“Of course,” said Penelope, resolutely banishing her adolescent dreams of a strong and handsome lover. “I should not see much of him at all, you see. If gentlemen are not at their clubs or their politics, they are on the hunting field.”
“Ah, but were I in love with someone,” said the Earl, forcing her to meet his gaze, “I would not leave her side for a moment.”
Penelope felt suddenly breathless and awkward. She rapidly held her fan in front of her face. “Since we shall not be seeing anything of each other in the future, my lord, we should not be talking like this.”
The Earl studied the top of her frivolous hat as she bent her head and lowered her fan to her lap and stared at its painted pictures.
“Jobbins!” said the Earl, without removing his gaze from Penelope. “There is a fine oak tree about a hundred yards to your left. Go and count the branches.”
“Very good, my lord,” said his groom, Jobbins, with a grin, and climbed down from his perch.
The Earl waited a few moments and then asked gently, “Do you know why I sent Jobbins away, Miss Vesey?”
“No,” said Penelope in a small voice.
“Because I wish to kiss you.”
“Oh!”
“Is that all you can say?” teased the Earl. “’Oh.’”
“I appeal to you as a gentleman,” said Penelope primly, “not to take advantage of our isolated position.” Their quarter of the park was deserted, the fashionable throng having made their way to parade their carriages in the Ring.
“But I am about to take advantage of our isolated position,” the infuriating, teasing voice went on.
Penelope sighed. “Oh, go ahead. I am not going to make a cake of myself by fleeing across Hyde Park on foot.” She shut her eyes and screwed up her face. He looked down at her for a second in some amusement and then took her very gently in his arms. He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her small straight nose, and then his wandering mouth suddenly clamped down over her own. Penelope’s last coherent thought before she was carried away on a buffeting sea of emotions, and tremblings and strange, tortured virginal passions was that Sir James Vesey might have had some point in thinking they were a vulgar family. No lady would behave so. No lady would feel so.
At last he raised his head and the world of sunlight and trees and grass came swirling back. She looked up into his eyes and found them as hard and cold as the winter sea. Why should he look at her like that? It was his fault after all.
The Earl brusquely summoned his groom and set his horses in motion. “We shall join the fashionables, Miss Vesey,” he said coldly, “and then I shall take you home.”
Roger, Earl of Hestleton, was furious. The girl had succeeded in awaking a series of emotions he had considered long dead and buried. Had Penelope made some flirtatious remark, he would have snapped her head off. But she sat very quiet and still and rather white-faced. He slowly became aware that he had behaved very badly indeed and set himself to make amends.
As they joined the series of glittering carriages in the Ring, he asked lightly, “Well, Miss Vesey, here we have the cream of society. What do you think?”
Penelope looked about her, wide-eyed, her recent distress temporarily forgotten. It was a glittering spectacle as the dandies and their ladies promenaded to display their elaborate toilettes and spanking carriages pulled by the finest horses. Many ladies were driven in a little carriage for two persons, called a vis-à-vis. This gorgeous equipage had a hammer cloth, rich in heraldic designs, powdered footmen in smart liveries, and a coachman who looked as stately as an archbishop. Then she laughed, “I feel like a poor child looking in the window of a pastry cook’s. I suppose I shall always be outside, looking in.”
“Would you like to attend Almack’s?” asked the Earl abruptly.
“You have already asked me that question,” said Penelope patiently.
“I mean— really attend.”
“Of course.”
“I can arrange it,” he said simply.
Penelope looked at him, wide-eyed. “How?”
“Like this,” he said with a charming smile lighting up his austere face. He inched his carriage forward and then began to introduce Penelope to various notables. Names and titles flew about her bewildered ears, hard eyes stared and speculated, jealous female eyes flicked back and forth from the Earl’s face to her own, dandies bowed and simpered, Corinthians stared and leered.
Obviously the Earl of Hestleton had great social power. When it was discovered she was Augusta Harvey’s niece, though it caused some rapid blinking, it did not seem to make much difference to the polite, if formal, reception given to her by the fashionable set. If the Earl of Hestleton found nothing to disgust him in Augusta Harvey, then neither would they. From being a vulgar, pushing mushroom, Augusta was elevated in their minds to the rank of a tedious eccentric, and after all, there was always some new butt around to receive the barbed attention of society.
Penelope was then introduced to two of the patronesses of Almack’s and, luckily for her, to two of the most amiable, Lady Sefton and Lady Cowper. Both patronesses decided that Penelope’s behavior was unexceptionable and allowed that she was quite pretty although it was a pity she was so unfashionably fair.
The Earl’s suggestion that vouchers for Almack’s should be sent to Penelope was met with a pleasant “perhaps” instead of the open horror which would have met such a request had it been made by any other. Such are the fickle vagaries of fashion.
As they drove from the park, Penelope had forgotten her desire to be free of the Earl’s company and turned a glowing face up to his. “Oh, thank you,” she breathed.
“’Tis nothing,” he said, looking down briefly at the enchanting face turned up towards his. “It will all be worth it to see Miss Harvey’s debut at Almack’s.”
Penelope bit her lip. He had not really been kind. Only indulging in a fit of whimsy. And the kiss, the memory of which still made her feel weak, had meant nothing to him.
She sat in silence until he deposited her in Brook Street. She must marshal her wayward thoughts and take full opportunity of her new social status and find a husband. Some kindly country squire would suit admirably.
Chapter Five
“YOU must not fidget, madam,” said the artist, Mr. Liwoski.
Augusta gave him a sulky glare. She was paying him for his services, wasn’t she? But Miss Stride had said that Mr. Liwoski was the best and cheapest that Soho could provide, and since Penelope was in the room, she contented herself by turning her eyes to the card rack on the mantelpiece where two vouchers to Almack’s were prominently displayed.
It had been like a dream come true. Penelope had said shyly that it was because of the kindness of the Earl of Hestleton, but Miss Augusta Harvey had put it down to her own new genteel image and, of course, the wily Miss Stride had encouraged her in that idea.
Penelope sat silently on her favorite corner of the window seat, content to watch Mr. Liwoski at work. A day or so ago he had completed a series of quick thumbnail sketches and was now starting on his canvas, laying down the ground surface of thin wash, a “brown sauce” he called it. He then occasionally wiped it with a rag to bring out the masses of light on the brow and the cheekbone, carefully checking the likeness from time to time. He had told the fascinated Penelope that a difference of quarter of an inch in the brushstroke, say on the lips, could make a mouth sinister or cruel if one were not very careful.
He was a thin, threadbare young man, who perpetually looked in need of a good meal which was, in fact, often the case.
Penelope watched his deft expert movements and dreamed of the evening at Almack’s to come.
She had taken dancing lessons in the art of performing the quadrille and the waltz. That very evening she would walk through the doors of Almack’s. She wondered if the Earl would be there. Try as she would, she could not forget that kiss. She should not have responded to it. But then the Earl should not have kissed her in the first place. Maybe he kn
ew his advances would not be rejected, thought poor Penelope with scarlet cheeks.
His brother, Charles, had already engaged her for the first dance. He was vastly different from his austere brother, reflected Penelope. He was a frequent caller and always seemed to treat Aunt Augusta with a mixture of flattery and fear.
It was indeed very strange. But the behavior of so many people in London seemed strange. The famous dandies were not the elegant gentlemen that Penelope had been led to believe. She had already seen many of them as they sauntered down Piccadilly and Bond Street. There seemed to be nothing remarkable about them but their insolence. Generally middleaged, with rude, ill-bred manners, they were neither good looking, nor clever, nor agreeable. They swore a good deal, never laughed, and had their own particular brand of slang. The sportsmen, the Corinthians, seemed just as bad. Where the dandies minced, they swaggered and although their oaths were the same, they were pronounced in louder voices.
The young men, like Charles, who tried to ape the dandy set unfortunately copied their bad manners and their ridiculously exaggerated dress. The Earl, decided Penelope, could not be a dandy. He was too well-dressed. He could turn his head in the high confines of his cravat, and his coats were not tailored so that his collars bunched halfway up the back of his head.
Penelope became aware that Mr. Liwoski was packing up his materials. “After I have completed your portrait, madam,” he said to Miss Harvey, “I would be grateful if you would commission me to paint your lovely niece’s portrait.”
“Humph! We’ll see,” was all Augusta would say. She looked at Penelope and cast a meaning look at the clock. Penelope rose obediently to her feet. It would take the rest of the day to prepare for the all-important evening ahead.
To the Earl’s world-weary eyes Almack’s may have seemed dull, but to Penelope’s it appeared the epitome of high fashion. She felt like Cinderella arriving at the ball. Jewels flashed their myriad lights under the sparkling prisms of the crystal chandeliers. The air was heavy with scent worn by the guests, male and female alike, beeswax polish, oil lamps, and flowers. The dancers were whirling energetically in a Scottish reel, long tails flying, feathers bouncing as they weaved their way through the patterns of the figure eight.
The music stopped and Penelope found the Viscount at her side. He was correctly dressed in black and white. His cravat was snowy perfection and his knee breeches and stockings clung to his coltish legs without a wrinkle. He led her towards a set for a country dance that was just being made up and whispered in her ear, “I say, Miss Vesey. You look stunning. Take all the shine out of the others. By Jove, indeed you do!”
Penelope laughed at his gallantry, well aware that she could not possibly compete with any of the dark beauties with their intricate masses of brown or black hair and their flashing jewels. She did not know that the Viscount had spoken only the truth.
Her blond hair was dressed high on her head in a mass of soft curls with one thick ringlet falling onto her shoulder. Her dress was of the finest white Indian muslin, threaded under the breast with gold ribbons. The neckline was fashionably low and was framed by a stiffened lace collar, pointed in the Elizabethan manner. Her only ornaments were the modest string of pearls at her throat and a thin pearl and gold circlet set among her curls.
When the figure of the dance briefly brought Penelope and her partner together, the Viscount suddenly whispered to her, “Have a care! You are too young and innocent to have an aunt like that!”
Penelope flushed with anger and, when their steps brought them together again, she said, “If you dislike my aunt so much, why do you keep calling on us?”
“Because of you, my dear,” said Charles with one of the falsest smiles Penelope thought she had ever seen.
Penelope bit her lip as she gracefully twisted and turned in the steps of the dance. She could not see the Earl anywhere. Almack’s was not such a splendid place, after all!
The dance ended. Then the quadrille was announced, and Penelope found herself without a partner.
From her vantage point beside Miss Harvey’s great bulk, Miss Stride noted the fact and whispered to her companion, “It is generally known that your niece has no money.”
“So,” said Augusta. “What are you trying to say? Stop mumbling and get to the point.” Augusta did not waste any of her newfound airs and graces on Miss Stride.
“Well, if a girl is portionless, she is apt to lack dancing partners. Even rich men fight shy of a dowerless girl. You should let me put it about that you will leave Penelope your fortune when you die and then you will see the men flutter about her.”
“I ain’t leaving her a penny,” snapped Augusta.
“Really!” replied Miss Stride acidly. “What were you going to do with your money when you died. Take it with you?”
Augusta had not once thought of death. That was something that happaned to other people. But it would do no harm to say she was leaving the girl her money. “Oh, very well,” she said sourly, “though I must say I’m surprised that these society gents should be so mercenary.”
“Gentlemen,” corrected Miss Stride automatically and wondered why Augusta, so mercenary herself, should be so surprised to discover other people to be the same. But then one always intensely dislikes the faults in other people that one has oneself.
Miss Stride rose to her feet and began to drift from group to group, whispering and chattering, her feathered headdress bobbing and nodding. She looked for all the world like an elderly chicken scratching for again.
Penelope was watching the quadrille since she had never seen it performed except by her dancing master. One lady was performing her steps with marvellous expertise. She learned later that the expert was none other than the beautiful Lady Harriet Butler who had received dancing lessons from the celebrated Vestris. She was making the most beautiful entrechats, leaping from the floor and beating her little feet in the air to the amazement and admiration of a watching audience. She was partnered by the fat and elderly Lord Graves who was so overcome by his fair partner’s entrechats that he attempted to do the same. He leaped up in the air and then fell heavily on the floor. Poor Lord Graves staggered to his feet and performed the rest of the dance as best he could.
When the quadrille finished, Lord Graves and Lady Harriet were just passing Penelope, when Lord Graves was waylaid by Sir John Burke, who said in a very sarcastic voice, “What induced you at your age and in your state to make so great a fool of yourself as to attempt an entrechat?”
Lord Graves faced Sir John, his large face empurpled with fury. “If you think I am too old to dance,” he snapped, “I consider myself not too old to blow your brains out for your impertinence. So the sooner you find a second the better.”
Penelope held her breath. Was this going to result in a duel? But Lord Sefton had heard the discussion and came quickly to the rescue. He put a slim hand on the enraged Lord Graves’s arm. “Tut, tut, tut, man,” he said soothingly, “the sooner you shake hands the better, for the fact is, the world will condemn you both if you fight on such slight grounds. And you, Graves, won’t have a leg to stand on.”
Lord Graves and Sir John burst out laughing and shook hands, and Penelope, turning round, saw that she was being surrounded by men, begging for the next dance. Miss Stride had done her work well. No one wanted Miss Harvey with her seventy-five thousand pounds. But the beautiful Penelope with that amount of money was a different matter.
And so that was how the Earl of Hestleton saw her when he entered the ballroom at Almack’s. She was laughing and blushing, her large blue eyes sparkling with delight, surrounded by her court of admirers.
I have indeed helped Miss Penelope well on the road to matrimony, thought the Earl wryly. He was irked to discover that Penelope was so sought after. He realised that he had believed the vulgarity of her aunt and her own lack of fortune would have prevented such popularity. He had envisaged her sitting quietly on her rout chair at Almack’s, perhaps dancing with Charles, but certainly awaitin
g his arrival anxiously. With a feeling of pique he realised she had not even noticed him entering the room.
He leaned against a pillar under the musicians gallery and, as Neil Gow and his orchestra sawed away enthusiastically at yet another Scottish reel, he was able to observe the grace and elegance with which Miss Vesey performed her steps.
“I’m paying her too much attention,” he thought and turned his gaze elsewhere. His pale eyes narrowed as he saw his brother entering the cardroom on the far side with the Comte de Chernier. He detached himself from the pillar and made his way round the ballroom in pursuit of them, unaware that Penelope was watching him go and wondering why she felt so flat.
The Comte de Chernier and Charles were standing in a corner of the cardroom, talking quietly. The Comte was dressed in the finest elegance. His hair was powdered and his evening dress sparkled with jewels. He had a thin yellowish face and black eyes which did not seem to register any emotion at all. As the Earl watched, Charles cautiously drew some papers out of his pocket and slipped them to the Comte.
The Earl strode across the room and towered over them. His thin, strong hand clasped the Comte’s ruffled wrist. “Have you been gambling, Charles?” he demanded. Both Charles and the Comte were staring down at the Earl’s hand as if mesmerised. Then the Comte gave a light laugh and said, “I see I have been found out. These are unfortunately some love letters of mine. Charles was my messenger of love and took them to the lady but… alas…” His shoulders rose and fell in a Gallic shrug, “she returned them, as you see.”
“And what the hell has it got to do with you, Roger?” gritted Charles, his pallor highlighting the marks of dissipation on his young face. “Were you not my brother, I would call you out!”
The Earl released the Comte’s wrist, but his eyes still seemed to bore into the package of papers. “Please accept my apologies, Monsieur le Comte. I am… er… overprotective where my brother is concerned.”
“Very commendable,” drawled the Comte, shaking out his ruffles. “I gather you thought Charles was giving me his note of hand.”
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