Danse de la Folie (25 page)

Lucasta rounded on her, ready with a retort, but then she
shrugged, and walked out.

“At least she won’t be listening at doors if she’s out
walking with that fop,” Lucretia stated.

Lady Bouldeston said, “I really did not think to see your
sister married before you, Lucretia.”

Lucretia tossed her curls. “If I were to settle for the
likes of a Mister Aston, I could have been married these four years. I am going
out to make some necessary purchases. I will have to put new trim to my
second-best bonnet, as Papa keeps us on such a horrid budget. I will be laughed
at everywhere, wearing the same two bonnets. But I will need something to buy
trim with.”

“Do you not have trim upstairs? I know you do. I laid out
far too much when you were at the Pantheon Bazaar last Wednesday week.
Lucretia, you had better understand that we are not made of money. Yes, St.
Tarval did make another trifling payment, which will hold us for a time—if your
father does not gamble it all away—but I discovered only last night that he and
St. Tarval are agreed to sink the remainder of the debt. Something or other
about canals, and borders, and other disagreeable articles too fatiguing to
enumerate. My point is, we are going to be more straitened than usual as a
result.”

“How
selfish
men
are,” Lucretia declared with feeling.

Lady Bouldeston did not disagree. “You will find a few coins
in my reticule. You may take half only, mind. I will count it when I come
upstairs.”

Lucretia ran upstairs and put on her walking dress, spencer,
and bonnet. She fetched the money, walked outside and down the street, but
instead of turning toward the stores, she hailed a hackney, feeling greatly
daring. “Brook Street,” she said.

On finding herself alone after breakfast, Kitty added to her
latest letter to her brother. That did not take long. Then she eyed the stack
of papers on her desk.

There was no profit in avoiding Andromeda. This glorious
London visit would not last forever. Too soon Kitty would be back at Tarval
Hall, surrounded by all the familiar problems. Since she had decided against
trying for a wealthy husband, then she must square herself to the task of
readying her book for publication. It was selfish to waste all her time on her
own pleasures, when she had been given the opportunity she had never expected:
to learn about fashionable London.

The problem was, there were so
very
many errors in what she had written so far. She had done her
best to discover facts about London, but all she had had to rely on were her
grandmother’s memories, and Lucretia’s anecdotes. Grandmother’s fashionable
recollections were hideously out of date, but Lucretia’s anecdotes were
hideously distorted in other ways. For example, Kitty had discovered her first
day in town that Mount Street was not the very center of London. Nor were
Almack’s Wednesday balls as glorious as Lucretia had claimed. Sumptuous parties
were reserved for select sets, and even there, Lucretia had exaggerated in odd
ways, making Kitty suspect that Lucretia was invited to few of those.

She glared at the manuscript. It was going to have to be
entirely rewritten.

She turned over a page or two, sighed, and decided that she could
as well begin on a rainy day. Right now she ought to be a good guest and walk
down to the parlor. If the girls were there, she could talk to them, which amused
her mightily, and also had the advantage of affording Lady Chadwick some peace.
Oh, to have had sisters like Eliza and Tildy, as well as Amelia and Clarissa!

As she started down the stairs, she heard the knocker far
below. From the voices echoing up the stairwell, she determined that the caller
was a gentleman, and a heartbeat later she thought she recognized that voice:
Mr. Devereaux. A hot blush suffused her.

She dared a peek over the banister as Mr. Devereaux handed
Pobrick his hat. She backed away in haste lest the gentleman lift his eyes and
catch her spying. The dearth of female chatter from the parlor meant that Lady
Chadwick was probably alone.

Kitty recalled herself to her plan. It was a good plan. She
knew that Clarissa would be much happier with someone like her cousin than with
Lord Wilburfolde, well-meaning as he might be.

She took a cautious step forward for a quick look as the
gentleman was let into the parlor. His wavy dark hair and the tops of his broad
shoulders re-animated the vexing blush. Even his ears were attractive.

Katie patted her cheeks, willing them to cool. She knew what
this was. Perhaps, one day, she could look back and enjoy the experience, but
right now she wished she did not have such common taste that she was attracted
to the gentleman who seemed to cause a similar response in every other young
lady.

Not that he was common. That was the problem. She had since
her arrival become acquainted with many men, from young to old, tall to short,
fair to dark. Some had beautiful eyes. Others a flashing smile. Most of them
dressed very well, and were well spoken. But no one was quite like him.

She drew in a slow breath. She could school herself. It was
only an attraction. Though she might give Andromeda an eternal passion that
darted simultaneously into the breast of each of her deserving lovers at first
glance, that was the hyperbole of a story. One expected to read such. The fun
of the novel came in how many adventures contrived to keep the two apart before
the reward of wealth and marriage on the last page.

Kitty had seen attraction come and go. She looked back in
memory to her sixteenth year, when she entered into the garden to fetch roses
for the table and discovered Lucretia weeping and clutching Carlisle’s jacket.
As Kitty stared in astonishment, his arms had circled Lucretia, and they
kissed.

Kitty had instantly run away, of course, but Lucretia soon
found her out and described the kiss in detail. She had even used that very
same language that Kitty had borrowed for Andromeda: Cupid’s bow darting an
arrow into their hearts at the same moment, inspiring eternal love — two souls
eternally entwined — tender passion.

Kitty had believed it. And she’d done her best to regard
Lucretia as a sister after Carlisle confessed his part of that
rencontre
. But as time passed, she had
seen less ardency and more question in Carlisle, and as for Lucretia, Kitty
sometimes wondered if Cupid’s darts had shot right through her and out into the
world.

Kitty had learned to put no especial trust in Cupid or his
darts, especially when she herself had had occasion to feel that delicious but
untrustworthy warmth. First, John-coachman’s son Bob, when he tossed Kitty up
on her first pony. Then the new vicar’s younger brother when he visited from
Oxford. For two days, Kitty had thought herself singled out, until Lucasta had
spied him flirting (and using the same exact phrases) with the squire’s eldest
daughter at the glove-maker’s shop. Lucretia, perhaps stung that he had taken
her at her word when she had said her heart was given, spread it all over the
village that he was a desperate flirt.

Kitty had to smile when she remembered those two very
intense days at the ripe old age of seventeen, when she had gone from eternal
love to her heart being buried forever.

So here she was. She could acknowledge this attraction to
Mr. Devereaux, but she must simply regard it as an ephemeral thing, as fragile
as the blooms Lady Chadwick put in vases each day. By next week they would be
withered.

Kitty must put her rational mind to work, and find a way for
Clarissa to find a better chance at happiness with her cousin, because there
was little chance of that happening with Lord Wilburfolde. And Kitty owed
Clarissa her best effort for her generous invitation to London.

She descended the rest of the stairs, and was able to enter
the parlor with a polite composure.

Mr. Devereaux rose to greet her, aware of the quickening of
his interest—the sharp thorn of ambivalence. He should not have come—he had had
no intention of calling at this house while Lady Catherine still visited. Until
he had seen the laughter in her eyes, and heard the enjoyment in her voice as
she capped his lines, and then ripped out that provocative poem by Rochester in
that mock-missish manner, he fully intended to convey today’s message to Lady
Chadwick on his way out as the soiree ended.

Yet here he was, to see her in the sober light of day.

Lady Chadwick was speaking. “... and as I was saying,
Chadwick is still abed, and the girls walked out with their aunt while the weather
is fine. And did not Lord Wilburfolde take Clarissa out for a ride, dear Lady
Kitty?”

“It was a planned excursion,” Katie said conscientiously, as
she gave the gentleman a curtsey in greeting. “He wished to give her a tour of
the Houses of Parliament.”

Kitty spied a faint pucker between Mr. Devereaux’s dark
brows. He was not angry, she felt certain. She had seen a like expression in
Carlisle from time to time, when he was troubled by some question he could not
answer. Mr. Devereaux said, “You did not accompany them, Lady Catherine?”

“I was not invited. I believe his lordship wished to spend
the morning alone with his betrothed.”

“At the Houses of Parliament?” Lady Chadwick asked blankly.

At that moment, Pobrick appeared at the door again. “Miss
Bouldeston.”

And here was Lucretia, dressed in glossy, frilly pink from
top to toe. She took three tiny steps into the parlor then halted, her mouth
rounded. She raised a forefinger to her bottom lip in a way that looked
rehearsed as she exclaimed, “Oh! I did not know —” And in a meaning tone, her
eyes blinking rapidly, “Do I intrude?”

Lady Chadwick greeted her from her corner chair. “Good
morning, Miss Bouldeston. I trust Lady Bouldeston is well?”

“Oh, I did not see you there, Lady Chadwick! Forgive me. Very
well, thank you,” Lucretia lisped, choosing the chair nearest Mr. Devereaux as
she turned to Kitty. “I happened to be walking in the area, and as the day is
so fine, I bethought me of my sweetest Catherine, and stopped in hopes you
might join me for an airing. But if you are otherwise engaged...”

“Not at all, Lucretia,” Kitty hastened to assure her. “I
just this moment walked into the parlor myself.”

Mr. Devereaux then said, “Lady Chadwick, you behold in me my
sister’s envoy. If it would be acceptable for her to arrive for her proposed
visit on the twelfth, instead of the thirteenth as settled, then I shall be
able to bring her myself. I am required to be in the country on business the
day previous.”

Lady Chadwick waved a languid hand. “Pray bring dear little
Bess whenever it is convenient. Eliza will be in transports.”

Devereaux rose to shake her hand and take his departure. “Then
I will go immediately and write to allay her anxiety.”

Lucretia spoke up. “Oh, pray, Mr. Devereaux, is dear Miss
Bess coming to London?” When the gentleman bowed assent, she went on with
fervent enthusiasm, “I hope and pray we shall have the felicity of seeing her.
Such a lovely, sweet girl, and so accomplished for her age. Pray, when does she
arrive in Grosvenor Street? My sister Lucasta will be
aux anges
to see her again. Did you know they are acquainted?”

“My sister does not come to Grosvenor Street, but directly
here,” he said as he reached the door. “I fear I cannot stay. May I wish you
ladies a good morning?”

“If you are walking, Mr. Devereaux, may we accompany you? As
you just heard, dearest Catherine and I are to take the air.”

“Unfortunately, I am driving today, Miss Bouldeston,” he
replied.

“Oh, I did not realize that was your curricle being walked
up and down out front, though I suppose I ought to have recognized that
handsome pair of matched bays that my father has pointed out at least fifty
times.”

Mr. Devereaux thanked her, bowed again, and departed.

Kitty could not help but stare at Lucretia. Maybe these were
her company manners while in London, but the contrast between her trilling
voice now and the sharp tones she often used to her sister nearly made her
laugh. She got to the door, saying quickly, “Pray excuse me, Lucretia. I will
make ready as swiftly as I can.”

She gave vent to her laugh as she ran upstairs to change
into a walking dress, wishing it would not be indelicate to share the absurdity
with anyone else.

Lucretia was thus left alone with Lady Chadwick. That lady
rose and said, “If I may be permitted to step out a moment, I will see if the
girls are returned.”

Lucretia was just as happy to pick up a number of the latest
fashionable magazines, which lay on one of the smart little tables.

Within a minute or two, there was a commotion outside the
door, Clarissa Harlowe’s voice coming clearly, “... For a few minutes, until I
rid myself of this headache.”

The door then opened, and Lucretia stared in surprise at the
unfamiliar gentleman who stepped in. He was dressed soberly and conservatively,
his hair cut closer to his scalp than was fashionable, which gave his head
rather the shape of a potato. His complexion was florid, his neck above his
neckcloth damp, but his features were pleasing enough.

Lucretia, accurately pricing his clothing, exerted herself
to politeness as she rose to her feet and made her curtsy. “Oh, sir,” she said
breathlessly, admiring the way she managed to sound aflutter. “Pray forgive me.
It is so very awkward, finding myself here with a stranger.”

He bowed. “It is for me to beg forgiveness,” he said. “And
yet I do not know how it comes about. I might have thought—but there, I do not
wish to appear to be casting aspersions upon our good hostess. She must assume
we are known to one another. My name is Wilburfolde, and you might have seen
the interesting information inserted to the morning papers with respect to the...”
He paused, looking a little confused, then went on in a determined voice, “... To
the expected Hymeneal celebration between Miss Harlowe and myself.”