Elisabeth Kidd (25 page)

It was time to go in to dinner, and the first course was over before
Antonia realised that the seating arrangements had gone somewhat awry
and that Lord Kedrington was seated precisely opposite Charles Kenyon,
who was engaging him in ominously earnest conversation. But with the second course, she was relieved to discover—via her Uncle Philip, who
sat next to her and repeated every word he overheard—that their talk had
revolved around the best manner of carving game birds, so that when the
little party prepared to remove to Cavendish Square, Antonia could at
least assume an appearance of being as much at ease as any other
member of the group.

The Kenyons’ was tonight the most brilliantly lighted house on the
square. The curtains covering the long windows of the ballroom had
been drawn back, and the light of hundreds of candles flickered across the
view as servants saw to last-minute arrangements. The front door stood
open, and a red carpet led to it from the pavement.

Belding had succeeded in unearthing a set of eight matching mirrors,
smaller than the late-lamented pierglass, but in their total effect equally
dazzling. Isabel gasped with delight when she entered the ballroom on
her godpapa’s arm, and she danced around the room exclaiming over and
over that it looked like a fairyland, until Mrs Curtiz reminded her that
she ought to be at the door to greet her other guests, the first of whose
carriages were already to be heard in the square.

Antonia accompanied Isabel to the door, her hostess’s smile fixed in
place, but as her smile grew brighter and her greetings to their guests
more gracefully expressed, she became conscious of a corresponding
sensation of disassociation from her surroundings. It was as if the better
part of her mind were elsewhere—but where? Why not at this place to which all her efforts for months had been directed, which ought to have made her as happy as all these faces she greeted without remembering
seconds later to whom they belonged?

Indeed, she ought to feel a sense of achievement at having arrived at this occasion. Isabel was about to be satisfactorily launched into the Ton, so that hereafter her aunt need only sit back and admire the results. Her own future with Charles was on its way to being settled, which ought to
relieve her mind of that long-standing question as well. But somehow she did not feel deserving of any of the credit for the glow on Isabel’s
face, and she was not enjoying that sense of having come safely home to
rest which she had expected on accepting Charles’s proposal. She could not ascribe a cause to these dissatisfactions, and it was this uncertainty
which, no doubt, accounted for her oddly jangled nerves.

But she was too practised in the art of social deception to let her
uneasiness appear on her own countenance, and she said nothing to anyone to indicate that she was not in her usual spirits. Instead, she
forced herself, once she felt able to leave her post at the door and join the
throng in the ballroom, to concentrate on the scene before her rather than on her own chaotic thoughts. And as it came once again into focus,
she could find no immediate fault with it.

Ideally, of course, there would have been only Handsome Young Men
invited to the ball, of whom Isabel could have her choice of a different
one for each dance; for herself, there would have been an amiable friend or two with whom to converse while watching Isabel dazzle her young men. However, Handsome Young Men generally came attached to relations of various persuasions, who had also to be invited. There must also
be young ladies—with their chaperones—in comparison with whom
Isabel would shine like the evening star.

It was furthermore useful to
have present one or two persons of influence who would observe Isabel’s
triumph and spread the word of it among the Ton, in the event that Isabel
did not encounter a young man to her liking and would therefore be in
need of a fresh supply. Their guest list was thus composed not solely of
intimate friends, but included a large number of persons with whom Antonia was barely acquainted, and even some whom she positively
disliked, and it was further flawed by the various relationships, antagonisms,
even flirtations established long before tonight.

Isabel, having been led out first by Lord Kedrington, was now dancing
the cotillion with Octavian Gary, exchanging earnest conversation with him between the steps and causing Lady Jersey to observe in a carrying
aside to Maria Sefton that she was “a sweet child; a little too intelligent, but one cannot hold that against her.”

Oh the whole, indeed, Lady Jersey was well pleased. She proclaimed
Isabel’s modesty and grace to be such as to assure—when her ladyship should have pointed it out to all her friends—her social success. She was less certain of Antonia Fairfax, who had an obstinate bent to her and
would not thank anyone for presuming to advise her. Lady Jersey shrugged
and pointed out to Lady Sefton, who knew it well enough, that Kedrington
was likewise older than seven and might be trusted to manage his own
affairs.

Kedrington, watching his lady-love dance with Charles Kenyon, was
less certain of this fact. He could see plainly that Antonia was not so carefree tonight as she ought to have been. Nevertheless, the look she gave her partner was such to cause Kedrington to avert his eyes. When
the music came to an end and Charles moved toward one of the windows
giving onto the garden, Kedrington, out of a burst of curiosity—or
self-destructiveness—followed. Shortly thereafter he found himself enjoying
a very good cigar and tolerating for its sake Charles Kenyon’s account of
the difficulties through which he had come by it.

“None was happier than I to see this war end, my lord, I assure you! It is iniquitous that England should be deprived of her life’s blood, her trade, by a tyrant with no consideration for the welfare of the nations he
overruns!”

“Yes, it is inconvenient,” Kedrington agreed.

“You were aware, my lord, I am certain, of the poor quality of many of
the goods with which we have had to make do in recent years.” The viscount, having had to do without any sort of goods at all for much of
the same period, blew smoke rings and said nothing.

“My man Jenkins,”
Charles went on, as if to a prospective client, “has a low opinion of Spanish wines, for example, but naturally, it has been very difficult until now to obtain anything else without a great deal of risk. I have lost
several runners off Brittany—although the loss was not entirely mine, as
others were also involved in the enterprise.”

“You mean,” interrupted Kedrington, who had little patience with
genteel ambiguities, “that this Jenkins is a smuggler.”

Charles smiled deprecatingly and conceded, “Some may describe him
so. You and I know the truth of it. Also, the point is academic now, is it
not? The hostilities ended at last, the Ogre confined to his much-reduced
island empire, and our own island empire free to pursue her destiny.
Commerce of all kind will flourish with the deprived nations of the Continent, and our destiny will flower with theirs.”

Kedrington put out the cigar which had suddenly become distasteful
to him, and said, “Shall we go in?”

They returned to the warm ballroom, and Kedrington was once again
obliged to watch from outside the charmed circle of Antonia’s awareness
as she smiled dazzlingly up at Charles, who, carried away by ardent
feelings, kissed her hand and sat down beside her on a sofa between two
potted palms.

Meanwhile, Isabel, having stood up for half a dozen dances without a rest, observed the gentlemen’s return from the garden and declared that
she, too, desired a breath of fresh air. Her partner of the moment was
Lord Geoffrey Dane, who was not unexpectedly eager to oblige. He was
soon able to persuade Miss Isabel to sit down on one of Charles’s marble
garden benches, where she fanned herself languidly and attempted to
engage Geoffrey in small talk. But Geoffrey, whose beautiful brown eyes
had not strayed from Isabel’s face during the entire set, replied to her
questions in monosyllables, concentrating his attention instead on her
hand, which he clasped in his own despite Isabel’s attempts to extricate
it.

Regretting too late her determination to give Lord Geoffrey an opportu
nity to declare himself, which he took as license open to abuse, she glanced over her shoulder in a desperate appeal for aid. Fortunately, just at that moment, a hand came to rest on Geoffrey’s blue-clad shoulder.

Geoffrey jumped. Isabel, half-hidden in the shadows, exclaimed under
her breath, “Oh, thank goodness!”

“How dare you, sir!” demanded Lord Geoffrey, rising to his two inches
of height above Octavian and clenching his fists menacingly.

“How dare I what?” Octavian enquired mildly, bringing Geoffrey back to earth with a thud. “I saw you sitting here—in full view of the French
windows, I might add—and wished merely to say good evening to you. I
beg your pardon if I have inadvertently interrupted an
...
ah, a private
conversation.”

“You have done nothing of the sort,” Isabel said, rising and smoothing her skirts. “Geoffrey, I believe you said a moment ago that you would go
to the ends of the earth for me. I wonder if you would be so good, just for
now, as to go only as far as the door.”

Mr Gary looked admiringly at Isabel, who with flushed cheeks but a
raised chin and a determined set to her pretty mouth, appeared after all
quite capable of despatching her own affairs. However, as soon as Geoffrey,
recognising the futility of any attempt to bully either the lady or the
gentleman, had taken himself away, all of Isabel’s efforts at self-control
did not suffice to keep large tears from welling up and rolling quietly
down her cheeks.

A moment later, she was again sitting on the cold marble bench, dabbing her eyes with Octavian’s handkerchief as he, in
big-brotherly fashion, did his best to comfort her. After a moment, it occurred to him that Isabel was trying to tell him something. He shifted
slightly, so that she could look up. The sight of her lovely, tear-filled blue
eyes nearly overset his carefully neutral sympathy, but he managed to
enquire, in a nearly steady voice, “What’s the matter, love?”

“Oh, Octavian, I am so wicked!”

He smiled at that, to keep from laughing aloud. “Nonsense! What can
you possibly have done to merit such an accusation, even from yourself?”

“I—I encouraged Geoffrey! I knew all along that I could not hold any
affection for him, but because he is heir to a fortune, you see—

“Isabel Fairfax, are you telling me you are a
fortune hunter?
”

“Yes!” she said, taking him quite literally. “That is precisely what I am
and—and worse, I am a tease!”

Clearly, that was the worst she could say of herself, so Octavian forbore to tease her in return, encouraging her to pour out the whole
story of her determination to contract a brilliant alliance—which she did
at some length—and then explaining very carefully that Geoffrey was no
innocent and brought anything that happened to him on himself.

“You are in no way to blame if he deceived himself into believing you
to be in love with him.”

“Oh, I don’t think he believed that,” Isabel said, in something more like her usual practical spirit. She folded Octaviari’s handkerchief neatly and said, as she put it in her reticule, that she would return it to him
when it had been laundered. Octavian, however, was not to be returned to reality so quickly.

“Is there no one you would like to be in love with?” he asked softly.

She did not look up at that, but a telltale blush spread over her face,
visible to Octavian even in the half light of the garden. He leaned a little closer and whispered something in her ear. She looked up and smiled. He
drew a deep breath and asked softly, “Shall we go back inside now?”

Isabel nodded gratefully and allowed Octavian to escort her, now much
recovered, into the ballroom, where they stepped naturally into the waltz
that was being played just then, and whirled away across the room in each
other’s arms.

Antonia, too, was dancing again, her mood somewhat lightened by
having conversed with Charles as they danced. She felt less detached
now, more needed. And she felt wanted again, something she had missed
when her confidants had seemed to be drifting away from her. She
caught Charles’s eye again, and he smiled at her. He had made it plain to
her that he would endeavour not to monopolise her time and thus cause
undue comment among the other guests. Antonia had thought this
sweetly overscrupulous of him, but still a touching measure of his regard
for her and her reputation.