Miss Delacourt Has Her Day (14 page)

Once again, every male head turned to note Ginny’s appearance. More disturbing, every female head did, as well. Such a deep hush fell over the room, it prompted the orchestra in the balcony to put down their instruments while craning their necks over the balustrade to observe what could be causing the lack of commotion.

Anthony was gratified to hear Ginny stifle a gasp before turning to him, a question in her eyes. She had demonstrated remarkable restraint during the course of a long and difficult evening, and he had never been more proud of her. Putting his free hand over hers where it lay on his arm, he gave it a squeeze. “It would seem Mr. Simmons has been busy. At what, I couldn’t hazard a guess, though I would have to say it was most effective.”

Ginny drew a deep breath. “I suspect there is a means to discovering his mischief. Meanwhile, as long as we are here, we might as well dance.” She bit back a smile but could not hide the telltale signs of that maddening blush as it stole along her cheeks. “I confess I have been looking forward to the dancing with great anticipation all evening.”

With formidable restraint of his own, Anthony resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her right there. “Dancing it is, then,” he murmured, a tiny smile playing about his lips. He heard the breath catch in her throat and knew she had read the wealth of meaning in his expression. Leading her out onto the dance floor, he gave himself a mental shake with the reminder that a mere trio of impossible tasks stood between him and his wedding day. Three tasks, three days. Or less, if he could but manage to arrange it.

Twenty minutes of the quadrille went by too soon in spite of the torture he felt each time the pattern of the dance brought her to him in the nearness of a waltz, only to have it jerk her away into the rectitude of a minuet. Though she had eyes only for him, he knew she encountered goggle-eyed stares and disapproving frowns from every direction. Meanwhile, the dancers whose duty it was to meet up with her in the course of the steps behaved as gentlemen should but with an added circumspection that had him puzzling over the cause. Indeed, they seemed almost reluctant to so much as take her hand. No one spoke to her a single word.

When the dance was over, he led Ginny to the relative safety of Grandmama where she stood, red-faced and puffing in anger, along the perimeter of the dance floor.

“That was certainly enlightening,” Anthony murmured to no one in particular.

“Was it? Why, then, do I find I am befuddled beyond measure?” Grandmama demanded. “If you are so enlightened, pray, enlighten me!”

“It would seem that further illumination is required,” he replied, watching with great interest the progress of one of Ginny’s quadrille partners as he crossed the hall toward the gaming rooms. He had stood out, not only because of his sadly out-of-fashion clocked stockings and shoes adorned with large gem-studded buckles, but because he was the only gentleman who had so much as smiled at Ginny since the distasteful scene in the supper room. Choosing him as the most likely to spare Anthony a word on the subject of the sudden chill toward Ginny, he excused himself from the ladies and headed off in the same direction.

As he made his way through the throng, he couldn’t help but notice how the very women who had accosted him with their daughters less than an hour prior were now giving him a wide berth. Meanwhile, their formerly dispassionate daughters were now covering their blushes with their fans and batting their eyelashes fast enough to create a draft. Most puzzling of all was the young lady who slumped against him as he passed, leaving him no alternative but to catch her in his arms. Before he knew what was happening, she had peeled the glove from his hand and scurried off with it as if it were some kind of prize.

It was with no small amount of relief that he obtained the entrance to the card room through which the man with the clocked stockings had disappeared. Indeed, Anthony was immediately hailed by the fellow, whom he now recognized to be an acquaintance of so tenuous a connection, he couldn’t recall his name.

He was standing with his back to the fire, a drink of something suspiciously unlike lemonade in his hand. “Sir Anthony!” he called again, waving an overly zealous arm over his head and startling the card players seated at the nearby deal table. “How lovely to see you! It’s been an age!”

Anthony accepted the drink of unknown origin thrust into his hand. “If you can call our dancing the quadrille just now an age,” he riposted, giving the liquid in his glass a wary sniff. Clearly there was something other than fruit juice circulating the room, as Mr. Clocked Stockings was drunk as a lord.

“Oh, beg pardon, it’s Crenshaw now, is it not? Devil it is!” he bellowed without waiting for Anthony to respond. “Just met up with Irvine! You remember Irvine, do you not?” Again, Anthony hadn’t time to respond one way or the other before his companion forged ahead. “Said you were ready for leg shackles, but I told him you weren’t the marrying kind. Not as if you were in line to be a duke or anything!” He laughed uproariously, as if the means by which Anthony became heir to a dukedom was the most amusing joke he had heard all year.

“My cousin will be sorely missed,” Anthony interjected before the fellow had a moment to recover his breath. “However, in light of recent events,” he added without elaborating on which, “I must confess, the subject of marriage has become a more welcome one” Indeed, quite ardently desired, but there was no need to fill the prosy fellow in on those details.

His companion winked at him and gave a low coo. “She’s a beauty! Trouble is, a beautiful girl like that, she’s not likely to wait until the old duke is dead.”

Anthony’s smile froze on his face. “I beg your pardon?” He placed the alcohol-laced drink on the deal table with a loud clink and took a measured pace forward. “I am persuaded you wish to rephrase that statement, sir,” he demanded in a voice as smooth as silk.

Unlike the men gathered around the table, the man with the clocked stockings was too drunk to sense danger. “You’re a handsome blade and all that, but you might have to fight for her,” he said with a wink.

“Oh?” His anger replaced by piqued interest, Anthony plucked his quizzing glass from among the folds of his clothing and tapped it against his chin. “There’s talk of a fight, is there?” Could his uncle have been so foolish as to let slip news of his bout with Gentleman Jackson on the morrow?

“Oh, I can’t say. It was Irvine who filled me in. Here he is now.”

Suddenly, a man Anthony was sure he had never met, presumably Irvine, appeared at the first man’s elbow and whis pered something into his ear. “Come along, now, Winters,” he said aloud with a nervous laugh. “You’ve had quite enough!”

Winters, who had turned white, allowed himself to be led away but not before both men darted covert glances at Anthony’s hand, the one ungloved by the fainting maiden. After a moment of stiff silence, the men at the table resumed their game, allowing Anthony the chance to shoot his own subtle gaze at his hand, one of a pair liberally covered with bruises. Realization began to dawn.

tinny had had quite enough. It was one thing to be gazed at with expressions of admiration. It was quite another to have people stare at you through narrowed eyelids, naked curiosity stamped on their faces.

“Come, Grandaunt Regina, I believe we should find Lord Crenshaw and go home”

“Now, Ginerva, that will never do,” Grandaunt huffed. “When you are a married woman, you will find that your demands will most likely fall on deaf ears. A man does not like to be dictated to”

Ginny felt as if she had been slapped. “Perhaps that was the way of it when you were a bride,” Ginny retorted, “but Anthony is not cut from the same bolt of cloth as his grandfather.”

Grandaunt sniffed. It was a far cry from the scolding Ginny expected in return for her disrespectful attitude. “I’ll admit, things were different when I was young. Anthony is different, too, thanks be to that! I would never have thrown the two of you together, higgledy-piggledy, if I thought he might be disinclined to fall in with your wishes.”

“Why, thank you, Grandaunt. You almost make me sound a perfect hoyden” Ginny, knowing she had let her tongue get away from her, dared not risk a glance at Grandaunt’s face for fear she would look as hurt as Ginny felt. Taking a deep sigh, she softened her tone. “There is no need to assassinate my character. It’s not as if he does what I wish at all times. If he did, the two of us would be dancing at this very moment,” she explained, swallowing her disappointment as the strains of the waltz were struck. “Odious stares or not”

“You are quite right, Ginerva, just as you are quite right to trust him. There are things he might not make you privy to,” Grandaunt said with a suspiciously offhand air even as she lifted her fan to shield her lips from passersby. “But there is nothing he would not do for you” She paused, then added, “There is naught that I have said these last three years during which I have clothed, sheltered, and guided you more worthy of your notice.”

Ginny, struck by the giddy effect her grandaunt’s words had on her state of mind, resisted the urge to ply her fan in front of her face in the coy manner exhibited by the more sophisticated girls in attendance. Yet there was something to be said for having the means to hide your blushes. Grandaunt’s implication that Anthony was a man of secrets so weighty as to prevent him from unburdening them to Ginny was as enticing as it was troubling. The thought that he would do anything for her despite his other obligations, whatever they might be, was cause for blushes, indeed.

“Pray tell, what is it he is keeping from me?” she asked as soon as her wildly beating heart allowed her to speak. She found that dwelling on the “things he might not make her privy to” slowed the pounding most effectively. Indeed, the more she thought of his secrets, the more her heart froze in fear. Were they secrets as to Lady Derby? Did they have anything to do with their wedding or possible lack thereof? She was not to have a response to her question, however, for rapidly descending upon them was a visibly discommoded Lady Jersey.

“Oh, my dearest duchess, it’s nothing to be concerned about, I’m sure, but I think it best if you were to depart forthwith.”

“Depart?” Grandaunt demanded as if they hadn’t only just been discussing the very same action.

“Yes, well, never fear. I am persuaded all shall be right as rain tomorrow. That is to say, next week. They do refer to these things as a seven-days’ wonder, do they not?”

Grandaunt pulled herself to her full, though negligible, height, her back ramrod straight. “‘These things’? To what `things’ do you refer, Lady Jersey?”

Unable to face the dowager duchess’ glare, Lady Jersey turned her pleading gaze to Ginny. “Do, let’s not make a fuss over this! It’s not as if you have committed a crime, now, is it? I had everything fully in hand, deflected the wagging tongues at every, er, wag, but you must know that the place is abuzz with rumor and innuendo. If only you had worn a fichu rather than that trifling little clutch of flowers in your decolletage, all might be well. As it is, I find I cannot stem the tide as it is currently flowing.”

Tide? Flowing? “What does my decoll…er, my flowers have to say to anything?” Ginny asked.

“Well, they are from him, are they not?”

“If by `him’ you mean Lord Crenshaw, yes,” Ginny said, nodding. “However, I’m afraid I still do not perfectly understand you”

With a furtive glance about the room, Lady Jersey took Ginny and the dowager duchess each by the elbow and guided them to a less populated area. One closer to the exit, Ginny couldn’t help but notice.

“You really don’t know what is being bandied about?” Lady Jersey asked in amazement.

“Of course not!” Grandaunt cried, skewering Lady Jersey with a sharp look. “Who would dare to tell us?”

It seemed Lady Jersey would, for she immediately began to babble. “They are saying Lord Crenshaw has gone mad and attacked more than one man who dared to insult an `unnamed lady.’ They are saying he is secretly betrothed, as well. Surely they are referencing you, Miss Delacourt, but some insist it is Lady Derby for whom he has supposedly harbored a deep and abiding love. I am persuaded this is all a mistake due to his previous attachment to her, but one thing has led to another, and it is being said that Lord Crenshaw has taken exception to you due to your unsuitability. I have been going about championing your cause for what seems like hours, but I could not gainsay the objections of my fellow patronesses. If only you had tucked a scrap of lace into your bosom, I might have withstood their admonitions. As things stand, you are quite sunk below their esteem.”

“I will have you know, Lady Jersey,” Grandaunt said in a carrying voice, no doubt intended to be heard by the hateful Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, who stood nearby, “my niece had planned on wearing a particular fichu she had purchased for this very occasion, but I would have none of it. I insisted she instead wear the token of affection sent to her by an admirer, as his feelings are more at a premium with me than those harbored by the likes of some”

Lady Jersey’s eyes grew wide. “My dearest duchess, if this admirer would merely put his stamp of approval on the relationship by contacting the papers with news of his betrothal, I am persuaded this shall all blow over in a matter of days” And then she was off, bustling after a passerby, crying, “Why, Carolyn, I thought that was you under that divine turban!”