The Spring Bride (20 page)

Abby stared at her for a long moment, then she gave a shaky laugh. “You sound just like Mama,” she choked. “Exactly. If I closed my eyes, and listened to you, I would think she was here with us.” And her face crumpled.

“She is, my darling girl, of course she's here with us,” Lady Dalrymple said, hugging her. “Where else would she be but with those who loved her best?”

And then they were all three of them in tears.

A short time later, declaring she needed something
much
stronger than tea, Lady Dalrymple dispatched her butler to fetch sherry, and also more handkerchiefs. “Though the way we're going, my dears, we'll need one the size of a tablecloth! Still, there's nothing like a good cry, is there, for making one feel better?”

“I'm still amazed that you went all the way to Cheltenham, to the Pill,” Jane said. “And all for nothing.”

“Oh, it wasn't for nothing,” Lady Dalrymple told her. “I got to hear all about my granddaughters from the woman in charge. Bodkin—was it?—had nothing but praise for you girls.”

“Really?” Jane said. Abby, yes, but she doubted that Bodkin would be singing Jane's praises. She'd never had the impression Mrs. Bodkin had any time for her at all.

“Oh, yes, I heard all about what a clever and responsible girl you were, Abby, and how she'd tried to have you kept on as a teacher after you turned eighteen—”

“She tried to keep me on?” Abby said in surprise.

“Yes, for Jane's sake, and because you were such an excellent teacher. Only the governors—foolish men—wouldn't allow it. And you, Jane”—she turned to Jane—“she told me how wonderful you were with the little ones and said it was
such
a shame you couldn't be a governess too, only with your looks it would be
asking
for trouble, and I
quite
see now why she had to send you instead to be the companion to an old lady, depressing as that must have seemed.” She wrinkled a nose. “A
vicar's
mother.”

“I thought she thought I wasn't clever enough,” Jane said.

“No, too pretty and too softhearted, she said. Abby, she said, had more grit to her.”

“Grit?” Abby said, half laughing. “She meant I had no looks to speak of.”

“Nonsense. She said you had grit and brains.” She eyed Abby indignantly. “And it's positively
wicked
to say you have no looks at all—you have the kind of distinguished elegance that will only increase as you age. You get that from your father's side, though there was an expression in your eyes earlier that also reminded me of my late husband. He was also very distinguished-looking.” She sighed. “Also proud, stubborn, hardheaded and rigid—quite abominably rigid. When I think of those letters and how, if only I'd found them earlier . . .”

Jane laid her hand over Lady Dalrymple's small plump one. “Let's not dwell on the past too much.”

Her grandmother nodded. “You're right, my dear. Regrets are so dismal, and quite useless. You can't change the past. Now tell me, how is your season progressing? That dress you were wearing the night I first saw you—such a divine creation! I
must
know, who is your dressmaker?”

They stayed, talking and laughing, with only the occasional tear, all afternoon. There were still many things they hadn't told her—why Jane hadn't gone to Hereford, for a start, and where they'd met Daisy and Damaris, nor that Abby was going to make her a great-grandmother—but there was time for all that in the future.

Before they left, Lady Dalrymple invited Jane to make her home with her.

Very gently, Jane refused. “Lady Beatrice has done so much for us—we owe her everything. I could not abandon her now.”

Lady Dalrymple sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

“But I will come and visit you often,” Jane promised, seeing the disappointment on the old lady's face. “You don't think you're going to get out of being a grandmother, do you? We have
years
to make up for.”

“Oh, you dear, sweet child.” Lady Dalrymple groped for another handkerchief.

As the two sisters drove home, Abby said, “Thank you for making me come, little sister. I wouldn't have missed that for the world.”

“We have a grandmother.” Jane hugged her. “Does she really sound so much like Mama?”

Abby nodded. “It's uncanny—her voice, the melodic pitch of it, the cadence—and the way she rattles on, skipping from one subject to another.” She laughed. “Whenever Mama did that, Papa used to tease her about it and say she was
just
like her mother.”

Jane smiled and leaned her head on Abby's shoulder. “You've forgiven her?”

Abby nodded. “Impossible not to, really.”

“She must have just missed us, you know. By a week or two.”

“I know.” They were silent a moment, trying to imagine what their lives would have been like if Lady Dalrymple had found Jane at the Pill, and rescued Abby from the Mason household.

“I'm not sorry,” Jane said, just as Abby said, “I don't regret it in the least.” They both laughed.

“I can't imagine not having Damaris and Daisy and Lady Beatrice in our lives,” Jane said.

“No, and I would never have met Max,” Abby said softly, placing a hand over the slight swell of her abdomen. “We might have started off in a dreadful place, but it's all worked out perfectly for us, hasn't it, Jane?”

Jane forced her mind away from thoughts of a tall, dark figure with compelling silvery eyes. “Perfectly,” she echoed. It sounded a little hollow.

Abby glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

Jane nodded. “Just a little tired after all that emotion. Thank goodness the masquerade ball is tomorrow night. I barely have enough energy to climb into bed tonight.”

*   *   *

“Y
ou look delightful!” Jane was going to the masquerade ball as a shepherdess, wearing a gown of pale blue silk, looped up in several places around the hem to reveal a froth of white petticoats beneath. It was an old dress of Lady Beatrice's cut down, much to the old lady's outrage.

“You'd have the gel wear an old dress of mine? To the masquerade of the season? Where everybody who's anybody will be there to see her?”

But Daisy was adamant. “I'm not goin' to cut into new fabric on something that's only going to be thrown away afterwards. And this'll do fine and will save me time as well as money.” Lady Beatrice, Damaris and Abby had made their own arrangements for their costumes—Damaris and Abby were keeping them a secret—but Daisy was determined she would make every single outfit Jane would wear for the season. Or bust!

Jane was getting worried it might indeed be bust, but she didn't say so. This was Daisy's dream, after all.

“Save you
money
?” Lady Beatrice was appalled at the notion.

But Jane and Abby had spent their entire lives wearing other people's cut-down clothing, and they understood the need for economy, particularly the economy of time. “I agree with Daisy,” Jane said. “I'll only ever wear it once, and besides, it's going to look delightfully old-fashioned, and so pretty.”

“And no shepherdess would wear the latest fashion, would they?” Abby added.

The old lady sniffed. “No shepherdess would ever wear hoops either.”

“And shepherdesses wear silk, do they?” Daisy said. “Fancy that.”

Lady Bea lifted her lorgnette and gave her a beady look. “Wretched gel, would you have Jane dress in
rags
? For the sake of
authenticity
?” She pronounced the word with delicate disdain.

Daisy laughed. “Just sayin'. And there won't be no—yeah, I know—won't be
any
hoops needed when I'm finished with it.”

“I suppose she can be one of Marie Antoinette's shepherdesses,” Lady Beatrice conceded begrudgingly. “She and her
ladies used to play at being shepherdesses and milkmaids and such, poor deluded creatures.”

So the dress was altered, and was pronounced to be satisfactory by all concerned, except for one feature. “How will people know she's supposed to be a shepherdess?” Daisy wondered. “She don't look like no shepherdess I ever seen.”

“
Doesn't
,
any
and
saw
,” Lady Beatrice corrected her absently.

“We could find a sweet little lamb at one of the markets,” Jane suggested.

“Nonsense! You'd get attached to the dratted animal, forget its purpose in life is to be dinner, and next thing you know, we'd have a silly great sheep blundering around the house,” Lady Bea said severely. “Besides, one does not take livestock to a ball, Jane, not even a masquerade ball. It's simply
not done
.”

In the end, the required effect was achieved by Damaris cutting out sweet little lamb shapes from white felt that Jane sewed around the hem of her dress. A shepherd's crook painted white and tied with a blue ribbon, a white velvet mask trimmed with lace and a pretty little straw hat
a la bergère
put the final touch to Jane's outfit, and she left for the masquerade ball feeling very satisfied with her appearance.

Jane, Lady Beatrice, Abby and Max rode together in the carriage, Lady Beatrice magnificent as Good Queen Bess in gold and purple brocade and a splendid ruff and Abby dressed as a mermaid, with a green sequined mask and a green sequined tail peeping from beneath her frothy green skirts and hooked up in a convenient loop over her arm.

Max was nominally dressed as King Neptune, with a trident—nominally because other than the trident, and a black velvet mask, he was otherwise dressed in his usual formal black knee breeches and coat. Over them he wore a midnight green domino, which, he informed them, represented the sea. “I'm not much of a one for costumes,” he said as he climbed into the carriage.

“I never would have guessed,” his loving aunt told him.

At the entrance to the ballroom, Jane paused a moment, drinking in the sight. Hundreds of candles burned in the chandeliers overhead, their tiny flames reflected and magnified through the myriad of crystals that hung from them, making the scene below shimmer and dance.

Before them was a sea of fantastical and exotic creatures—Egyptian queens, milkmaids, winged fairies, harlequins, Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, and more. Of course, not everyone had worn a costume; many had simply worn a domino over their usual formal dress and donned a mask. The masks ranged from the simple strips of black velvet worn by a number of gentlemen to elegant and intricate confections worn by the ladies.

“Oh, I wish Daisy could see this,” Jane said.

“She could have come—I did arrange for her to attend—but she's a stubborn wench,” Lady Beatrice commented. “Said she needed to work. Work!” She sniffed. “Gel works too dratted much if you ask me.”

Jane didn't say anything. Daisy was working flat out, she knew, but it wasn't the only reason she refused to come. Daisy was very good at not letting herself want what she knew she couldn't have. Unlike Jane.

Sometimes, a taste of something was worse than nothing at all. If you didn't know about something, you couldn't crave it.

Like Zachary Black.

If she'd never met him, never felt the touch of his hand, never gazed into those gleaming silvery eyes . . . No. She wasn't thinking about him.

“I can see several milkmaids, but not a single shepherdess,” Abby said, gazing out over the shifting throng.

“Certainly none with a flock of sheep conveniently attached,” said Lady Beatrice caustically.

“Oh, look,” Jane said. “There's Damaris and Freddy—and they've gone all Chinese. Don't they look wonderful?” She waved, and Damaris waved back. She was gorgeously attired in an exotic-looking Chinese-style dress and Freddy was dressed as a Mandarin with a long, droopy mustache and a sumptuously embroidered Chinese robe.

Abby said, “And is that—yes, it's Mr. Flynn dressed as . . .” She gave Flynn a long, thoughtful glance. “Would you say he's dressed as a pirate? The gold earring and the black head scarf with the skull and crossbones seems to indicate it, but I must say his attire is very . . . colorful. Though I suppose he of all people would know how pirates really do dress. It's probably quite authentic.”

Lady Beatrice gave her a blistering glance. “Authenticity
again, is it?” She sniffed. “A masquerade ball is about fantasy, not authenticity.”

Flynn, seeing them, gave a rakish bow. He was dressed in tight red pants, thigh-high black boots, a violently multicolored waistcoat, a white shirt and a purple and gold brocade coat. He wore a cutlass thrust through his black leather belt.

“A fine figure of a man, Mr. Flynn, though I hope that cutlass is fake,” Lady Beatrice commented, watching him make his way toward them through the throng. “Check before you accept a dance with him, gels. If your dresses catch on it, they'll be ribbons in no time. Men never think of such things.”

Flynn wasn't the only one who'd noticed their arrival. A number of other young single gentlemen were hastening toward them. “Well, well, Jane's arrival has been noted. Here come your dance partners, gels.”

Lord Cambury, who arrived dressed as Julius Caesar, in white robes and an olive wreath, had claimed his dances the day before—the first waltz of the evening and the dance before the supper dance, which was a country dance—and Jane had already written his name on her card. Now a crowd of other gentlemen pressed forward and in minutes every dance had been claimed, mostly by men she didn't recognize, who wrote things like
Henry VIII
,
Lucifer
or
Apollo
on her card.

The next few hours passed for Jane in a happy whirl of laughter and dancing. Lord Cambury had danced his two dances and taken her to supper, then disappeared into the card room to play piquet until the unmasking, leaving Jane to dance to her heart's content. Which she did.