An Exquisite Marriage

by Darcie Wilde

  “I’m not joking,” he answered, and he realized he meant it. In fact, as he’d wandered about the ballroom listening to girls’ voices until it felt like he had a chorus of crickets between his ears, he realized he was really listening, and looking, for Helene. He’d caught a brief glimpse of her standing with Adele and a little strawberry blond creature but had not seen her since.

  He certainly did not see her now. Where on earth had the girl gotten herself to, just when she was wanted?

  “Stop it,” snapped Aunt Kearsely. “You should not be so unkind to your old aunt. Besides, Lady Helene’s left the ball. I don’t seen her anywhere.”

  “You haven’t even looked.”

  She certainly did not look now. “I’ve promised you to Lady Augusta, and you promised you would do as I asked this evening, if I didn’t importune you about making appearances at any other time during the party. I have, you must acknowledge, kept my end of the bargain.”

  She had, too, punctiliously, so Marcus couldn’t, in fairness, complain.

  Although after two hours of Lady Augusta’s notion of conversation, Marcus truly, truly wished he could.

  ***

  It was hours later. Helene stood in front of the library’s curved window seat and stared out across the winter-shrouded lawns. Midnight had come and gone. The fire had been banked so that only a dull red glow remained to light the darkened room. Outside, the moon had set, and starlight shimmered across the unbroken snow. In the far distance, Helene could still hear the faintest hint of laughter and music drifting from the ball.

  The ball. Where something rather extraordinary may have just happened. If she could get it to work. If she could convince the others that it could be made to work . . .

  If she could convince herself it could be made to work.

  Adele had shared a secret with Helene and Madelene tonight, and that secret had set Helene’s mind traveling at speed down a dangerous path. Or perhaps it was a marvelous path. She didn’t know, and she might not ever know.

  Unless she gathered her nerve.

  Unless she was willing to throw the dice not just for herself, but for her siblings, and her newfound friends.

  It was a great deal to ask when what she’d been shown was really just some drawings of dresses.

  “I’ve never shown these to anybody. You have to promise me you won’t laugh,” Adele had said as the three of them slipped from the crowded ballroom.

  “We promise,” Helene said, and Madelene nodded.

  Adele had led them up to her tidy if somewhat over-ruffled bedchamber. She’d taken a key out of her jewel case and opened the cabinet table that waited beside her lace-curtained bed.

  The inside had been filled with leather-bound scrapbooks, all of them worn and overstuffed and well thumbed. When Adele opened one to show them, Helene immediately saw why.

  Each page held a lovingly rendered and tinted sketch of a different gown.

  “These are marvelous!” she cried.

  “They’re daydreams,” Adele said as she slowly turned over the leaves.

  “Where did you get them?” Madelene asked. “You must have spent hours on the copies.”

  But one glance at Adele’s face told Helene this was a mistake. “She didn’t copy them, Madelene. These are original designs. All of them.”

  Three shelves full of dresses. Three shelves full of carefully organized and thought-out plans of beautiful fashion, the sort of thing Helene would love to wear, if only she was able to see and understand how all the disparate elements could be made to work properly.

  Which Adele evidently could. And yet, with the household budget controlled by her aunt, she was condemned to follow her aunt’s taste, which involved buttercup yellow and lace ruffs.

  “It’s just something I’d do, especially when I first came out,” Adele was saying. “I’d sit and dream about what it would be like when I was finally married—the parties I’d give, and the dresses I would have. I would plan it all out.” She touched the notes that surrounded the gown. “I wrote down names of warehouses and suppliers and modistes and . . .”

  These were not just books of fashion then. Helene found herself staring at the three filled shelves with something like hunger. There was a world of practical information in there. Information for parties and entertainments as well as for wardrobes. Years’ worth of prices, warehouses and modiste’s.

  Possibilities turned and whirled inside her mind. Audacious possibilities. Daring, risky, dangerous possibilities.

  And yet . . .

  And yet . . .

  “Which of these dresses is yours?” Helene asked. “Yours especially, I mean.”

  Slowly, Adele turned the pages to a gown of deep red and rich cream. “This one.” She ran her fingers down the page, but it was clear she wasn’t seeing the sketch. She was seeing something far different. Perhaps it was James Beauclaire. Then, abruptly, Adele slammed the book shut.

  “But as I said. It’s just daydreams.”

  “Lovely daydreams, though,” murmured Madelene.

  Helene heard them, but she wasn’t listening, not properly. Thoughts had begun dropping through her mind, like cards falling to the table. They were piling up, making a complex pattern of their very own.

  “Maybe they could be more,” Helene said.

  Adele laughed bitterly. “Maybe I’ll be crowned Queen of England at Almack’s next Wednesday. No. I’m twenty-two, and my aunt won’t hear of my dressing myself. And even if one of you could find a modiste who’d actually make one of these, it wouldn’t change anything for you, either. I’d still be the dumpling, you’d be the bluestocking, and Madelene . . .”

  “I’m the redheaded stepsister,” Madelene muttered.

  “And we’re all equally doomed.” Adele hugged her notebook to her chest.

  Thoughts, patterns, ideas, dreams, possibilities. They all flashed through Helene’s mind, one after another.

  “I don’t accept that,” she said suddenly.

  “Then tell me.” Adele gestured at them all with her free hand. “What can we do?”

  It was the question Helene had been asking herself all evening. What could they do? But now she had an answer. It waited in Adele’s books of beautiful gowns. It was contained in Helene’s own jewel case, where there was still one precious jeweled brooch that she’d kept back through all her family’s troubles, so it would be there to sell when the final need arose.

  It waited in the fact that, like Adele, she’d been spending the past several years observing the workings of the ballrooms and salons of London and writing the results down in her own books. But where Adele had been studying the vagaries of fashion, Helene had been studying the nuances of connection between hostesses, and matrons and ladies, all the women who controlled the ballrooms, and therefore the destinies of their families, especially their daughters.

  The answers, or at least the possibilities, were there, in Adele’s books, and her own. But Helene knew those possibilities contained terrible risks. The cost of failure would be high, ruinously high, in fact, and not just because of the money involved. They would, all three of them, be laying themselves bare to public scrutiny. And in Helene’s case, she would be risking not just her reputation, but her sister Susannah’s as well. Susannah was fifteen and on the verge of entering society in her own right. That is, she would be if circumstances were different. If there were still money. If Helene hadn’t ruined everyone’s chances . . .

  Maybe circumstances could be made to be different.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!”

  Helene whirled around, her heart pounding madly.

  A woman’s silhouette stood in the doorway. The light was so dim, however, that Helene didn’t immediately recognize her.

  “I didn’t know anybody was here,” the woman said, and now Helene was able to place her.

  �
�You’re Miss Deborah Sewell, I believe,” Helene said.

  “You believe correctly,” the woman answered. She also closed the door behind her and came forward into the tiny circle of light cast by the dim coals in the hearth.

  Helene had been a bit surprised to find Miss Deborah Sewell included on the Windford guest list. Tall and elegant in her bearing, Miss Sewell also openly defied all custom by being a single woman who kept her own establishment. As if this weren’t enough, she actually worked for her living. She was known to write articles on art and travel, but far more shocking was that she was also very widely suspected of being the author of the sensational three-volume novel The Matchless.

  “And you are Lady Helene Fitzgerald,” Miss Sewell said. She did not go on to add any of the usual adjectives, for which Helene was grateful.

  “I am,” admitted Helene.

  They curtsied to each other with ridiculous formality.

  Miss Sewell stretched her gloved hand toward the coals, either to warm it or to watch the play of the light across the satin—Helene could not be sure. “May I ask you a question, Lady Helene?”

  “I have no way to prevent you.”

  “Are you possibly the person who wrote that wonderfully pointed article published in the Armitage Review about the natural history of the London starling?”

  Helene drew back. No one was supposed to know about that. It hadn’t even been a serious piece of scientific literature. It was merely a little satire about the seasonal habits of the denizens of London’s ballroom. She’d surprised herself by submitting it for consideration. She’d been stunned beyond words to find it accepted, and paid for.

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “Although I would ask you to keep the fact to yourself. The magazine thinks it was written by a male cousin of mine.” And I might need to do it again.

  “I understand fully.”

  Yes, thought Helene. You would, wouldn’t you? “May I assume that you did write The Matchless?”

  Miss Sewell inclined her head. “Yes, you may, although I tell you in strictest confidence. The mystery has done wonders for the book’s sales.”

  “Of course.” If there was one thing Helene could appreciate, it was the practical application of anonymity, especially for a woman.

  “But I am disturbing your quiet,” Miss Sewell said. “Accept my apologies.”

  “No,” Helene said. “I was leaving anyway. I . . .” She paused and made a decision. “Miss Sewell, may I ask you a question? As a disinterested person?”

  Miss Sewell cocked her head, and despite the dim room, Helene had a feeling she was being carefully scrutinized. “You may ask anything you like, Lady Helene. I am entirely at your disposal.”

  “I am . . . I find . . . That is . . .” Oh, this was ridiculous. “I do not wish to sound dramatic, but I have been presented with a possibility that might, quite literally, change my life. I assure you I am not in any way overstating the case.”

  “I believe you,” Miss Sewell replied calmly.

  “The risk is high,” Helene went on. “It would require nothing less than the transformation of not one but three persons on the social scene.”

  She had seen the possibility in Adele’s notebooks, in all those beautifully, meticulously designed and notated dresses. Everyone knew how society valued appearance over every other virtue. Almost anything was possible, as long as one looked the part. Of course, that was not the only key to success. Connections were required as well, but appearance was the beginning. If that could be managed, then everything else could be made to follow.

  She might be able to make the world forget the jilt and the hysteric, and make them see the dignified and competent woman, the lady, one of their own. And that might be leveraged into a way to save her siblings from the ruin into which they had been driven. Of course there would be a price for that, too, but she would pay it willingly.

  Or, almost willingly. Lord Windford’s blue eyes looked out from her memory, and Helene shivered, just a little.

  “You want to change your reputation?” Miss Sewell asked quietly.

  “Not just mine,” Helene said. “There are some others. I think I see the way. I think . . . but it involves several serious sorts of risk. If a girl goes forth into society with a too-obvious intent to triumph and she falls, she may never rise again.”

  Miss Sewell nodded. “We are not a forgiving world, are we?”

  “No,” agreed Helene. Miss Sewell was silent for some little time, and Helene became very conscious of the room’s cold seeping through her skin. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a ridiculous question, and you are a stranger to me. I should not have asked . . .”

  “No, no,” Miss Sewell cut her off. “I am just deciding how to frame my answer. And I want to be sure I understand you correctly. You do not just want greater acceptance for yourself and your friends. You want a triumph?”

  “Yes,” Helene said. “That is it exactly.”

  Miss Sewell blew out a long sigh. “I admit I have been observing you and your friends with interest over the course of the evening.”

  “I had noticed it.” In fact, Madelene had nearly fainted at the thought of being watched by a lady novelist.

  “If it was anyone else who asked this question, I would suggest to them that they be content with a modest success, or reformation. But my instinct tells me, Lady Helene, that you might just be able to run the entire race.”

  “Your instinct and the natural history of the London starling?”

  “Just so.” Miss Sewell laughed, but she quickly fell silent again. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft and entirely serious. “Some time ago, Lady Helene, I was offered the opportunity to transform my own life. I refused the chance, because I was afraid.”

  Helene knew she was staring. This was a woman who defied the world’s opinion by simply existing. What could possibly frighten her?

  And why was Helene suddenly thinking of Lord Windford again?

  “Therefore,” Miss Sewell went on, “you may believe me when I say to you that if you do not try, it will be much worse than if you try and fail, because you will always be wondering, and yearning, after what might have been.”

  “Thank you,” said Helene.

  Miss Sewell inclined her head. “I do hope, Lady Helene, whatever you decide, you will let me know how the game plays out, and . . .” She paused. “And although I am a stranger, I hope that if there is anything I can do to help, you will remember me.”

  “I believe I can safely promise to do so, Miss Sewell.”

  “Then I will leave you to your planning and wish you and your friends the very best of luck.”

  She curtsied again and left the library, closing the door softly behind herself. Helene turned back toward the window and stared out at the starlit snow for a very long time.

  II

  Bassett Assembly Rooms

  London, April 1818

  Helene Fitzgerald stood beside the wall and surveyed the crowded ballroom with a feeling of immense satisfaction. Three months had passed since the fateful New Year’s Ball at Windford Park. Three months of planning, of hoping and scheming on the part of herself, Lady Adele, and Madelene Valmeyer, and the woman who was now their friend and chaperone, Miss Deborah Sewell. After three months of anticipation, the sleepless nights and the near brushes with disaster, here they all stood, on the brink of the new London season, and everything was going so perfectly that Helene scarcely dared believe it was happening at all.

  “Lady Helene, how are you? I trust you are enjoying yourself.” Mrs. Wrexford, whose party this was, glided up to her. “I must compliment you on your dress. It is exquisite.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Wrexford. It is one of Lady Adele’s design.”

  Tonight, in the place of her plain gray satin, Helene wore a sparkling silver sheath modeled after a classical Grecian gown. Trimm
ed in cut glass beads, it was both simple and striking.

  Mrs. Wrexford leaned close and raised her fan to speak confidentially. “You three have become quite the belles of my little ball. Everyone is absolutely buzzing about you.” She waved her hand about the room. As she did, several people nodded in Helene’s direction and smiled. She saw Adele in the middle of a positive crowd of gentlemen, and even Madelene had several matrons and daughters standing with her, all talking and smiling.

  “It is a new season, ma’am,” murmured Helene as she exchanged smiles and nods. “Everything changes.”

  “From that look on your face, I suspect that the changes have only just begun?”

  Helene confined herself to a satisfied smile and was rewarded by an answering gleam in her hostess’s eye. “Well, well,” said Mrs. Wrexford. “I believe shall look forward to observing your progress.” She paused. “I trust your mother is not unwell? I understand Deborah Sewell is chaperoning both you and Lady Adele this evening?”

  “And Miss Valmeyer, yes. My mother’s health, unfortunately, does not permit her to be here this evening.” The polite lie flowed easily from Helene. As well it should. She had been uttering it for at least three years. “Shall I tender her your regards?”

  “Please do,” said Mrs. Wrexford, politely and insincerely. “Now, I must circulate. Perhaps you will do me the favor of calling on me one day?”

  Helene murmured her promise that she would. She watched as Mrs. Wrexford left to go greet some other acquaintances and, it was to be hoped, mention to them what a polite and decorous young woman Helene Fitzgerald was proving to be.

  Helene turned away, looking for something else to concentrate on. She spied Madelene and Adele standing at the edge of the dance floor and hurried over to them as quickly as her skirts, the crowd, and her dignity allowed. That is to say, at a fairly sedate and mildly frustrated saunter.

  “How are you, Madelene?” Helene asked as soon as she was close enough. Helene and Adele between them had agreed to take turns being Madelene’s companion this evening, in case she should fall prey to one of her spells of anxiety. She seemed fine at this moment. In fact, her cheeks were pink and her eyes were shining with delighted surprise.