by Amanda Scott
Nell did not expect any such proper feeling to manifest itself, but she had better sense than to say so at this juncture. Therefore, she merely agreed with him, adding that she had a thing or two she meant to say to Rory before the matter was laid to rest.
“Well, don’t scold her too sternly,” he said, grinning when she made a face at him, then turning serious again. “It is a pity she made a display of herself in public, but I daresay few if any of the onlookers know her by sight. It is not as if she disgraced herself at Almack’s Assembly Rooms in London, after all. That would have ruined her.” He stood up. “I shall leave you now and return at nine o’clock. She should be perfectly well recovered by that time.”
Nell went with him into the hall and then went upstairs to discover that, as he had predicted, Rory was tucked up in bed and already asleep. “She’s dreadfully tired, Miss Lindale,” Sadie said in hushed tones. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she was to sleep clear through to morning, poor lamb.”
“Well, she is not to sleep so long, Sadie, and I depend upon you to see she is awake soon enough to have some tea and something to eat before she dresses for the ball.”
“Oh, ma’am, I doubt my lady should go out tonight at all.”
“The decision is not yours to make, however,” Nell said firmly. “The responsibility for seeing that she awakens at a reasonable hour I do leave to you, however. And I shall expect you to obey me, Sadie. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Flushing, young Sadie dropped a hasty curtsy, and Nell departed, satisfied that her charge would be up and dressed in time to leave for the ball when Huntley arrived. For a short time she had feared that Rory’s foolhardiness would keep them from attending the ball altogether. And Nell had never seen the inside of the prince’s Pavilion.
Mrs. Fitzherbert and the prince had been separated the year of Nell’s come-out and were not reunited until some three years later. It was then that his highness had plunged into his startling new adventures in architecture. The chief of these, of course, was the magnificent royal stables, which had been finished only some weeks before. While the building of the stables was still in progress, however, it had occurred to the prince that with all the old and new friends who would be flocking around him and Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Pavilion itself would have to be enlarged. In consequence, he had asked Henry Holland to prepare some designs, and it had been feared by many of Brighton’s worthy citizens that his highness would indulge his well-known penchant for oriental fantasy. Instead, he had finally decided to project two new wings in a classical style from the eastern facade, the northern one to form a dining room and the southern one a conservatory or drawing room.
The prince had not denied himself his fantasies, however, for the whole of the interior had been transformed and completely decorated in the Chinese style. Nell had heard a great deal about it from persons whose opinions as to its elegance and beauty differed widely, and she was most anxious to see the results for herself.
When the news reached her that evening that Huntley had arrived, she took a final hasty look at herself in the walnut-framed cheval glass, gave a twitch to her pale blue silk skirts to smooth the line at the curve of her hips, straightened the narrow, sapphire-colored bow just beneath her firm breasts, snatched up her velvet cloak, and hurried to her niece’s room.
“Rory, are you ready to depart?” she asked as she pushed open the door. Then she stopped and stared at the radiant vision before her. The Lady Aurora was not wearing the sort of plain white muslin gown that was the garb ordained for the debutante. Instead, she had chosen a pale-yellow, low-cut silk that shimmered in the candlelight of her bedchamber and that clung seductively to every generous curve. It was a gown destined to set men’s eyes popping, Nell thought, although since Rory was already betrothed, there was nothing really improper about it. If it was not quite what people might expect, it was still extraordinarily becoming to its wearer, and she could not help a small gasp of admiration. Rory turned to face her.
“Do you like it?” She smoothed the emerald sash and twisted her head to see if it fell properly in the back. Then, drawing on emerald elbow-length gloves, she waited confidently for her aunt’s response.
“Oh, Rory, you look truly like a golden girl tonight!” Nell exclaimed. “It is an exquisite gown, and oh, my dear, if I had had your figure eight years ago, I might have named my destiny.”
Pleasure glowed on Rory’s lovely face, and she declared herself ready. The look in Huntley’s eyes when he beheld them told Nell that he, too, was impressed with the younger girl’s appearance. It occurred to her only then that she had said nothing to Rory about the afternoon’s incident. She wondered if he would speak further of it, but he did not, and Rory herself seemed to have put the matter out of her mind entirely. The brief journey to the Pavilion was enlivened by her excited questions about what she would see there and Huntley’s patient replies. Nell began to look forward with more enthusiasm than ever to the evening ahead.
The carriage arrived at last, passing through the lodge gates to draw up to the porch, where they descended to join the throng of merry guests making their way into the Pavilion itself. They followed the crowd through the entrance halls and a large gallery, then into a splendid salon and the famous Chinese gallery, which had been created by throwing the original dining room and library together into one enormous chamber. The walls were hung with very beautiful Chinese paper and the rest of the gallery had been painted and decorated in a corresponding style.
After greeting their beaming host, Huntley guided the ladies toward the music room, explaining that a good many of the furnishings had come from London when the Chinese Room at Carlton House had been dismantled. There were immense quantities of Chinese porcelain, chairs, stools, and sofas of bamboo, cabinets of Japanese lacquerwork, as well as other oriental decorations and curiosities of all kinds. There were even Chinese costumes and weapons, and everything was illuminated by brilliant Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceilings. It was as if, Nell confided to Huntley, his highness had sought to re-create the legendary land of Cathay that had been sought by explorers for so many hundreds of years.
“Do you like it?”
“I think it is enchanting,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“The oriental influence is a trifle overblown for my tastes,” he confessed with a rueful twinkle. “I think Huntley Green would look a little odd tarted up with bamboo forests and scarlet peonies. And it would startle me to come upon an oriental fisherman fishing from a niche in one of my corridors.”
Nell chuckled appreciatively, but Rory grimaced and announced that there was no need to spoil everyone else’s pleasure just because he hadn’t got a romantic bone in his body. Nell stared at her.
“Surely you realized that his lordship was funning!”
“Don’t be a goose, Aunt Nell. You don’t think for a minute that he would allow bamboo-decorated wallpaper at his precious Huntley Green, do you?”
“Well, if you think you could actually live amidst all this,” Nell retorted, gesturing toward several cabinets loaded with fragile bric-a-brac, “let me tell you that you would soon change your mind. How do you suppose you would sleep in such a cluttered room?”
“You just said it was enchanting!”
“And so it is, my dear, here in the Pavilion. That doesn’t mean I should like to achieve a similar result in Upper Rock Gardens, I assure you.”
Rory looked for a moment as if she might like to continue the debate, but suddenly her cheeks glowed with an extra touch of color, and the sparkle in her eye was enough to inform Nell, even before she followed the direction of the girl’s steady gaze, that Rory had discovered her target for the evening.
X
NELL EXPERIENCED A SENSE of astonishment when she realized that the focal point of Rory’s rapt gaze was none other than Major Gideon Talcott. She had been nearly certain that the younger girl would be ripe for a new conquest by now. But she could see no one else who might have
drawn Rory’s eye, and that was surely the major and no other in the crowd ahead of them.
They passed along one side of a magnificent, illuminated stained-glass enclosure that resembled a giant Chinese lantern, exhibiting the insects, fruit, and exotic flowers of the Orient, and Nell’s attention was momentarily diverted from Major Talcott. By the time they entered the music room, he seemed to have drifted away in the crowd, and a glance at Rory’s crestfallen expression told her aunt that she, too, had lost sight of him. Nell leaned nearer in order that her words would carry no farther than the younger girl’s ears.
“You would be well-advised, my dear,” she said gently, “to behave with all propriety tonight. Your copybook, you might remember, is a bit blotted at the moment.”
Delicate color suffused Rory’s cheeks, but she vouchsafed no answer other than a brief nod. It was enough to satisfy Nell, however. Huntley escorted them to a set of chairs near the wall, and soon afterward there came a stir from the musician’s gallery as they began to make ready to play for the first set of country dances.
The prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert led the first two or three dances and then retired to an elegantly draped dais from which they could view the activities of their guests and where his highness might receive further congratulations upon his birthday. Nell, sitting out the first dance and watching Huntley and her niece, noted that Rory seemed to be giving him less than her undivided attention as her eyes moved in a continuous attempt to locate Major Talcott. When she suddenly relaxed, a secret little smile playing upon her lips, Nell knew she had found him.
He stepped up to greet them the moment they returned. “I trust your card is not yet filled, my lady,” he said in his pleasant voice.
“Oh, no, indeed, sir. Why ’tis but half filled,” she replied happily.
“Inconceivable.” His eyes twinkled, and Nell could not be surprised when he received an immediate, glowing response. She glanced at Huntley, but he seemed unaware of any byplay, merely shaking hands with Talcott and greeting him politely.
The major took Rory’s card and scrawled his name in two separate places. When he held it out to her again, she looked for a moment as if she might point out the fact that there were several other blank spaces, but she apparently thought better of the notion and merely smiled up at him as she accepted her card. The next dance was the first by which he had entered his name, so once the music began, he bowed briefly to Nell and swept Rory off to join the nearest set.
Nell looked at her companion a bit warily, wondering if he might be annoyed. Huntley glanced down at her just then and she saw not annoyance but humor in the hazel eyes.
“Afraid of me, Nell?”
“Of course not,” she retorted instantly. “What a ridiculous notion, my lord. I cannot think what can have put such a thought into your head.”
He chuckled, taking a seat beside her. “Perhaps ’twas the fact that you looked for a moment as if you feared I might bite.”
She grinned back at him, then lifted an eyebrow ruefully. “I doubt you would bite, sir, though I confess I did fear you might be a trifle annoyed when I did nothing to intervene.”
“Intervene?”
“Well, the major has been a bit particular in his attentions, and there are some who would say I ought, as Rory’s chaperon, to put a stop to them.”
“I, however, do not number among them,” he said.
“Your partner will be wondering what has become of you, sir,” she pointed out, suddenly, and for no good reason that she knew of, nervous of his presence.
“I have no partner.”
The answer flustered her. “B-but you cannot … that is, you must have partners, sir. You cannot mean to dance only with Rory. People would surely talk.”
“They would think me an eccentric fellow?”
“Indeed. And you would not like your name and Rory’s to be bandied about in public, sir.”
“This afternoon you called me Philip,” he said irrelevantly, and she saw from the deepening twinkle in his eyes that he was laughing at her.
Her color mounted, but she faced him squarely. “No doubt I forgot my manners in the agitation of the moment, my lord,” she said.
He chuckled. “No doubt. But I prefer my name to all the blasted sirs and my lords you see fit to shower over me, my dear. Do you not think you could—by virtue of our longstanding friendship—put aside these airs of propriety at least when we are alone?”
The twinkle in his eye set her heart thumping, but she did her best to consider his request. After all, they had been good friends, although she would have used the term long-ago, to describe that friendship, rather than long-standing. Still, that was little more than a quibble, and as it would clearly be tactless of her to point out that he had not asked his intended bride to use his given name—
“Nell?”
She started, flushing more deeply and giving herself a small shake as she recognized the trend her thoughts had been taking. “I beg your pardon, sir, but you are betrothed to my niece, and it would be unseemly of me to make free with your name. Furthermore, you must find a partner. What will people think if you continue to sit here beside me when you should be joining in the dance?”
“Nell, Nell,” he said in a gentle reproof, “you are too sensitive. What else should they think, but that I am biding my time before my betrothed returns by passing an agreeable few moments with her aunt?”
“But—”
“No more buts, if you please,” he said, smiling now. “You have told me that I must make my interests plain, and I can think of no better way. Aurora would certainly not take it kindly if I were such a sapskull as to attempt to monopolize her time. I daresay she would balk at more than two dances with me. I shall be lucky, in fact, if I can get her to accompany me down to supper without a scene.”
His words made sense, but Nell could not help thinking that he might make more of a push to define his position with her niece than just to sit beside her all evening. It would accomplish little if Rory intended to flirt as much as she had done on other occasions. Not but what it would be most agreeable. She gave herself another little shake.
“Do you mean to sit here all evening?” she asked.
“Well, I shall dance another dance with Aurora, of course. I put my name down for the second contradanse. But aside from that, I see no reason why I should not sit with you. Unless. …”
“Unless what?” she asked suspiciously.
He turned a little more in his chair in order to look at her directly. His eyes seemed to be teasing her, she thought idly. They were very nice eyes.
“Unless you will agree to stop being fusty about your duties long enough to dance. There is no reason I can think of for you to plant yourself in that chair for the entire evening. I’ve seen the way your feet beat time to the music, my girl. You are just bursting at the seams to join the others. If you will engage yourself to allow a few of the gentlemen who approach you to sign their names on your card, then I shall endeavor to trot a few of the more likely damsels onto the floor, as well. What do you say, Nell?”
“But my mama never danced when she took me about!” Nell protested.
He chuckled. “Your mama never exerts herself without dire need to do so. Believe me, the only ladies who did not dance to the assemblies we attended in London were those who were absolutely decrepit and who attended merely to play cards. You agreed to dance with me last evening when I pointed out that your sister would never sit still just because she had her daughter in tow. So just you hand over that card, my girl. Now.” He held out his hand imperatively. She looked at it, then raised her eyes.
It did seem silly when he put matters into such a perspective. She had taken her cue from her own mother’s behavior during her come-out and, for that matter, the behavior of most of her friends’ mothers. None of them danced. Mostly, they sat in a corner together and gossiped. But as she looked around now, she could see several women her sister’s age, at least two of whom had daughters who had made the
ir come-outs this year, and they were dancing despite the fact that their daughters, still unmarried, were doing likewise. Huntley was smiling down at her, and his smile was a warm one. Still, there was a look of implacability in his eyes that made her hesitate to press the matter further. Indeed, she did not know why she would want to press it further. He was quite right. Even now her feet were keeping time beneath the lace flounce of her pale blue skirts. She returned his smile and handed him her dance card.
“Very well, sir.”
“Much better.” He scrawled his name twice, then looked up and gave a short nod with his head. Before Nell could imagine what he was doing, several young men approached her and requested the privilege of signing her card. She gazed at Huntley in amazement.
He grinned at her. “You know most of these rattles, I daresay. MacElroy, here, asked me to do my possible. The others agreed. Said it was a dashed shame such a beauty was intent upon remaining upon the sidelines when it was clear she was meant for dancing. Couldn’t help but agree with them. There, Flint, pass that card along to Braithwaite, behind you.” He looked down at Nell. “I trust you are not annoyed with me,” he said quietly. “MacElroy is no more than a fashionable fribble, but he dances passably well, and the others are good sorts. I am persuaded you will enjoy the festivities much more as a participant than as on onlooker.”
“And you, my lord? Shall you keep your part of the bargain?”
He sighed. “I shall. Not that that means I shall be dancing as much as it appears you will be. But I shall endeavor to do more than merely hold up one of these so elegant walls. And to keep an eye on my prospective bride, as well,” he added with a little smile.
The rest of the evening seemed to pass quickly for Nell. Only twice did she lose sight of Rory for any length of time. Upon the first of these occasions, she had a strong sense of having failed in her duty and spent several anxious moments searching for her before she saw her approaching on Huntley’s arm and realized that he had merely taken her to find some refreshment. Upon the second such occasion, her anxiety was not so great, for she was quite certain that Rory would reappear within moments, as indeed she did. If Nell was not particularly pleased to see that this time, as she made her way through the crowd of merrymakers, Rory was accompanied by her current favorite among the Prince’s Own, she was too glad to have her charge restored to her to say anything. It was only as the pair drew nearer that Nell realized that Rory was looking oddly subdued, while her large partner wore an air of sternness that she had not seen before.
