The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  As she listened with half an ear to Miss Stride’s lecture on correct topics for genteel conversation, Augusta looked thoughtfully across the room at her niece. Soft candlelight flickered over the gold curls of Penelope’s hair. She looked as beautiful and as fragile as a piece of fine porcelain. Would her niece succeed in capturing the Earl’s heart when so many others had failed?

  She’d better, thought Augusta grimly, or out she goes.

  Augusta suddenly realised that Miss Stride had changed the topic and had turned her hard gaze on the portraits of Augusta’s “ancestors” lining the walls. “And those,” Miss Stride was saying with a wave of her gloved hand, “must be put in the attic.”

  “My ancestors!” said Augusta in horror.

  “Not your ancestors,” said Miss Stride sweetly. “You bought those when young Emmens’ home went under the hammer. I know it, and so will everyone else. You must replace them with some good landscapes and” she added hurriedly, seeing the look of fury on Augusta’s face, “perhaps have your portrait painted. Yes, that’s it, Miss Harvey. An elegant portrait of yourself above the fireplace would give the room tone.”

  That appealed immensely to Augusta’s vanity, and she nodded her wigged head enthusiastically.

  “And while we are on the subject of this room,” went on Miss Stride. “Those glaring stripes do not go with the carpet. We cannot do anything about the stripes before tomorrow but plain curtains at the window, Miss Harvey, and do get rid of those cheap, tawdry, china ornaments. Haven’t you anything else?”

  “I’ve some nasty old China stuff in the attics,” said Agusta sulkily. The Chinese vases and screens had belonged to her late employer and she had always found them depressing. “Probably Ming,” said Miss Stride with a titter. “Really, Miss Harvey, it is just as well you have me to advise you.”

  “Is it?” said Augusta rudely. “I hope so. I like my money’s worth and I don’t like to be cheated.”

  Penelope looked up quickly in surprise, and Augusta gave her a wide smile. Penelope smiled back. Of course, Aunt meant she hoped the vases were Ming, she thought, bending her head over her sewing again, and does not want to think she has been cheated with imitations. But for one awful moment, I actually thought she meant Miss Stride!

  She then wondered what on earth the haughty Earl would think if he could see this frantic dress rehearsal for his call tomorrow.

  As he prepared to ride over to Brook Street next day, the Earl wondered if he had taken leave of his senses. Miss Harvey’s visit to the Courtlands’ ball had left a wave of gossip washing about the clubs and salons of London, and, although she had not been seen at any function since then, society still mocked and talked.

  The house in Brook Street, he had to admit as he rolled up in his high-sprung chaise, seemed very respectable. The brass knocker was well polished and the steps gleamed white.

  A very correct butler ushered him into the hall and took his driving coat. Miss Harvey was modern enough to have her drawing room on the ground floor instead of the first, and the Earl was quickly announced.

  At first he did not recognise Augusta in the respectable stout matron dressed in plum-colored silk of a discreet cut and wearing a large velvet turban. He asked her how she went on and waited cynically for a long and vulgar outburst. To his surprise, she only replied, “very well, thank you,” and then went on to talk in subdued tones—pausing occasionally to correct her lapses in grammar—about the weather.

  The peremptory little clock briskly snapped up five minutes of time and Penelope appeared. She was wearing a white muslin dress, high-waisted, with little puff sleeves edged with artifical honeysuckle which also decorated the deep flounces at the hem of her gown. Her sunny hair fell to her white shoulders in ringlets from under a bergère straw hat which framed her delicate features. She carried a fine Norfolk shawl over her shoulders and a pretty little chicken skin fan with ivory sticks in one gloved hand.

  The Earl, decided Penelope, looked much more formidable than she had remembered, and her heart sank right down to the toes of her bronze kid Roman sandals.

  He was wearing a blue coat with brass buttons worn wide open over a transparent cambric shirt, rose waistcoat, and intricate cravat. Leather breeches and Hessian boots with jaunty little gold tassels completed the ensemble. His copper curls were intricately dressed in the Windswept, and one hard silver eye stared at her, horribly magnified, through the eye of his quizzing glass.

  He let the glass fall and bent over her hand. “You are a vision of loveliness, Miss Vesey,” he said with a slight mocking edge to his voice.

  “I am?” declared Penelope, startled. She knew her blond good looks were decidedly unfashionable in a world which favored dark beauties. Then she realised the compliment was probably no more than a meaningless gallantry, and her face fell.

  The Earl watched the various emotions chasing each other across her expressive face as he courteously held the door open for her. He was suddenly quite glad that he had decided to keep this appointment after all.

  The Earl gave his full attention to his horses until he had maneuvered through the press of traffic and had entered the gates of Hyde Park. All at once it seemed as if the noise and bustle of London were left behind, and Penelope stared about her with delight at the cool stretches of green grass, the grazing cows and deer, and the huge old trees.

  The Earl slowed his horses to a leisurely amble and then, turning to his companion asked, “And how are you enjoying your Season, Miss Vesey?”

  “I am not really having a Season,” said Penelope thoughtfully. “It seems that we are not considered quite fashionable enough. But I am enjoying the novelty of having pretty clothes and… oh… every sort of comfort.”

  “Are you not used to comfort?” asked the Earl, reining the carriage to a halt under the broad shade of an oak tree.

  “Not really,” said Penelope slowly. “Until recently I was an articled pupil at a seminary in Bath and, no, it was vastly un comfortable. But I would rather talk of pleasanter things. You must tell me about Almack’s since it is highly unlikely that I shall ever be allowed past its hallowed portals.”

  The Earl looked down at her, quickly masking his surprise. Miss Vesey appeared to have no interest at all in attaching his affections. It was a novelty which should have been pleasant, but he felt strangely piqued.

  He collected himself in order to reply to her question. “Almack’s, Miss Vesey, would not be rated above half were it not so exclusive. Everyone fights to get in and when they are there, they are blessed if they can see what all the fuss is about.

  “The balls at Almack’s are, as you no doubt know, held on Wednesdays. The lady patronesses are the Ladies Castlereigh, Jersey, Cowper, and Sefton, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the Princess Esterhazy, and the Countess Lieven. Let me see—the most popular is Lady Cowper. Lady Jersey, on the contrary, goes on like a tragedy queen and while attempting the sublime, she frequently makes herself simply ridiculous. She is very rude and often illbred. Lady Sefton is kind, the Countess Lieven is haughty and exclusive, Princess Esterhazy is amiable, and Lady Castlereigh and Mrs. Burrell are very grandes dames. The female government of Almack’s is sheer despotism, and they rule their gossiping, dancing world with a rod of iron.”

  “I believe the mazy waltz is being danced there,” said Penelope. She had heard from the rich young misses of the Bath seminary that the waltz was a very fast dance indeed.

  “It’s catching on,” said the Earl laconically. “But we have the celebrated Neil Gow from Edinburgh conducting the orchestra so we mostly still perform Scottish reels and English country dances. Ah, but I forgot. There is a new dance. It is called the quadrille and is danced by eight persons. In the first quadrille ever danced at Almack’s, there was Lady Jersey, Lady Harriet Butler, Lady Susan Ryder, and Miss Montgomery. The men were the Count St. Aldegonde, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Montague, and Charles Standish.”

  He paused and then said idly, “Would you care to go to Almack’s, Miss Vesey?�
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  “Yes,” said Penelope slowly. “Yes, I would. But it is not possible.”

  “Why?” asked the Earl abruptly. “Why do you wish to go to Almack’s?”

  Penelope sighed. He was being remarkably obtuse. “Why, my lord, does any female wish for a Season? Why does any young woman worth her salt wish to attend Almack’s? To find a husband of course!”

  “I have only known you a short time, Miss Vesey,” said the Earl severely, “but somehow I would have thought you above the petty bartering of the marriage mart.”

  “Then what else do you suggest I do?” said Penelope reasonably. “A comfortable home of one’s own is a better prospect than being employed as a drudge at some seminary. Besides, I should like children of my own. Marriage is the only career open to a lady in this day and age.”

  “And does love not enter into your calculations?” demanded the Earl with a hint of a sneer.

  Penelope looked vaguely across the summer picture of the park. “Oh, love!” she said at last. “No, my lord, I have no money of my own. Love is a luxury I cannot afford.”

  She looked quickly up at his face and surprised the look of contempt in his eyes. “Why do you look so?” she demanded angrily. “It is easy for you to prate on about love, my lord. You have only to drop the handkerchief and any woman—with the exception of myself—would be glad to pick it up.”

  “So I do not enter into your marital plans?”

  “No,” said Penelope. “You are too high in the instep for me, my lord. Besides, you make me feel uncomfortable.”

  “In that case, Miss Vesey, you need not have come driving with me.”

  “Oh, but I had to,” said Penelope simply. “Aunt Augusta would have been so disappointed. You see, she has brought me to London and has bought me oh! so many beautiful clothes. She was very flattered by your invitation to dinner. It would have been cruel to disappoint her. I am being unfashionably honest with you, my lord, because I am sure there are so many other females who would enjoy your company immensely and it is not necessary to waste your time with me. I believe you are considered quite handsome,” she added in a kind voice.

  “My fortune certainly is, and where my fortune leads, my face must follow,” he said dryly. “Tell me, Miss Vesey, did you sing that singularly naughty ballad the other night in order to disgust me?”

  “Yes,” said Penelope with an infectious ripple of laughter. “Was it not dreadful? Papa’s friends were six-bottle-a-day men, you know, and would often sing it when they were in their cups and too far gone to notice a little girl in the corner of the room.”

  “Your father?” The Earl frowned. “Was he by any chance a relation of Sir James Vesey?”

  “His youngest son.”

  “But good God, girl, the Vesey family would supply you with all the entrée you need!”

  “My father was considered to have married beneath him,” said Penelope quietly. “Sir James took a dislike to Aunt Augusta in particular. He has shown no interest in me.”

  The Earl fell silent. It was certainly not unusual on the part of Sir James in a world where people often cut their own mothers and fathers socially if they considered them not fashionable enough.

  Penelope looked so calm and assured as she sat sedately behind him. He felt she should have at least made some fashionable effort to flirt. He suddenly wanted to make a crack in that beautiful and porcelain composure.

  He turned and leaned towards her. “But have you considered what any marriage would be like to a man you did not love?”

  “Of course,” said Penelope, resolutely banishing her adolescent dreams of a strong and handsome lover. “I should not see much of him at all, you see. If gentlemen are not at their clubs or their politics, they are on the hunting field.”

  “Ah, but were I in love with someone,” said the Earl, forcing her to meet his gaze, “I would not leave her side for a moment.”

  Penelope felt suddenly breathless and awkward. She rapidly held her fan in front of her face. “Since we shall not be seeing anything of each other in the future, my lord, we should not be talking like this.”

  The Earl studied the top of her frivolous hat as she bent her head and lowered her fan to her lap and stared at its painted pictures.

  “Jobbins!” said the Earl, without removing his gaze from Penelope. “There is a fine oak tree about a hundred yards to your left. Go and count the branches.”

  “Very good, my lord,” said his groom, Jobbins, with a grin, and climbed down from his perch.

  The Earl waited a few moments and then asked gently, “Do you know why I sent Jobbins away, Miss Vesey?”

  “No,” said Penelope in a small voice.

  “Because I wish to kiss you.”

  “Oh!”

  “Is that all you can say?” teased the Earl. “’Oh.’”

  “I appeal to you as a gentleman,” said Penelope primly, “not to take advantage of our isolated position.” Their quarter of the park was deserted, the fashionable throng having made their way to parade their carriages in the Ring.

  “But I am about to take advantage of our isolated position,” the infuriating, teasing voice went on.

  Penelope sighed. “Oh, go ahead. I am not going to make a cake of myself by fleeing across Hyde Park on foot.” She shut her eyes and screwed up her face. He looked down at her for a second in some amusement and then took her very gently in his arms. He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her small straight nose, and then his wandering mouth suddenly clamped down over her own. Penelope’s last coherent thought before she was carried away on a buffeting sea of emotions, and tremblings and strange, tortured virginal passions was that Sir James Vesey might have had some point in thinking they were a vulgar family. No lady would behave so. No lady would feel so.

  At last he raised his head and the world of sunlight and trees and grass came swirling back. She looked up into his eyes and found them as hard and cold as the winter sea. Why should he look at her like that? It was his fault after all.

  The Earl brusquely summoned his groom and set his horses in motion. “We shall join the fashionables, Miss Vesey,” he said coldly, “and then I shall take you home.”

  Roger, Earl of Hestleton, was furious. The girl had succeeded in awaking a series of emotions he had considered long dead and buried. Had Penelope made some flirtatious remark, he would have snapped her head off. But she sat very quiet and still and rather white-faced. He slowly became aware that he had behaved very badly indeed and set himself to make amends.

  As they joined the series of glittering carriages in the Ring, he asked lightly, “Well, Miss Vesey, here we have the cream of society. What do you think?”

  Penelope looked about her, wide-eyed, her recent distress temporarily forgotten. It was a glittering spectacle as the dandies and their ladies promenaded to display their elaborate toilettes and spanking carriages pulled by the finest horses. Many ladies were driven in a little carriage for two persons, called a vis-à-vis. This gorgeous equipage had a hammer cloth, rich in heraldic designs, powdered footmen in smart liveries, and a coachman who looked as stately as an archbishop. Then she laughed, “I feel like a poor child looking in the window of a pastry cook’s. I suppose I shall always be outside, looking in.”

  “Would you like to attend Almack’s?” asked the Earl abruptly.

  “You have already asked me that question,” said Penelope patiently.

  “I mean— really attend.”

  “Of course.”

  “I can arrange it,” he said simply.

  Penelope looked at him, wide-eyed. “How?”

  “Like this,” he said with a charming smile lighting up his austere face. He inched his carriage forward and then began to introduce Penelope to various notables. Names and titles flew about her bewildered ears, hard eyes stared and speculated, jealous female eyes flicked back and forth from the Earl’s face to her own, dandies bowed and simpered, Corinthians stared and leered.

  Obviously the Earl of Hestleton had grea
t social power. When it was discovered she was Augusta Harvey’s niece, though it caused some rapid blinking, it did not seem to make much difference to the polite, if formal, reception given to her by the fashionable set. If the Earl of Hestleton found nothing to disgust him in Augusta Harvey, then neither would they. From being a vulgar, pushing mushroom, Augusta was elevated in their minds to the rank of a tedious eccentric, and after all, there was always some new butt around to receive the barbed attention of society.

  Penelope was then introduced to two of the patronesses of Almack’s and, luckily for her, to two of the most amiable, Lady Sefton and Lady Cowper. Both patronesses decided that Penelope’s behavior was unexceptionable and allowed that she was quite pretty although it was a pity she was so unfashionably fair.

  The Earl’s suggestion that vouchers for Almack’s should be sent to Penelope was met with a pleasant “perhaps” instead of the open horror which would have met such a request had it been made by any other. Such are the fickle vagaries of fashion.

  As they drove from the park, Penelope had forgotten her desire to be free of the Earl’s company and turned a glowing face up to his. “Oh, thank you,” she breathed.

  “’Tis nothing,” he said, looking down briefly at the enchanting face turned up towards his. “It will all be worth it to see Miss Harvey’s debut at Almack’s.”

  Penelope bit her lip. He had not really been kind. Only indulging in a fit of whimsy. And the kiss, the memory of which still made her feel weak, had meant nothing to him.

  She sat in silence until he deposited her in Brook Street. She must marshal her wayward thoughts and take full opportunity of her new social status and find a husband. Some kindly country squire would suit admirably.

  Chapter Five

  “You must not fidget, madam,” said the artist, Mr. Liwoski.

  Augusta gave him a sulky glare. She was paying him for his services, wasn’t she? But Miss Stride had said that Mr. Liwoski was the best and cheapest that Soho could provide, and since Penelope was in the room, she contented herself by turning her eyes to the card rack on the mantelpiece where two vouchers to Almack’s were prominently displayed.