Lady Horatia beamed with satisfaction. Next, the open robe was carefully flung over Kitty's head and spread out across the heavy fall of net that formed the petticoat. A pretty diamond necklace was clasped about her slender throat, and as a finishing touch, two of the pink roses were pinned to the lace at her breast.
“There, you are ready!'' cried Lady Horatia delightedly.” Oh, my dear, you are so beautiful, did you know? Now I must dress. Go down and wait for me in the salon, child, and whatever you do, do not sit, for if you crush your dress, I shall be cross.” With a smile to soften the severity of this speech, Lady Horatia tripped off to her own chamber, where she completed her toilette in a time that would have astonished her husband had that amiable peer been alive to see her.
Kitty meanwhile descended the stairs with all due care and obediently made her way to the salon, now ablaze with the light of a hundred candles. She stood by the fireplace, a little at a loss, pondering the change in her circumstances since the day, four months ago, that Lord Debenham had entered her life. She wondered what he would think of her when he saw her tonight and then remembered with a little shrug that his opinion mattered little, as he could not, it seemed, wait to see her married off to some eligible suitor. Unexpectedly, a voice from the doorway recalled her to the present.
“Kitty, my dear,” said a familiar and increasingly beloved voice, and she turned, blushing a little, to greet the man on whom her thoughts had centred. He stood in the doorway, staring at her. He held out a hand, and she moved forward to meet him, placing her hand trustingly in his.
He smiled. “My dear, I am struck dumb by the picture you present. You are quite exquisite.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she smiled, dropping a mocking little curtsy. “I am pleased that you approve of me.”
“How could I help it? I am not blind,” he answered quickly. Then, under his breath, “I would to God I were!”
Before Kitty could make any reply to this strange remark, Lady Horatia came bustling into the room, splendidly attired in crimson satin and a hoop so enormous that she was obliged to enter the room sideways. Lord Debenham, always amused by his youthful aunt, made her a most profound leg and professed to be quite overpowered at the sight of her magnificence. Lady Horatia laughed and then turned her attention to their charge.
“Well, Anthony, what do you think of our Master Kit now? Does he not make a monstrous pretty girl?”
“Indeed, Ma'am, I was engaged in expressing my admiration when you arrived. The transformation is quite astounding. I am exceedingly grateful to you.”
“La, my dear, I enjoyed it prodigiously,” disclaimed her Ladyship. “Well, Anthony, I must say, you have done justice to the occasion yourself. I protest I have never seen you look so smart.”
Debenham bowed his thanks for this tribute, which was well merited. With the very definite intention of providing a foil for his two ladies, Lord Debenham had arrayed himself in sombre black. He wore a good deal of silver lace and an embroidered waistcoat of such magnificence that Lady Horatia vowed they were surpassed and that nothing else would be talked of all evening.
Their quiet talk was interrupted at this point by the sound of the bell. The liveried lackeys sprang to attention, the doors were flung open, and Lord Debenham moved to the top of the stairs with a lady on either arm, ready to greet his guests.
One hour later, the rooms were already so full that people were obliged to stand in draughty passages, and yet still more people were arriving. Kitty had made her curtsy a hundred times and was quite bewildered by all the names and the faces that swam before her eyes. Of the crowd, several people stood out in her memory. The first was Lady Amelia, who had floated up the stairs upon the arm of her papa, arrayed in violet silk, with a cluster of the exquisite blooms tucked behind one pretty ear.
A murmur of admiration went up around them as the two women curtsied politely, the one divinely fair, the other dark, but withal as dainty as a piece of porcelain. Amelia had been fulsome in her compliments; Kitty had replied courteously. Again, the sensation seekers were disappointed. The Withingtons passed on into the ballroom.
About half an hour later, a young man, rakishly dressed in royal-blue velvet, and with his modish wig askew, bounded up the stairs and grasped Lord Debenham's hand with heart-warming enthusiasm.
“Tony, Tony, you dog, where have you been hiding yourself?” demanded this gentleman jovially. “There's a horse I've been wanting to sell you this age, and you nowhere to be found!”
“Very true,” replied the Earl, smiling with rare warmth. “I heard about the horse and thus made quite sure you could not find me. Now, you young idiot, have the goodness to stop talking for one minute and allow me to present you to my ward. Kitty, may I present to you one of my oldest friends, Julian Faraday, Viscount Courtney?”
Lord Debenham's young friend had by now discovered the lady for himself and was standing in front of her with his mouth open. Fortunately, he had a very good set of teeth and so was not seen to disadvantage in that position. Kitty extended her hand, which he took reverently, closed his mouth, swallowed, opened it again, and managed to utter that he was charmed. Lord Courtney was a young man notoriously unimpressed by female charms—respectable females that is—and was so terrified of being caught by a matchmaking mama that he rarely amused himself among girls of his own set. If even he could be struck dumb by Mistress Kitty, her success, reflected the Earl, was no doubt assured.
It was late in the evening, and Kitty had long been released from her position beside Lord Debenham, that a gentleman entered the ballroom. He was extremely handsome, of slender build and dressed with finicky care. He stood in the doorway and searched the room with his eyes until he discovered Kitty, surrounded by admirers, foremost among whom was young Lord Courtney.
Leisurely, the gentleman crossed the floor to where this laughing group stood wrangling about whom should be honoured with the next dance. People in his path, becoming aware of his presence, hushed their friends and watched breathlessly as he approached. A touch of a shoulder here, a word there, and he was through the crowd and standing before the lady. He bowed gracefully and, in a light, pleasing voice, said, “Cousin, I beg leave to present myself.”
“Cousin?” repeated Kitty questioningly. “Then you are…?”
“Cedric Brabington, Cousin, and wholly at your entrancing feet.”
A sound very like a sigh of relief pervaded the room, the tension was broken, and the guests began with renewed animation to discuss this latest development.
Meanwhile, Kitty was welcoming this new and handsome relation with naive delight. Chagrined, other admirers found themselves dismissed, for Mistress Kitty must sit with her new friend and express to him how kind she thought him, how generous, in allowing her claim so easily. She told him, too, how guilty she felt to have deprived him of so much and, with touching innocence, she begged him to forgive her.
With practised charm, Lord Brabington took her hand and kissed it warmly. “Do not be foolish, my little Cousin,” he told her caressingly. “I have more than enough for my needs, and to own you as my cousin, to be able to claim your affection through our relationship—these must amply compensate me for anything I have lost.”
Kitty coloured adorably. “My lord, you may have my affection if you desire it, for I have never had a family, and to find that I possess a cousin with whom I can truly be friends is delightful.”
Lord Brabington pressed the hand he had retained. “One day, Cousin,” he murmured, “I may perhaps ask for more than cousinly affection.” In some confusion, Kitty withdrew her hand, dismayed to find her frank confidence so misinterpreted. However, Brabington must have realized that he had moved too quickly, for with great address he turned the subject and talked so much like the kind friend she hoped for that she forgot her embarrassment, and, at the end of half an hour, they were firm friends.
At the end of this conversation, Brabington rose and, having obtained permission to visit his cousin on the morrow, he
left the ballroom, very well satisfied with the progress he had made.
Upon the departure of Brabington, Kitty's admirers once more besieged her, but Kitty was in a wayward mood and would have nothing to say to them. Instead, with an angelic smile, she turned to her guardian, who was standing with his friend Courtney, defending himself against accusations of gross selfishness in keeping his little heiress to himself. “Dear Sir, will not you dance with me?” she asked beseechingly.
It was impossible to deny her in front of all those men—they were smiling at her pretty caprice, thinking she meant but to tease them. Debenham bowed and took her hand, leading her off to join the set. He looked far from gratified, however, as she noted, peeping up at him from beneath long eyelashes.
“You are angry with me, Sir. Should I not have asked you to dance with me? It was just because I was so tired of talking to people I do not know. I thought I would like to be with you instead.”
Debenham was not proof against such an appeal. He glanced down at his ward with an expression so tender that, had they been observed, every uncharitable suspicion would have been confirmed. Fortunately, however, the scandalmongers had now decided that Brabington was the lucky man, and the Earl was no longer the subject of speculation.
They danced a minuet with grace, and then Lord Debenham obligingly conducted his ward down to supper and saw her supplied with dainties before abandoning her once more to the mercy of her admirers. Lord Courtney, by astute fieldwork, was able to gain the seat beside her and, as he was a gentleman of considerable charm, kept her very well entertained with various highly slanderous titbits of scandal. As his Lordship was as rich as he was charming, Lady Horatia did not feel it necessary to play gooseberry to this happy scene, and she went off with some satisfaction upon the arm of an old friend, expressly invited by Lord Debenham to amuse her.
The Earl meanwhile had done his duty by most of the young ladies, had exchanged a friendly word with each of the gentlemen, and now felt at leisure to enjoy the company of his betrothed. That there was little enjoyment to be had he had ruefully admitted to himself but, chivalrously, he was determined that his future countess should not be humiliated by lack of attention on his part.
He found her seated with her mama, surrounded by a circle of young men who either preferred golden hair to black or who were too wary to pay attentions to unattached ladies. He detached his betrothed from this group and led her onto the floor.
“Allow me, my dear Anthony, to congratulate you,” remarked the lady graciously. “Kitty is quite ravishing.”
“She is very well,” he answered indifferently. “Horatia has worked wonders.”
Lady Amelia would have done well to leave the subject there but, like any jealous woman, she could not be wise, she must probe his feelings, if only to confirm what she suspected.
“Brabington seemed much struck,” she remarked next. “What a good match that would be for her.”
“You think so?”
“But naturally, Anthony. He, after all, has the title and knows who his mother was. She is the daughter of a criminal, and who her mother was no one knows.”
“And so you think it would be suitable to match her, in all her innocence, with a man given over to every form of viciousness and licence, simply because her birth is questionable? I had no notion you were so romantic,” he answered savagely.
“Do not take that tone with me, Debenham!” she cried angrily. “Do you expect me to take her under my roof, a girl from God knows where? She must be married, and Brabington will do as well as any other. It will at least keep the estate together.”
The Earl did not trust himself to answer, and so the rest of the dance was accomplished in silence, at the end of which he returned his lady to her mama and remained silently by her chair for much of the rest of the evening while his betrothed was whisked away to dance with her unsuccessful suitors. Had he been in a mood to care, my Lord might have been rather annoyed at the number of times Captain Markham was favoured with the lady's hand. But as his only concern was to hide their quarrel from the prying eyes of his guests, he did not follow her movements with any closeness. His mind was occupied, instead, with the possibility of Kitty's falling in love with her handsome cousin—and how best he might warn her of that gentleman's vicious propensities.
To the three people principally involved, the Ball seemed to have been going on for an eternity. Lady Horatia, an indefatigable hostess, was still brightly keeping her guests happy. But Kitty was pale with fatigue, and Lord Debenham would happily have kicked most of the company into the street.
Catching sight of Kitty's wan little face, Lady Horatia suggested that she slip quietly away, leaving the Earl and herself to see their guests out of the house. This release was gratefully accepted by Kitty, who eluded her still-persistent court and escaped through a small saloon that looked out onto the garden. The long windows were open and, as it was a warm night, Kitty was tempted out into the moonlight for a few moments. She soon discovered, with some embarrassment, that she was not alone in her desire for the night air. A lady and gentleman were standing some yards off behind an arbour and were locked in a passionate embrace. Kitty had been brought up carelessly and had often witnessed far warmer scenes among guests in her father's house. And so she was not at all shocked, merely amused to find that, for all their airs and refinement, the fine dames of Bath were as approachable as any of the ladies of easy virtue who had enjoyed her father's protection.
However, she ceased to be amused when the couple moved apart, and clearly seen in the moonlight was the face of Amelia Henshawe and beside her, not the handsome figure of Lord Debenham but an unknown gallant, garbed in an officer's uniform, who held the lady with all the possessiveness of an accepted lover.
Kitty shrank back into the shadows unobserved as the couple parted. Then she hurried back into the salon and from thence to her chamber, where she lay until morning, too exhausted to sleep, her mind revolving every moment of an evening that seemed to her one of the most eventful in her life.
Seven
Lord Brabington had left his cousin's Ball feeling very much more hopeful. In common with the rest of the Polite World, he had been certain that the Earl would have lost no opportunity to attach the heiress to himself. That he should whistle away a fortune merely because of a previous engagement was quite out of Lord Brabington's understanding, and he had been pessimistic about his own chances of attracting the heiress. Now, however, he was very much inclined to think that she favoured him, not entirely to his surprise, for how could she resist so attractive a suitor as himself?
He reached his lodgings, still pleasantly daydreaming, but was jerked rudely out of his complacency by the news, hurriedly whispered by his anxious manservant, that a gentleman awaited him in the study.
He entered the room in some trepidation, for he was a nervous individual, nor was he reassured to find the room in darkness so that only the silhouette of his visitor was visible against the uncurtained window.
“Come in, you pathetic creature,” adjured his guest softly. “I have a good deal to say to you.”
Brabington swallowed and then said with an assumption of ease, “Oh, it's you, old fellow. I protest, you gave me quite a turn.”
“I am no fellow of yours, Brabington,” answered the visitor unpleasantly. “Sit down and tell me what happened tonight before I lose all patience with you.”
Brabington cast his interlocutor a look of acute dislike but obediently began to relate his progress that night. As he talked, the moon emerged from behind a bank of cloud and illuminated the familiar features of Mr Wellbeloved.
“You say she seemed pleased with you,” remarked this gentleman at the end of his companion's recital. “How strange! I had formed a higher opinion of her intelligence. However, her preference will no doubt assist us considerably.”
“I protest, Sir, your jests are unmannerly. I think I may say that my fair cousin will do as well with me for a husband as any.”
; Wellbeloved favoured his confederate with an appraising stare but said nothing. Brabington moved fretfully under his scrutiny and then burst out with the request that had been upon his lips the entire interview. “I say, Wellbeloved, I'm devilish short just now and, you know, if I'm to court this wretched girl, I'll need to spend some money on her. Can't expect her to do without the odd posy, you know.”
“Very true,” calmly answered Wellbeloved and tossed over a purse. “But be warned, Brabington. If I discover that one penny of that has gone on the tables, I will assuredly break your neck.”
Brabington was affronted, “You have my word, Sir,” he declared haughtily. Wellbeloved smiled but made no comment. He merely proceeded to issue certain instructions to his confederate.
“You will continue to make yourself agreeable to the heiress in every way open to you. More important, you will eschew your former way of life totally and let it be widely known that you do so in the hope of being worthy of her affection. If I know women, that will soften her, and it's as well to be prepared lest some busybody tells her what a thoroughly unsavoury character you really are. You will induce her to trust in you, and you will await my instructions. Is this understood?”
Brabington nodded sulkily and was dismissed.
It was nearly noon before Kitty awoke the next morning after a heavy but unrefreshing sleep. Her dreams had been troubled and, even as she awoke, she was aware that some unaccustomed cloud hung over her. Her feeling for her guardian, unacknowledged though it was, made it impossible for her to stand silent by whilst he married a woman already faithless to him. Yet how could she tell him what she had seen? Their friendship was yet uncertain; often he surprised her with his odd incomprehensible remarks. Slowly, they were building up the trust that she had so foolishly thrown away. She did not feel that she could risk losing it again by playing the part of tale-bearer.
She lay back against her pillows, musing and sipping the sweet chocolate her abigail had brought. She was interrupted by a discreet tap upon the door, which opened to reveal Lady Horatia, absurdly youthful in figured dimity, who tripped lightly into the room saying, “My sweet, how are you? I vow I am still exhausted and I am accustomed to such routs. Did you sleep at all? I know I did not after my first party! Did you enjoy yourself?”
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