CHAPTER FIVE
‘I thought how Lord Nuneaton singled Amelia out last night a very promising sign, did not you, Elizabeth?’ Lady Chalford clearly wanted agreement.
They were seated, eating a light luncheon and contemplating a visit to Lady Chalford’s preferred milliner.
Her ladyship had decided that the bonnet that had seemed just right with Amelia’s new pelisse made her look too old.
She had noted that Lord Nuneaton was remarkably taken with Amelia’s fresh youthfulness, and wished to show it to advantage, although Amelia was keen to appear older and more sophisticated than her seventeen years.
Amelia said nothing, kept her gaze lowered and concentrated upon peeling an apple, though her cheeks reddened.
‘So, who won the right to fetch you your champagne in the end, Amelia?’
Amelia laughed and her blush was not embarrassed, but of pleasure. ‘The honour went to Lord Carbrooke, though I was sure to promise that if Mr Southram is at Almack’s on Tuesday, I will keep the first quadrille for him. He seemed so downcast.’
Lady Chalford did not pursue this conversation and threw her niece a look of mild reproach.
Even she saw that the superior rank of Lord Nuneaton would not count for much when put against younger and more dashing gentlemen.
When Amelia excused herself to go and dress for the afternoon’s expedition, she frowned at Elizabeth.
‘I do not think that was well done of you, Elizabeth. 65Lord Nuneaton’s bestowing of his interest upon Amelia does her no harm in the eyes of the world. I do not say I am convinced it is more than interest, but if he were to offer for her … She would lack for nothing.’
‘Except a man to whom she might be deeply attached. I saw her last night, Aunt. I think he frightened her a little. He is perhaps too much a man of the world, as well as being nearly old enough to be her father. She looked acutely uncomfortable.’
‘She will soon learn how to receive more fulsome compliments. I do not pretend that they are quite what I would like her to hear, but one cannot expect a gentleman who has not looked, I swear, at a young woman in a decade, to instantly remember how best to approach them. Amelia is very fortunate.’
Elizabeth held her tongue. She thought he had looked the sort of man who looked at ‘young women’ very frequently, but of a very different class from that contemplated by Lady Chalford.
Madame Minette abandoned several lesser customers to her minions at the entrance of Lady Chalford and her charges to her exclusive premises in Conduit Street.
Lady Chalford herself was an old and regular customer, and, for a more mature lady, showed off many styles to great advantage.
She was what Madame Minette thought of as a natural hat wearer.
That this Season she was bringing out the delightful Miss Amelia, whose open features and golden hair could be framed well by almost anything on display, and would draw admiring glances and more custom, guaranteed personal 66attention.
Elizabeth, content to watch and listen, watched her cousin try on a variety of chip straws and villager hats with satin bows, grosgrain ribbons or bunches of cherries.
Amelia was not a decisive girl, and her mother could see her capturing the noble lord’s heart if not his name, in several of them.
Throughout the swapping, debating and a very little subtle haggling over the price if three hats were purchased, Elizabeth thought herself a mere bystander, until Madame whispered to an underling and sent her into the rear workroom.
She returned with a low-crowned beaver in a dove grey, quite masculine in style, but with a stiff, deep red plume up the left side.
‘As I recall, Mademoiselle Ashling is the equestrienne, non? I thought perhaps …’
She nodded to the underling, who presented the hat to Elizabeth and took up a mirror. Madame herself adjusted the tilt to the veriest hint of a dashing angle and stood back to admire.
‘There. I knew it. Mademoiselle is ravissante.’
It was true, thought Elizabeth, that the hat was very becoming. But her habit was a dark blue.
‘It looks very nice, but the colour, is it not a little … depressing?’ Lady Chalford was thinking of a grey habit to match.
‘Ah, but with the red as a highlight, a high collar and cuffs perhaps, milady— A little militaire, and with silver buttons.’
Lady Chalford’s eyes narrowed as she considered this image.
67‘But my habit is still perfectly serviceable,’ remonstrated Elizabeth, trying not to let herself be carried away with the image in her head, combined with that in the mirror.
‘You look to advantage upon a horse, my dear, and the habit is three Seasons old,’ Lady Chalford remarked pragmatically.
Elizabeth thought that even in the wonderful hat and a new habit she could not look to advantage upon the Slug, but could not mention this to her aunt. It was so tempting.
Madame saw the wavering and sensed the victory. ‘Upon another, mademoiselle, it would be wasted. I think perhaps I imagined you when I designed it, hein?’
Elizabeth was not deceived, and yet …
‘We will take it,’ announced Lady Chalford, raising a gloved hand to still any comment from her niece, ‘and we will see about a new habit, Elizabeth. There.’
Lady Chalford had made her decision, although technically the money would come from Elizabeth’s allowance. The footman accompanying them left the shop balancing three hatboxes, and hoping the ladies would not purchase anything else.
‘We will arrange for the tailor to come tomorrow. No point in waiting, since the Season is advancing.’
‘Aunt, are you sure? The cost of the hat is not so substantial, but with a new habit …’
‘My dear, it would be a foolish thing to buy a hat and have nothing to wear with it, and you do look lovely on horseback.’
‘I do not ride for appearances’ sake.’
68‘No, Elizabeth, but your appearance is important.’
‘I …’ She shook her head, giving in. ‘As you wish.’ It would not gain her suitors, which was her aunt’s aim. At the same time the idea of a new habit, combined with that hat, was secretly rather exciting.
Once returned to Mount Street, Lady Chalford retired to restore her strength for the evening’s entertainment by resting for an hour or so upon her chaise longue with a book of sermons, and her eyes shut.
The young ladies were not so inclined, but fortified themselves with tea and little biscuits, and Elizabeth set about discovering her cousin’s true thoughts upon the person of Lord Nuneaton.
This proved more difficult than she imagined, but not for the reasons that she had expected.
Amelia had taken the easiest course and thrown all thoughts of her most illustrious admirer into a dark recess of her brain.
She was therefore able to concentrate upon the far nicer prospect of the other debutantes with whom she was establishing giggling friendships, contemplating presentation at Court, and, by no means least, the rivalry of her younger potential suitors, although as yet she saw them simply as fun and friendly.
‘Mr Southram is so droll. He said he would have to call Lord Carbrooke out if he persisted in coming first with me, but hoped, as a friend and a good shot, Lord Carbrooke would have the grace to choose neither swords nor pistols, but something a little less damaging, such as walking canes.’ She giggled.
‘He then realised that this might seem as though he were not prepared to face great peril on my 69behalf, and spent several minutes describing how nasty being prodded with a walking cane might be. He nearly had me in whoops.’
‘And what was Lord Carbrooke’s response to this?’
‘Oh, he was determined not to be outdone, and looked terribly serious, and began enumerating the advantages and disadvantages of different woods. And his eyes twinkled so. I declare it was the best twenty minutes I have spent all month, and Julia Wingate said that several of the less generous young ladies present were very put out at me having two gentlemen “paying court”, as she put it, all that time.’
Miss Wingate was Amelia’s bosom companion among the debutantes.
Having had two older sisters make their come-out before her, she was a little more confident than Amelia, and a keen watcher of all that went on about her.
Since one of her married sisters, the other being near her confinement, was also enjoying the Season, she also heard rather more of the on dits than the sheltered Amelia.
Elizabeth judged that in years to come she would become a formidable fount of gossip, but she was without malice.
‘And what about Lord Nuneaton?’
‘I do not for one moment imagine anyone would be jealous of me having to spend time listening to him.’ Amelia sounded sulky.
‘Why, he is quite old, perhaps nearly as old as Papa, and says things that put one to the blush. I am not sure Mama would have approved of half of them, and you can be sure I did not repeat any of them to her. I would think I must have been the object of pity had any of the other girls seen me.’ She paused, frowning.
‘I do hope Mama does not expect me to dance with him. He looked as 70if he would be a very clumsy dancer.’ Then she brightened.
‘But then Papa has not danced since the New Year’s party at home, and it was unusual for him to do so.
I think he had taken a little too much rum punch.
’ A giggle escaped her. ‘But not as much as Harry Festing.’
‘Mmm, that is not an episode I particularly wish to recall.’ Elizabeth tried to look severe.
‘He did not mean to fall asleep on your bed, I am sure.’
‘No doubt. He simply wandered upstairs and opened the door that approximated to where he would find his bedchamber at home, and collapsed happily upon my bed. The fact that he had also applied far too much hair oil in achieving the look that he thought fashionable, and that it ruined my lace-edged pillow, was the final straw.’