A Kiss at Midnight (29 page)

She tried crimson and then wiped it off. In a few minutes there was a tumble of jars on the dressing table.

“I had no idea this was such an elaborate process,” Kate said faintly. She had her eyes shut as Parsons did something to them.

“I finished Lady Wrothe before coming to you,” Parsons said. “She’s got lovely skin but even so, at her age it takes longer. I’m giving you only the slightest help, miss. I just need to find the proper lip color.” She turned over the various jars again.

Rosalie, who’d been watching while she pinned Kate’s hair up, leaned forward and pointed to a little silk box. “What about this?”

“Peony red,” Parsons said, investigating. She dipped her finger and painted Kate’s mouth a deep red.

“It’s perfect,” Kate said, awed. And it was. The color turned her honey skin from an abomination to a delight. Her cheeks were tinted with a pale peach wash, and her eyes seemed to have deepened and grown more mysterious. “My goodness, Parsons,” she said. “You’re something of a magician, aren’t you?”

Parsons laughed. “You’re beautiful, miss. Not a challenge at all.” She bustled out of the room.

“Your hair’s almost finished,” Rosalie said, slipping in the comb adorned with emeralds. It glinted among Kate’s curls. “You do look wonderful.”

“Not young,” Kate said with satisfaction, drawing on gloves that went well above her elbows.

“It’s not that. You really shouldn’t talk about yourself as if you were a spinster. But you look—well—fiery.”

“I think a few more jewels are in order,” Kate said. “We still have that box of Victoria’s, don’t we?”

Rosalie pulled out a pearl choker with a beautiful emerald in front, and fastened it around Kate’s neck. “And now . . . the glass slippers,” she said, with a tone of reverence that made Kate’s eyebrows go up.

“Lady Dagobert said that they were a terrible waste of money.”

Rosalie was tenderly opening a wooden box and unwrapping a pair of slippers swathed in silk. “Isn’t that true of everything worth having?”

“Not really,” Kate said, thinking of lemon tarts, and Freddie’s love, and even a prince’s kiss.

The little maid knelt at her feet. “Now put this on gently, Miss Katherine. They call it a glass slipper for a reason. It isn’t made of glass, but it’s still liable to break.”

She slipped a gorgeous heeled slipper on Kate’s foot. It had the sheen of polished glass, and gems flashed from the slender heel. “Why, it’s almost transparent,” Kate said, rather awed despite herself. “What on earth is it made of, if not glass?”

“Some sort of stiffened taffeta,” Rosalie said, shrugging. “The taffeta looks shimmery, a bit like glass. They’re really only good for one night, because they never look fresh and new after being worn.”

Kate stood for a moment in front of the glass, surveying herself. With some satisfaction, she realized that no one would think she was the bewigged, bepowdered Victoria she had appeared to be for the last few days. The dark shadows under her eyes had receded, and rouge made her lips look pouty and undeniably sensual.

For the first time, she saw beauty inherited from her father in her face, the beauty that Victoria was famous for. She didn’t look lush and pillowy, like Victoria—but she looked—she almost thought that she looked—
better
. More beautiful than her sister.

If Gabriel looked at her like this, and decided he would marry Tatiana instead, then she had tried her best.

“Rosalie,” she said, turning to her maid, “this gown was an inspired choice. Thank you.”

“It’s the way it molds under your bosom,” Rosalie said, coming over to give her expert opinion. “The way the fabric comes horizontal here, and then there’s nothing but a bit of flimsy silk over your breasts . . . And your legs, miss! They look so long. You’ll have all the ladies sighing with envy.”

Kate grinned at herself. As far as she knew, no one had ever sighed in envy over the way she looked.

“Another thing is that it’s just a little short on you,” Rosalie continued, “which shows your ankle
and
the shoe. Some ladies shorten their gowns on purpose, just for that. Those with good ankles, of course.”

There was a tap on the door, and there was Victoria, with Algie at her back. She wore the famous cherry wig, offset by a delicious white gown trimmed in cherry.

“Lord and Lady Wrothe are waiting for us in the gallery,” Victoria reported. And then, catching sight of Kate’s ensemble as Rosalie moved aside, she stopped and clasped her hands together. “Oh! You look . . . You look . . . Algie, look at Kate, just look at Kate!”

Kate walked forward, hugely enjoying the surge of confidence that comes from feeling beautiful.

Algie’s reaction was as satisfactory as Victoria’s. His mouth fell ajar, though it couldn’t go far due to his extraordinarily high collar. “You look like someone . . . you look like . . . you look
French
!”

That was obviously his highest praise.

“You both look wonderful,” Kate said.

“I can’t breathe,” Victoria confided. “But luckily this ball gown is an old-fashioned shape, and the pleats mean that you can’t see my figure very clearly.”

“You look delectable,” Kate said. “Shall we go?”

Henry and Leo were waiting for them at the far end of the portrait gallery. Henry was magnificently dressed in plum-colored silk sewn with arabesques of seed pearls. “Well,” she said, as Victoria and Kate reached the end of the portrait gallery. “I must say that I’m glad that you two didn’t come on the market when I was in my prime!”

“You would have stolen the gentlemen and left us broken-hearted,” Kate said lightly, giving her a kiss. “Thank you again,” she whispered.

“For what?” Henry said.

“For coming to the ball with me.”

“You don’t need us,” Henry scoffed. “The prince will fall to the ground in an ecstasy of despair when he sees you. I just want to be sure that I don’t miss the show. I love a good comedy.”

Wick’s eyes widened as they approached the ballroom. He bowed deeply—and winked. Then he nodded to his footmen, and with a smooth, synchronized movement they each pulled open one of the great doors.

Wick preceded them to the top of a short flight of stairs leading down into the ballroom, and announced in sonorous tones, “Lord and Lady Wrothe. Miss Victoria Daltry and Miss Katherine Daltry. Lord Dimsdale.”

There were perhaps two or three hundred people in the ballroom. Chandeliers caught the glint of diamonds and rubies, the sheen of iridescent silks.

Kate walked forward to the top of the stairs, and paused just long enough to make sure that all eyes were on her. Then she began slowly, very slowly, descending the stairs into the room. Naturally she held up her skirts, which brought the glass slippers—and her ankles—into view.

As she reached the bottom step, she heard the stir of voices, the shrill repetition of her name. But more than voices, she saw men’s heads swivel in her direction.

She realized, with a start, that it was a bit as if someone had tossed a bucket of oats into a pasture full of stallions. They all turned, almost as one, and headed toward the delicacy.

She greeted the nearest man with a smile. And she did not look to the right, or the left, to see if a prince might be watching.

Her pleasure was all the keener for years of watching Victoria prance off to local assemblies, and then to London for her season . . . always staying behind, always in plain cambric and sturdy cotton, with her fraying gloves and shabby boots . . .

Kate was in the grip of a particular kind of joy.

The first gentleman reached her, almost stumbling over his dancing slippers in his fervor. He introduced himself, in the absence of their host. “How lovely to meet you, Lord Bantam,” she said sweetly. He was wearing two waistcoats, one of figured velvet over another of sky-blue satin, and he bowed with a flourish that caused the buckles on his shoes to flash like diamonds.

Which, she decided a moment later, they actually were.

Lord Bantam was followed by Mr. Egan, and then by Toloose, Lord Ogilby, the Earl of Ormskirk, Lord Hathaway, and a Mr. Napkin. Henry floated forward as naturally as if she were Kate’s mama, tapping men on the arm with her fan, telling Ogilby that he certainly could
not
ask her goddaughter for a waltz.

It was a heady, delightful feeling, standing in the midst of the gentlemen, her emeralds glittering as brightly as Lord Bantam’s buckles.

But it wasn’t her emeralds that were attracting them. She knew that. It was the secret smile in her eyes, her peony lips, the sensuality in the way she moved.

She caught sight of Effie and introduced herself as Victoria’s sister Kate.

“Kate?” Effie breathed, and then smiled mischievously, dropping a curtsy. “What a pleasure to meet you! Why, I
adore
Victoria.” And then Effie was in the circle as well, the two of them laughing and flirting with all the men at once.

“I am a terrible dancer,” she said to the Earl of Ormskirk, whom Henry had decided would be her first partner. Interestingly enough, Effie had bestowed her hand on Lord Hathaway rather than the younger bucks vying for her attention.

He leaned forward as if mesmerized and breathed, “Would you like to sit this dance out, Miss Daltry?”

Ormskirk had a strong chin and bright blue eyes. He looked like a man who was more comfortable on a horse than in a study. He would never read a journal about Ionian antiquities, whatever those were. Even after reading two articles, she still wasn’t quite sure.

He was a man of deeds and not words. She favored him with a smile and was rewarded with another kiss on her hand. “I should prefer to dance,” she told him lightly. “But you, my lord, must take pity on me and tell me exactly what to do. I simply cannot keep these reels in my head.”

“Neither can I,” Ormskirk confided. “I always find myself going the wrong direction. But this is a polonaise and that’s easy enough. The trick is just to keep slowly promenading about until everyone stops. Quite boring, really.”

He was right; it was easy enough. Kate kept her eyes fastened on him so that she wouldn’t, by any stray chance, see Gabriel.

Even the thought caused a jolt of anguish, but her smile didn’t waver.

The earl responded to her attention like a flower in the sun. At the end of the polonaise he surrendered her to Lord Bantam with obvious reluctance. But he reappeared a very short time later, when she was about to dance with Toloose, and plucked that gentleman by the sleeve.

Kate raised an eyebrow as Toloose made an excuse and walked away.

“My goodness, sir, you remind me of a court magician,” she said. “How on earth did you frighten away poor Mr. Toloose? I was looking forward to admiring his coat at closer range.”

“Toloose looks like a peacock, but he’s actually a solid fellow,” Ormskirk said. “I wanted to dance with you again, and so I arranged the perfect dance.”

She smiled at him, noting the way his eyes lingered on her lips and the curve of her bosom.

“A waltz,” Ormskirk said triumphantly.

Kate knew the answer to that one. “My goodness, my stepmother never allowed me to learn the waltz! And I believe that my godmother explicitly instructed me
not
to waltz.”

“How lucky for us that your stepmama isn’t here,” Ormskirk said. The twinkle in his eye made up, to some extent, for his high forehead. The poor earl was conspicuously going bald, though he was doing it in a distinguished fashion. It certainly wasn’t his fault that his forehead shone so in the light of all these candles.

Kate frowned, trying to remember what Gabriel had said the night before about the waltz. It was licentious, she knew that. “Perhaps . . . Oh! There’s my godmother,” she said with some relief. “Henry, darling!”

“Ah, Ormskirk,” Henry said. “I thought you’d be back.”

“It’s a waltz next,” he said to her, with a curious kind of intensity. “I’ve asked Miss Daltry if I might escort her onto the floor.”

“Ah,” Henry said, looking him up and down. “Well . . .” She nodded and seemed to come to a decision. “I haven’t any objections as long as you don’t cannon into me and Leo. I adore the waltz, but some couples act like a pair of horses spooked by a fly bite.”

Ormskirk grinned at that. “I fancy I can keep within the traces,” he said lightly, and turned to Kate, holding out his hand. “Miss Daltry?”

For some reason, she felt strangely reluctant to dance with him again . . . but that was foolish. It was just the crush, and the way Henry’s perfume filled the air around her, and the heat of candles.

“The dance floor will be far less crowded than here,” Henry was saying to Leo, “given as most of the debutantes will sit out unless that silly prince asks them to dance. I expect they’ll all line up, the better to ogle him.”

Kate stiffened her backbone. She wasn’t going to stand on the side while Gabriel circled the floor with his betrothed. She gave Ormskirk a smile, one guaranteed to make the pretty flush on his cheeks rise even higher. “As long as you can steer me, my lord. For I must warn you that I am terribly inexperienced in this dance.”

He reached out, blue eyes steady, and took her hand. “Miss Daltry,” he said, “it would be my honor and my privilege to lead you in your first waltz.”