by Jane Feather
Jack nodded. “Yes,” he said simply. “Even more than I had guessed.”
“Ooo, Lady Arabella,” whispered Becky, who had been standing a silent and attentive observer of the hairdressing. “Ooo, aren’t they lovely?”
Arabella gazed at her reflection. Even wearing only a simple peignoir, she was transformed by the jewels. “I feel like something out of The Arabian Nights,” she said. “But I don’t think they suit me, Jack. They’re too . . . too . . . oh, splendid, for want of a better word. I’m much too down-to-earth and my tastes are too simple for diamonds. Particularly such perfect ones.”
“You are quite wrong, my dear,” he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. “They become you very well. And when you have the gown on, you will see how right I am.”
“Yes, indeed, your grace,” Christophe agreed, packing up the tools of his trade. “Never ’ave I seen diamonds suit a lady better.”
“You flatter me,” Arabella said somewhat ruefully as she got up from her chair. The hairdresser bowed, protesting. She shook her head with a smile. “I thank you for your trouble, monsieur. And don’t forget that other matter.”
“No, indeed, madame. My thanks.” He bowed himself from the room.
“What other matter?” Jack asked.
“A simple matter between a lady and her hairdresser,” Arabella declared. “You know so much about women, sir, you must surely be aware of the special relationship that exists between a lady and her coiffeur.”
“I’d have laid odds not you,” he said, but then shrugged, dismissing the subject. He went to the door to her bedchamber and held it open for her. “Come and put on the gown. I’m anxious to see the full effect.” He followed her, Becky on his heels, into her chamber and stood with his back to the fire, taking a pinch of snuff, watching with a critical eye as Becky with agonizing care inched first the undergown and then the gown itself over Arabella’s jeweled and artistically arranged coiffure.
The décolletage was certainly dramatic, and the sparkle of diamonds on her breast made it even more so. Doubtfully Arabella cupped her breasts beneath the thin silk and organza. They were barely covered. It would take no more than an injudicious shrug to reveal her nipples.
“You’ll become accustomed,” Jack said, accurately guessing her thoughts. “I predict a most startling success, madam.” He offered his arm. “Let us go down to dinner.”
They arrived at Covent Garden just before ten o’clock. It was a cold night and Arabella shivered. The gauzy stole draped over her upper arms was no protection against the wind, and neither were the long white silk gloves, or the thin silk stockings and light satin slippers. She glanced enviously at her companion in his warm velvet. His face was the only part of his anatomy exposed to the elements.
“You’ll be too hot inside, I promise,” he said, slipping her hand into his arm as they walked up the steps to the opera house.
The streets around the piazza were thronged and noisy with whores and street vendors touting for custom, parties of dissolute young men swaying drunkenly from tavern to tavern, from bordello to bathhouse. Elegantly clad operagoers were nowhere to be seen, except for the two just entering the building, and Arabella guessed that Jack had timed their arrival perfectly. Their entrance would draw eyes.
She was conscious of a stir of excitement. This was so different from her last foray into the world of high society.
They crossed the pillared foyer, the heels on her satin slippers clicking over the marble, and a flunky led them down a narrow, door-lined passage. He stopped and opened one of the doors and stood aside. Arabella stepped into the box, blinking in the sudden blaze of light. Chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling, throwing brilliant illumination over both stage and auditorium. A buzz of voices rose from the boxes and the packed rows below as people carried on their conversations without deference to the singers on the stage, or the musicians in the orchestra pit.
Arabella took the chair at the front of the box and without haste opened her fan. Jack sat beside her, resting his forearms on the velvet-padded balcony rail as he looked around the opera house. A few hands were raised in greeting and he nodded in response, then turned to look at the action on the stage.
Arabella could hear the buzz increase in volume as opera glasses were lifted and directed onto the St. Jules box. She kept her own gaze steadily on the stage and idly fanned herself, concealing most of her countenance from the curious stares openly directed at her. Until now she would never have believed there was amusement to be gained out of being the object of everyone’s attention and curiosity.
Jack cast an occasional seemingly casual glance around the audience. To his satisfaction, everyone of importance seemed to be present. The Prince of Wales had returned from his foray to Brunswick, and both he and his brother, the duke of York, were in the royal box, laughing loudly with a few cronies. They waved gaily at him when they caught his eye. The earl and countess of Worth were also in their box. Charles Fox and George Cavenaugh were in the audience below with a group of fellow Whigs, and Jack wondered how long Fox would be able to stay away from the gaming tables.
The duchess of Devonshire, in a rather astonishing hat sporting five very fine ostrich plumes, was with a circle of friends in equally flamboyant headgear. Her husband was not in evidence but that didn’t surprise Jack. The duke was rarely seen in public with his wife, who ran the Devonshire House circle according to her own rules. They even had their own language, an absurdity that Jack found laughable, but he was obliged to acknowledge that Georgiana herself, despite her foolish affectations, was a formidable and intelligent woman, greatly admired by Fox and the rest of the Whig cognoscenti. Of course, she was an inveterate gambler, which a cynic might consider accounted to a greater or lesser extent for her deep and abiding friendship with Fox.
There was a final chord from the orchestra signaling the interval, and the curtain came down. The houselights were already fully blazing and the men in the audience instantly rose from their seats to pay calls on the ladies in the boxes.
Jack glanced at Arabella. She seemed perfectly calm and at ease, gently fanning herself as she looked around with every appearance of casual interest. The door to the box opened and the first of their visitors arrived.
George, Prince of Wales, and Frederick, Duke of York, crowded into the small space. Jack was on his feet instantly, bowing, and Arabella, recognizing her august visitors, rose too, sweeping into a deep curtsy, not an easy maneuver in the cramped box, but the simplicity of her dress was an advantage.
“Jack, welcome back. London has been a dreary place without you,” George declared, raising a quizzing glass to examine Arabella, who straightened slowly from her obeisance and met the almost rude stare with a smile. “This is your bride, I take it,” he observed.
“Yes, sir. Allow me to present her grace, the duchess of St. Jules.” Jack took Arabella’s hand and drew her forward.
“Delighted, ma’am.” Both princes bowed, their eyes drinking in every aspect of their friend’s wife. Only a year separated the brothers and their physical resemblance was uncanny, both of them florid of complexion beneath rather wild powdered curls, both of them on the stout side.
“My compliments, ma’am,” Frederick said. “My congratulations, Jack, you lucky dog.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jack returned with another smaller bow. His eyes were gleaming.
“The new style becomes you, ma’am,” George announced, finally dropping his quizzing glass. His pale blue eyes were slightly bloodshot. “Demmed if I’ve seen a lady look so well in it.”
“You are too kind, sir,” Arabella murmured, plying her fan.
“No, no, my brother has the right of it,” Frederick stated. “Haven’t seen you in Town before, ma’am.” A question mark lurked in the statement.
Actually, you have, Arabella reflected with inner amusement. But the Arabella Lacey of ten years ago would not have drawn your attention.
“Where’ve you been hiding yourself?” Georg
e demanded. “Where d’you find her, Jack?”
Arabella decided that the royal brothers’ manners were boorish, to say the least. But she kept a somewhat inane smile upon lips that were firmly closed.
Jack knew that the princes had both been out of Town in the last two weeks, so presumably they had not yet heard the gossip about Jack Fortescu’s bride. “My wife was Frederick Lacey’s half sister,” he explained. “I have known her for some time.” It was a smooth lie that couldn’t be proved.
“Dunston’s?” George queried, once again taking up his quizzing glass as if this new piece of information might have altered Arabella’s appearance in some way. “Well, I’ll be demmed.”
Both princes stared at her. They had not been at Brooke’s on the night of Dunston’s suicide, but they, like everyone else in their circles, knew the story.
Arabella returned the pale blue stares steadily over the top of her fan, that faint smile unwavering on her lips.
“Well, well,” the Prince of Wales said finally. “You’ll be a jewel in the crown of Society, ma’am, I declare it.”
Now, that is better, Arabella thought as she responded to the compliment with another small curtsy and a murmur of appreciation.
They took their leave amid promises to call upon the new duchess, and after that Arabella lost count of the number of introductions, the endless string of names attached to faces shining with heat in the crowded box beneath the blazing chandeliers. She managed to identify Jack’s special friends from among the powdered and bewigged heads and took special note of George Cavenaugh and Charles Fox. She decided that George seemed a sensible man and she knew that Fox, for all his eccentric style, was one of the finest minds in England. Finally the orchestra struck up the opening chords of the second act and the men slowly departed to their seats, but the scrutiny didn’t end there. Opera glasses were still trained on the box and heads bobbed in conversation as the men passed on to their female companions their impressions of the new duchess.
Arabella felt like a prize heifer at the county fair and resolutely turned her attention to the stage.
Beside her, Jack raised his own opera glasses. The earl of Worth had been among their visitors and he had now returned to his wife’s side. Lilly was leaning close to him, listening, a small frown marring her porcelain countenance. She glanced once towards the Fortescu box, then turned her head away as she saw Jack watching her through his opera glasses.
Arabella turned suddenly on her chair and said in a low voice, “So, is your mistress here tonight, Jack?”
The uncannily apposite question so startled him that he nearly dropped the glasses. “What did you say?”
The tawny eyes held a challenge that he knew he had to meet.
“Come on, Jack,” she pressed. “Tell me which one is your mistress. You could at least be honest with me . . . in this anyway,” she added, thinking again of the unsent letter to Cornwall.
Jack frowned, wondering exactly what she meant by the afterword. He said curtly, “You will see the countess of Worth in the fourth box in the second tier on the right.”
Arabella took the opera glasses from his hand and trained them on the boxes, sweeping around the tiers, lingering only briefly on the box he’d described. But it was long enough for her to see that Lady Worth was as beautiful as she was elegant. Older than herself, but not by much, she thought.
“She’s lovely,” she said, handing back the glasses. She remembered being introduced to a Lord Worth among her curious visitors. “Her husband seemed a pleasant-enough man.”
“He is.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And conveniently complaisant, I gather.”
Jack said nothing, but a telltale muscle twitched against his cheekbone.
With a tiny shrug Arabella returned her attention to the stage. But her eyes kept slipping towards the Worth box and the lovely woman who sat there. What had she expected? Some ugly fright of a woman? Of course Jack’s mistress would be perfection, in appearance at least. Just as he was himself.
She said nothing more throughout what now seemed an interminable second act, despite the lighthearted charm of the music and the efforts of the singers to hold their audience’s attention. When the curtain finally came down, she rose with alacrity.
Jack rearranged the stole over her shoulders. She could feel his annoyance in his hands, see it in the set of his mouth and the little rapier flicker in his eyes.
“I’ll escort you to the carriage,” he said, opening the door of the box. “I am going on to an engagement at Brooke’s.”
She said nothing, merely allowed him to take her arm in a courteous gesture of apparent solicitude as they left the box and joined the stream of people heading for the foyer. Here their progress was interrupted.
“Jack, I insist you present me to your wife.” A lady of middle years in a vast picture hat adorned with ostrich feathers loomed in front of them. She regarded Arabella with friendly curiosity.
Jack bowed over her hand, before saying, “Her grace, the duchess of Devonshire, my dear. Ma’am, my wife, Lady Arabella.”
The two women exchanged the bobbing nods appropriate to ladies of the same rank and the duchess of Devonshire smiled and said as she wafted away, “A new face is always welcome in our little society, my dear. I shall send you an invitation for my next card party.”
Now, that was an invitation she would accept with alacrity, Arabella reflected. The duchess’s parties were known for high stakes and wild play. It would be extraordinary if a novice gambler couldn’t manage to lose a considerable sum of money at those tables.
“Jack, pray introduce me to your wife.”
Jack turned to Lilly, who was approaching on her husband’s arm. She was smiling, but there was a brittle edge to the smile. “My dear Lady Worth.” He bowed over her hand, bringing it to his lips.
“Such formality, Jack,” Lilly said, playfully tapping his arm with her fan. “Now present me at once to your wife.”
Arabella now was aware of a slight hiatus in the buzz of conversation around them. It must be a good opportunity for gossip, she reflected. The first encounter between the mistress and the bride. She directed a smile of dazzling warmth at Lady Worth and extended her hand. “There’s no need for any introductions, Lady Worth, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Lilly’s smile didn’t falter as she took the proffered hand in a limp clasp. “Your grace,” she said formally, dropping the hand almost immediately. “How charming.”
“I do hope you’ll call in Cavendish Square,” Arabella continued with the same warm smile. She gave a little laugh. “I’m certain we’ll discover many things that we have in common.”
“I shall look forward to it,” Lilly managed as she sketched a curtsy and moved away with her husband.
“Did you hear that?” George Cavenaugh murmured to Charles Fox, who was standing beside him, lightly patting his pink wig, on which perched a miniature tricorne hat.
“I did, my dear, I did. Wouldn’t have thought Dunston’s sister could have so much style,” the macaroni responded.
“Half sister,” George corrected. “I very much fear, my friend, that Jack has got his hands full.”
“Won’t do him any harm,” Fox said. “Why’d he marry her in the first place, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“I wondered myself, but now I’ve seen her . . .” George left the sentence hanging.
“Most unusual, I agree. But she’s a Lacey. Fortescus and Laceys are oil and water, always have been.”
“Nothing’s written in stone, my friend,” George pointed out. “And I’ll tell you, I’m looking forward to furthering my acquaintance with the lady.”
“Wonder how she plays,” Fox mused, his mind returning as usual to his obsession.
“Like a Lacey, I imagine,” George responded, sweeping his hat in an elaborate flourish as he bowed to Arabella, who was passing him on her husband’s arm.
She gave him a friendly smile in which there was
no trace of artificiality. In fact, it was difficult to imagine that such a serenely composed woman had been capable of so completely blunting the tongues of the gossips. She had made it abundantly clear to all around them that she knew everything there was to know about her husband’s mistress, and that she had little or no interest in the affair.
Jack escorted his wife in silence to the waiting carriage. The footman jumped to open the carriage door as soon as he saw them. “Good evening, your grace . . . your grace.” He lowered the footstool for Arabella.
Before she climbed in she said softly to Jack, “Are you sure you don’t want to come home and quarrel properly? It can’t be good for you to hold in such a head of steam.”
“Be pleased to get into the carriage, ma’am.” He spoke with exaggerated courtesy. “There’s a cold wind.”
Arabella climbed in with a word of thanks to the waiting footman, and was only half surprised when her husband followed her, taking his seat on the opposite bench.
He leaned back, folding his arms and regarding her in silence for a moment before saying in tones of deceptively mild curiosity, “You seem determined to provoke me, Arabella. What have I done?”
She gazed serenely at him across the dim interior of the swaying vehicle. “You’re changing the rules, Jack. We agreed to an entirely open marriage of convenience. I would not interfere with you and you would not interfere with me. Now suddenly you’re expecting me to behave like some simpering miss whose delicate ears and sensibilities must not be assailed by any knowledge of the woman who’s been your lover for . . . how long has Lady Worth been your mistress?”
Jack closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them. “Three years,” he said.
“Do you have children together?” She seemed genuinely curious and he could detect not the slightest hint of jealousy. Not that he would want that, of course.
