Elisabeth Kidd (24 page)

Charles resumed his discourse, but shortly interrupted himself to ask
Antonia if she cared for any refreshment.

“You are looking a little pale, my dear,” he said. “Perhaps it is less
stuffy outside after all. Shall we take a stroll?”

Antonia’s eyes darted across the theatre to discover Lord Kedrington’s box temporarily deserted, and she said quickly, “No, thank you, Charles! I had as lief remain here with you. That is
...”
She smiled and laid her
hand gently over his. “Sometimes it is much more restful to sit quietly
with someone one is fond of than to rush about attempting to be pleasant to the whole world, is it not?”

Charles made no reply but to return her smile and lift her hand to his
lips. She studied his face for a moment, looking for something she could not define—or perhaps for something she feared to find. It was, happily,
not there.

“Charles…”

She did not know why she hesitated. He was looking at her intently,
but hopefully; not wanting to force her to continue, yet obviously eager
to hear what was on her mind. She tried to marshal her thoughts, and out of the recesses of her memory at last succeeded in extracting a clear image.

This was her Charles, she reminded herself, her knight in shining
armour, the only man she had ever expected to love. And here he was
beside her—if anything, more certain than ever that he wanted her for
his wife, yet willing to let her decide his fate.

She smiled up at him and said, simply, “I have decided that I shall be very happy to marry you, Charles.”

He pressed her hands tightly in his own and might even have demonstrated his gratitude in a more forceful, if less characteristic, fashion, had
not Imogen and Philip returned just then to their box, full of amusing
gossip about the other playgoers they had encountered in the rotunda.
Antonia’s laughter and the high colour in her cheeks thus seemed
natural to them, even if their source was not what they might have
thought. Charles, too, schooled his smiles to suit his father’s bon-mots,
but when the lights dimmed again, he reached surreptitiously for Antonia’s
hand and held it until the last of the House of York had been laid to rest,
only then releasing it, reluctantly, to applaud the performance neither he
nor Antonia had paid very much heed to for some time.

On the other side of the theatre, Viscount Kedrington’s attention was
not on Shakespeare, either. In fact, he had to suppress an urge to call
Charles Kenyon out by donning the mask of an impartial observer and
telling himself that while Antonia Fairfax had lost none of her beauty, it
had undergone a change. Where once she had shone with the beauty of a
loved and loving woman—not unlike Barbara’s at this moment—she now
glistened with the polished perfection of a much-admired object. He
might have hazarded a guess as to how Kenyon had achieved this
transformation in her, but he was at the same time fearful of finding it
out for certain.

Isabel sat very still, her hands clasped tightly together in the folds of
her petticoat, while Esme dressed her hair with a light touch and a
constant flow of chatter meant to prohibit any reply from Isabel but a half
nod of her head.

“...
Cook says there will be lobster patties and champagne at supper,
miss, but I think she was only funning—about the lobsters, I mean, for I’m sure I never heard of such a thing, and of course Cook wouldn’t let
me taste one.... Mr Charles gave Ludlow half a crown this morning for polishing up the railings so nice, and now Ludlow is puffing himself up
something terrible and ordering the stableboys to look smart tonight
when they take care of the ladies’ and gentlemen’s carriages, if they know
what’s good for them.... Rachel says Mrs Curtiz is going to wear a new
dress from India—all gold, she says it is.
...
Am I hurting you, miss?”

“Oh, no,” Isabel said mechanically.

Esme proclaimed herself satisfied with her handiwork and invited
Miss Isabel to admire in the looking glass the intricate knot at the crown
of her head, ringed with Charles’s pink roses, and the carefully curled
tendrils of fair hair which framed her face.

Mrs Curtiz knocked at the
door just at that moment and entered bearing a cup of chamomile
tea—”Wonderfully soothing for the nerves, my love”—and was invited to
give her opinion.

“Very clever,” said that lady, who did not have to be asked twice for her
views. “But just a little severe, don’t you think, Isabel?”

Esme looked offended. “It’s just that I have fastened the pins securely,
ma’am, so they don’t come out with the dancing!”

“To be sure. But I wonder if perhaps a little, ah
...
artistic disorder might be more becoming?”

“I’m sure I know what suits miss and what doesn’t, ma am!”

“Oh, do stop!” Isabel exclaimed. “Both of you—do be dears and stop fussing so! You will be obliged to do some little adjustments after I have
put on my gown, Esme, and we may settle the matter of my coiffure then.
Imogen, I do think I need a cup of tea after all, so if you will only allow
me to drink it while it is still hot
...”

Already regretting her impulsive words, Isabel looked imploringly up
at the two ladies, who were at once all solicitude and declared they knew
precisely how she felt, and if she would only lie down for five minutes
and close her eyes, she would be herself again in no more time than—
whereupon Isabel burst into tears, and both Mrs Curtiz and Esme were
instantly silenced from the shock.

Isabel had been awake since six o’clock that morning and had spent
most of her day running to and fro in a storm of energy which alarmed
Antonia, who could not help wondering if something other than ordi
nary anticipatory nerves were troubling her usually imperturbable niece.
Isabel, however, would not be drawn into any conversational subject more
intimate than the hour at which their earliest guests might be expected.
Antonia had set her to rearranging yet again the flowers in the dining
room and fetching things that no one needed. As soon as possible, she
had sent Isabel to be bathed, powdered, and dressed, with a strict
injunction to Esme not to allow her to become overexcited.

But it was a hopeless demand, for Isabel continued to prick herself with pins, lose her spectacles, put her petticoat on back-to-front, and tear her stocking, until Esme stamped her foot and ordered her to sit still or she would never be
able to finish her toilette—which precipitated her tears as she sobbed into
Mrs Curtiz’s gold silk saree.

“Oh, Imogen, can’t we call if off?” Fortunately,
her old friend knew how little Isabel liked to be the centre of attention,
and knew also how to divert her from her vivid mental picture of herself
all alone in the midst of a brilliantly lighted ballroom, and so said simply
that they could not, because all of her friends were looking forward to it.

Isabel’s sobs lessened and finally stopped, and when Imogen suggested
that she might, without inconveniencing anyone, take a short nap, Isabel
sighed wearily and stumbled toward her bed. When Esme came to wake
her half an hour later, she had quite forgotten her earlier agitation and
ran to her mirror in search of confirmation of what had, after all, been
happy dreams. Then, before she knew where the time had flown, she was
standing before the glass in her white satin ball dress, with the blond lace
overskirt Cloris had insisted on and the decorative knots of pink ribbon
that had been her own inspiration. Around her throat was a pearl
necklace of her mother’s, and on her slim hand a gold ring her father had purchased for this occasion when Isabel was a baby.

“Esme! Do you hear a carriage?”

The little maid ran to the window and looked out. “Yes, miss! It’s Lord Kedrington’s, I believe. Oh, yes, I see his crest on the side—oh, how grand
he looks!”

Isabel’s hands flew to her cheeks. She ran to the door, but stopped,
uncertain. She ought to wait, to make an entrance when everyone had
arrived —but no! It would be rude not to be there to greet them. And oh!
It was only Lord Kedrington, after all!

Propelled by this obscure assurance, she glanced once more into her
mirror while Esme quickly straightened the hem of her skirt for the fifth
time, then snatched up her fan and fairly flew down the stairs.

His lordship was in the process of handing his hat and silk-lined cape
to Belding, when out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of white,
followed by a breathless “Oh!” and the sweet smell of soap mingled with the faint fragrance of the roses Isabel wore, as she came forward to shake
his hand and confide ingenuously, “I am in such a quiver!”

“Nonsense,” said his lordship, which curt reassurance went further toward sustaining Isabel’s spirits than any number of fulsome compliments would have done. She was then able to receive Clory and her
brother and the Worthings—who arrived in the viscount’s wake—with charming ease, and Kedrington, suppressing a smile at Isabel’s expense,
was able to attend to her aunt instead.

Antonia had descended the stairs some moments before, and now
stood quietly to one side to allow attention to be focused on Isabel. The
viscount’s gaze flickered approvingly over her blue-embroidered white gown, the sapphires around her throat, and the lilies-of-the-valley in her
hair, but she seemed not in the least discomfited by his intent scrutiny. In fact, she scarcely seemed to see him, so he approached her to enforce his
presence upon her.

“My lord!” she exclaimed, with a bright smile that seemed to him overly brittle. “What a stranger you have become! We feared you had
deserted us.”

“Indeed? But when I called twice previously, only to discover you had
all repaired to Mr Kenyon’s house to paint dance cards or some such
thing, I thought I would be considerably
de trop
.”

Antonia raised her brows quizzically. He realised that he had trod too
heavily on his first step, but before he could retreat, she said in her
gracious but impersonal hostess’s voice, “If Isabel has not thanked you
for your flowers, by the way, I must do so. She adored them.”

In a fit of magnanimity, so that Antonia would not be obliged to
choose among competing offerings, Kedrington had sent a large bouquet of unwearable but very lovely white camellias, which now reposed in a
bowl set in the hall for all to see as they entered. He could see that his
gesture had been wasted, however, and it piqued him unreasonably to see
what were no doubt Charles Kenyon’s lilies in her hair.

“She flies her colours in her cheeks,” he said, after a pause, of Isabel.

“Who has a better right, tonight?”

The viscount sighed feelingly. “Ah, to be young again, and able to
blush at happiness!”

“I don’t believe you ever did any such thing.”

“I confess I have no recollection of it myself, but my mother assured
me it was so. The occasion, I believe, was my sixth birthday, when my
tutor presented me with a catapult, which I had —secretly, I supposed—
wanted for months. Up to then Mr Widdington had figured in my mind as a model of rectitude and respectability. I never thought he had it in
him. Ah, here is my Aunt Hester.”

Miss Coverley, in a pale blue gown adorned with rows of lace and
ribbons, had at that moment entered on the arm of Mr Angus Wilmot,
resplendent in lilac satin breeches, a roquelaure of the same remarkable
shade thrown over his slender shoulders, and an expression of ennui,
which he rapidly shed when he caught sight of Kedrington. Miss Coverley
glanced all around her, and her bright eyes fairly danced at the sight of
Isabel, who curtseyed prettily to her and made her welcome.

“Oh, my dear, how pretty you look! How thrilling for you...your first ball! Why, I remember—

Since Miss Coverley looked about to succumb tearfully to the emotion
of the moment, the viscount interrupted to warn Isabel that his aunt was
the belle of every ball she attended, and every other damsel must look to
her laurels when one of the celebrated Coverley Girls was about. This
outrageous piece of flattery Miss Coverley countered with an admonition
to her nephew not to “pitch his gammon” at her and a scolding tap of her fan on the hand he reached out to clasp hers.

The hall filled quickly now with new arrivals, who bubbled over with talk and laughter, and flowed easily into the drawing room on the tide of pleasantries and an undercurrent of curiosity as persons who had just
met allowed their first impressions of one another to become firmly fixed in their minds, as first impressions generally are. Miss Coverley mentally
matched the single persons present up to their most likely companions with her usual acuity—but kept the final tally to herself. Miss Cloris
Beecham, in a bright green gown that was excessively becoming in spite
of its effrontery, decided with satisfaction that she would receive her
proper share of attention this evening, then thought no more about it.
Mrs Sophie Worthing contemplated Mrs Imogen Curtiz’s Indian saree
with a mingling of envy and distrust, while the look Mr Oliver Beecham
directed to Mr Angus Wilmot’s costume was one of unalloyed disgust.
He had not, however, been privileged to witness the funereal fashion of
the month before, nor the no less inappropriate yellow at Almack’s; Lord
Kedrington, who had, winced, but accepted the change as a step in the
right direction.