Authors: Amanda McCabe
Christina nervously fingered the satin of the gown's sleeve. "Do you not like it, Mrs. Brown? Is it the color? The trim?"
"I—did you
buy
this gown, Christina?" Kate managed to whisper. She reached out to touch the fabric herself, and found it light as a cloud, clinging to the tips of her fingers. "It is beautiful beyond all imagining."
Christina grinned in delight. "Oh, I
knew
you would like it! Though I did not buy it myself, of course. My pin money would never pay for such things! It was Michael's idea. I just helped a bit. I took your blue gown, and we showed it to the modiste so she could take your measurements from it. He had to be ever so persuasive to get her to finish it so quickly."
Kate's hand stilled against the gown. "Your brother?"
"Yes. He wanted to—oh!" Christina broke off, her cheeks turning raspberry red under her tan. "It was improper, wasn't it?
A Lady's Rules for Proper Behavior
says an unmarried lady can only accept small gifts from a gentleman, like books or flowers. But I'm sure my brother meant nothing improper, Mrs. Brown. You just seemed rather sad not to have a new gown for the salon. No one will know he bought it, I'm sure."
Of course it was Michael who had chosen the gown. The gown was so perfect in every respect, the perfect color, the perfect fabric. Stylish and attractive, but not too low-cut or clinging. Something a
ton
lady would wear, not a high-priced courtesan. Something that was exactly her taste.
Her earlier hopes of a future life came flooding back, greater and brighter than ever. For some reason, she longed to cry, to bury her head in the fine fabric and sob for happiness. But tears would spot the satin, and that would never do. She wanted to look her loveliest tonight, for Michael. For her love.
"Mrs. Brown?" Christina asked worriedly. "Is it really so dreadful? I'm sure it could be sent back, if needed."
Kate laughed, and dropped the gown to catch Christina in a great hug. "Oh, Christina! It is beautiful. I adore it."
Christina laughed, too, in relief and obvious puzzlement. "Oh, I am glad! I helped pick the color, you see, and I even looked through some fashion plates to find a style you might like."
"Such a sacrifice! And the gown is perfect. Here,
cara,
help me dress. We haven't much time, have we?"
Christina reached up to unfasten the tapes of Kate's day dress, brushing Kate's fall of hair out of the way. It had become tangled and would have to be brushed again. "I fear I have no jewels, Mrs. Brown. Just my pearls, and I'm wearing those. But I did bring some pink roses. We can put them in your hair."
"Roses? Wherever did you get those at this time of year?" Kate glanced back over her shoulder at Christina, who gave an abashed laugh.
"Oh, I saw them in a garden somewhere."
"A garden?"
"All right, in the neighbors' hothouse when they weren't home! But they had ever so many—I'm sure they won't miss a few in a good cause."
"Oh, Christina." Kate smiled at her and gently pinched her cheek. "You are absolutely incorrigible. I can see my lessons have had no effect at all."
Christina grinned. "Perhaps not all of them. But we have plenty of time together for you to turn me into a perfect lady. Don't we, Mrs. Brown?"
"Oh, yes, my dear. Plenty of time."
* * *
Kate and Elizabeth Hollingsworth had quite different ideas of what an "intimate gathering" meant, Kate thought as the Lindleys' carriage drew up outside the Hollingsworths' townhouse. Kate considered it to be five or six friends for supper and cards. Elizabeth Hollingsworth considered it to be half of London.
Carriages were lined up along the street, waiting to deposit their passengers on the doorstep. Every one of the windows—and they were not inconsiderable in number—was ablaze with golden light. Laughter and music positively emanated from the walls.
An old, half-forgotten thrill hummed in Kate's veins, and she remembered all those evenings she had huddled on the stairs of her mother's house, secretly observing the parties below. She had wanted to dance, to laugh and flirt, to drink champagne and sample the delicacies of the buffet table. But then she had been always observing; now she wanted to dance.
But only with the man who sat across from her now.
Michael was dressed in the finest of fashionable Town clothes, a well-cut dark green velvet coat with buff breeches and a cream-colored waistcoat, his immaculate cravat tied in complicated swirls and anchored with an emerald-headed stickpin. His burnished hair was brushed back neatly, trimmed off his collar. Yet he wore the garments as casually and carelessly as if still clad in the clothes he used to walk the fields in Yorkshire. He teased and laughed with his sister as they waited to disembark, smiling and at ease.
Kate smiled at them, feeling at ease herself. She would have imagined she would be terribly nervous going into London Society for the first time, meeting new people in the guise of her still strange role. But Michael's presence erased all those qualms, every fear. She wanted him to be proud of her tonight, to think her poised and charming and lovely, worthy of all he had given her. Both the gifts he knew of, such as this new gown, and those that were secret in Kate's own heart. Michael and all his family had gifted her with the sure knowledge that there was true goodness and love in the world. She was never sure of that before—the world she grew up in was rank with selfishness and deceit. But no more.
Tonight was a new beginning—she felt that very certainly.
And it had a fine start when she came down the stairs in her rose-colored gown and saw Michael's face as he watched her. His blue eyes were dark gray with desire, his lips parted as if he would kiss her passionately right then and there, lifting her off her rose-slippered feet with his ardor. So he
did
think her beautiful. It was gratifying indeed, and had to be enough for the moment, for they had no time for private conversation.
They arrived at the Hollingsworths' door at last, and Christina took the footman's gloved hand to step down from the carriage. Before she had to follow, Kate reached out to touch her fingertips to Michael's velvet sleeve. The fabric was rich and rough against the buttery soft kid of her glove, and she could feel his heat even through the cloth.
"Thank you for my gown, Michael," she whispered. "It is exquisite."
Michael stared deeply into her eyes, as if he could see all the secrets of her heart and soul written there. He leaned forward and kissed her, hard, fleetingly, his breath and lips branding hers. Kate's hand just brushed his jaw when he drew back, grinning down at her in the darkness. "Not half as exquisite as you are, Kate. I wish I had diamonds and rubies to put in your hair and around your throat."
Kate thought of her mother's sapphire brooch, hidden deep in her valise, its blue fire muffled and tarnished. Its rich glory was nothing to this moment. She should throw it in the Semerwater, she thought, discarding the last vestige of the past. "I don't need jewels, my angel. I only need you." As her love—her husband.
He smiled at her, that white pirate's grin that never failed to make her melt. "That
is
good news. It will save me a fortune on Bond Street."
Then he was gone from her, leaping down from the carriage without a hint of a limp. But they were not apart for long, for he reached back to help her alight, waving aside the footman.
At the doorway, he offered an arm each to Kate and Christina, escorting them up the stairs to the waiting gathering. "Oh, Michael," Christina whispered, glancing around with eyes so wide she looked almost as young as Amelia. "Isn't it lovely? Just look at those
Oncidium flexuosum.
They must be a new hybrid, to have petals just that shape. I have never seen such an example before."
It
was
lovely, Kate thought, and not just the flowers, though they
were
unusual, great, tall stems of purple-and-cream blossoms massed in large Chinese vases. They filled the air with a rich, exotic scent, enticing the gathering into an equally exotic room, arranged almost like a stage set. The walls of the drawing room were papered in pale cream silk, a neutral backdrop for the furniture and the plethora of paintings. The delicate gilt settees, chairs, and hassocks were upholstered in myriad shades of purple, from almost black to palest lilac. The windows were draped in lilac-and-cream striped brocade, which fluttered in the evening breeze, for all the casements were opened to the night, revealing a long terrace outside. A string quartet played Mozart in the corner, and purple-liveried footmen bore trays of champagne.
It did not seem as crowded as all the carriages would have indicated, for the room was long, wide, and airy. Many people strolled on the terrace or meandered through the open doors of the dining room, where a lavish buffet could be glimpsed. Kate was very glad of her new gown, for the other guests were elegantly clad indeed. She recognized a few famous personages from their sketches in the newspapers—poets, duchesses, artists, members of Parliament, and a well-known Italian opera singer.
Even Christina was awed into silence, gazing around at the people, the furniture, the art.
By far the most fascinating aspect of the gathering was that art. The paintings hung in rows and stacks on the walls, the cream silk a perfect backdrop for their vibrant colors. They were propped on easels in the corners and next to the vast marble fireplace. One large easel was draped in purple silk, obviously meant to be unveiled later. Kate feared she was gawking at them, craning her neck like a country bumpkin, yet she could not help herself. They were beyond beautiful.
Christina drifted away to talk to a group of young people, no doubt to quiz them about their knowledge or lack thereof of plants. Michael, perhaps sensing Kate's fascination with the art, fetched them glasses of champagne and strolled with her along the walls. A few people stopped to speak to them, to comment on how very long it had been since they had seen Michael, and to be introduced to Kate. They greeted Michael's sister-in-law, young Lady Darcy, who soon vanished back into the dining room with her own cronies. Yet obviously the evening had not yet begun in earnest, for everyone was very casual and friendly, viewing the art and drinking champagne just as Kate and Michael were.
"Are these all by Lady Hollingsworth?" Kate murmured, as she sipped at her champagne and examined a portrait of two bright-eyed, dark-haired little girls. They sat beneath a green-leafed tree, gamboling with some spaniel puppies, their mischief and spirit shining from them. These were obviously the Hollingsworth twins, and Kate pitied any governess who came into contact with the beautiful imps.
"I believe so," Michael answered. "Though I think that classical scene of Athena over there is by her friend, the Duchess of Wayland. And I see a work by Angelica Kauffman, as well."
Kate nodded, moving to the next work. Another portrait, of a man on horseback near the same tree the twins played beneath. Kate recognized the man she had met at the theater, Sir Nicholas Hollingsworth. There were more portraits of the twins; of a redheaded woman in emerald silk; of a couple unearthly in their beauty, a golden man and a dark woman in a Spanish lace mantilla.
Kate turned a corner onto another wall, and faced a row of Italian scenes. The Tuscan countryside in summer, pulsating with color and heat. A vineyard beneath the sun, so real Kate could taste the sweet muskiness of the grapes. A villa, chalk white with a dark red tiled roof, a woman leaning from the window to shake a rug in the breeze. And—Venice.
Kate stood completely still before one work, unable to move or breathe. For one instant, she was no longer in this fine London drawing room, surrounded by the murmur of laughter and the soft strains of music. She was by a Venetian canal, half in shade, the sweet-sick smell of the water in her nostrils. She was staring across at her mother's house, pastel pink against the hot blue sky, dark red geraniums in pots lining the balconies. A face—a girl—could just be glimpsed beyond the half-open doors of one of those balconies, peeking out at the life below.
Who was that face? Was it the girl Katerina, whom Kate left behind? Was it her mother, waiting to see Edward's gondola arrive at her dock? Kate was mesmerized by this tiny glimpse of her old home, of the place where she had once belonged. It was strange, like a house remembered in a dream, and yet so very familiar. She reached out her hand, as if she could feel, not the paint, but the roughness of the stucco....
"Michael, Mrs. Brown! I am so very glad to see you here," a woman's light voice called, drawing Kate back down into the drawing room. She jerked her hand away from the canvas, and turned to find Elizabeth Hollingsworth standing there.
Elizabeth's smile was open and welcoming, as bright as the diamond combs in her sleek dark hair. She let Michael kiss her hand, and smiled at Kate, but her eyes were watchful.
"Your work is amazing, Lady Hollingsworth," Kate said. "So very true to life."
"Thank you, Mrs. Brown," Elizabeth replied. "I see you are admiring one of my Venetian scenes. Is it like the city, do you think?"
Kate glanced back at the painting.
Too much like.
"I lived along a similar canal once. I would think myself back there again."
"It is the view from the window of a house I rented one year. My own abode was quite humble compared to that grand palazzo, of course!" Elizabeth stepped closer to the canvas, watching it rather than Kate. Her voice was dreamy, as if she, too, was in some lost world. "There was this young girl who lived there. Sometimes I saw her peeking out of the windows, and I imagined her as some sort of Juliet. Sheltered, cosseted, eager to be set free into life."