Miss Delacourt Has Her Day (15 page)

Ginny sighed and waited until Lady Jersey had moved past hearing before thanking Grandaunt Regina. “For I do not know what I should have said if you had not spoken. I have never been more ashamed yet never less deserving of it.”

“I do not fully agree, Ginerva. There is that matter of the fichu, after all. And to think I ordered out the carriage this afternoon for the sole purpose of acquiring it! However, seeing as my grandson has reappeared, I will hold my tongue for now. Meanwhile, I suggest you keep your chin up, my dear.”

Curiously deflated by her grandaunt’s admonitions, Ginny pondered whether or not a single emotion had been left unexplored by her battered psyche during the course of the long evening. Though watching Anthony as he made his way to them filled her with a decided glow, it was the same warmth she experienced upon each occasion she saw him. True, he was looking more handsome than usual in his black evening clothes with that froth of linen at his throat. So handsome, in fact, she barely noticed when he stopped to converse with a cluster of women. She so loved the way he walked, elegantly, with his hands behind his back, she thought nothing of the fact that he stopped to exchange a word or two with every cluster of women along the way. She was so enraptured by the sweep of his brow over his richly lashed, radiantly blue eyes that she almost failed to think it strange when he stopped to reach into a bevy of women to pluck something from their midst.

Surprised by her realization that the something was a glove, she didn’t turn away as he pulled it over his hand, then lifted his head to catch her gaze in his. So quickly did his mouth curve into a smile when he saw her that even once he had planted himself at her side, she quite forgot to ask why Mrs. Taggart-Elliot’s daughter had possession of his glove in the first place.

“Anthony, it’s about time you recalled yourself to your duties as escort,” Grandaunt chided. “Ginerva and I find we are quite done in and wish to go home”

“Oh, but we mustn’t. At least, not yet,” Anthony demurred. “I have promised Miss Delacourt a waltz,” he said with a slight bow in her direction, “and I am persuaded she will depart only if dragged by the heels unless she gets one”

Ginny was torn between glorying in her beloved’s attentiveness and fretting over the fact that a waltz was coming to a close and another was not likely to be played for at least an hour. She felt sure she would break under the strain long before then.

“I can see you have him well trained,” Grandaunt quipped.

“It is you whom I credit for his pretty manners and thoughtful ways,” Ginny said with a fond smile for her grandaunt.

“And am I to receive no credit at all?” Anthony demanded with a playful air.

“I should say not. The waltz has been playing an age!” Grandaunt snorted. “It shall be over all too soon, in spite of your `pretty manners.’”

“Then we had best hurry. Say you will dance with me, Ginny! Part of a waltz is better than no dance at all, is it not?” He looked so unblinkingly into her eyes, Ginny felt sure there couldn’t possibly be a single secret lurking in his.

“I would love it above all things,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. “They aren’t any more likely to stare at us for joining the dance at the close than they have been already.”

The second he swept her into the rhythm of the waltz, she knew she would not regret choosing to dance, even if only for a few moments. With her arm resting along the length of his own, they were as close to an actual embrace as one dared. The sensation of his arm muscles tightening and relaxing beneath hers as he guided her through the steps was intoxicating. Mere inches stood between the two of them, and she longed to lay her head against his heart and feel it beat, strong and sure, into her ear. It was the only thing that made her feel as if, at long last, she truly had a home.

All too soon, she heard the music come to a close, but when she began to move off the dance floor, he pulled her back into his arms, and they were once again circling about the room. Only then did she realize another waltz had been immediately struck and that the other dancers were just as astonished as she at the unexpected turn of events.

Throwing Anthony an incredulous look, she saw the truth in his expression of delight. “Lord Crenshaw, I do believe you had something to do with this,” she accused him, her smile brilliant.

“Why, Miss Delacourt, how could you doubt me? My `pretty manners and thoughtful ways,’ however come by, aren’t for naught!”

A bubble of joy welled up within her chest and escaped in a laugh. “As long as they are spent in currying my favor, I find I cannot object” Suddenly she found there was nothing that could touch her equanimity; not the secrets to which Grandaunt alluded, not the rumors to which Lady Jersey put tongue, not even the incriminating stares at the back of Anthony’s head to which Lady Derby was even now so studiously applying herself.

All too soon, the dance was over, and it was time to depart.

“Do you wish to remain for a while?” Anthony asked, drawing her arm through his as they sauntered back to Grandaunt’s proper purview. “If need be, I can get around Grandmama”

“What? And so misuse those pretty manners and thoughtful ways? I shall not hear of it. Besides, I would prefer leaving on a high note. One must admit that they were in short supply this evening.”

Anthony seemed to take umbrage at that. “Never say so! Surely you haven’t had your fill of insults and insolence. Why, just over there stands a woman whom I’m persuaded has not, as of yet, given you the cut direct.”

It would seem their ensuing laughter was contagious, as Lucinda, who appeared suddenly at Ginny’s elbow, was laughing, as well, and in an even more empty-headed manner than usual.

“I was just informing my wife,” Lord Avery expounded from his place at Lucinda’s other side, “that you wouldn’t dream of departing without first collecting us”

“Indeed, we would not,” Ginny assured him with a sinking heart. She had forgotten that the Averys had ridden hence in Anthony’s carriage and would expect to be similarly conveyed home. She had been cherishing every moment of the blithe buoyancy between her and Anthony, but that bubble was burst the moment Lucinda appeared.

Grandaunt, by the time they joined her, looked entirely spent, the feather in her headdress askew and her face nearly as a gray as the silver beads at her neck.

“Oh, Grandaunt, you must be exhausted,” Ginny soothed.

“And to think I had not one dance all evening,” Grandaunt said, bristling. “In my day, my dance card was full continuously, and I never became so much as out of breath. Well, those days are done, that is plain to see”

“In that case, I shall take you home directly,” Anthony insisted. “Avery, you won’t mind should I take these two home before I convey you and Lady Avery to your residence?”

“It will be our pleasure to see the women home, won’t it, my flower?” Lord Avery said, turning to Lucinda, whose only response was to emit a ladylike belch and giggle.

Ginny, attempting to quell the stab of disappointment that assailed her when she realized the carriage would consist of the five of them for the entire trip, refrained from speaking her thoughts aloud. Grandaunt’s words of caution against dictating to her betrothed still burned in her mind. She was a bit mollified when Anthony allowed Lord Avery to lead with Lucinda on one arm and Grandaunt Regina on the other, leaving Anthony free to once more draw Ginny’s arm through his as they fell into step behind the others and made their way out the door.

“I hope you don’t mind, dearest. Grandmama looks done to death, and I think it best to get her home posthaste”

“I suppose that is for the best,” Ginny said, managing a smile. “I find I am more tired than I thought, and tomorrow promises to be a most interesting day.”

“Yes, I expect it does,” Anthony said lightly, but a wary look sprang to his eyes, and his smile turned to a frown.

As they stepped outside, they were met by a sudden blast of chill air, prompting Anthony to put his free arm around his grandmother. Denied these last few moments of private conversation as the three of them huddled together against the damp, Ginny’s former happy mood took a further turn for the worse. Every slight she had suffered during the course of the evening rose in her memory to goad her, yet most vexing of all was Anthony’s frown when she mentioned her heavy schedule for the morrow. Had he forgotten she was to have another fitting for her wedding gown, after which there was more shopping to be done for her trousseau? Surely he didn’t mean that she shouldn’t occupy herself in such a manner. The entire subject was rather lowering, to be sure.

As these thoughts churned in Ginny’s mind, Lucinda’s babbling seemed never to cease, until each syllable she uttered felt like a nail being driven into Ginny’s brain. By the time the carriage arrived, her foot had taken up a tapping that was a mere echo to the throbbing in her head. When Lucinda again dismissed Grandaunt’s preeminence and was first to make her giddy way to her seat, Ginny was not inclined to look on her with the slightest degree of charity. Once they were all firmly ensconced, Lucinda’s voice seemed to ring in Ginny’s ears. It was “Lady Derby” this and “Lady Derby” that, until Ginny felt she might scream.

“Why, Lucinda,” Ginny said through clenched teeth, “one would think you were drinking champagne all night, rather than mere orgeat!”

“Don’t be a goose, Ginny!” Lucinda said with a slight slurring of words. “Everyone knows that orgeat is smuggler’s code for brandy.”

There was a stunned silence in the dark carriage, but Ginny felt sure she could feel a rumble of silent laughter coming from Anthony, who was seated by her side.

“Uh, my flower,” Lord Avery ventured, “I was wont to tell you all evening; Lady Derby was merely twitting you”

“Twitting me? Why, how dare she? Eustace, I ask you, is it meet for a countess to be called a twit? And before you answer, might I remind you that her earl is dead while mine is still living?”

“Yes, my darling, it would seem that it is so, but that is beside the point. She was not calling you a twit as much as she was, er, making a twit of you by telling you that monstrous lie.”

“She lied to me, as well? Eustace, this is beyond enduring!” Lucinda wailed. Tears were not long in coming, and soon she was openly weeping. “Why am I expected to endure so much? Tell me, I beg you, about what did she lie?” she managed to ask between sobs of hysteria.

Ginny heard, rather than saw, Grandaunt throw her hands into the air in exasperation.

“Lucinda, you must get command of yourself,” Ginny insisted. “Lady Derby was not lying, but she was being rather vexing. Orgeat is neither brandy nor Champagne. It is little more than the juice of an orange”

Lucinda’s sobs stopped instantly. “Oh!” she said. “So, then I’m not inebriated!”

Even Lucinda was stunned into silence by that utterance, and the remainder of the journey was spent in peace. Ginny found herself wishing Lucinda would once again believe herself to be foxed and become verbose, as she longed to ask Anthony about his reaction to her wedding preparations, and the turning of the wheels was not sufficiently loud to disguise her words. However, Lucinda stayed uncharacteristically silent.

Ginny thought perhaps Anthony was finding the lack of communication as taxing as was she, for just as the horses rounded the last corner prior to home, he took her hand gently in his own and soundlessly brought it to his lips. Whether he forgot or refused to return her hand, Ginny did not know, but he kept it captive under cover of darkness until the carriage came to a halt.

Lucinda immediately moved to peer out the carriage window, even though it meant stretching herself across the entire length of the seat, the one currently occupied by Lord Avery and Grandaunt Regina.

“Oh, how lovely!” Lucinda cried without the typical clap of her hands, so urgently were they needed to keep her from collapsing into her neighbor’s lap. “I have never been to Wembley House when it is dark outside. Look at all of the lighted windows!”

Ginny found it difficult to frame a reply to such nonsense, as the tall, narrow, Georgian-style house was little different from the others on the square. However, it was the sudden appearance of Lucinda’s slipper-shod feet in precariously close proximity to Ginny’s nose that served most to rob her of speech.

“Lady Avery!” Grandaunt snapped. “Do recall your dignity, and allow me to alight. Why I was so inclined to share a seat with you, I will never know!”

“Oh, I do!” Lucinda cried as she regained her proper place on the seat. “It is because you deplore facing backward, as do I. As long as we are riding in the same carriage, we shall be seated together, as we both require the seat facing forward. Considering our great standing in Society, it is only proper, no?”

“Never again,” Grandaunt riposted, her jowls quivering with indignation in the light streaming through the carriage window.

Apparently Anthony had anticipated trouble, as he had by this time alighted from the carriage and was holding out his hand for his grandmother, who, in turn, lost no time in wiping the dust of the carriage from her feet. Ginny, quickly following, found herself inside the house with barely a “good night” from Anthony before he turned on his heel and hastened away.

Going immediately to the window and pulling back the curtains, Ginny watched as he interceded for the groom in his attempts to convince Lucinda, who, it would seem, had insisted on alighting as well, to take her seat. Anthony succeeded where the groom had failed, and once the last of her azure-blue gown was gathered within, Anthony followed along after it into the inky black interior, whereupon the groom folded up the steps and shut the door.

It wasn’t until Ginny was settled in bed for the night that she fell to turning over in her mind the puzzling events of the evening. Most perplexing of all were the odd things being said. First there was Grandaunt, with her implication that Anthony was keeping secrets. Then there was Lady Jersey’s comment with regard to a wild rumor along the lines of Anthony’s being crazed and attacking people. Anthony himself felt sure Simmons had been hard at work passing along some evil news. Could that have been it? Anthony did have bruises on his hands, but he explained them as being the result of a boxing lesson. Was this the unspoken truth to which Grandaunt Regina had alluded?