Sam sat in the middle of Amanda’s canopied bed, engulfed from neck to toe in a demure white nightdress, her feet tucked beneath the flounced hem, her arms wrapped around her updrawn knees.
She cocked her head to the side, her shiny crop of golden curls tumbling over one eye. Clean and plumped up a bit after three weeks of regular meals, Sam looked decidedly more feminine than she’d appeared when Amanda first clapped eyes on her on Thorney Island.
Her figure was lithesome. She had a tiny waist, small pert breasts, delicate hands and feet, a slender, swanlike neck, and a gamine face. Except for her eyes, which were more gray than blue, her features were very similar to Amanda’s. They looked like sisters and would pass very easily as cousins.
“Well, Sam?” prompted Amanda. “You aren’t saying anything.”
“Don’t know what to say,” Sam finally admitted. “I don’t know what a fancy female should look like when she goes go to a musical evenin’.”
She said “musical evenin’ ” as if it were a contagious disease, making Amanda laugh. “You’ve looked at several lady’s magazines.”
Sam grimaced. “Only ‘cause you and that dressmaker lady made me.”
“How does my gown compare to the other evening dresses you saw in
La Belle Assemblée
, for example?”
Sam considered for another long minute while Amanda nervously smoothed the skirt of her midnight-blue evening gown. The waist was very high, coming to just below her breasts. The heart-shaped neckline was demurely cut, showing the merest hint of cleavage. The sleeves were puffed and edged with black lace. The skirt flared at the bottom to touch the floor in an elegant sweep when she walked, and it, too, was decorated with several rows of black lace.
Her black gloves came to just above her elbows. She wore blue satin slippers that exactly matched the color of her gown. Her jewelry was simple, consisting of a sapphire pendant around her neck on a delicate gold chain, sapphire earrings, and a black velvet ribbon that wound through her hair, which was braided in the back and coaxed and crimped into ringlets at her temples and forehead.
Amanda felt like a butterfly emerging from a dark cocoon. She was eager and afraid and quivering inside, but she was determined to have another go at enjoying a London season, even if it were only the little season, which fewer people attended in the autumn, and even if her activities were limited. And no matter how many times she told herself Jack had nothing to do with the excitement that thrummed through her veins, she couldn’t quit wondering if she’d see him tonight. If he’d approach her, talk to her …
She gave herself a stem mental shake and told herself that she had no business fantasizing about Jack. He’d done his duty by proposing marriage to her, and she’d rejected him. They’d parted on less than amiable terms. He’d probably completely dismissed her from his mind by now and was enjoying the favors of a new mistress.
If only she could forget
him
just as easily … Even if something as miraculous as male admirers materialized during her stay in London, Jack had ruined her for anyone else. Not only was she no longer the virginal maid most men demanded of their proper brides, but she had this unshakable feeling that she actually belonged to Jack now. She couldn’t imagine being intimate with another man.
“Why’re you so dreamy-eyed all of a sudden? What are you thinkin’ about?”
Amanda jerked out of her reverie and looked at Sam. Her sister’s large eyes were fastened on her with a keen inquisitiveness that made Amanda decidedly uncomfortable. Sam might be lacking in education, but her mind was as sharp as a hatpin.
“I—I wasn’t thinking of anything, really,” Amanda lied with a smile. “I was just imagining how the evening will be, and … and waiting for your opinion on my appearance.”
Sam raised her tawny brows disbelievingly but tactfully refrained from saying what was really on her mind. Where had the little ragamuffin learned
tact
? Amanda wondered. Or was it really cunning she was displaying? She could certainly believe Sam had learned to be a little devious while struggling to survive.
Sam cocked her head to the side again and surveyed her older sister from head to toe. “I think you look like what I always imagined an angel from the Bible would look like,” she said at last in a matter-of-fact tone that Amanda was inclined to believe was sincere. After all, Sam had never tried to flatter her before. She felt her cheeks glow with gratification.
“But shouldn’t angels be dressed in white?” she demurred modestly.
“You’re an evenin’ angel,” Sam said consideringly. “Your gown’s the color of dusk.”
“Why, thank you, Sam,” Amanda said earnestly and with a warm smile. “How kind of you to compare me to an angel.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to blush. She hated to be thanked or fussed over. And she didn’t want anyone to think she had a kind bone in her body.
“Ah, don’t make a to-do over it,” she grumped, waving her hand. “What do I know, anyway?”
Wisely, Amanda did not pursue the subject but secretly savored her satisfaction as she collected her black beaded reticule and her ivory-handled blue fan with ostrich feathers, and moved to the door. Just as she was about to exit the room, her aunts bustled in.
“Hurry, Amanda Jane!” exclaimed Aunt Prissy, holding her dove-gray silk skirts high above her small feet as if she were about to make a sprint down Bond Street. “We’re going to be late!”
“It’s fashionable to be late,” Nan admonished her sister. “Besides, Amanda
is
ready to go. If you’d quit twittering about, you’d see for yourself, Pris!” Then she smiled with pleasure as she took in Amanda’s appearance. “And she looks lovely. Don’t you think so, Samantha?”
Sam shrugged, not about to be caught being nice again. “What would I know?”
With a tiny, almost indiscernible shake of her head and a meaningful glance, Amanda dissuaded her aunts from giving Sam a lecture for being impolite. Miraculously they caught the hint and maneuvered themselves out the door and down the stairs without a single scolding word, Amanda following just behind.
At the bottom of the stairs, Amanda looked up at Sam, who was leaning over the railing with what appeared to be a rather wistful expression. Was it possible that Sam truly wanted to dress up and play the lady, and her recalcitrant act was only a front? Amanda wondered.
“You’re going straight to bed, aren’t you, Samantha?” Nan called up.
“S’pect I will,” she said in a surly tone. “Ain’t nothin’ else to do.”
“I’ll tell you all about the party tomorrow morning at breakfast, Sam,” Amanda promised her as the footman helped her with her winter wrap, a black velvet cloak trimmed at the hood and hem with swan’s down.
Sam shrugged, ducked her head, and nonchalantly kicked her bare toes against the wooden banisters. “If you want to,” she mumbled, then slid her eyes up and inquired, “Will there be dancin’?”
“None is planned,” said Nan, pulling on her gloves. “And that’s just as well, because Amanda Jane can’t dance.”
“Do you still dance … when there’s dancin’, Aunt Nan?” Sam wanted to know.
Nan tittered behind her hand. “Oh, dancing’s not for old duennas like me and Pris. We watch the dancing and flirting and folderol from afar and play chaperon. Tonight Pris and I will be watching to make sure no young buck gets out of line with your sister.”
“Aunt Nan!” exclaimed Amanda, laughing. “As if anyone would!”
“You underestimate yourself, my dear,” Pris murmured dryly. “You may find that even two chaperons aren’t enough to keep the scoundrels at bay.”
Amanda simply shook her head and smiled.
“Does Julian dance, do ya think?” Sam asked, reverting to a subject that seemed uppermost in her mind.
“I’m sure he does, but only if he wants to,” Amanda answered with a smile. “Why do you ask, dear?”
“Well, isn’t Julian
old
?”
Pris gave a most unladylike whoop of laughter, then covered her mouth with her hand and said coyly, “He’s not too old for dancing … or for a great many other things, I daresay. Such a well-looking man,” she said with a giggle. “And Jack, too!”
Nan gave Pris a hard, repressive stare from under her bonnet. Then, while Amanda fumbled confusedly with the ribbons of her cloak and averted her blushing face, Nan smiled up at Sam and said, “Shall I tell Lord Serling you said hello, my dear?”
Again Sam assumed a careless attitude. “If you want to.”
“I will, then,” Nan assured her with a decided nod. “Good night, my dear.”
“Yes, and sweet dreams!” Pris added.
Amanda recovered her wits, which had been scattered by the mere mention of Jack’s name, and managed to say goodnight to Sam, too. But the minute she walked out of the house and boarded the carriage, her thoughts became focused on one thing and one thing only.
Would she see Jack tonight?
Sam ran to the window and watched the carriage drive away to Lady Cowper’s musical evening. She braced her elbows on the window ledge and gazed dreamily at the foggy nimbus of light surrounding the street lamp directly in front of the house, listening to the clatter of horses and carriages going to and fro.
Sam wasn’t sure if she liked London or not. It was quite noisy and very closed-in compared to the only two other places she’d lived in her seventeen years. She missed Thorney Island because of the sea and the endless beaches. The serenity and beauty of dusk there, with her and her dogs sitting by a fire as they watched the sunset, was something she frequently pined for. But she didn’t miss the constant hunger and the loneliness.
Darlington Hall was nice. She’d rode a sweet horse at the Hall, a frisky mare named Hollyhock. She’d had her dogs there, too, and they’d run and run on the acres of ground that were part of her rich sister’s vast estate. The food was plentiful and the servants were kind. For that matter, Amanda and her aunts were kind, too … although she supposed Pris and Nan weren’t really
her
aunts because they were sisters of Amanda’s mother. But since they insisted on claiming her as an adopted niece, she had come to think of them as relatives, too.
She’d even grown rather fond of bathing and liked the fresh scent of her clean sheets when she tumbled into bed at night. All in all, she was getting accustomed to her new life but had a sinking sensation that the hard stuff was yet to come.
At Darlington Hall, she’d managed to frighten away the fuddy-duddy instructors Amanda had hired to help her become “an educated lady” by being as coarse and stupid in their company as she dared. She didn’t want
them
to teach her. She wanted Julian and
only
Julian telling her what to do.
Sam smiled, her cheeks cradled in her hands and her bottom sticking up in the back as she continued to linger at the window. The very best thing about coming to London, the one thing that made it bearable to leave her precious dogs behind at the Hall for a few weeks, was the fact that she saw Julian almost every day!
Sam pushed away from the window and walked to the full-length cheval mirror Amanda had used to check her appearance. She stared at her reflection, and decided that in a voluminous nightgown that didn’t show her figure to the least advantage she looked like a rather tall
child.
She frowned. Certainly that was the way Julian treated her … like a child.
But was Julian really so much older than she? When she’d asked Aunt Prissy about Julian’s age one day, she’d told her she supposed he was somewhere around five-and-thirty. In this modem day and age, Sam suspected that five-and-thirty was rather old. It certainly sounded old to her. But in the days of Methuselah, Julian would have just begun to live. And he’d have had several wives and a bevy of pretty concubines to keep him spry and happy.
Sam smoothed her hands down the front of her nightdress and cupped her breasts. Was
she
pretty? Was she enough of a woman to attract a man like Julian? Her arms dropped to her sides as she pondered these conundrums.
In the days of the Old Testament, she’d have been happy to be a concubine among tens of dozens of concubines, just to belong to Julian. But she’d much rather be his one and only. Nowadays men were permitted only one wife, and Sam was determined to be that one wife. She smiled demurely. Or his mistress.
But then she frowned. Where had such a thought come from? Of course she would never be anyone’s mistress! Her mother had been a mistress, and she’d been a sinner. And Sam had paid for her mother’s sin by being disowned and deserted, hidden away on an island for seventeen years.
Sam shook her head, attempting to dislodge the bad thoughts and feelings old Grimshaw had instilled in her every single day till the old witch took off and deserted her, too. Forcing herself to embrace lighter reflections, she took a handful of nightdress on each side and curtsied at the mirror.
“Yes, your lordship,” she simpered, touching her index finger to the point of her chin. “I’d be ever so delighted to dance with you. But shouldn’t you dance with the
princess
first?”
She batted her lashes and fluttered an imaginary fan. “Oh, la, Julian, don’t flatter me so! It fair turns me head!”
Then she extended her arms in a graceful arc and began to make circles on the cabbage-rose carpet surrounding Amanda’s bed, humming a discordant tune. But in Sam’s imagination, it was the sweetest melody in the world.
Chapter 19
By the time Jack showed up at the Cowper soiree, the elegant chambers of the town house were filled with the
crème de la crème
of English society … at least those who had not deserted town for more pastoral settings and activities. He stood at the door and adjusted his shirt cuffs as he searched the glittering crowd, looking for Amanda.
“I say, Jack, I don’t know why you were in such a devilish hurry to get here tonight,” Rob complained as he came up behind Jack, still out of breath from climbing the stairs. “I was hoping we could stop at Boodles and get a drink first. Bound to be a dreadful bore.”
“You’ve already had plenty to drink, Rob,” Jack said, eyeing his companion with disfavor. “You’re starting to look as dissipated as the Prince Regent.”