The Gamble (6 page)

It was an incomparably rich-looking scene and, truthfully, I found it slightly intimidating. Was I mad to think that one of these aristocratic, elegant-looking gentleman was going to want to marry
me
?

Lord Winterdale and I were walking our horses side by side, each of us thinking our own thoughts, when we were approached by a young woman on a chestnut horse who was accompanied by a gentleman riding a handsome bay.

“Lord Winterdale,” the woman said in a well-bred, faintly husky voice. “How delightful to see you. You so rarely ride in the park at this hour.”

“Miss Stanhope,” Winterdale returned. “How do you do. May I present my ward, Miss Georgiana Newbury. Miss Newbury, this is Miss Helen Stanhope and her brother Mr. George Stanhope.”

Miss Stanhope was extremely beautiful, with satiny black hair and long green eyes. She was wearing a green habit that matched her eyes exactly.

“How do you do,” I said with a friendly smile. “It is very nice to meet you Miss Stanhope, Mr. Stanhope.”

Miss Stanhope gave me a look that was noticeably cool. On the other hand, her brother’s smile was extremely amiable. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Newbury,” he said. “It certainly came as a shock to the
ton
to learn that Winterdale had acquired a ward, but I can see that you will be a very welcome addition to our social circle this Season.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stanhope,” I said. “Will you be coming to our ball tomorrow evening?”

“We certainly shall,” Mr. Stanhope said. He had black hair like his sister, but his eyes were a less brilliant green. “May I hope that you will save me a dance?”

One of my terrors about tomorrow’s ball had been that no one would ask me to dance, so now I gave Mr. Stanhope a big, relieved smile. “I should be delighted to save you a dance, Mr. Stanhope,” I said. “Thank you for asking me.”

“And I hope you will save me a dance, Miss Stanhope,” Lord Winterdale asked politely.

That lady bestowed upon him a far more restrained smile than the one I had given to her brother. I noticed that she answered rather quickly, however. “Of course, my lord. Shall I pencil you in for the quadrille? Or would you prefer a waltz?”

“What about both?” Lord Winterdale said.

Miss Stanhope could not conceal her pleasure with this arrangement and agreed to accommodate him with both those dances.

“Will there be waltzing at the ball?” I asked in surprise. We did not waltz in the country, and I did not know the steps.

“There will be no waltzing for you, Miss Newbury,” Miss Stanhope informed me patronizingly. “You may not waltz until one of the patronesses of Almack’s approves you, you know.”

Almack’s was the most exclusive club in London, known colloquially as the marriage mart, and even a country bumpkin such as I knew the importance of attending the balls at Almack’s.

I asked apprehensively, “What if they do not approve me?”

“If they do not approve you, then you will not get a voucher for Almack’s, and if you do not get a voucher for Almack’s, you will not be invited to any of the balls that are given by the best people in London,” Miss Stanhope informed me. “In short, you will be relegated to the second-best society.” She looked down her aristocratic nose at me. “It is very difficult to please the patronesses, I am afraid. They do not like young girls who deviate from behavior that is considered socially correct.”

I knew immediately that she was referring to my lack of mourning for my father.

“I believe my aunt has already spoken to Lady Jersey and Countess Lieven about getting vouchers for my cousin and my ward,” Lord Winterdale said coolly. “I do not think that they will have a problem being approved for Almack’s.”

Miss Stanhope could not quite conceal her annoyance, and I could not quite conceal my relief.

Evidently Lord Winterdale had been correct when he had said that his aunt’s consequence was enormous.

Then I wondered when he had spoken to Lady Winterdale to ascertain this information. He was certainly never around the house when I was there.

“Are you enjoying London, Miss Newbury?” Mr. Stanhope asked me.

I laughed. “Well, all I have seen of it so far is Bond Street, but I must say that I have liked that very much indeed.”

Miss Stanhope’s cool green eyes took in my worn gray habit. “You did not purchase that habit on Bond Street, I hope?”

I was beginning to dislike Miss Stanhope exceedingly, but I tried very hard to hold on to my temper. “My new habit was not yet ready, so I am wearing my old one,” I said.

Lord Winterdale said, “I can assure you, Miss Stanhope, that once Miss Newbury mounts into the saddle, no one will notice what she is wearing.” He turned to me and smiled. “Miss Newbury has quite the best seat I have ever seen on a woman.”

For the second time that afternoon, the hardness had melted away from his face, and I saw youth and a hint of sweetness that was inordinately fascinating. Then, as before, it was gone.

We parted from the Stanhopes a few moment’s later, and though a number of people waved to Lord Winterdale as we trotted back along the path, he did not stop again.

CHAPTER
six

W
HEN
I
AWOKE THE MORNING OF THE BALL
,
IT WAS
raining. This was depressing as I knew that Lady Winterdale would certainly consider the weather a personal affront to her, and when I went down to breakfast I quickly discovered that this was indeed so.

“The streets become so dirty in London when it rains,” she was complaining to a silent Catherine, as I came into the dining room. Lord Winterdale was, as usual, absent from the breakfast table.

“Fortunately, no one who will be coming to the ball tonight will have planned to come on foot,” Lady Winterdale went on as she made her way through a plate of ham and cold fowl. “We shall have to make certain that our footmen have plenty of umbrellas to escort our guests safely from their carriages into the house. But there can be no doubt that this rain is a decided nuisance. I am seriously displeased.”

I took a plate of eggs and a cup of coffee from the sideboard. The dining room was gloomy, lit only by a few candles set on the table and the sideboard. The great crystal chandelier, which provided the light for dinner, was never lit during the day.

I said, “Perhaps the rain will let up by this evening, ma’am.”

“I certainly hope that it will,” said Lady Winterdale majestically. “Now, Catherine, I want you to make certain that you have your hair washed today. I will send Melton to do it for you. And take a nap this afternoon. It is important for you to be fresh this evening. Gentlemen do not like to see girls who have circles under their eyes. Dinner will commence at six-thirty and the ball at nine and you girls will probably not see your beds much before two o’clock this morning.”

I thought this sounded very exciting. The few dances I had attended in the country had always ended promptly at eleven.

Catherine said, “Shouldn’t Georgie have her hair washed, too, Mama?”

Lady Winterdale gave me an austere look. “I am afraid that I cannot spare my dresser to you as well as to Catherine, Georgiana. If you wish to have your hair washed, perhaps one of the maids will do it for you.”

“I am sure that Betty will help me, my lady,” I said cheerfully. Betty was one of the chambermaids, and she had been acting as a lady’s maid for me whenever I needed her.

Lady Winterdale compressed her lips and nodded.

“Is there anything I can do to help you today, Lady Winterdale?” I asked. I had not realized how tremendous an undertaking a ball the scale of the one Lady Winterdale had planned would be, and all of the work had fallen upon Lady Winterdale’s shoulders. All Catherine and I had been allowed to do so far was to help write out invitations.

“You can help me by keeping out of my way, Georgiana,” Lady Winterdale replied grimly.

Very briefly, my eyes met Catherine’s and we both looked away.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and began to eat my eggs.

After luncheon Betty brought a basin of heated water to my room and we washed my hair. After the fourth rinse with fresh heated water, she pronounced it clean of soap, and I wrapped it in a towel and dried it as best I could. Then I put a dry towel around my shoulders and combed my hair so that it fell rain-straight halfway down my back. There was nothing more to be done until it dried.

I went next to Catherine’s room and found her undergoing the same procedure at the hands of Melton, Lady Winterdale’s dresser. Melton was one of those superior servants who have a very exaggerated sense of their own worth, and she had begun by treating me as if I were less than the dirt beneath her feet. I do not take kindly to such treatment, however, and Melton and I had had words. We had since achieved a kind of truce; neither of us liked the other, but we were icily polite.

I sat down in a chair and waited for Catherine to be finished. Unlike mine, her hair had curl and I thought that she would look well in one of the new shorter styles. Lady Winterdale liked her hair bunched in front of her ears, however. I thought it only called attention to the thinness of Catherine’s face and took attention away from her best feature, which was her eyes.

Catherine would have liked to cut her hair also, mainly because it would require less trouble to arrange. Unfortunately, this was one more issue on which she was not able to stand up to her mother.

Once Catherine was done, I suggested, “Why don’t we go down to the green drawing room and you can play the piano for me while our hair dries?”

The girl’s face lit to beauty. “Oh Georgie, that would be wonderful.” Then the light died out. “But Mama said I was to take a nap.”

“You can’t nap with a wet head,” I said practically. “And besides, your mother is so busy that she won’t even notice what you’re doing.” I got up from the small silk-upholstered chair that was placed before Catherine’s fire. “Let’s go.”

The drawing room was damp and chilly, and I had one of the servants add some coals and stoke up a nice warm fire for us. Then I pulled one of the tapestry chairs over in front of the fireplace and settled down to listen to Catherine play.

She played for three hours and while I listened I thought about many things. I thought about home, about Anna, about Frank, about the ball. About Lord Winterdale. Both Catherine and I had perfectly dry hair by the time Lady Winterdale finally came hustling in to shoo Catherine upstairs so that she could get dressed. A number of very important people were to dine with us before the ball, two of whom were patronesses of Almack’s, and Lady Winterdale was most anxious for Catherine to make a good impression.

It also became clear to me that she was apprehensive about Lord Winterdale’s behavior. “I hope Philip makes an effort to converse with at least a semblance of politeness,” she said to me as Catherine put away her music. “He is the host this evening, and it will behoove him to exert himself to show a degree of civility to his guests.”

“Surely Lord Winterdale will be polite in his own house, ma’am,” I said in surprise.

“Who knows how far Philip will go to embarrass me,” Lady Winterdale replied acidly. Her pointy nose quivered, and the uncomfortable idea occurred to me that his aunt was not the only person whom Lord Winterdale might like to see embarrassed this evening.

Good God, I thought with momentary panic, could his willingness to host this ball have been part of a diabolical plan to get revenge on Lady Winterdale and me? Was he going to do something tonight to humiliate the both of us?

Surely not, I answered myself. Surely no one would go to such expense just to cause embarrassment to someone else.

“Come along, Catherine,” Lady Winterdale said. She turned to me as a definite afterthought. “You too, Georgiana. Time to think about getting dressed. I am sure that Betty will help you.”

“She has said that she would,” I returned. I didn’t leave the room immediately, however, but went over to close the cover of the pianoforte. I was standing there, staring worriedly at the instrument and thinking of Lady Winterdale’s words about her nephew, when I heard someone at the door. I looked up and saw him standing there watching me.

“Miss Newbury,” he said. His eyes flicked over me, lingering on my loose hair. By now it was perfectly dry and hung around my shoulders like a mantle.

I could feel myself flush. “Catherine and I had our hair washed for the ball and then we came down here so that Catherine could play the piano while it dried,” I explained.

He nodded and advanced slowly into the room. I stood with my back against the piano and watched him approach me. He stopped perhaps two feet away and said, “I presume that my estimable aunt has everything well in train for this evening?”

Raindrops sparkled on his black hair and the shoulders of his caped driving coat.

“Yes.” My voice sounded oddly breathless, and I cleared my throat. “I see that it has not yet stopped raining.”

“No, it has not.”

Then he did a shocking thing. He reached out, took a strand of my hair and ran his fingers along the length of it, all the way from my ear to its evenly cut ends. His touch was frighteningly enjoyable. “Your hair feels like silk,” he said.

“It doesn’t curl,” I babbled. “Not even a curling iron works on it.”

“What does that matter?” he said. “It is beautiful the way it is.” My heartbeat began to accelerate dangerously. He was looking at me out of narrowed blue eyes and I pressed back harder against the piano. I could feel the top of it digging into my backbone.

“My lord,” I said a little desperately, “I think it is time for me to go upstairs and get ready for dinner.”

He was close enough to me that I could smell the dampness of rain on his skin and hair. After what seemed to be a long time, he nodded and stepped back, giving me room to get by him.

“Certainly,” he said indifferently.

As I climbed the stairs, I wasn’t sure what bothered me the most about our encounter: his attention or his indifference.

* * *

I had picked out my ball gown myself, and it was beautiful: an ivory-colored high-waisted frock trimmed with a bias fold of pink satin up each side of the front. The epaulet sleeves were also edged with pink satin and fastened in front of the arm with small satin buttons. The decolletage of the neckline was certainly lower than what I was accustomed to, but I thought it made me look quite satisfactorily sophisticated.

Betty was very helpful, getting me into the dress and doing up all the back-fastenings. Then she fixed my newly washed and shining hair into an intricate arrangement of braids on the top of my head.

I had a small string of pearls that had belonged to my mother and a matching pair of pearl earrings, and these I put on. I was standing in front of the cheval glass, admiring myself unashamedly, when there came a knock on the door. Betty went to answer it and returned carrying a bouquet of pink roses.

“’Tis from his lordship, Miss Newbury,” Betty told me with glee.

I should not have been so thrilled. I told myself that I would be expected to be carrying a bouquet, that he was only playing his role in sending it, but the fact of the matter was, I was thrilled with those roses.

Betty came over to give me the bouquet and while she was doing that Melton came to my door and announced that Lady Winterdale would like me to come downstairs to be ready to greet the dinner guests.

I turned away from the mirror, drew a long breath to unfluster myself, and went out into the passageway.

Lady Winterdale and Catherine were just ahead of me, walking toward the stairs. I caught up with them at the landing and Catherine turned to look at me.

“Georgie!” she said. “You look beautiful.”

I smiled at her. “Thank you, Catherine. So do you.”

Her dress was a white frock with blue satin trim and I noticed that she was carrying a bouquet of white roses tied with bouquet blue satin ribands. The white did not really become her, and the dress’s decolletage made her look too thin.

I wished that I and not Lady Winterdale had been able to choose Catherine’s dress.

Lady Winterdale was regarding me with tightened lips. “Did you paint your cheeks, Georgiana?” she asked ominously.

“Of course not, Lady Winterdale,” I replied in surprise. “If I am rather flushed, it must be from excitement.”

She did not look as if she believed me.

We began to go down the stairs, Lady Winterdale and Catherine side by side with me trailing along behind them. When we reached the second floor the ballroom doors were flung wide open and for the first time I was able to see the magic that Lady Winterdale had wrought.

The room was banked with white roses. She must have scoured all the greenhouses in the vicinity of London in order to get the enormous amounts of roses that bedecked that room. They were gathered in huge vases along the walls and in smaller vases around the ten elegant white columns that marched around the room. The ballroom had two magnificent crystal chandeliers and a polished oak floor and the circular columns were trimmed with gilt. Tonight the Mansfield House ballroom looked and smelled like a summer garden.

“Oh, my lady,” I said reverently. “It is magnificent.”

“I think it will be remembered,” she replied with justifiable complacency. “Now, come along down to the front drawing room girls. Our dinner guests will be arriving shortly.”

We turned back to the staircase and went down to the first floor of the house, where the dining room had been set for dinner. There would be a supper served later during the ball, but that would be laid out upstairs on the ballroom floor in one of the drawing rooms.

Lord Winterdale was standing at the window looking out at the rain when we came into the drawing room. He turned when he heard us.

“Ah,” he said, “good evening, ladies. You are all looking in great beauty tonight.”

His blue eyes went from his aunt, to Catherine, to me. They did not linger on me, and I suppressed a stab of disappointment. I had thought I looked particularly nice.

“I must thank you, Cousin Philip, for the bouquet,” Catherine was saying shyly. “It is very pretty, and it matches my dress perfectly.”

He gave her a brief nod. “I am glad you like it, Catherine.” He paused, then added, “It becomes you.”

She gave him a doubtful look.

I said, “I, too, must thank you for my bouquet, my lord.” I succumbed to curiosity. “How did you know what colors our dresses were?”

“I asked my aunt,” he replied briefly.

The sound of the knocker on the front door reverberated clearly into the drawing room. Lady Winterdale drew herself up, and the image of a knight girding himself to go into battle flashed into my mind. I repressed a smile and my eyes went to Lord Winterdale. He, too, was looking at his aunt, but the expression in his eyes was not at all humorous.

Once again I felt a flash of apprehension about how Lord Winterdale would conduct himself this evening.

* * *

The most important part of any dinner is the food, of course, and Lady Winterdale and Cook had spent many hours in deep discussion before coming up with the following menu, which was served the evening of the Winterdale Ball. I reprint it in full for those who are interested in such things: