CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Knowing her heavy eyes bore witness to a restless night, Laura strove to present a bright aspect when she entered the dining room the next day. “Good morning, Mama. Isn’t this a beautiful day?” Her glance swept around the room and her smile intensified. “Has my uncle finished?”
“A few minutes ago.” Mrs. Marsh returned her eyes to the coffee she was pouring, so Laura had time to adjust her expression as Sophia appeared in the doorway, yawning.
She too glanced around. “Is Papa gone?”
“He is in his study,” Annabelle replied, while Laura hid a smile at Sophia’s relieved look as both girls slid into chairs.
Laura was biting into a piece of toast when her mother, having sugared her coffee to her taste, indicated a creamy-white card at her plate.
“This was hand-delivered this morning. It is an invitation to take tea with Lady Hastings tomor — goodness, are you all right, dearest?” She half rose, but Sophia, sitting next to Laura, jumped up and pounded her choking cousin on the back.
Laura’s eyes watered, but the crumb was quickly dislodged.
from her windpipe and she raised a hand to signal Sophia to stop.
As her daughter’s coughing subsided, Annabelle said dryly, “I presume I need not ask if you were aware that Lady Hastings was in Town?”
Laura, sipping from her water glass, shook her head. “M … must we go?” she asked faintly.
Annabelle’s arched brows escalated, but her tone was casual as she glanced from her niece’s surprised face to her daughter’s eyes, downcast on the fingers that toyed with her glass.
“Oh yes, I think so. It would be vastly uncivil to fob her off, even though it is the day of Sophie’s ball.
It is a very cordial note in which she apologises for her haste to get her son home that made it impossible to call on us in Hertfordshire. ”
“Well, this sounds promising. I did not realise that matters had gone so far with Jack Hastings,” Sophia said brightly. “Are felicitations in order, cousin?”
“No!” Laura denied quickly. “No doubt it is just as Lady Hastings says. She merely wishes to repair an omission in not thanking us personally for helping her son after his accident.”
“Whatever the reason, we would not wish to seem unreceptive to an indication that she desires to improve the acquaintance,” Annabelle said with decision. “I, for one, am prepared to like the woman who raised a son who embodies so many amiable qualities as Lord Hastings.”
Feeling her mother’s eyes on her, Laura murmured a quick assent while spreading preserves on another slice of toast with fingers that acted like ten sticks.
She persevered, desperate to present a normal appearance, though the idea of facing Lady Hastings after rudely rejecting her beloved son had created an obstruction in her throat that would make swallowing an impossible feat.
She was dimly aware that Sophia was consulting with her aunt as to the best choice of gown for her dance, but she heard nothing of the lively discussion that ensued; her posture of attention masked a turmoil in her mind that enlisted all her faculties at the moment.
When had Lady Hastings arrived? Laura distinctly recalled that only yesterday Jack had bemoaned the fact that he had not been able to persuade her to come to town since his father’s death.
What, then, had brought her here without her son’s prior knowledge?
A sudden mental picture of Lady Crofton floating about on the periphery of the dance floor at Almack’s had Laura biting her lip.
Had Jack’s godmother warned her old friend that her son appeared attentive to an unsuitable young lady?
Lady Hastings had wasted no time in dispatching this invitation on the heels of her arrival.
Laura’s eyes flicked to Annabelle, who was listening with a little smile to Sophia’s inner debate.
Her mother had found the tenor of Lady Hastings’ note cordial and welcoming, and looked forward to the meeting with pleasure.
A sennight ago — even a few days ago — her own reaction would have been mild curiosity, free of any serious restraint or self-consciousness. But now…
Thanks to a habit of intemperate speech, often deplored by her mother, she would be meeting Lady Hastings.
with a conscience plagued by the awareness of having been gratuitously, unfairly cruel to her son.
She writhed mentally at the very idea of accepting the unsuspecting woman’s hospitality with such a burdened soul.
An even more terrible possibility struck her as she absently crumbled toast on her plate with nervous fingers: was Lady Hastings unsuspecting, or had Jack told her of their quarrel?
She brushed the thought away fiercely. Men did not normally confide such personal issues to their mothers, did they?
Surely not … but Jack was not like the generality of men in his relations with women, she admitted, unaware in her torment of the irony of describing him thusly less than four-and-twenty hours after branding him with the same faults she had found in her male relatives.
At that point Sophia hauled Laura out of her morbid state of introspection by inquiring what she planned to wear for the party. The subject of ballroom attire had been thoroughly re-examined by the time the women left the dining room.
The spectre of the upcoming tea party returned to haunt Laura whenever she let down her mental guard during a day crowded with appointments and chores pertaining to the morrow’s birthday ball.
She was grateful to be so much occupied, not only because activity kept these thoughts at bay, but because it enabled her to evade a tête-à-tête with her mother, whose uncanny proclivity for reading her child’s mind she strongly desired to render inoperable at present.
They attended a private ball that evening.
Last night she’d dreaded the prospect of coming face to face with Jack Hastings, but tonight she’d have welcomed an opportunity to ask him if he’d confided the circumstances of their last meeting to his mother.
She watched the doorways in vain, however, for the baron did not put in an appearance.
Midway through the evening her hand was solicited by Mr. Castle for a waltz.
Since he was nearly as accomplished a dancer as Jack, she’d have enjoyed the experience had she not been keeping a stern guard on her tongue to prevent herself from revealing an interest in his friend’s whereabouts.
Her prudence was eventually rewarded when the ever-garrulous Mr. Castle said, “Jack expected to be here tonight, but his mother is in town. He’s taking her to visit with some old friends to test the waters before getting back into the social swim,” he added, turning her in a wide twirl that sent her skirts flying.
“Oh yes?” Laura replied, attempting an offhand delivery as she caught her breath and followed his lead perfectly. “My mother and I are going to take tea with Lady Hastings tomorrow.”
“Are you? You’ll like Lady Hastings. She’s a very good sort, always welcomes Jack’s friends, never interferes and she sets a good table — real food. None of this quivering party fare most hostesses favour these days. She sets out food you can get your teeth into.”
“Thank you, Mr. Castle,” Laura said, adopting a solemn air. “I shall remember that a female should never serve quivering jellies or aspics to gentlemen if she desires to retain their good opinion.”
Mr. Castle’s words came back to Laura the next afternoon as she and Annabelle — unaccompanied by Sophia, who had begged off in order to rest before her big night — were admitted to a spacious high-ceilinged hall by a dignified personage they rightly assumed to be his lordship’s butler.
Jack’s friend’s comforting assessment could not have been further from the point, which was not how Lady Hastings would strike her but how she would appear to Jack’s fond mother.
She did not dwell on why it should matter that the mother of the man she had rejected should not find her lacking in personal attributes, but it would be idle to deny that it did matter to her.
As they followed the butler up a staircase with a beautiful wrought-iron balustrade, Laura slid a sideways glance at her mother, who was the epitome of tranquil elegance in a mauve dress of a sheer wool that emphasised the lovely lines of her body.
She grimaced unconsciously, wondering if she’d ever learn to conceal her feelings.
She did not relish the idea that her face might be an open book for mere acquaintances to read.
The advancing party reached the entrance to a small saloon at this moment, and Laura’s wandering fancy was brought squarely to the petite figure bustling forward to greet them with a beaming smile.
Laura, watching with appreciation the consummate ease with which her elders overcame the awkwardness of meeting without the intervention of a mutual acquaintance, was glad she had worn her favourite teal blue outfit with her straw bonnet, for Lady Hastings was not what she had expected.
Somehow she’d pictured a frail, grieving creature, wan of aspect and swathed in widow’s weeds, not this plump, sweet-faced little lady with a youthful complexion and apple cheeks that reflected the rosy hue of her softly draped gown.
The initial amenities completed, the ladies disposed themselves in comfortable chairs with oval backs and marine blue seats flanking a tea table teeming with a tempting array of baked delicacies. Lady Hastings embarked upon a spontaneous, rambling monologue as she prepared the tea for her guests.