tip of the splint poking out of his sleeve.
He’d also taken a small dose of laudanum before he left and was feeling mildly euphoric as a consequence.
He could quite see why it might be dangerous to take too much of it.
The effect, even of a low dose, was far too pleasant.
He’d already promised himself not to take any more if he could help it.
Of course, Isabel had not been able to accompany them. Thank goodness.
To be honest, she looked as though at any moment she might produce the longed-for heir and had the look about her of someone permanently on the brink of hysterics.
Why she’d thought it a good idea to travel all the way up from Dorset in her condition was only for her to answer.
Lack of trust for Ambrose seemed the most likely, and wisest, choice.
That Ambrose was not in the least trustworthy where women were concerned was a fact Gabriel had grown up with.
But perhaps Isabel had imagined she could change him with love.
They’d both, it seemed, been misled about each other’s characters.
And as far as Gabriel could tell, love didn’t enter into their relationship at all.
Oh well. He would have felt sorry for her had she not been such an odious woman. The fact that she so clearly disliked him helped. Let Ambrose do just what he wanted. He wasn’t about to try and stop him.
He was at present in the card room watching Ambrose playing Faro for frighteningly high stakes.
His brother had always been a gambler and, as Papa’s heir, had the wherewithal, mostly, to indulge himself.
Gabriel, as a younger son, was not nearly so well provided for.
It would have been enough, had he not the orphanage to support and the next one to get up and running.
But even had he enough money, he would not have gambled.
He’d seen too many gentlemen ruined by injudicious betting, one or two of whom had been reduced to suicide attempts.
He considered himself too wise to fall for that, and didn’t regard his own peccadilloes as containing the same risk.