by Jane Ashford
“Get it out! Get it out!” cried Mrs. Gregg again.
Marianne signaled to Susan with a pressure on her hand that this was enough. At first, it seemed that Susan would not respond, but then she bent even further and managed to imprison Daisy in her own petticoat. Making soothing sounds, she began to extricate him from its folds.
Mrs. Gregg watched with tremulous horror. “I won’t have it in my carriage,” she declared. “That animal is obviously mad. It should be destroyed at once.”
“I am so sorry, Mrs. Gregg,” replied Marianne sweetly. “But he was only frightened, you know, at being caught. Susan will put him back in his basket.”
“I won’t have it in the carriage,” she insisted.
“Oh?” Marianne looked around. “Well, we are nearly home. We’ll ride from here, then.”
Even in her outrage, Mrs. Gregg saw that this was going rather far. “I do not wish to force you out,” she said.
“I quite understand. Come, Susan.”
The girls climbed down, leaving their erstwhile interrogator feeling vaguely bested, and mounted from the barouche step. Bowing to Mrs. Gregg and her friend, and brushing aside another protest, they set off at a brisk trot.
“That was wonderful!” exclaimed Susan when they were out of earshot. She balanced Daisy’s basket before her. “I thought I’d die laughing.”
“Let us hope that when she tells the story we don’t come off too badly,” answered Marianne.
“I don’t care a fig what she says.”
“You should. You saw what a wicked tongue she has.”
“The spiteful creature. I wish Daisy had truly bitten her—hard!”
“I expect he did. He bit me.”
“And me.” Susan giggled. “But it didn’t really hurt. It was a splendid idea. I should have said something really dreadful in another minute.”
“I know.”
Susan turned to look at her. “You’re not so bad after all.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When we first met, I thought I’d hate you.”
“My dear Miss Wyndham!”
“Well, you seemed so odiously superior. And there was the dress.”
“Yes, there was that,” responded Marianne dryly.
“But you’re not stuffy and arrogant, really.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Indeed, I think we’re rather alike.” She meant this as a compliment, but it filled Marianne with dismay. “Mind, this doesn’t mean that I’ll give in over the baron.”
“Give in? What do you mean?”
“We are still rivals there.”
“Rivals?” Marianne was lost.
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t understand me. But I shall fight fair.”
“My dear Miss Wyndham—” began Marianne again.
Susan was diverted. “There is our street. Come, Georgina will be very cross with me for going out without telling her where.”
She kicked her horse’s flanks, and Marianne was forced to follow, still protesting. Susan ignored her, sliding from her mount almost before it stopped and skipping up to the front door. In the ensuing flurry of greetings, explanations, and arrangements for a groom to escort Marianne home, the subject was lost. But Marianne found she had much to think of as she made her own way home.
Five
Tony did not return home that night, and Marianne grew rather concerned, though she reassured her mother and Sir Thomas. She rose and breakfasted early, and by eight was sitting in the drawing room writing a letter to her brother and listening for sounds of an arrival downstairs. But she found composition more difficult than usual. Never a fluent letter writer, this morning she was unable to concentrate on her page, more worried about Tony than she would have expected. The outing yesterday had been unlike any she’d had in London before. Indeed, she realized now, it had been far more like expeditions she and her brother had made as children in Scotland—a bit disorganized and haphazard, filled with misadventures, and, she was surprised to acknowledge, a great deal of fun.
Thinking of Tony and his dog, of William’s criticisms of his sister’s cat, and of the very unusual Miss Susan Wyndham herself, Marianne had to smile. This idea of a rivalry between them was quite ridiculous; she didn’t understand exactly why Susan clung to it. Baron Ellerton was unlikely to take serious notice of either of them.
Marianne had considered the idea of marriage a good deal in the past year, as must any intelligent young lady involved in the London Season. The festivities were so often directed toward that one thing—to marry off the younger generation of the ton—that it could scarcely be ignored. And Marianne’s own experience in refusing one of the most eligible noblemen in England had brought the matter home to her as no abstract imagining could do.
She wished to marry; she had no doubt on that score. But she was not at all certain what sort of man she would accept. Before she had come to town, sequestered in the wilds of Scotland, she had vowed to wed a thorough Londoner, who would guarantee her a round of gaiety from the capital to Brighton and Leicestershire. But when such a man had actually offered, she hadn’t hesitated to refuse, despite the furor this caused. She had simply known that they would not suit. But this had left her perplexed about her own desires. What sort of life did she really want, having now tasted the pleasures of society?
This again called up the image of Ellerton. He was, on the one hand, everything she had dreamed of as a young girl—elegant, assured, a leader of society. Yet he was more, too. Marianne couldn’t imagine Lord Robert Devere, whose proposal she had refused, taking the trouble to aid two near-strangers in a ballroom, or good-humoredly giving in to an importunate request to join a party in which he could have little interest. These were trifling things, she admitted to herself, but trifling things could be important. Was he the sort of man she had been unconsciously searching for? Smiling slightly, Marianne concluded that there might be something in what Susan Wyndham said after all.
Oddly enough, in Lady Goring’s house not too far away, Georgina Goring was following a similar train of thought. This was odd not only because of the coincidence, but because Georgina almost never thought of marriage. Ten years ago, she had. Sent to town against her will, and far from successful among the ton, she had developed a severe case of calf love for the man Susan’s mother had eventually wed. He’d been very kind to the difficult girl she was then, and she would have married him in an instant—no doubt to regret it bitterly later. But there had been no question of that, and she had soon realized it, with a good deal of pain. However, this period of intense emotion had taught her a great deal about people, which her isolated childhood had not, and it had changed her from a withdrawn schoolgirl to a thoughtful young lady. Indeed, she believed it had been a chief force in shaping her character, which she knew to be unusual. She looked back on it now with an odd kind of gratitude. Without that hurt, she felt, she would be far less than she was.
But it had discouraged her thoughts of marriage. She had met no other man she liked so well, and when she returned to her father’s house, she found she was content there. She resisted her aunt’s frequent invitations to spend further Seasons in town, and evolved her own pleasant routine at home. The death of her father had been hard, but it had not made her wish for any other life.
Yet she was not feeling as unhappy as she had expected, forced this Season to stay in town and reenter the social lists. She found that she looked forward to the ball they were to attend that evening, and to the other events that would come after it. And one of the chief reasons for this reversal, she had to admit to herself, was Baron Ellerton.
Georgina did not see how this could be. She prided herself on her common sense, and this side of her jeered at the notion that the baron might be interested in her when he had all society to choose from. Yet some hitherto dormant part of her persisted in calling up Ellerto
n’s handsome countenance, pointing out the warm look in his eyes when he had joked with her, and daring to hint that perhaps Georgina had simply never met the right man before and that this was her time.
“Nonsense!” she said aloud to herself, determinedly picking up the sewing she had allowed to fall in her lap. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. You are falling into a premature dotage. And acting just as you did at eighteen, when you ‘fell in love’ with a man who was kind to you but had no further interest.” This silenced that unfamiliar voice in her mind, and Georgina flushed at the thought that she was merely repeating her earlier mistake.
Susan Wyndham, in her bedchamber upstairs, was prey to no such doubts. Her only thought, in fact, was for the gown she would wear to the ball that night, and its probable effect on the gentleman who was occupying so many feminine brains.
The ballooning party came together again for the first time at the ball. Tony and William had reached home late in the afternoon, too late for explanations, and they had agreed between them to walk to the ball, avoiding stuffy carriages. Thus, the girls were forced to wait until the two young gentlemen entered the ballroom to get any information. Fortunately, this occurred between sets, and Susan and Marianne immediately deserted the groups with whom they’d been chatting and descended on the newcomers. Georgina, who had heard the full story from Susan, strolled over more slowly, interested to learn the outcome.
“You selfish beast,” was the first remark she heard, addressed to Sir William by his sister. “Why didn’t you come and tell me everything at once? When Gibbs said you had come home and gone out again, I—”
“Do you want to hear it now?” retorted William, “or would you prefer to abuse me in front of all London?”
With a ferocious grimace, Susan subsided.
“Well, we got him back,” continued William.
“Growser is all right?” asked Marianne, who had become rather attached to him in their short acquaintance.
“Oh yes.” This was from Tony. “He’s always getting into scrapes, and he is never hurt. I believe Crispin was worse off when we reached them. Growser would jump about, and the poor man looked quite green.”
“Where did you find him?” asked Marianne. “It must have been quite a distance away.”
Tony nodded. “The dratted wind carried them nearly ten miles, and Crispin was afraid to try to descend through it with Growser there. He had to wait for sunset. By the time he got down and we helped him secure the balloon, it was too late to come home. We stayed at an inn nearby.”
“And slept half the morning,” commented Susan acidly.
The two young men looked sheepish, and Georgina and Marianne smiled, thinking it very likely that they had celebrated the rescue of Growser by indulging rather too freely in the inn’s libations. Both were a bit pale.
“We rode home pretty slowly,” acknowledged William. He and Tony exchanged a conspiratorial glance. It was obvious that their budding friendship had been cemented by this shared adventure.
“Well, you missed Almack’s,” answered his sister. “We went last night.”
“Remind me to buy Growser three pounds of steak,” said William to Tony, who grinned.
Susan made an exasperated sound, but before her brother could bait her further, there was a stir at the door and Baron Ellerton strolled in, looking the picture of elegance and ease.
At once, all three women’s attention shifted. Though they moved only slightly, it was clear even to Tony that their interest was elsewhere.
“Good evening, Baron,” said Susan.
He nodded, smiled, and returned the greeting, including the others. Georgina and Marianne murmured acknowledgments. In the corner, the musicians began again.
“Oh, a waltz,” exclaimed Susan. “Do you know, Baron Ellerton, I only last night received the sanction of Princess Lieven to waltz.” She gazed up at him so meaningfully that Georgina had to repress a gasp. She might as well ask him to dance, she thought.
“I congratulate you,” replied Ellerton, surveying the ladies with a slightly wider smile. They formed a striking picture—Susan exquisite and deceptively fragile in pale green muslin, Marianne magnificent in a blue exactly the shade of her eyes, and Georgina delicately distinguished between the two redheads in dove satin with an overlay of spidery gray lace.
“It is such an exhilarating dance,” dared Susan. This time, Georgina could not suppress her intake of breath.
Ellerton, hearing it, met her shocked gaze with dancing eyes. Georgina’s mortification eased as she realized that the baron was more than up to this contest. Indeed, he was completely in charge. “Some say so,” he agreed. “If you will excuse me, I must claim my partner.”
With a slight bow, he turned away, walking along the side of the room to the daughter of the Duchess of Lancombe, who welcomed him with a brilliant smile.
The ladies turned back to Tony and William, Susan clearly piqued, Marianne thoughtful, and Georgina flushed with embarrassment, both for Susan’s boldness and her own ridiculous hopes.
“Fellow thinks he’s top of the trees,” murmured Tony to William.
“Umm,” was the only reply. William was following the baron with his eyes, taking in the cut of his coat and the chaste austerity of his waistcoat. He’d been struck by the ladies’ behavior. That even Georgina, whom he thought of as a kind of aunt, should forget his existence when confronted by Ellerton gave him pause. And Marianne’s desertion piqued him so sharply that he began to reconsider his refusal to waste money on new clothes. He had discouraged Tony from replacing his wardrobe, urging him to what William thought more important outings such as visiting Manton’s shooting gallery and Jackson’s boxing saloon. But now he wondered if he’d been mistaken. Marianne’s opinion was of increasing interest to him, and he didn’t want to neglect any possible advantage, however trivial it might seem to him.
Tony was even more affected. He’d been worried about his clothes in any case, no matter what William said, and he had quite enjoyed being the object of several pairs of enthralled feminine eyes. The abrupt severing of this attention, and the obvious reason, put him on his mettle. “Must see that snyder tomorrow first thing,” he muttered.
William nodded. To add to his chagrin, an unknown young man came up at that moment and claimed Lady Marianne’s hand for the waltz. William, who had intended to do this himself, glowered as they went off to join the set.
Tony looked hunted. He had no wish to partner the spitfire Miss Wyndham, but politeness dictated that he dance, and custom urged that he not leave sister and brother to each other. Swallowing to find his voice, he heroically made his request. Susan accepted with scant grace, and they too departed.
“Georgina?” said William, ruthlessly pushing back his annoyance. He liked his cousin very well, and it was by no means a penance to dance with her, though it wasn’t like dancing with Lady Marianne.
Georgina laughed, conscious of the trend of his thoughts. “You needn’t, William. I shall go and sit with the chaperones, where I belong.” She felt a pang as she said this, but she told herself fiercely that it was no more than the truth.
“Nonsense!” responded her young cousin. “You can’t leave me standing here. I don’t know any other young ladies, and they will all wonder what is the matter with me that you will not dance.”
She laughed again. “Very well. We cannot let that happen. But when this set is finished, I will present you to some of them.”
“Agreed,” responded William with an answering smile, and they turned to join the set.
The waltz gave way to a country dance, and a cotillion, and a quadrille. Tony and the Wyndhams broadened their acquaintance with the aid of Marianne and those she presented. They went in to supper with a lively group and obviously were enjoying the evening, thought Georgina, sitting on the edge of the boisterous party. She herself was less content. She
didn’t feel much akin to young girls just out of the schoolroom and young men years younger than she; yet when she sat down with the chaperones, she felt equally out of place. She knew none of them well, and it was always clear to her that they wanted to gossip about matters they felt unsuitable for the ears of an unmarried woman. Whenever Georgina took a chair in their circle, the conversation died, and then began again, usually with a kindly inquiry about her family or her charge. Georgina felt distinctly in the way, and heartily sick of assuring them that Lady Goring was indeed on the mend, or that Susan was not the least trouble. The sweetly probing questions about Susan were the worst, for Georgina had the feeling that the older women shared her sense that Susan would do something outrageous before the Season ended. They awaited this event with avid relish. Their only amusement, so far as Georgina could see, was scandal.
Thus, Georgina was neither one thing nor the other, and she wondered as the supper interval concluded how she would get through an entire Season hanging on the fringes of two incompatible groups. If only Aunt Sybil would regain her health, she wished silently, she could return to her own good friends in the country. There, she didn’t feel alien. Indeed, she knew she was admired and respected. But Lady Goring seemed the same each day when she visited her—bright-eyed and interested in all the news, yet still very weak.
Georgina followed her cousins back into the ballroom with these thoughts uppermost in her mind. As the music began once again, and the young people paired off for the dance, she looked about for a retreat. The chaperones were still at supper, their deserted corner a jumble of gilt chairs and blue velvet sofas. She did not want to sit there. Looking further, Georgina noticed that the long windows that marched down the far side of the chamber were recessed. Behind their draperies were shallow niches hidden from the crowd.
She edged her way around the walls, nodding to several acquaintances but not stopping, until she was in front of the first embrasure. The hangings were firmly closed, their hosts not being proponents of the advantages of fresh air. Glancing quickly about to see that no one was observing her, Georgina pulled a gilt chair through the curtains and let them swing shut behind her. Her heart was beating fast at this most unconventional act, and she stood very still for a long moment, awaiting discovery. But it did not come. After a while she took a deep breath and sat down, relaxing for perhaps the first time that evening.