Authors: Lynne Barron
Knowing Jack had received an invitation to her mother’s
ball, Olivia paid extra attention to her toilet that evening.
“You look lovely, my lady,” Celeste whispered in awe as she
stepped back from her mistress after helping to tug long silver-gray gloves up
her arms.
“Thank you,” Olivia murmured as she took in her reflection
in the full-length mirror in the corner of her spacious bedchamber.
She barely recognized the woman who stared back at her.
Her cropped hair was a riot of curls interwoven with silver
ribbon festooned with tiny dark-red jewels. When she moved her head, both
ribbon and gems glimmered against the backdrop of her dark tresses. A few wispy
tendrils fell over her forehead and along her temples, softly framing her face.
For the first time in her life, Olivia had allowed Celeste
free rein with her hoard of cosmetics. Spring in the country had left her skin
with a warm bronze glow and the maid wisely left it free of powder. She’d
lightly lined her mistress’s eyes with kohl before brushing shimmering silver
powder on her lids. Her gray eyes glowed pewter and dominated her heart-shaped
face.
The first of her new gowns had arrived just that morning. It
was a lovely creation of deep burgundy silk trimmed with pewter-gray ribbon.
The short capped sleeves rested along her upper arms, showcasing the slope of
her shoulders. A sweetheart neckline bared a shadow of cleavage and the swell
of her breasts. The rich fabric hugged her waist and the curve of her hips before
flowing around her legs in yards and yards of glimmering silk that belled out
around her as she twirled to inspect the back of the gown.
“My goodness, my bottom is quite on display,” Olivia
remarked to her maid in some alarm. Dozens of tiny gray silk buttons marched
down her spine from the middle of her back to her tailbone. The trail of
delicate buttons drew the eye unerringly to the rounded curves of her bottom.
“And you might find it a bit difficult to sit,” Celeste
added with a grin.
“I’ve always found sitting to be quite overrated,” Olivia
replied with an answering smile.
“Mind you don’t run your fingers through your hair,” her
maid cautioned as she tucked a wayward curl back into place.
“I’ll try to remember,” Olivia promised, suspecting that her
coiffure would be an unsightly mess all too soon as she did tend to fiddle with
her curls when she was nervous or excited.
She was certainly nervous to be reentering society once
more.
And excited to be resuming her affair with a certain
raven-haired gentleman.
Hastings House was awash in candlelight, music drifting
through the tall, open windows on the second floor, when Olivia alighted from
her carriage. A long line of carriages dispersed laughing couples, smiling
debutants, dour-faced matrons and impeccably dressed gentlemen before the
marble steps and grand portico that guarded the front door to her childhood
home.
Her mother had outdone herself with her annual ball. The
soaring white walls of the foyer were draped with pale-blue and gray ribbons,
the sconces filled with tall candles that cast shadows around the guests
waiting to be received. Looking up, Olivia saw that her mother had half the
candles in the immense chandelier removed and in their place were pretty little
bouquets of white tea roses. The entire room was heady with their scent.
Olivia had to admit, her mother had an eye for decorating
when she chose to exhibit it, and a knack for finding new ways to show off the
home she’d once lived in and now commandeered each year for the ball she hosted
in honor of the Earl of Hastings’ birthday. No doubt, chandeliers all over
London would cast paler light and throw off the scent of roses for the
remainder of the Season and into the following.
Her brother’s butler, Billings, a rather young man who’d
taken the post three years previously when the former butler had been sent to
her mother’s residence in Portman Square, took her silvery shawl from her
shoulders and Olivia drew a deep breath and stepped into the receiving line
where her brother and mother stood greeting their guests. As she made her way
through the line behind an elderly couple, Olivia caught Henry’s eye and smiled
at him.
Henry’s eyes darted over her in a quick perusal as he kept
up a string of pleasantries with Lady Grimson and her daughter Genevieve. When
he met her gaze again he wiggled his eyebrows in a comical leer.
Laughing at his antics, Olivia turned to look away from him
before she lost all sense of decorum.
“What a lovely gown.”
Olivia turned at the familiar voice behind her.
“Aunt Lucinda!”
Her aunt stood in the line behind her, her hand tucked into
the elbow of a tall, distinguished gentleman with chestnut hair cut short and
warm hazel eyes.
“And Simon!” Olivia stepped toward her aunt and cousin,
brushing her lips over the lady’s soft cheek before lifting her own for the
man’s kiss. “But where is Beatrice?”
“My lovely daughter-by-marriage wisely decided to remain at
home with my grandson,” Aunt Lucinda replied with a smile.
“Bea didn’t wish to cause Henry any discomfort on his
birthday,” Simon added meaningfully.
“Yes, Bea wrote about Mother’s behavior last year,” Olivia
replied carefully. “To cut an invited guest so publicly. What was she
thinking?”
“There seemed little point in inviting a repeat
performance,” Simon said with a nod that prompted Olivia to step back into the
space that had opened up as the line moved slowly forward.
“How was your visit to Idyllwild?” Aunt Lucinda asked.
“Simply lovely,” Olivia all but gushed. “The children had a
splendid time.”
“And you did, as well,” her aunt replied with a warm smile,
her eyes crinkling. “You look wonderful, although I daresay your mother will
have something to say about the healthy glow you’ve acquired.”
“I have decided that I will no longer allow my lady mother’s
carping to affect me,” Olivia replied firmly.
“Good for you,” Simon said as he circled around her,
bringing his mother with him.
Olivia turned with them, finding that they had almost
reached the front of the line. She looked up to find her mother staring at her,
a frown pulling her thin lips down.
“How is little William?” Olivia asked her aunt while she met
her mother’s gaze and offered a smile.
“Growing like a weed,” Lucinda answered.
“And Bea is feeling well carrying my new niece?” Olivia
watched her mother turn away with a regal tilt of her head, her graying hair
glimmering in the candlelight.
“You seem terribly certain my soon-to-be second grandchild
is a girl.”
“From what Bea has written, she suffers from the morning
ailment more this time,” Olivia replied with a grimace. “Girls are notoriously
more difficult, in the womb and beyond.”
“Fanny’s still giving you fits, is she?” Simon and his
mother stepped back and Olivia followed, watching as the elderly couple made
their greeting to the dowager countess and the earl.
“I hope to find her a governess soon and put her agile mind
to studying rather than wreaking havoc on all and sundry from dawn until dusk.”
Olivia met her cousin’s eyes and dared him to argue the point.
With a chuckle Simon dropped his mother’s hand and help up his
own in surrender. “My wife has cautioned me repeatedly to keep my unsolicited
opinions and advice to myself.”
“Smart woman, my sister,” Olivia relented with a smile.
The elderly couple ahead of them shuffled off toward the
grand staircase and the ballroom beyond, from whence the strains of a string
quartet rose above the chatter of two hundred or more people.
“Smart enough to marry my son,” Lucinda agreed.
“After you, ladies,” Simon murmured, stepping back to allow
his mother and cousin to precede him.
While Aunt Lucinda greeted her sister, Olivia rose onto her
toes to press a kiss to Henry’s cheek. “You’re looking well for a man of your
advanced age,” she teased as she stepped back to take in the coat of
powder-blue velvet he wore over a silver brocade waistcoat and black trousers.
“I feel like a footman,” he said, his blues eyes crinkling
in his tan, chiseled face.
“Perhaps one year soon you’ll resist the call to don the
family colors,” Olivia whispered.
“As you have done, I see.” Henry eyed her gown. “You look
smashing, quite sophisticated and worldly.”
“Just the look I was going for.”
“Best to begin as you mean to go on, huh?”
“Precisely,” Olivia agreed as her aunt stepped away toward
the staircase, her sapphire gown swishing gently with the movement.
“Chin up, fair lady,” Henry told her with an encouraging
smile.
Olivia looked away from his cheerful face toward her
mother’s less happy countenance.
“Lady Palmerton.” The countess’s lips barely moved as she
greeted her daughter.
“Lady Hastings.” Olivia dipped a graceful curtsy and rose
with one hand extended toward her mother who only eyed the offending appendage
before raising her head to glare down her nose.
“You’re looking well,” Olivia lied. In truth her mother
looked as if she’d aged ten years in the time Olivia had been away. Her once
brown hair was now almost entirely gray, the skin around her eyes a mesh of
tightly woven wrinkles, and that around her pinched lips hanging loose enough
to hide what had once been a firm chin.
She was dressed in her customary ice blue, three silver
feathers drooping from the back of her head, precariously close to falling
across her face. Her dress hung off her bony shoulders. She’d laced her corset
so tight that a roll of loose skin was visible above and below, giving Olivia
the impression that her weight loss had been too rapid to allow for her dress
to be altered to hide it.
Olivia swallowed a sudden lump in her throat as she realized
her mother was ailing, perhaps seriously.
“Mother,” she began.
“You’re looking plump,” Lady Hastings said, her watery gray
eyes fastened upon the swell of her daughter’s bosom rising above her bodice
with each suddenly labored breath she took.
“Are you well?” Olivia asked, ignoring the barb.
“Perhaps it’s only your dreadful choice of color that is
making you look fleshy,” her mother continued. “Surely three years is long
enough to lose the weight you gained with Lord Palmerton.”
Olivia clenched her teeth and resisted the urge to remind
her mother that she preferred her son, her baby, not be referred to by his
title.
“Perhaps we could take tea together tomorrow,” she replied
in an attempt to turn the conversation.
“You know my at-home day is Thursday,” her mother replied
with an arch of her brow that only served to draw attention to little beads of
moisture gathering on her forehead and along her temples.
“Yes, of course. I thought it might be nice to take tea just
the two of us, perhaps in the garden. The weather’s so lovely just now and
before long it will be so hot…”
“You’d do well to remain inside lest your complexion becomes
as dark as a savage,” Lady Hastings interrupted with cold precision.
“Aunt Hastings,” Simon murmured as he stepped beside his
cousin and shot his aunt with a warning glare.
The lady chose to ignore her nephew altogether, instead
stepping toward her daughter until they were nearly nose to nose. “Come for tea
at twelve o’clock Thursday, so that my friends might see that I still welcome
you into my home after your shameless display here tonight.”
“Shameless display?” Olivia repeated in confusion. “I’ve
only just arrived. How…”
“Arrived to announce in the most unbecoming fashion
imaginable that you have tossed off your mourning with unabashed haste.”
“Oh, Mother, really, is that all?” Olivia couldn’t help the
laughter that tripped off her lips. “I hardly think anyone expects me to go on
mourning a man who so abused whatever gentle feelings I might have held for
him.”
“Feelings?”
“Yes, mother, feelings. Those incomprehensible sensations
that come upon one at the most inopportune times, that remind us that we are
human.” Olivia felt her temper fraying and held on to the edges with an iron
will lest she embarrass them both in the foyer of her ancestral home.
“Allow me to escort you to the ballroom.” Simon took hold of
her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, all but pulling her away
from her mother and the ladies and gentlemen waiting to be received.
Olivia followed him in a daze of anger and sorrow, of
feelings.
She sensed the curious eyes in the foyer as she ascended the
stairs and clenched her fingers around Simon’s arm for support.
“Steady on,” Simon murmured.
“Mother looks unwell,” she whispered.
“Yes,” her cousin agreed after a pause.
“Has she been seen by Dr. Nelson?”
“Somerton has brought the physician to your mother’s house
twice.”
“She refused to allow him to examine her?”
“She refused to receive him at all.”
Olivia drew in a shaky breath as they reached the wide
landing on the second floor of the vast mansion. Finely dressed ladies and a
few gentlemen loitered in the space, talking and laughing, seeing and being
seen by all who approached the spacious ballroom.
“The worst is over,” Simon said, his gloved hand covering
hers and squeezing her fingers.
Olivia forced herself to meet his eyes and gift him with a
trembling smile.
The ballroom had been transformed into a fairy forest at
twilight, with towering trees in gilded pots strewn about the massive space and
the tall ceiling draped in layer upon layer of silk in colors ranging from
pale-orange to muted-lilac to midnight-blue. Silver stars hung from the silk
sky and the breeze from the open windows and french doors set the whole of it
gently swaying.