Clare’s ankle wasn’t better in an hour or so.
Neither had it improved by the time the coach was brought around to the front door, nor by the time she stepped into Lady Austerley’s vaulted foyer. If anything, it was worse, sporting whimsical new shades of red and purple and stealing her breath with every step.
“Do try to keep up, dear.” Her mother frowned over her shoulder, the red feather on her headdress bobbing with discontent. “I declare, you dawdle more like your father every day.”
Clare gritted her teeth. She could not admit to her mother the real reason for her hesitation, or else risk being whisked home to bed. And any comparisons to Father were to be avoided if her mother was to remain in an ebullient mood this evening. She hobbled faster, her mismatched shoes clunking ominously on the marble tile.
Step, thump. Step, thump.
Her mother didn’t seem to notice, but Clare’s cheeks heated at the disparate sounds. She ought to be grateful Lucy was possessed of overlarge feet and, moreover, had been willing to donate an old shoe to the nearly lost cause of getting her foot into something approximating a slipper. At least she hadn’t needed to resort to wearing Geoffrey’s shoe.
But gratitude was not foremost on Clare’s mind as her mother gave their name to the footman. She lifted her chin, knowing that aside from the travesty of her mismatched shoes, she had never looked better. Her maid had taken hours with her hair, and her new green gown was an absolute wonder, clinging to her shoulders with what appeared to be nothing more than hasty prayer. But though the gown’s voluminous skirts hid her feet from public view, they could not change the fact her ankle still felt like a sausage shoved in a too-tight casing.
She looked out on the glittering swirl of London’s most beautiful people, her stomach twitching in anticipation. The ballroom was awash with colors and scents, by now familiar after the triumph of her first Season. She knew what to expect, whom to greet, and whom to cut. And somewhere in the crowd Mr. Alban waited, a proposal surely simmering on his tongue.
Almost immediately she was set upon by her usual pack of friends, and her mother drifted off. “Where have you been?” Lady Sophie’s fan snapped open and shut in agitation, though her eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Mr. Alban arrived nearly a half hour ago,” Rose supplied helpfully.
Clare fit a careful half smile to her face as she greeted her friends. Lady Sophie Durston always stood out like a dark hothouse flower amidst the crowd, though this evening she stood out more because of her vivid pink gown. Miss Rose Evans was a classic English beauty, blond and blue-eyed. Tonight she was dressed in virginal white—though Sophie had snidely confided to Clare just last week that perhaps Rose should avoid that color, and not only because it was a miserable complement to the girl’s too-pale complexion.
They were the young women all the men watched and the less fortunate girls envied. Together they had captured the hearts and imaginations of half the eligible men in the room. But since the start of this Season, Clare had been interested in only one of those hearts, and her friends knew it all too well.
She risked a veiled peek in Mr. Alban’s direction. He was speaking with Sophie’s father, a pompous windbag of an earl who had recently helped secure Parliament’s new ban on public meetings. Intended to hobble supporters of the growing Chartist movement, the news had been splashed across all the papers and bandied about polite Society in hushed, worried tones. She briefly wondered which side of the debate Alban claimed, though it was something she could never ask during the space of a waltz.
But as the overhead chandelier caught the white flash of his teeth, those distracting thoughts fell away. Oh, but he looked resplendent tonight in a dark jacket and emerald waistcoat, his chestnut hair gleaming. She could almost see him looking just so across a morning breakfast table, polished to a shine by her careful attentions, the Times spread out amicably between them. “Has Mr. Alban asked anyone to dance?” she asked, turning away from the heart-stopping sight of him so she could not be accused of mooning overlong.
“Not just yet,” Rose piped up from Sophie’s elbow, where she almost always hovered like a pale, blond shadow.
“He’s been speaking with Father since he arrived,” Sophie confirmed, her voice a low purr. “Business over pleasure, you know.”
Clare was relieved to hear he had not been busy with other girls’ dance cards, though she wasn’t worried. Mr. Alban had been remarkably persistent in asking her to dance the first waltz each evening. She harbored no doubts that this evening would go the same way.
As the musicians began to take their seats behind the screen of potted greenery that had been erected to hide them from view, a young man approached their group with the sort of enthusiasm usually displayed by unruly puppies—or, barring that, their eight-year-old owners.
“Good evening, Miss Westmore.”
Clare sighed, knowing she must acknowledge him. “Good evening, Mr. Meeks.”
He beamed at her, though she’d gifted him with the barest of greetings. “I was honored last week when you said you would grant me the first dance this evening.”
Clare gripped her dance card. Had she really done something so rash? He was a perfectly unthreatening specimen of a young man, but he was also one of the gentlemen Mother had encouraged far too enthusiastically last year. Still, Clare was predisposed to be kind. He meant well, even if he didn’t make her heart stir with anything other sympathy.
And she liked to think she would have honored her agreement to dance with the young man, had things been different. But the conversation with Meeks had occurred one week and one turned ankle ago. She could scarcely be expected to honor such a promise given her current circumstances.
“I am afraid you must have misunderstood.” She shook her head, knowing her ankle was unlikely to last more than a dance or two. “I am otherwise engaged.”
He deflated before her eyes. “Oh. I see.” His feet shuffled as he turned to Sophie and Rose, a nervous sheen on his high forehead. “Perhaps, then, if either of you are free?”
Sophie shook her head in mock regret. “I am afraid you are far too tardy in asking, Mr. Meeks. Our cards are already full.” She pointed her fan toward a line of restless young ladies sitting against the far wall of the ballroom. “You might aim your sights over there. I feel sure someone in the wallflower line will still have a few open spots remaining for a gentleman of your punctuality.”
Mr. Meeks’s cheeks flared with color as Rose tittered behind a gloved hand. As he turned away and began to trudge toward the wallflower line, Clare sighed. “Honestly, Sophie, was it necessary to be so cruel? He’s done naught to earn our ire.”
“Oh, don’t look so glum,” Sophie chided. She flicked her fan open and fluttered it lazily below her green eyes. “Truly, the occasional set-down is the best thing all around for him. Have you forgotten about that debacle last year, when he had the gall to think you might consider his proposal?” The air rang with her light laughter. “It isn’t as though he should harbor hopes for anything beyond the occasional dance where we are concerned.”
Clare held her tongue. It was true she had set her sights higher than a proposal from Meeks, but that did not mean she thought it was all right to snub him. There were some in the crowd who thought she should have accepted his proposal, her mother among them. After all, Mr. Meeks had an annual income of two thousand pounds and would one day be a viscount, the same title as her own father. There was potential there, to be sure.
But Sophie had decided, based on some unfathomable criteria only she knew, that Mr. Meeks was not within their sphere.
In contrast, though he was only the heir presumptive to a dukedom, Mr. Alban had been immediately welcomed into Sophie’s circle. Of course, he was handsome as sin, something Mr. Meeks had no hope of claiming. Furthermore, the elderly Duke of Harrington was clearly consumptive, and, rumor had it, none too interested in females, so Alban was as good as the heir apparent in many eyes.
Still, it fr
ightened Clare sometimes to see how unpredictable the tide of public opinion could be. Next year Lucy would be out among this harsh crowd, and in a few short years Geoffrey would also be navigating this same social gauntlet. She didn’t like to think that her siblings—embarrassing though they may be—might be similarly sized up and dismissed.
So tonight she offered her friends nothing more questionable than an agreeable nod. Because being included in Sophie’s gilded circle was far better than being shoved outside it, and she’d worked too hard to get here to ruin it tonight in a fit of misplaced kindness.
As the opening strains of the first set of the evening rang out, Sophie’s lips curved upward. “Not that I would ever question your desire to wait for a better offer than was afforded by Mr. Meeks, but you’ve just arrived.”
“Yes,” Rose added, suspicion adding a half octave to her voice. “What was that nonsense about being otherwise engaged? You can’t have a single name on your dance card yet.”
“I . . . I might sit out the first set.” At their looks of horror, Clare tried to smile, though she suspected it came out more as a grimace. “I’m a little fatigued this evening. I might prefer to save my strength to dance with Mr. Alban.”
“You do look a trifle pale.” Sophie’s hand reached out to gently squeeze Clare’s arm. “Heavens, what are we thinking, chattering away like magpies when you look close to swooning? You need to sit down and rest.” She inclined her head toward the row of chairs she had earlier pointed out to Meeks. “There’s a prime seat, just there. Now, which dance were you hoping for from Alban? Maybe I can help hurry him along.”
Clare contemplated the vicious throbbing of her foot. The wallflower line was the furthest thing from a refuge, but it was also becoming increasingly obvious her ankle would be unlikely to tolerate more than a turn or two around the dance floor. “I think I should be recovered by the first waltz of the evening,” she replied, eyeing the empty chair as if it might have teeth. “If you speak with Mr. Alban, you might offer him such a hint.”
Sophie’s smile deepened as her own partner arrived to collect her for the first dance. “Of course,” she tossed over one shoulder, already gliding toward the dance floor. “You know I would do anything for a friend.”
Death was rarely—if ever—a laughing matter.
Pity, that.
Daniel supposed it took a man with a sense of humor to prefer to stay with a rotting corpse and a room full of eager young medical students rather than attend a ball. Still, he had promised Lady Austerley he would come tonight, and a promise made to a lonely, ailing countess was one you oughtn’t break, unless the death you contemplated was your own.
Newly scrubbed and dressed in his best jacket, he greeted the dowager countess with a clinical eye, noting the pale fragility of her skin and the way her hands shook slightly through her gloves. Though the overhead chandeliers blazed with light, her pupils were dilated, providing some reassuring evidence the atropine he had given her earlier was still working.
“You look well tonight,” Daniel lied, lifting her hand to his lips. “I see you have chosen to partially heed my advice and greet your guests while seated. Still, I would be negligent in my duties if I did not advise you that lying down would be the preferred course of action.”
Lady Austerley’s lips twitched. “If I were forty years younger I would blush to hear such a thing from a handsome gentleman, Dr. Merial.” She squeezed his hand. “Now. You may have come out of medical necessity, but I very much hope you will enjoy yourself this evening, because I have no intention of embarrassing myself with anything so gauche as a fainting spell. Perhaps you would do me the honor of a dance later?”
Daniel smiled down at the older woman. “Of course,” he agreed, though they both knew the countess would not be dancing tonight, and probably never again.
As he moved on, searching for a space along the wall that would permit him a good view of his patient, he recognized a peer he had recently treated, a man whose various health woes he could catalog down to a resting heart rate. “Good evening, Lord Hastings,” Daniel nodded.
The gentleman stiffened and turned away. For a moment Daniel was perplexed. Had he been incorrect in his address? Somehow rude in his delivery? But then he overheard another person greet the man, and he knew he’d had the right of it.
Ah, so that’s how it was going to be.
When he was summoned to their homes to deal with a medical complaint, he was greeted with the sort of desperation reserved of a savior. But let him step among their ranks with an invitation in his pocket, and such niceties were lost.
The ladies in attendance, however, were a decidedly different story. Several among the painted and perfumed crowd ducked their heads behind their fans, then came back for a second, surreptitious look. Daniel had been in London only six months now, but already he understood why these women—women who had husbands and wealth and boredom to burn—looked at him with hooded eyes, fluttering fans, and undisguised interest. It was not comfort they were seeking.
He was young. He was handsome. He was here.
And those were apparently the only criteria to be considered.
He’d sidestepped their bold offers until now, but perhaps he’d been going about this all wrong, courting the male heads of these households in his bid to win more clients. He didn’t doubt he could leave tonight with several new female patrons, if he applied a modicum of charm.
Or—given the way several smiled invitingly—an eager new bed partner or two.
Though he was tempted to test this theory by smiling back at them, Daniel aimed for the east side of the ballroom instead, where the crowd opened up and a row of chairs lined the wall. As he threaded his way there, he realized that Lady Austerley had been right to be concerned she might suffer one of her increasingly frequent dizzy spells tonight. The heat from the overhead chandeliers was stifling, and the mingling scents of beeswax and floral perfume made his own stomach feel off-kilter.
Worse, however, was the noise. All around him nonsensical conversations swirled like eddies of dust caught in the wind. This blond-haired chit felt another’s gown was a simply awful shade of puce. That one shuddered to hear such a third-rate cellist sawing on the strings. One graying matron loudly bemoaned the fact the heads had been left on the prawns, no doubt to mock those guests possessed of more delicate sensibilities.
Though on the surface everyone was smiling, the undercurrent of female malcontent caught him by surprise. He could not help but feel there was something unhealthy about smiling to one’s hostess in one moment and disparaging her in the next. Hadn’t they come here tonight to honor the dowager countess, who, in her day, had been a widely admired figure? Though he knew she preferred to keep the details of her diagnosis private, anyone with a pair of functioning eyes could see the signs of the countess’s declining health and realize this was Lady Austerley’s last annual ball.
He wedged himself against a wall and scowled out at the crowd. Though it was difficult to credit the emotion, given that he was at a bloody ball, boredom began to creep in. Lady Austerley, bless her bones, was holding her own from her chair near the entrance to the ballroom, and looked to require no immediate assistance. He had no desire to dance, and refused to consider the horrors of puce or prawns, one way or the other.
Indeed, he had no desire to sample any of the diversions on offer here tonight.
Step, thump. Step, thump.
A sound cut through the drivel of small talk, and Daniel turned his head to search for its source. In the midst of such glitter and polish, that incongruous sound seemed his greatest hope to encounter something more thought-provoking tonight than third-rate cellists. He suffered an almost irrational disappointment to see nothing more interesting than a young lady approaching. A brunette, slim, and exceptionally attractive young lady, to be sure, but really no different than any of the other tittering flora and fauna on display tonight.
Step, thump. Step, thump.
Well, except for that
.
His clinical skills flared to life. A few inches over five feet, but probably less than seven stone. She was within a year or two of twenty, though on which side she fell was little more than an educated guess. He had always been an ardent student of the human form, favoring symmetry over chaos, and his eye was drawn as much to the finely wrought curve of this girl’s bones as the rich brown hair piled on top of her head. Her neck alone was an anatomist’s dream, long and elegant, drawing the eye to the prominent line of her shoulders.
She flashed a half smile at someone who passed and he caught a glimpse of not-quite-perfect teeth, though the minor misalignment of her left cuspid did little to lessen the impression of general loveliness. If anything, it heightened his sense that she was real, rather than a porcelain doll waiting to be broken.
His eyes lingered a moment on the stark prominence of her clavicles, there above her neckline. She could stand to gain a few pounds, he supposed.
Then again, couldn’t they all?
Step, thump. Step, thump.
That part was deucedly odd. She didn’t appear outwardly lame, though her shuffling gait lacked the smooth refinement he expected in young ladies of the fashionable set. She settled herself into an empty seat along the wall and carefully arranged her skirts, but not before he caught the edge of one hideously ugly shoe peeking out from beneath the hem of her gown.
Now that she was sitting still, her symptoms told him a far different story than the one delivered by her fixed half smile. Her gloved hands sat on her lap, the picture of feminine innocence, but as he watched, they knotted and unknotted in the shimmering green of her skirts, seeking traction against some unseen force. Her forehead was creased in concentration, and beads of perspiration had formed above her upper lip.
He well knew the signs. Either the chit was constipated or in severe pain.
He was betting on the latter.
And just like that, the evening’s entertainment shifted toward something far more promising than Lady Austerley’s staunch refusal to faint.
Her Highland Fling Page 11
