Chapter 6
H etty sat stiffly as Molly wrestled with the hooks of her gown.
“If I expire from tight lacing,” Hetty said darkly, “do be sure to inform Lottie that she shall not have my bedchamber. I care not if I am cold in the ground – I shall haunt her all the same.”
“You mustn’t expire just yet,” Georgie said serenely from her perch at the foot of the bed.
She sat cross-legged atop the counterpane with a clipboard balanced upon one knee.
“You must live long enough to marry Lord Langley and escort me to every ball of my come-out. Matching gowns. Coordinated fans. I have made extensive notes.”
“I am not marrying Lord Langley,” Hetty snapped, as Molly gave a particularly vindictive tug to the ribbon fastening at her back. “And you may keep your coordinated fans to yourself.”
Georgie blinked and made a careful note. “Very well. I shall mark you as undecided .”
“Mark me down as six feet under ,” Hetty muttered.
A knock came at the door, and a moment later Marianne slipped inside, clutching a book to her chest. “Mama bids you come down in ten minutes,” she said, barely glancing up. “She also wishes to know whether your slippers are presentable. ”
“They are spotless, I assure you,” Molly said. “I have been polishing them since the tea tray was cleared.”
Mari drifted towards the fire and curled into an armchair like a contented cat, already burying her nose again in her pages.
“What are you reading?” Hetty asked, watching her in the mirror.
“A French volume Georgie insists must not be seen downstairs.”
“Because it contains scenes, ” said Georgie, her tone lofty from her place upon the bed. “Entire chapters of the most unsuitable sort.”
“Not entire chapters,” Mari murmured, flipping a page.
Hetty arched a brow. “Mark the good passages for me, will you? I should like to peruse it next.”
Mari gave a rare smile.
At that moment, Molly took a step back and clasped her hands with a breathless sigh. “There now, Miss. If I may say so, you do look quite the jewel of the Season.”
Hetty stood slowly, letting the silk of her skirts fall into place.
The gown was pale blue, delicate as a robin’s egg, with a scatter of silver embroidery at the hem.
The bodice – square-cut and trimmed with tiny seed pearls – fit just so, while the sleeves were gathered with blue ribbons to match.
A pearl comb glinted in her coiffure beneath the candlelight, and the sash at her waist matched the faintest blush of pink in her cheeks.
“Oh, you look radiant.” Georgie gave a great sigh and flopped backwards across the bed in despair. “It is positively unjust that I must endure another year until my turn. I have perfected my curtsy, committed every cotillion to memory, and still I am condemned to rot in the schoolroom. ”
“You say that now,” said Hetty, reaching for her gloves, “but wait until you are being inspected like a prize goose by thirty gentlemen who only wish to speak of their estates and their horse’s most recent affliction.”
“I adore horses,” Georgie said dreamily. “And I should not mind being a prize goose if it meant someone sent me peonies.”
Mari did not look up as she turned a page. “You are already a goose.”
“And you,” Georgie shot back, “are a mouse who reads filth.”
“It is French literature, Georgiana. And exceedingly educational.”
“You stole it from my bookshelf. It was hidden quite deliberately beneath Madame de Stael. I only purchased it to improve my French vocabulary.”
Mari turned a page calmly. “And did it?”
Georgie sniffed. “Immeasurably. I now know five different euphemisms for stockings.”
“Oh, I have no doubt,” Hetty muttered.
A tremendous crash echoed from the hallway, followed by the sound of barking.
Nell burst through the doorway an instant later.
“I am borrowing Hetty’s fan! The one with the gold fringe.
I require it to barter with Cook for a second pudding.
” She marched straight to the vanity and began rummaging through the drawers without so much as a by-your-leave.
“Also, the dogs have made off with someone’s slipper. ”
“No!” Molly cried and fled the room as if her life – or at least Hetty’s left shoe – depended upon it .
Hetty pressed a hand to her temple. It was, she reflected, a marvel she had not already eloped with a footman, if only for the sake of silence.
—
?—
The Tolliver carriage was the very latest in Mayfair opulence, lacquered a deep green and adorned with gilt so polished one might be forgiven for seeking one’s reflection in it. No expense had been spared, for Lady Tolliver disdained nothing so much as being mistaken for a family of modest means.
London bustled outside, lamps glowing along the cobbled streets.
Carriages jostled for precedence, liveried footmen shouted and horses stomped and snorted in the crisp spring air.
The road to Lady Braithwaite’s townhouse was positively choked with traffic, and every fashionable family seemed bound for the same glittering destination.
Within the carriage, however, the atmosphere was rather less glittering.
“You would be better served to attend in one slipper than that monstrosity, Henrietta,” said Lady Tolliver for the fourth time in ten minutes, fluttering her fan like a bird in distress. “It is simply not done. Think of the whispers! Think of the Duchess!”
“It was the dogs, Mama,” said Hetty. “They carried it off into the garden and buried it by the gooseberry bush. I am fortunate Molly unearthed it at all.”
The rescued slipper, still slightly damp and now smelling of earth, had been dabbed with lavender water and re-ribboned in haste. Hetty had declared it perfectly serviceable .
Her mother disagreed, of course – vehemently and with great feeling.
“We ought to have ordered more! I said so at the time, did I not? I distinctly recall saying, ‘Three pairs, at the very least!’ But no one ever listens, and now – now you are to waltz before half of London with one foot smelling of gooseberries!”
“The others would not do,” said Hetty. “The yellow pair clashed most offensively with the trim of my gown, the ivory ones were scuffed, and the pink – if memory serves – were dismissed by you, Mama, as ‘insufferably girlish’ and unfit for a Tolliver daughter of marriageable age.”
Lady Tolliver groaned and resumed fanning herself. “Oh, my nerves. My poor, beleaguered nerves.”
In truth, Hetty might have worn the scuffed ivory pair and spared them all the trouble – but something perverse and ungovernable had taken hold of her the moment she saw the unearthed slipper with dirt still clinging to the silk.
There was a dark satisfaction in watching her mother flinch each time it peeped out beneath her hem.
Across from them, Lord Tolliver dozed peacefully, snoring softly and clutching a folded Times, which he had not, at any point, opened.
“He is asleep,” Lady Tolliver hissed. “Naturally. I am one tremor from complete collapse, and he dreams of pheasant shooting.”
The carriage wheels clattered over the cobblestones as the Tolliver barouche turned onto Upper Brook Street, drawing closer to the light and music spilling from Lady Braithwaite’s townhouse.
Footmen stood ramrod-straight in gold-trimmed livery and elegant ladies descended from their carriages like swans gliding into a pond of silk and diamonds.
The gentlemen adjusted their cravats and puffed out their chests like peacocks.
“Now, I shall say this but once, Henrietta Tolliver, and I expect you to absorb it fully: the gossip columns may have found your conduct at the last ball rather charming – Heaven help me – but I warn you, Society’s indulgence is fickle at best. One moment, they are applauding your audacity as the very pinnacle of fashionable allure, and the next, you are whispered about behind fans at Almack’s and politely excluded from every respectable dance card in Mayfair. ”
“Yes, Mama.”
“You must understand,” she continued, warming to the theme, “you are no longer an inconspicuous debutante at the edge of the ballroom praying for a country dance. You are the Diamond of the Season. With that title comes expectations… dignity, grace and irreproachable conduct. One cannot go about dousing titled gentlemen in claret more than once per Season, no matter how offensive their remarks.”
“Of course not, Mama.”
“I am not, in principle, opposed to another dance with Lord Langley. He is – well, yes, he is a rake, but he is also an earl, and much to my astonishment, he appears to have formed a particular interest in you. I had once considered him wholly unsuitable, but should he possess genuine intentions, then naturally, we shall receive him. Carefully, and at a safe remove.”
“Naturally, Mama.”
“But not four dances again. It was entirely excessive. You may stand up with him twice this evening, and no more. That is sufficient to imply interest, without appearing desperate. If he should make an offer before the quadrille, all the better. But for heaven’s sake, do not force his hand. A lady does not pursue.”
“No, Mama – never. A lady wafts.”
“Precisely. And if all proceeds as I hope, we may have an engagement by the end of the evening, and I may at last turn my attention to Georgiana’s debut without spinsterhood looming over this household like a thundercloud.
” Lady Tolliver, quite satisfied with her own magnanimity, smoothed her gloves and sighed.
“Now, let us pray this evening passes without incident – or at least, without the sort of incident that results in exile.”
—
?—
The ballroom beyond the entryway glittered like a fairy palace in a blaze of chandeliers, mirrored panels and sweeping silk trains. A quartet played a lively jig near the far wall, and Lady Braithwaite herself held court by the stair rail.
The footman at the door struck his staff against the marble and declared, “Viscount Tolliver, Lady Tolliver and Miss Tolliver.”