In truth, Julia hardly ever saw James anymore, since she was out so much of the time with Charissa Bradleigh, or paying the requisite morning calls with her aunt. Between the efforts of those two aristocratic ladies, she was learning more and more about the ins and outs of London society as the wealthy and titled, bit by bit, straggled back to town from their country estates.
She had never expected to be kept so busy, and with such a series of inconsequentialities. Some days she came home late, exhausted, and couldn’t think of a single memorable thing she had done. She didn’t mind it, she supposed, since she knew it was the reason for her being in London. But more and more, she understood why Louisa’s spirits had been lowered by the relentless social beating each day brought. Julia liked talking to a lot of people, and still, it was tiring.
So, she and James rarely crossed paths now. No one seemed to think it at all necessary that she should ever get to spend any time in the company of her sister’s fiancé. It was much more important that she meet powerful strangers, or undergo yet another dress fitting, or be seen driving out in Hyde Park with someone or other, by someone or other.
And she supposed it wasn’t such a social necessity that she see James . . . but she missed him, anyway. He was a necessity to her. Even though she’d promised to look for a husband, she thought about him more than she cared to tell anyone. It felt like a secret she ought to keep, even though she couldn’t think of the last time she’d kept a secret, especially from Louisa. The knowledge of her hidden fixation preoccupied her, putting a feeling of distance between her and Louisa.
So passed the remainder of January, and the grayness of February. The weeks flew quickly, and Julia could recall little of them after they had passed. The delivery of the first batch of Oiseau dresses was, perhaps, Julia’s favorite day of that time. She realized it was probably very shallow and vain of her to enjoy them so much, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never had such beautiful clothes before in her life, and while the thought that they were only just beginning the season, after having been in town for two months, was daunting—well, it helped a bit to think of getting to wear her lovely new gowns.
At the end of February, Charissa Bradleigh excitedly called to tell Julia that there would be a ball at Alleyneham House in a few weeks, to begin the intense and unrelenting whirl of gaiety that made up the London season.
“Lord, it’s going to be absolutely amazing!” the young aristocrat exclaimed. “We’ve never had a ball so early in the season, but I suppose Papa and Mama are keen on getting us married off this year. They’ve been planning this one almost since the last one was over with.”
She laughed unconcernedly. “What care I why, though? A ball is a ball, am I right? Except this one will be grander than any we’ve ever had before. Why, everyone who’s anyone will be there.”
“Really?” Julia replied with interest. She couldn’t help herself; she just had to ask. “You’ll be inviting . . . say . . . Viscount Matheson?”
“Oh, good heavens, of course!” Charissa replied cheerfully. “I expect we’ll be inviting about four hundred people or so; maybe even more. So he’ll be included, I’m certain.” She smiled insinuatingly. “He is a handsome gentleman, isn’t he? I’m sorry he’s engaged, but that doesn’t stop a girl from looking!”
Julia realized she’d blundered, and hastened to cover her mistake. “Er—of course, he’s a nice-looking man. I mean, I haven’t really thought about it, but I suppose he is. But, you know, he’s marrying Louisa, and so of course, if we’re to go, then I wanted to make sure he would be there. For her sake. Since, um, she feels better when he’s around.”
And so do I, she thought, but she certainly wasn’t going to say that to her friend. She’d already said more than enough.
Fortunately Charissa wasn’t of a contemplative turn of mind, and she cheerfully agreed that she supposed Louisa would like having James with her.
“After all,” she dimpled, “I rather like having him around myself. I know he’s hands-off, no-touching,” she assured Julia, “but he’s nice to look at, and so witty, I declare!” This drove her into a peal of giggles.
Julia tried to share her friend’s laughter, but it felt false. Charissa’s words woke all sorts of feelings that she’d tried to quash over the past weeks. She ached with the desire to talk more about James, and the pain of the knowledge that she shouldn’t.
So instead, she asked Charissa all about the ball, and the earl’s daughter happily prattled about the decorations, the food, the number of extra servants they would have to take on for the evening, the sad crush—also known as a social triumph—that it was sure to be.
As her friend talked on, eventually, Julia’s discomfort began to melt away. Charissa’s excitement was so vivid and contagious that she couldn’t help beginning to share it. After all, the ball at Alleyneham House had been a turning point in Louisa’s life less than a year before. Now she would have a chance to attend the same type of event, only—if Charissa could be believed—even larger, grander, more exciting, more elaborate, more everything.
Maybe, just maybe, it would be a turning point for her as well. Somehow.
Chapter 18
In Which Julia Comes to Appreciate French Sartorial Genius
“Please sit still, mademoiselle Julia, or I will burn your ears off with the curling tongs.”
Julia sighed and tried once again to hold still. It wasn’t the first time Simone had admonished her to stop squirming. Though she didn’t think the capable maid would really burn her, she didn’t want even so much as a single singed curl tonight.
Tonight, of all nights, she had to be absolutely perfect in every regard, for tonight was the grand ball at Alleyneham House.
The very thought of it made her insides quiver, as if her stomach were full of butterflies—or perhaps something less pleasant, like snakes.
Despite her best intentions, her fingers began to tap again. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to find a comfortable seated position.
Simone sighed theatrically and drew back her hands, saving mademoiselle’s ears once again from a tragic burn.
“I’m sorry!” Julia cried. “I’m just rather nervous, I suppose.” She hadn’t been able to eat anything since breakfast, and her head spun with jittery fatigue.
Simone frowned at her charge. “And why is this?” asked the maid skeptically in her lilting accent. “Have you not been to a ball before?”
“Of course I have,” Julia replied, biting her lip. “But this one is special.”
Simone continued to stare at Julia with expectant raised brows, and Julia tried to think of an appropriate explanation.
Louisa met James at Alleyneham House last year, and I want to meet someone like him at the ball this year. Because I want someone exactly like him. Him, in fact.
No, the truth would never do. But it weighed on her like an albatross, ill-fated and undeniable, sinking her mood. There was only one James, and he was already engaged. How could she go to a ball and dance with other men, encouraging them to desire her, court her, and marry her?
She didn’t know, but somehow she had to. She had promised she would. She had promised herself and her family, and even James.
“This ball will be such a grand event,” she managed at last. “So many glittering people. It’s practically the height of the season. I’m worried I’ll be a wallflower.”
Well, that part was true enough.
Simone seemed to accept this excuse. She abandoned the curling tongs and poked a pearl-headed pin into a coil of Julia’s hair.
“I find that to be unlikely,” she replied. “Certainly the viscount and the baronet Sir Stephen will dance with you.”
“Certainly,” Julia agreed miserably. So what if they did? She was still a fool, living a lie that could only hurt herself and her family. A stupid, simple, country fool.
The full import of the event hit her suddenly, with all the impact of a runaway coach and four. What was she doing, anyway, hoping to ensn
are wealthy men at a ton party? She, Julia Herington, didn’t belong with the likes of the Earl and Countess of Alleyneham. She belonged in the nursery at Stonemeadows Hall, reading her young sisters and brother a story.
She felt as if her tight bodice was squeezing the air out of her chest, preventing her from drawing breath. She doubled over, light-headed, and moaned.
“You are disarranging your gown,” Simone informed her calmly. “You will not appear your best if you do not sit up straight at once.”
It wasn’t exactly a sympathetic statement, but it was as sobering as a bucket of cold water. Julia sat bolt upright and allowed Simone’s clever fingers to tuck and pull the fabric of her gown back into order.
She noticed these deft movements only vaguely. Her mind still spun ahead to the inevitable consequences of her stupidity. She’d fail to find a husband; her parents’ money would be wasted. She would have to return home and would languish away, an intolerable burden on her family for the remainder of her life. Unless she could somehow persuade Louisa and James to take her in at Nicholls.
Perhaps she could serve as governess for their children.
“I feel sick,” she whispered. Her vision grew dark around the edges.
Simone grasped her shoulders and shook her. “Look at me.”
She waited to continue until she had fixed Julia’s wide gaze with her own sloe eyes. “Breathe deeply, mademoiselle. Calm yourself and do not think these things that are bothering you. Are you or are you not Lady Irving’s niece?”
“Yes,” Julia replied automatically. “Well, only by marriage, but technically, yes. I believe she thinks of me as a niece. I think of her as an aunt, after all.”
Simone ignored this babbled explanation. “Then you will do nothing wrong. If you appear confident as does your aunt, everyone will believe you are so, and no person will question what you do.”
She paused for a moment, then admitted, “That is not perfectly correct. Your aunt does some things a young lady should not. But still you should be calm. Think of how your sister always appears, so possessed of herself.”
Julia breathed in and out, slowly, concentrating on the movement of air through her lungs. Simone was right. Why should everyone be watching her to see how she behaved? If they were, they would take their cue from her own demeanor. They would assume that she was fashionable and confident and eager, and that her heart was as untouched as her body.
Suddenly Simone’s final sentence sank into her consciousness. “Simone, where’s Louisa? Why hasn’t she been in to join us yet? Doesn’t she need your help, too?”
“Do not unquiet yourself again,” Simone said calmly, running an expert eye over Julia from head to foot. “Mademoiselle Louisa will be very well. Stand, please, and permit me to observe you. I believe you are very nearly ready to descend.”
She adjusted a final pin in Julia’s hair, and with a nod of satisfaction, offered her hand to assist the younger woman to rise.
Julia stood obediently and turned in a slow circle for Simone’s inspection. The maid’s usually impassive eyes widened, and she drew in her breath sharply.
“Nom d’un nom,” she breathed out. “I am a genius, truly.”
“What? Why? What do you mean?” Julia was puzzled.
A slow smile spread over the Frenchwoman’s face. “You look wonderful, ma belle. You have never looked finer. I say again, I am a genius. I shall ask your aunt to pay me more money.”
Julia laughed unsteadily, then moved across the room to peer at herself in the glass.
It was her own self... but she had never seen herself look like this. Her anxiety melted into astonishment at the very sight.
Wispy curls framed her forehead and face, while the long mass of her fair hair was held back by two fine pearlescent Grecian-style bands. Behind their restraints, Simone had coaxed her hair into a neat chignon style, but with additional twists that made of Julia’s hair a glossy pile of sophisticated coils. Even when Julia prodded them with a curious finger, their perfection remained unmarred.
“Amazing,” she breathed. Her hair had never looked so tidy and stylish in her life.
Below the mass of her hair, her skin glowed pale and rosy next to the ivory triumph of Madame Oiseau’s first and most elaborate creation. The delicate silk fell in a lustrous sweep from the low-cut neckline down to Julia’s slippers. The skirt of the gown was gathered at the back into folds that just swept the floor in a suggestion of a train, and the dress’s net overlay added a gold-tinted shimmer. Long ivory gloves and delicate pearl jewelry completed the sweetly sophisticated ensemble.
Julia turned and stared at herself in the glass, and turned back and stared some more. When she met her reflection’s eyes, they were still disbelieving. This young woman was . . . beautiful? Elegant? How could this be?
Simone had worked a miracle, for the woman in the mirror looked like she could do anything. She could be fascinating and charming, and she would never take a false social step. Men would fall at the feet of this woman. If her heart was hurt, no one would ever notice, because she would tilt her head back proudly and smile.
Julia tilted her head back proudly and smiled. The woman in the mirror smiled, too, right back at her.
It made her feel better. She tried again, and this time the smile was even real.
“Oh, Simone, how did you do it?” she finally said, touching the glass one last time. “I look . . . I look like a real town lady.” She choked on the words, and turned to face the maid.
“And so you are, when you are at a party,” Simone replied. “Especially this night. Remember that people know only what you want them to know about you. And in this”—she wagged a dexterous finger at Julia’s ensemble—“they will know that they should admire you and be charmed.”
She smiled at the younger girl. “So, feel your most charming, ma petite. You are enchanting. You cannot fail to please.”
Julia’s throat caught. She grasped Simone’s hands gratefully and managed a watery smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“There, child, no crying.” Simone patted her hands, then opened the bedchamber door for Julia to exit down to the drawing room. “I am very wonderful, I know, but how much will it help you to cry and undo the magnificence that I have created?”
As Julia passed through the doorway and headed for the stairs, the maid added too softly for anyone else’s ears but her own, “Il va craquer, je suis sûr. He will never resist her when he sees such a beauty. I am a genius, vraiment.”
She permitted herself a small smile as she watched Julia begin, with an expression of great concentration, to descend the stairs deliberately, holding her skirts away from her feet. Then, with an anxious glance at Louisa’s closed bedchamber door, Simone returned to Julia’s room and began to tidy up the litter of leftover pins, curl papers, and other evidence of her undeniable brilliance.
James waited downstairs in the entry of Lady Irving’s house for at least one of the ladies to make her appearance. He had been perfectly punctual, though he should have known that women preparing for a ball tended not to keep to a scrupulous timeline. He hadn’t been able to keep himself away any longer, though. There was nowhere else he wanted to be.
Given a few unexpected minutes of quiet, he idly paced back and forth, his cloudless face giving no hint of the hectic buzz of his thoughts. Despite himself, despite his years of experience with the ton, he found himself anticipating the night’s ball with as much pleasure as if it were his first.
Something wonderful was going to happen tonight, he had a feeling. By gad, his very fingers were tingling.
His mouth crooked into a wry smile as he regarded himself in the decorative pier glass of Lady Irving’s fashionable entryway. He had wanted to look especially well tonight, for whatever happened, and he’d let his fastidious manservant arrange his cravat. Delaney’s standards were amazingly high, and they’d wasted eight starched neckcloths before the valet had been satisfied. It was ridiculous, of course, but the effect was rathe
r good, if he did say so himself.
“Drat.” A voice from the bottom of the staircase broke into his reverie.
James’s smile broadened. He knew who that had to be. Without turning to look, he said, “Hello, Julia.”
She gasped, and he turned to face her, grinning at her surprise. “James! I didn’t see you there.”
He opened his mouth to offer his usual friendly, joking reply, and then he just left his mouth open.
She was luminous.
She was herself, of course, but more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Was it the elegant sweep of her gown? No, her sophisticated clothing was but the gilt on the lily. She herself made it shine. Her skin glowed; her hair was bright; her lips were rosy.
She was the loveliest creature he’d ever seen.
He sagged against a wall. He needed to get hold of himself. This would not do. This would not do.
He closed his mouth and drew in a deep breath through his nose, and felt somewhat normal again. At least, if you were comparing him to someone who’d just been hit on the head with a club, run over by a carriage, and then been committed to Bedlam.
He was quite certain at that moment that there was indeed a God, because Julia didn’t notice him gaping at her like a schoolboy seeing his first nude statue.
All right, that wasn’t the type of thought that was going to help him get hold of himself.
He shook his head again to clear it, and noticed at last that Julia was behaving rather oddly. She was turning in slow circles, wrenching her head to one side. She looked as if she were having a tooth drawn by a set of clock gears.
“Er—is everything all right?” he managed.
Julia continued to turn in that odd way. “I’m not sure,” she said over her shoulder. “Simone had me all prepared like a perfect town lady, and then I was trying to be so careful as I came down the stairs, thinking that I mustn’t miss any of them, that I concentrated too hard instead of just going down normally, and I forgot how to move my feet properly. So I actually did miss one of the steps and my foot slid onto my hem, and now I’m afraid I’ve ripped it.”
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