The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (6 page)

“Blistered,” she admitted after a short pause. Now she did feel mortified after all. “My feet are too large, you see. I thought to reduce them to greater daintiness with slippers that are too small.”

“Not a wise idea,” he said and he seated himself on the stone bench that ran beneath the balustrade and took her foot onto his lap. He massaged it with his thumb, avoiding her toes. She was inclined to giggle and pull away at first, but the pressure of his thumb was too firm and too soothing to tickle.

“You are a tall lady,” he said. “You would not be able to balance on tiny feet. I believe a certain incident earlier this evening proved that. Besides, you would look funny. Out of proportion.”

She chuckled, pain forgotten for a moment. “Vanity is a dreadful thing,” she said. She supposed that he would understand that himself.

“When it causes blisters, yes,” he said. “I suppose the other foot is in just as bad a case?”

“Yes,” she admitted ruefully.

He set her stockinged foot on the ground and lifted the other onto his lap, easing off the slipper and proceeding to massage the foot as he had the other.

“Not that it is any of my concern, Miss Downes,” he said at last, “but where is your chaperon, pray?”

“Oh, what nonsense it is,” she said, “this business of chaperons. I had a great deal more freedom before I became a
heroine
, I do assure you.”

“Your parents allowed you to roam about unescorted?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Dear me.”

“My mother is dead,” she said. “Edgar—my brother—told me once, a long time ago, that she ventured one look at me after giving birth to me, took fright, and quit
this world without further ado. But Papa scolded him for making light of so serious a matter and even thrashed him for it, I do believe, though I was sorry because it was said only as a joke even if it was in poor taste. No, Papa does not allow me to roam unescorted, as you put it. But now that I have become a heroine and a protégée, I may not move a muscle, it seems, without having a female companion accompany it.”

“It is for your own protection, I do assure you,” he said. “How do you know that I am not about to take great liberties with your person? Indeed, I have already taken liberties. Many ladies I know would faint dead away if they knew I had been fondling your feet for the past ten minutes or so.”

Cora threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, I know I am safe with
you
,” she said and then realized that perhaps her words were ill-bred even though she had not meant them unkindly. “You were presented to me by the Duke of Bridgwater himself,” she added.

“Does her grace know you are out here?” he asked.

She smiled at him conspiratorially. “I told her I was going to the ladies’ withdrawing room,” she said. “But it is always so crowded there. It was cooler and quieter out here.”

“Stay here.” He got to his feet after setting her foot down beside the other. “I shall explain to the duchess that you are ready to go home and see to the ordering around of her carriage if Bridgwater is nowhere in sight. Then I shall come back and escort you to it.”

“She will have to know about my blisters,” she said. “It seems so ungenteel somehow.”

“Even one of the royal princesses would develop blisters if she wore slippers of too small a size and then proceeded to dance for several hours in them with—ah—
vigor
,” he said. “I shall return.”

And he was gone.

She would be packed up and sent home to Bath, Cora thought. It must be disgraceful to have to leave one’s very first
ton
ball early because one had blistered feet. Now her grace was going to have to leave early and Jane and Elizabeth too—and doubtless their dancing cards were full and they were going to have to excuse themselves to all the gentlemen with whom they were to dance. And they would be miserable at having to lose half an evening’s entertainment but they would be too well mannered to blame her openly.

If only she had not jumped into that river. There was nothing callous in the thought. Little Henry’s survival had not depended upon such theatrical heroics.

Well, she thought, stooping down to pick up her slippers and eyeing them with a grimace, if she was sent home in disgrace, she would not care. She really had not wanted to become the Duchess of Bridgwater’s protégée in the first place. But her grace had been importunate and Lord George had been charmingly insistent—and Lady George too, though because of her confinement she had had to relay her pleas through her husband and one lengthy letter—and Papa had thought it a splendid opportunity for her. Even Edgar had told her she would be a fool to reject the chance that was being offered her.

But she had no wish for a genteel husband. Or for a husband at all, in fact. Though that was a bouncer, she admitted in all fairness. Of course she wanted a husband. And of course it would be pleasant to have one who was well set up and genteel in manner. But mostly she wanted a husband for affection and companionship and for—well, for the other. She had no particularly clear picture of what was involved in that other, but she was very convinced that she would like it excessively. Provided she felt an affection for her husband, that was. And she knew that she would like to have children.

Perhaps, she thought, she should merely have had
Lord Francis escort her back into the ballroom. She could have sat through the rest of the evening without disturbing anyone else. But it was too late now to think of that. She flexed her slippers in her hands as if she thought to enlarge them a whole size by doing so.

And then Lord Francis appeared again. Cora looked sheepishly beyond his shoulder, but it was just Betty who was standing there, the maid the duchess had brought with them.

“Her grace is making arrangements for Lady Elizabeth and Lady Jane to be chaperoned and fetched home by Lady Fuller,” he said. “I shall escort you to the carriage, Miss Downes. I have brought Betty with me so that you will not be forced to the impropriety of moving a muscle without its being accompanied by a chaperon, you see.”

Lady Fuller was sister to the Marquess of Hayden, Elizabeth’s betrothed. Cora felt better knowing that the evening was not going to be ruined for Elizabeth and Jane.

“Was she very cross?” she asked.

“Her grace?” He raised his eyebrows. “Cross? I do not believe duchesses are ever
cross
, Miss Downes. Actually I believe she was more relieved than anything else. She was coming to the conclusion that you had vanished into the proverbial thin air. No, I would not advise trying to squeeze your toes back into the slippers.”

She sighed. “I cannot walk back through the ballroom in my stockinged feet,” she said. “Even merchants’ daughters know that much about gentility, my lord.”

“I would not have brought Betty if that had been my planned route,” he said, “Come along. We shall avoid the ballroom altogether.”

He took her slippers as she got to her feet, and handed them to Betty. Then he drew her arm through his and led her slowly toward the steps leading down into the garden.
Betty followed silently behind. Cora hoped fervently that the few people who were strolling on the balcony would not look downward to notice that she was unshod.

“It is such a shame,” she said with a sigh as they descended the steps, “to have to miss the rest of the ball. Just listen to that music. You are very kind, Lord Francis. Would you not prefer to be dancing?”

“When I might be escorting the loveliest lady among the guests to her carriage instead?” he said. “Absolutely not, ma’am.”

Cora chuckled. “What a thorough bouncer,” she said. “You will go straight to hell for that one, Lord Francis.”

“Dear me,” he said rather faintly.

They were to walk about the house to the front, it seemed. It also appeared that the house was surrounded on three sides by a cobbled walk.

“This is by far the best part,” he said as they reached it, “and the reason I felt it wise to bring Betty along.” And he disengaged his arm from hers, turned to her, and scooped her up into his arms.

Cora shrieked.

“It was definitely wise,” he said. “Stay close, Betty, if you please.”

“You cannot
carry
me,” Cora said, feeling considerably flustered and doing with her arms the only thing that seemed possible to do with them—she set them about his shoulders. “I weigh a
ton
.”

His voice, when he spoke, betrayed the truth of her words—he was breathless. “The merest feather, Miss Downes,” he said, “I do assure you.”

He was unexpectedly strong. Even Edgar, who was both tall and husky and who was also very, very masculine—she had seen the way women followed him with their eyes with expressions ranging from wistful to downright predatory—even Edgar had been red-faced
and puffing a few weeks ago by the time he had hauled her, dripping, out of the river. And yet Lord Francis Kneller, whom she still could not resist comparing to a peacock, was carrying her along half the length of the back of the house, along its whole width, and then back along the front to her grace’s waiting carriage. Cora hoped for the sake of his pride that he would not have to set her down in order to recover breath and muscle power before they reached their destination, but he did not.

There was no reason, she supposed, to believe that a man who dressed so and who spoke and moved with studied elegance and who appeared as a result to be somewhat—well,
effeminate
was not quite the word. It was too ruthless and unkind. She could not think of the word she meant if there were such a word. Anyway, there was no reason to believe that such a man was also a weakling. And yet that was just what she would have expected of Lord Francis Kneller. Nobody, she supposed, fit inside neat little boxes of expectation. Everyone was an individual and must be judged, if at all, on individual merits.

She was well satisfied with the profound insight into life that the evening had brought her. And what if he had been a weakling? Philosophical insights now bubbled up into her consciousness. Would that fact have diminished him as a person? She liked him. He had been kind to her. And at the basest level, he had provided her with amusement.

“Woolgathering again, Miss Downes?” he asked her, his voice still managing to sound languid despite the fact that he was definitely short of breath.

“What?” she said.

But they were at the carriage and he still had the strength left to swing her inside and deposit her on one of the seats instead of doing what would have been easier
and simply dropping her so that she could climb the steps herself. He offered his hand to Betty, who bobbed a series of curtsies and allowed him to hand her inside.

“I asked,” he said, leaning across the carriage seat and looking up at Cora, “if I might have the honor of driving you in the park tomorrow afternoon. My guess is that you will not be walking any great distance for the next couple of days at least.”

“In the park?” she said. “
Hyde
Park?” It was the dream. It was the pinnacle. Everyone—even the merchant class of Bristol—knew all about Hyde Park in the afternoons during the Season.

“None other,” he said. “At precisely five o’clock, ma’am. At precisely the time when there will be so many carriages and horsemen and pedestrians there that only a snail could be content with the speed of movement.”

“How splendid!” Cora said, clasping her hands to her bosom. “And you want
me
to drive with you?”

“A simple yes or no would suffice, you know,” he said.

She grinned at him and then remembered that ladies did not grin. She was reminded by the arrival of the Duchess of Bridgwater, whom Lord Francis handed into the carriage. The coachman put up the steps and began to close the door. But Cora leaned hastily forward.

“Yes, then,” she said. “And thank you. You are very kind.”

“T
HIS IS
E
LIZABETH’S
doing, at an educated guess,” her grace said when they were finally on their way, her voice not unkind. “Elizabeth holds the strange and rather painful belief that feet must be made to appear as small as possible. I should have remembered that, dear, when I allowed her to accompany you to the shoemaker’s. Tomorrow, or as soon as your feet have healed, we must
begin all over again. Betty, I believe, wears just the size of these slippers.”

Betty brightened considerably.

“Lord Francis said that small feet on a large person would look silly,” Cora said.

“And Lord Francis is an authority on feminine beauty and fashion,” her grace said. “You would do well to pay him heed, Cora. But I would be willing to wager that he did not imply that you are
large
. Did he perhaps use the word
tall
? He is far too well-bred to have used the former.”

She was not in disgrace after all, Cora thought. She sank back against the squabs and relaxed. It really was fun to be part of the
ton
for a short while. Tonight she had danced with numerous gentlemen and even with a duke’s son—it did not matter that he dressed like a peacock. The blisters had been won in an almost worthwhile cause. She had enjoyed herself greatly. And tomorrow she was to drive in Hyde Park at five o’clock in the afternoon.

She closed her eyes and thought of the letter she would write to Papa and Edgar tomorrow morning.

L
ORD
F
RANCIS
K
NELLER
was in the depths of gloom. He toyed with breakfast, pushing the kidneys into a neat triangle at one side of his plate and lining up the three sausages like soldiers at the other. One soldier was taller than the other two—he moved it to the middle for better symmetry. He could not decide at quite what angle to set his toast on the plate for best aesthetic effect.

His heart was squashed flat against the soles of his riding boots.

He had been feeling almost cheerful when he had got up after only a few hours of sleep following the Markley ball. All through his morning ride in the park he had felt
almost cheerful. He had kept thinking about the rather odd Miss Cora Downes, and somehow every thought had brought amusement—and occasionally an actual chuckle—with it.