Miss Delacourt Has Her Day

by Heidi Ashworth

  “Ma certo! When my cousin was a bambina with her mama, we used to laugh much together, but once she married and became a countess, I was allowed in only through the kitchen door.”

  “I see. And since her erstwhile flight to Paris?”

  Anthony was amazed to see the look of pure abashment on Conti’s face.

  “Si, I still go to the home of her husband. The old cook, she ees very good!”

  Anthony raised his eyebrows. “By that I assume you refer to her cooking?”

  “Si, but what else?” Conti said with a shrug. “This English cooking ees no good. How else am Ito fill out my fine clothing to perfection?”

  “Then it is settled. You shall go at once to Yarmouth House in Regent’s Park and get your hands on that carriage!”

  “And eef the carriage is no more?”

  “Then we shall have to make our escape in a balloon,” Anthony said.

  “What ees this? We are to travel in a balloon?”

  “Not you and I, Conti, Miss Delacourt and I. Unless, of course, you know how to fly one,” Anthony said with an ironic laugh.

  “This, too, ees not beyond my power,” Conti said with a bow.

  Anthony rapped him on the back and bade him stand. “Conti, my man, you are a wonder! I shall endeavor to keep your genius under wraps, or Miss Delacourt might leave me for the better man.”

  “No, my lord, she sees none but you”

  Anthony smiled at the sudden mist that rose in his eyes. “I do believe you are correct, as usual, Conti.”

  “You are a man that draws a woman’s eye, my lord,” Conti observed as he headed out the door to execute his orders.

  “My thanks, Conti. I hadn’t known you thought so highly of me”

  `Bet is not the man, my lord, but the clothes on hees back!” Conti declared, just managing to close the door behind him before the volley of objects thrown by his master damaged his own finely turned-out ensemble.

  With a sigh, Anthony turned to the mirror to inspect his appearance one last time before his departure for Wembley House. After the bout at Jackson’s, Conti had insisted Anthony change his attire, something for which he could not fault the fastidious valet. In his dark blue coat, buff pantaloons, and that touch of lace at throat and wrist Ginny so loved, Anthony was pleased to admit he looked bang-up to the mark. What’s more, the bruising on his knuckles was fading, and the boxing match with his valet had spared him any discoloration to the face. As he was disinclined to marry with a purple eye or bulbous nose, this was a circumstance wholly desired.

  During the ride to Grosvenor Square he flirted with the idea of opening his budget to Ginny and telling her the whole. He knew she had learned of a boxing match and a wager from Lady Derby, but how much more of the story she was able to share with Ginny before he came on the scene at Almack’s, he knew not.

  How Lady Derby had learned of today’s events was a more sizable mystery. What she intended to do with the information, had she the chance, was entirely predictable. Surely it would be better to tell Ginny the truth before she heard of it from someone who hadn’t a care for her feelings. Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of the blow to Ginny’s happiness should she think for one moment their wedding might never come to pass.

  Worse yet was his being lowered in Ginny’s esteem once she learned of his feeble submission to his uncle’s meddlesome demands. It would no doubt be much more comfortable to confess all once they were safely on their way to their wedding breakfast. Or, perhaps, after the honeymoon. Dash it all, if he made a clean breast of it following the birth of their firstborn, it would be none too soon!

  By the time he arrived at Wembley House, he was on pins and needles. Keeping the truth from Ginny was one thing; staying silent when Grandmama knew all was another. Would she expect him to tell Ginny about the fight today and the carriage race tomorrow, or had Grandmama taken it upon herself to do so in his place? Making a mental note to keep her in the dark with regard to any plans for the days hence he had made or might ever make well into his uncertain future, he dashed up the front steps and rapped on the door.

  He was greeted by a “Good evening” from Garner, the butler, a man who had known Anthony from his days in leading strings. Handing over his hat and gloves, he thought it wise to determine the mood of the ladies before climbing the stairs to the sitting room.

  “So, how goes it today, old man?” he asked with a heartiness he did not feel. “Did the fitting for the wedding gown go well?”

  “I cannot say, my lord,” Garner said, placing the hat and gloves on the hall table. “It seemed there was the usual amount of loud, and might I add, execrable French being screeched at the top of Madame Badeau’s lungs.”

  “I see,” Anthony mused. “Dare I go up?”

  “The socalled Frenchwoman has departed,” Garner said as he headed up the stairs, signaling Anthony to follow. “However, Her Grace and the young miss seem a bit frayed about the edges.”

  “Is the frock not to her liking, then? Or was it something else she did not fancy?”

  “Again, I cannot say. Only the words in French made their way below stairs, and I do not speak French, my lord. It is not a lack I feel the loss of,” Garner patiently explained, his eyes suddenly moist.

  As Garner’s nephew was killed at the Battle of Vauchamps a year or so previous, Anthony could sympathize with the butler’s tears as well as his intense dislike of all things French.

  When they reached the white-paneled doors of the sitting room, Anthony dismissed the butler to his pantry, where it was common knowledge that a bottle of comfort was kept at hand for moments like these. “It’s quite all right, Garner, you needn’t announce me. I’ll let myself in.”

  Wishing for a bit of a restorative himself and having none, Anthony resolutely pushed open the door. Despite his apprehension, the sight that greeted his eyes was wholly unexpected. Scattered about the room was a plethora of fabric, bows, and, unaccountably, feathers. Sitting in the midst of the disarray was Ginny, her usually well-pinned hair liberally sprinkled with drifts of downy detritus among the curls that had escaped their moorings to bewitchingly frame her face. Grandmama, whose once-famed beauty was never evident to Anthony, looked even less pleasing with a tiny feather clinging to the end of her pointy nose.

  Feeling suddenly less at a disadvantage, he shut the door with a loud snap in hopes it would obliterate the sound of his unwarranted snigger.

  “And how are my two roosting hens today?”

  Ginny, whose previously vacant stare changed to seething anger at his words, turned to face him. “Oh! That is all that was wanted!” she cried, springing to her feet. Anthony noted that they were bare and her green-sprigged muslin gown seemed hastily donned.

  “It would seem that Madame Badeau has only recently made her departure,” he said with another visual tour of the room.

  “So it would seem,” Grandmama agreed, brushing the feather from her nose. “However, strange as it sounds, we have been sitting in just this manner for an absolute age” Sighing, she watched Ginny as she angrily hunted and plucked feathers from her hair with the aid of the mirror over the mantel. “I do not understand young ladies of this generation, Anthony. And I most certainly do not understand that woman who is making up Ginny’s gown!”

  “In that case, you have the advantage of me, Grandmama, as I understand nothing at all whatsoever.”

  “That is a categorical inaccuracy!” Ginny cried, whirling around, causing feathers to flit from her hair like embers from a fire. “Of all who are present, it is you who are omniscient!”

  Anthony, at point non plus in spite of Ginny’s claims, gazed at her in a puzzled amazement that quickly turned to appreci ation. Gad, the girl’s eyes were magnificent when she was angry! However, the fact that there was no clue to the question at hand to be found in her charmingly flushed face eventually made itself known, and he was forced to look elsewhere. The bits of muslin and lace scattered about the room seemed a good, albeit shocking, place to
start.

  “My darling, clearly something has gone terribly awry. Is it your gown? Do you not fancy it?” Whether or not the bits and pieces he was even now beholding was indeed her wedding attire was a question he, with some difficulty, abstained from asking.

  “I adore it above all things,” she said with a saucy lift of the chin. “But that is beside the point!”

  Beginning to feel a bit ill-used, Anthony refrained from taking what could be deemed a menacing step toward his beloved. “Then can no one explain to me why the room looks like a giant game of spillikins and my betrothed like Ophelia?”

  “How dare you allude to Shakespeare at such a moment!” Ginny cried, raising her hand as if to strike him, but Anthony deftly caught her wrist before any damage could be done. He’d be cursed if he were to be landed a blow after having gone to such lengths to avoid bruising earlier in the day.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, pulling her into his arms in spite of Grandmama’s proximity, “forgive me. I regret my choice of words” His thoughts could not help but go to their time spent quarantined at the Barringtons’, when they had each declared their love for the other using a mask of Shakespeare’s devising. She had never told him how she felt about his appropriation of the character Caliban in the throes of passion for his Miranda, but he would never forget the moment when the shrewish Kate claimed him as her own. His heart expanded with the memory, and he determined that whatever it was that troubled her, he would make it right.

  “I shall collar that modiste and fetch her here this very moment,” he said, wanting with every fiber of his soul to protect Ginny against error, endangerment, and English seamstresses who impersonated the French. He patted her on the back and waited for the sobs to subside until, gradually, he realized there were no tears at all whatsoever and his beloved was standing as stiff as a statue against his chest.

  Maneuvering her gently away by the shoulders, he took a step back to look into her face, but she would not meet his eyes. Cut to the quick, he dropped his arms and turned away, unable to look upon her pain a moment longer.

  “Grandmama? Do you have anything to say to this?”

  She shrugged. “Only that there was an argument. I daresay Madame Badeau is halfway to Hertfordshire by now.”

  “Grandmama, how could you?” Anthony retorted. “It is Ginny’s happiness you have squandered with your dislikes and sharp tongue!”

  “It is not I who drove the woman away,” she said with a reluctant air.

  Quickly, he glanced up and caught Ginny’s expression in the fireplace mirror just as her face drained of all color.

  Making a show of regarding his fingernails, he asked a question, the answer to which he felt would shed the most light on the perplexing situation. “And that mess on the floor? Tell me that is not the gown my bride is to wear the day we are to wed?”

  With his words, Ginny came immediately to life. “No, it is not! She has taken that with her, and I wish her joy of it!” she cried, rushing from the room.

  Although frustrated by her demeanor, Anthony felt a surge of relief to know that his betrothed had not torn to shreds the gown that symbolized their impending union. Surveying the ruin on the floor through his quizzing glass, he contemplated his next question. He knew his grandmama must be far past distressed and suspected she had the wherewithal to answer only one question further. He knew he must choose wisely.

  “Pray tell, from whence came the feathers?”

  Grandmama threw her hands in the air. “Ginny is fit to be tied, and you ask about feathers?”

  “Oddly enough, I feel they are at the crux of the matter. Perhaps they were meant to be adhered to the gown, a thought that makes me shudder. I can only assume it should have angered Ginny to no end should the modiste have insisted upon them. It would explain much and would allow me to safely blame Ginny’s anger on the natural anxiety any woman might feel when she is about to be wed.”

  “No,” Grandmama said, folding her hands primly in her lap. “That is not what happened.”

  “Ah! Well, perhaps Madame Badeau had some other suggestion to which Ginny took exception, whereupon she speared a pillow with a pair of scissors and scattered its feathers about the room.”

  “No, Ginny was already in a taking before Madame Badeau arrived. In fact, we have been at daggers drawn all afternoon”

  “Very well, then, Grandmama, if you are not going to tell me what this is about, I shall take myself off.”

  “Oh, Anthony, you must know I would tell you if I knew! All I can say is that Ginny has been out of sorts most of the day, that she gave the modiste such a difficult time and, indeed, was so relentlessly free with her less than flattering observations that Madame Badeau became incensed. She ripped open a cushion and poured the contents over Ginny’s head, upon which that madwoman snatched up the dress and ran screaming from the house!”

  Anthony felt the stirrings of a wild hope beat in his heart. “You say Ginny was relentless?”

  “Well, yes, she was”

  He tapped the quizzing glass against his lips and pondered. “You say she was less than flattering?”

  “Never more so!” Grandmama averred.

  He pursed his lips and regarded her out of the corner of his eye. “Yet she claims to love the gown. This can mean only one thing. She is back! My adorable shrew has resurfaced!”

  “Indeed, I think you could be correct,” Grandmama said slowly. “Perhaps the strain was becoming too much for her. She has seemed oddly subdued as of late.”

  “I must admit,” he said as he began to pace the room, “I appreciate her more courtly manner when in company, but, oh, how I have missed her! I have even wondered if perhaps her restrained behavior has been born of a love for the role of duchess more than her love for me” A burden he hadn’t realized was in existence lifted from his shoulders, leaving him to feel lighter than the feathers that littered every surface of the room. “And here I thought perhaps she had run into Lady Derby and gotten wind of my uncle’s demands. Leave it to him to make matters seem worse than they are already.”

  Suddenly, darkness intruded into his thoughts, and his pacing came to an abrupt stop. “Grandmama, you haven’t told Ginny of the boxing match? Or the race? And, gad, not the balloon?”

  “Of course not! I have no more wish to see her hurt than do you, nor more anxious than she is already! But you must be less cowardly than I and tell her the truth. I daresay she feels you are hiding something from her, and it is causing her to feel peevish and quarrelsome.”

  “In two days’ time it will no longer matter,” he said with an airy wave of his hand, and he quit the room without so much as a “Good night.” Once in the hall, however, he felt less sure of himself. Stopping at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the bedchamber where Ginny was wont to flee, he was all at once filled with a longing to tell her everything. Surely the hurt she would feel for the truth would be nothing compared to the hurt she already knew. He stood unmoving, willing her to appear, for what seemed an uncommonly long time. However, she did not come, and he was forced to collect his hat and gloves and depart. Conti would be waiting.

  tinny couldn’t begin to fathom why she had come; carriage races had never interested her in the past. Besides which, she was sure to be treated to some loathsome snub a la Lady Derby. Nevertheless, she had come, and if forced to answer why, she would say it was to please Grandaunt Regina. Her formidable guardian had been so unlike herself of late, tender and even tremulous at times. When Ginny had crept into Grandaunt’s room the night previous to beg her pardon for her untenable behavior, the old woman was so overcome, Ginny feared there would be actual tears.

  “Why, Grandaunt!” she said, aghast. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked, daring to seat herself on the edge of the dowager duchess’ bed. It was adorned with quantities of antique lace and was very fine, but it was her grandaunt’s standoffish demeanor that had kept Ginny from becoming so familiar in the past. “Everything will be all right in the end.”
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br />   Grandaunt rallied with a frown. “You mean to say you are not angry with him?”

  “Yes, of course I am!” Ginny answered. “But my anger in no way lessens my love for him. I intend to marry him, and marry him I shall, if there are only the rags in the parlor remaining in which to do so”

  When the expected discourse on how a future duchess does not marry in rags was not forthcoming, Ginny became a bit alarmed. “Grandaunt, there is something you are not saying.” She stood and turned away so her grandaunt would not see the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “There is something Anthony is not saying, as well.”

  “You are most correct, Ginerva,” Grandaunt said in a voice more like her own. “But I have given my word I would not be the one to enlighten you. However, if you were to go out with me in the carriage tomorrow for a jaunt to Hyde Park, I am persuaded explanations will be wholly unnecessary.”

  Ginny knew it was Lady Derby’s rumored carriage race to which Grandaunt referred and hesitated to agree to the outing. She did not know if she wished to see Anthony just yet; however, the possibility of disappointing Grandaunt again so soon was a circumstance beyond bearing. Without either woman revealing what she knew about the carriage race, plans were made to sally forth to Hyde Park shortly before luncheon on the morrow.

  Nevertheless, once she had returned to her own bed, Ginny felt some misgivings. She knew Anthony did not want her to know of the race-knew, too, that he would be angry with Grandaunt for letting the cat out of the bag. What’s more, she was ashamed. Could he still love her after the way she had behaved? What if he turned from her in hatred or, worse yet, utter indifference? The lingering anger she felt for his concealment of the threat to their future all but evaporated in the fear she felt at the possible loss of his love and regard.

  And what of Lady Derby? Ginny was unsure she would be inclined to hold her tongue if faced with the usual barbs from Anthony’s former betrothed. The carriage race was sure to be as well attended as the boxing match. Should Ginny insult Lady Derby in return, it would be under the watchful eye of Society. And then there was the betting book at White’s to regard with misery. No doubt there were pages and pages of wagers betting against Anthony’s triumph. Though she knew he would marry her regardless of what anyone said, Society at large would be privy only to what Lady Derby had made sure to spread about.