Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
“ N ow, do not be alarmed.” Lady Sophronia, in a diamond and pearl tiara and white satin gloves, was wrapped in a pale blue velvet evening cloak. “I shall be with you. And of course, Keynsham will too—which I am certain is more to the point, as far as you are concerned.” Her keen eyes sparkled with amusement. “You will do very well, my dear. I am certain that you will make a success.”
Celia was less certain. But it was too late to back out now. Lady Sophronia’s coachman opened the door and handed them down. A moment later, she was making her way across the forecourt of Alford House, clutching Lady Sophronia’s arm for dear life as a footman held an umbrella over their heads.
The porticoed facade of Alford House, every window brilliantly lit, rose above a scene of chaos. A line of carriages waited to move forward. Some passengers had alighted early, leaving their carriages marooned in the unmoving traffic jam, and were hurrying through the rain toward the steps, dodging puddles and horse dung.
Hooves and wheels crunched on the gravel of the drive. Horses snorted, sending puffs of steam into the unseasonably chilly evening air. Coachmen forgot themselves and swore at each other. Servants held lanterns above important-looking guests.
“ Eighty people? ” They stopped abruptly as a carriage rolled ahead in front of them. Lady Sophronia looked about with narrowed eyes. “This is not eighty people . This is… this is a mob. Poor Pomona!”
Celia had no chance to ask what she meant before they were climbing the wet, torch-lit stone steps and passing through a tall pair of open doors. She found herself in a beautiful pale green entrance hall blazing with what seemed to be thousands of candles. Her stomach gave a nervous lurch. She had to remind herself that in another moment she would be on Keynsham’s arm… and then none of her anxieties would matter.
Lady Sophronia’s footman whispered to the Alford House footman. “The Dowager Viscountess Alford and Miss… Talbot!” he boomed. Celia felt a smile already beginning on her face, anticipating the moment that she would see Keynsham coming toward her.
But he didn’t appear. She was surrounded by unfamiliar faces—a few gawking, some eyeing her gown and studying her person, but most indifferent. Her heart sank.
She told herself that she was being ridiculous. Keynsham was the host of the ball. There was no reason to think that he would be waiting to meet her at the door! She would see him in a moment or two… though how she was to see anyone in this crowd, she wasn’t certain.
Lady Sophronia was frowning. “This is worse than I could have imagined. Why…” She didn’t manage to complete her sentence, because they were jostled by a large group of new arrivals. Celia tried not to wince as the footman bawled out their names at earsplitting volume. Lady Sophronia looked pained too. “Who are these people? I do not recognize a soul here! Do you see anyone you know, Miss Talbot?”
Celia managed to shake her head slightly. “I am afraid that I do not, ma’am.”
Though her formidable appearance didn’t suggest it, Lady Sophronia was kindhearted. Unfortunately, however, she seemed to think that Celia was a member of London society, and that they must have acquaintances in common. “ Talbot ,” she’d said that morning, as she’d been helping Celia choose a gown from her extensive collection. “A cadet branch of the Shrewsbury family, I take it?”
“I—I am afraid that I do not know, your ladyship.”
“Well, perhaps the fifteenth earl will be in attendance. He will know.”
The fifteenth earl? But just then the seamstress had been shown in, and the discussion moved on to which gown could be most speedily altered in time for the ball, and Celia hadn’t had a chance to ask Lady Sophronia who she meant. And now they were here, and though on the outside she was gowned and coiffed as elegantly as any other lady, on the inside she was quaking.
A moment later they were jostled again, and a cold gust of wind through the opened doors spattered them both with raindrops. Lady Sophronia drew herself up. “We must move away from the doors. This is most unpleasant.” She took Celia’s arm. “Let us go through to the ballroom. Do not let go of me, whatever happens.”
As they made their way deeper into the chaos it became more and more difficult even to speak. A foot or so away, a red-faced man was shouting at an acquaintance, simply to be heard over the din. Celia glimpsed the tops of enormous floral arrangements over the heads of the other guests. People packed a curving marble staircase above, waving drinks and throwing back their heads in raucous laughter.
“My dear, you look quite terrified.” Lady Sophronia had to raise her voice above the uproar. “Unless you are about to faint?”
“No, your ladyship.” Celia hadn’t realized how much her face betrayed her anxiety. Her only previous experience of a London ball—which fortunately, Lady Sophronia didn’t seem to recall—had been disastrous.
“Good.” She gave Celia’s arm an approving squeeze. “That cream satin suits you very well. And one can never go wrong with ostrich plumes, of course. If you are nervous, remind yourself of the perfection of your costume. That is what I do.”
They managed to advance another few paces. Celia tried, and failed, to imagine any situation in which Lady Sophronia might feel anxious. “And I have been meaning to say—when we find Lady Alford, you need not answer any impertinent questions,” she added.
Impertinent questions? Celia’s heart skipped another nervous beat. If only Keynsham were with them! He had a way of reassuring her with just a glance or touch. How she longed to take his arm and see the humor glinting in his eyes! With him by her side she would be equal to facing anyone.
They entered the ballroom—or so Celia assumed. The hubbub increased to deafening volume. The heat, too, was overpowering. All that she was able to see of the room was a vaulted ceiling with gold and white plasterwork, a double row of chandeliers, and the arched tops of high windows along one wall. She was forced to raise the elbow of her free arm to protect her chest from unpleasant contact with gentlemen’s arms, and more than once she felt something brush her hair.
Lady Sophronia pursed her lips. “This is quite the most unpleasant entertainment that I have attended in years!” she proclaimed, into Celia’s ear. “My dear, we must?—"
But whatever she’d been about to say was lost when a drunken gentleman stumbled directly into them. Lady Sophronia let go of Celia’s arm. Indeed, for a moment Celia thought that she herself might fall. She managed to catch her balance, though the ostrich plumes in her coiffure were buffeted and tugged at her hair. She put her hand to her head. “Lady Sophronia? Lady Sophronia!”
Lady Sophronia was only a few feet away. But though Celia stretched a hand toward her, she was powerless to reach her. She watched, helpless, as Lady Sophronia was borne away by the crowd. “Lady Sophronia!” But it was no use. Her last glimpse of her chaperone was of the flash of the diamonds in her tiara.
She dropped her arm and tried to assume an expression of calm, fearing that she looked foolish. She hadn’t seriously considered that she and Lady Sophronia might be separated. But then, she’d never experienced a crowd like this one.
And then—a little more than a yard or so away—she glimpsed a man’s back.
Her body reacted first. Her heart began to pound. If she’d been able to move, she would have run. But there was nowhere for her to go. All she could do was freeze.
No. It was impossible. That fair, pomaded head must belong to a gentleman who simply bore a resemblance to…
Wilkes . The man turned slightly as he angled smoothly through the crowd. She glimpsed a little more of his ear and cheekbone. She was almost certain… And then he was gone.
No. It couldn’t have been him. Besides, she’d only seen part of the side of his face. And of course, Wilkes wouldn’t have been invited. He couldn’t have simply walked in. She was being ridiculous.
Someone bumped into her, startling her out of her trance.
Keynsham. Keynsham would take this situation seriously. No doubt he’d reassure her that Wilkes couldn’t possibly be here. But… well, he could also order the servants to search the house. If she’d really seen Wilkes, he would be found and thrown out.
She must find Keynsham. She tried to edge past a tall lady in a gown of figured primrose silk and a gentleman in grey damask, and was rebuffed with an angry “I beg your pardon!”
“I beg your pardon, I…” But the couple had already turned their backs. Celia looked about in near-despair. She was trapped by the crowd and could see almost nothing. And she couldn’t continue to stand in the middle of the floor. If she’d really seen Wilkes… well, she ought to find somewhere where she was less likely to be seen herself.
She gathered the skirts of her gown and began to work her way toward the wall.
“I am the most persecuted woman alive !” Lady Alford cast herself onto the blue and white toile chaise longue and flung a hand over her eyes.
Her maids exchanged looks. A large glass of colorless liquid sat upon a tray on the white and gold dressing table. One of the maids offered it to her. “ Madame , perhaps…”
Lady Alford sighed. “Oh, very well.” She took the glass, drank it off with alarming speed, handed it back to the maid and closed her eyes again. “It will not touch my headache. Nothing ever does. My suffering is of a sort from which there is never any respite.”
“Yes, madame .” The maid refilled the glass from a crystal decanter of raspberry eau de vie .
“Everything is ruined! Keynsham will not marry Miss Spry! The rain will not stop! The prince will not come out in this weather. And there is not a man alive who will look twice at Pomona! Why have I been singled out for such misfortune?”
A housemaid hurried in with a cold cloth wrung out with a solution of ice water and vinegar. Lady Alford’s French maid took it and laid it solicitously on her ladyship’s forehead.
After a moment, her ladyship snatched it off. “It is dripping down the sides of my neck!”
“ Je m’excuse , your ladyship.”
“Not one person in this house is capable of doing a single thing properly! Not one! Cook has made but twenty-four of the salmon pies and eighteen of the turbot! And my son is marrying the wrong woman!”
The maids exchanged a look. “ Un autre glass, perhaps, madame? To settle the nerves?” Berthe, the French maid, could sometimes coax her ladyship into a better humor when no one else could.
Lady Alford accepted the second tumblerful of liquor with alacrity. “ Madame looks very beautiful this evening,” ventured Berthe. “Perhaps we try the emerald and diamond boucles d’oreilles? ”
“ Earbobs ? What possible difference can earbobs make? Have some compassion, Berthe! Is that too much to ask?”
There was a knock at the door. “Ma’am?” It was Keynsham’s voice.
Her ladyship hastily slid the glass under the chaise longue , lay back, and replaced the cloth over her eyes. “I cannot see anyone at present. I have a headache.”
Keynsham opened the door and stepped inside. “Ma’am. There are, I am informed, four hundred people in this house.”
Lady Alford spoke in a small, weak voice. “I am powerless to move. My head is throbbing. Someone else must do it. I am too old.”
Keynsham folded his arms. “I came to see why you and Pomona are not downstairs. This is her ball, and you are her chaperone.”
“Oh, why can you not understand !” said her ladyship, from beneath the compress. “Everything is a disaster! There may as well not be a ball.”
“Nevertheless, ma’am, I can assure you that there very much is one. The house is all but impassable.” Keynsham glanced at his watch again. He hadn’t seen Celia since the previous evening. Being apart from her was causing a strange ache to develop in his chest. He longed to take her arm, to share private jokes with her, and to proudly introduce her to everyone as his future wife.
And, if she’d already arrived, she couldn’t possibly be finding this overcrowded entertainment at all pleasant.
But his mother still hadn’t moved. “Please get up. I must go back downstairs and find Lady Sophronia and Miss Talbot.”
“Oh, Miss Talbot !” moaned Lady Alford. “If I never hear that name again it will be too soon! I have not the slightest notion who this—this girl is. You were to marry an heiress! And now you have been taken in by a nobody , and everything is ruined , and Pomona will never marry well, as if it were not bad enough already that I have spent years trying to hush up her?—"
“ Ma’am! ” exploded Keynsham. His mother snatched the compress off her eyes and stared at him in disbelief. “You will stop speaking!”
“All I was saying was?—"
“Be silent .” He turned to the maids. “Out. Now .”
The maids scuttled out. Keynsham had never spoken in that tone before. “Now. You will never mention that—that matter again. Ever . Do I make myself clear?”
Lady Alford glared at her son. “How dare you! We both know what Pomona did! And we both know what would have happened!”
“Yes. Pomona would have married the man she loved—a good man, a man who would have made her happy.”
“ Happy? ” She snorted. “On two hundred a year? That is not likely!”
“Ma’am. Was there some part of what I said that was unclear?”
She folded her arms mutinously.
“Now. I have not wished to trouble you with the details of our financial position, when you are recently widowed. But you were aware that it is not good. And I told you, in no uncertain terms, that we could not afford a large ball. It is now evident that I must exercise my authority as head of the household in a more direct manner.”
His mother stared at him.
“You have made Pomona miserable enough already. It stops now. You will make no further… comments. And whether or not you find that you are suddenly ‘too old,’ you will get up, you will take your daughter downstairs, and you will greet your four hundred guests. And next week I strongly suggest that you begin a restful stay at Laversham Court.”
At this, Lady Alford regained the power of speech. “What? Old !” She rose, tore off her wrapper and flung it onto the chaise. “I said nothing of the sort!”
Beneath the wrapper she was fully dressed in a shimmering column of silver gauze over an under dress of orchard green silk. A diamond necklace blazed at her throat. “ Old ! Why, I am only six and forty! Everyone says that I look not a day older than five and thirty! As to Laversham Court, that is out of the question. I am to chaperone Pomona’s season.” She tossed her head.
“We will discuss that tomorrow. Perhaps Pomona may prefer to return to Augsburg.”
She sucked in her breath. “Is that so? Oh, I see it all now! No doubt Theodosia and Sophronia are up to their necks in this little scheme! Pomona has all of you wrapped around her finger. Well, you will see what a failure she will be without my guidance. She has inherited none of my beauty. She is plain, and awkward, and a bluestocking, and will never make a ma?—”
There was a slight noise. Keynsham turned and saw Pomona standing in the door. How long had she been there? The answer, as he saw by the fact that her face was flaming and she looked about to cry, was long enough to have heard every cruel word that their mother had said.
She cleared her throat. “I… I came to see when we are to go down.” The satin fabric of her gown was an unflattering stark white that turned her warm skin green. Multiple rows of padded piping and rosettes around the hem made the skirt stand out like a cone, rendering her slight figure sticklike under the stiffened fabric.
Lady Alford tossed her head. “I make no apologies for saying what everyone knows to be true.”
“Ma’am. Hold your tongue.” He tried to smile encouragingly at his sister. “We shall all go down together.” He offered his arm to his mother. “Ma’am?”
“Oh dear .” Lady Alford rolled her eyes. “You cannot seriously mean for us to make an entrance en famille— like the Lord Mayor at his annual fête!” She stumbled.
Keynsham glanced around the room, saw the glass under the chaise longue, picked it up, and smelled its contents. “I see.” He set the glass on the dressing table.
Lady Alford drew herself up. “I am not drunk !”
Keynsham crossed to his sister and kissed her cheek. “You look beautiful,” he whispered.
“No, I do not.” Her teeth were gritted. “But for God’s sake, let us just get this over with.”
The rain was coming down harder than ever. But the back gate was open, and deliveries were still being rushed toward the service door. Fenton slipped inside.
In one way, the weather was lucky. There were no torches or lanterns illuminating the garden, or strolling lovebirds for him to dodge. He ducked behind a tall yew hedge and began making his way toward the house.
Around the side opposite to what he took to be the kitchens, he found what he was looking for: An unlatched lower window. He pulled it open as wide as it would go and wiggled through feet first, scraping his already sore ribs on the windowsill. The floor was farther down than he’d guessed. He lost his grip, fell a foot or so, and sat down hard on the flagstones, rubbing his ankle.
Curse Wilkes. No doubt he’d strolled straight in the front way—like the gentleman he’d always wished to become. He’d be up there mingling with the gorgers, tossing food and wine down his gullet. Fine cheeses… cold roast meats… pastries… hothouse fruits, cakes, and…
Fenton’s stomach growled. He ordered himself not to think about food.
He’d landed in a storage room with open shelves on both sides. There were some brooms and buckets near the door—and a row of dark wool jackets hanging on pegs. Finally some luck! He struggled out of his own wet and dirty jacket. Surprisingly, amongst those on the pegs he found one that fit. Then again, he supposed that weeks of near starvation would thin a man down.
The jacket would help him blend in. It was also long enough to hide the pistol that he’d brought, once he’d tucked it into his waistband.
The shelves held household items: paper bundles full of beeswax candles, tinder boxes, clothes brushes, boot brushes… He pocketed several of the tinder boxes. They’d fetch a few bob. Then he brushed at his trousers until he’d got the dirt off—or at least as far as he could tell in the near darkness.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be doing any of this. But Wilkes had left him no choice.
He turned the door handle and found himself in a bare, whitewashed basement corridor lit by tallow candles. At the far end, another door led to another corridor. The sound of pots and pans clanging warned him that the kitchen was near.
A kitchen—particularly during a large ball—meant plenty of servants.
Would he be caught? He paused. If he’d been clever, he would have… Well, that was just it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t clever. Not like Wilkes was clever. And besides—nobody was clever on one meal in two days.
He pushed the door open a few inches and peeked out. Someone was shouting orders. The rich fragrance of roasting meats billowed into the hallway. It was enough to make his stomach cramp with hunger. A footman rushed past, seemingly only inches from his nose, carrying a tray loaded with cups.
He let the door close. How on earth could he get past so many people? He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. He took a breath and leaned against the cool wall. This had been a bad idea—like most of his ideas. He should leave now. Perhaps he could manage to squirm out the same window that he’d come in.
But… if he gave up, Wilkes would kill Lord Alford. Fenton didn’t doubt that for a moment. And when the young lord was dead, Wilkes would come for him. He’d be dead inside of a week.
He took a breath and tried to steady his nerves. His plan might be suicide. Indeed, it scarcely even deserved to be called a plan. But somehow, he had to get upstairs and kill Wilkes before Wilkes could kill the viscount. After that, it would be too late.
He pushed the door open, stepped out, and—keeping his head down—followed a footman toward the back stairs.
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Fenton’s heart dropped. It was over already—and he hadn’t even got upstairs.
“Well?” The man was glowering at him. “Don’t let me catch you empty-handed again! Get back to the kitchen and see what Cook has that needs taking up! Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes… sir.”
Fenton stepped into the kitchen, trying to look as though he’d been doing it all evening.
There were several huge trays waiting on a table. He picked one up, balanced it on his shoulder, and joined the procession of servants to the back stairs.