Belle of the ball Read online

  And so she told her mother the tale of the morning, and the snub by Lord and Lady Snowdale, and the gentleman stepping in.

  "But you put him in his place, I hope?" Lady Swinley said.

  "Yes, of course! I said it had just been a misunderstanding, and that the Snowdales were there before me. They spoke to me very kindly after that, and hoped to see me at the Parkhust ball tomorrow night"

  "That is all right then. I told you all would be well!" Arabella just wasn't sure. If the Snowdales had heard of the Conroy debacle, then others had, too. And the Snowdales might realize later that she was covering for them in the store that day to make up to them, not just out of class loyalty, which everyone of the ton understood.

  It was the one part she felt a little uneasy about. She did not regret doing what she could to repair her reputation in front of the two aristocrats, for she had clearly handled it the only way she could, even though they had cut her. But she could not look back on her treatment of the large gentleman with any degree of composure, though she did not tell her mother that. Lady

  Swinley wouldn't understand why she felt badly about snubbing the good-looking stranger to gain points with the noble couple.

  But she did feel a little uneasy. It was kindly meant, defending her, and then purchasing her gloves. But could he not see that it just was not done? Where had he been that he could think that acceptable in anyone's eyes? She had enough trouble without adding fast to her list of faults in tonnish eyes. She had been hoping that no one had heard of the terrible outcome of their visit to the Farmingtons', but Lady Farmington had no doubt spread it among all her friends, luckily a small group. Arabella's only hope was that she had made up enough ground with the Snowdales that they would deny the charge against her in public if it should ever come up again. And that would only work as long as the Farmingtons were not in London.

  If only her cousin True, now Lady Drake, had been able to sponsor her in London this Season, as she had offered. But Drake—overprotective, Arabella thought—^would not hear of his pregnant wife suffering the fetid air of London in her "delicate" condition, and so she was staying in the country at Thorne House, their home near the Leathornes, his parents. The most he would do was convince his parents to let Lady Swinley and Arabella borrow their elegant Mayfair home for the Season, rent free. It was a valuable boon indeed, but it still would not pay for a new wardrobe and all the other things they needed to present a good front and make Arabella seem a worthy wife for a wealthy man.

  She stiffened her back and looked down at her mother, who was lost again in her perusal of the book of dress patterns she had brought in. It was up to her this Season to rescue herself and her mother from penury. Maybe she did not owe her mother any allegiance.

  After all, the woman had abandoned her throughout most of her childhood, leaving her at the vicarage, Truelove's family home until her marriage to Drake.

  But Lady Swinley needed her daughter now, and Arabella would be there for her. Maybe then her mother would be proud of her. She turned and left the room without a word.

  Two

  Arabella smoothed ice blue gloves up over her elbows, checking for tears and wear spots as she did so— after all, they were last year's—as she distractedly listened to her mother, who paced behind her while Annie fussed with her hair.

  "Now, I have been visiting everyone I know these last two days, and I must say I don't think anyone has heard about. . . about the Conroy affair." Seldom did she refer to that embarrassing time, but when she did, it was as "the Conroy affair." She still did not regret her actions, although the outcome had mortified her. "With a little luck we should be able to manage as long as Lady Farmington or Lord Conroy do not come to London for the Season. I have heard that Lady Farmington has come down with some indisposition; we can only hope it is a lasting one."

  "Or fatal," Arabella said, grimly.

  Ignoring her daughter as she usually did, Lady Swinley said, "I have made a list of the eligible men who are rumored to be looking for a wife this Season."

  A list of men; a list of potential husbands, rather. And not one of them would have laughing gray eyes and broad shoulders, Arabella thought, then caught herself. She would not brood over that impossibly rude stranger! It simply would not do, since she was likely never to see him again. He was clearly not of sufficient social status to attend the same balls and events as Baron Swinley's only child would. That was evident in his lack of manners and ignorance of correct behavior.

  "As well, I have made a second list of those men I think might be persuaded to marry, though you haven*t had much luck lately in that, have you?" Lady Swinley gave her daughter a cold look in the mirror, then resumed her pacing, gazing down at a paper she held in her hands.

  Sighing, Arabella batted Annie's hands away, took up her bottle of scent, and dabbed just a little behind each ear and in her modest décolletage. She gazed at herself critically in the glass and pulled down a curl, letting it drape artfully near the neckline of her dress. Now she looked perfect. "Mother," she said, glancing up at Lady Swinley with a frown. "It is not like it was in your day, when marriages were always arranged and all the girl had to do was sit back and look demure."

  "In my day ladies knew how to capture a man's interest, my girl, regardless of any arrangements made on their behalf!" Lady Swinley snapped. "Men have always needed to be manipulated; nothing has changed in that respect. You would do well to assume a fragile air, but no! You insist on being healthy and vigorous. How is a man supposed to feel protective toward you if you don't look like you need protecting?"

  It was an old argument, and Arabella stayed silent.

  "Now, first is the Duke of Haliburton's seedling. He is the matrimonial prize this Season, and if you would apply yourself, I think you could get his attention; it is rumored he heir shown a weakness for blondes. He's a little younger than you, just two-and-twenty, but old Haliburton is convinced he is going to stick his spoon in the wall and wants to see the succession assured. So they'll be looking for a healthy gel like you, mayhap."

  Arabella frowned at her reflection in the mirror.

  "That is Bessemere, right? I have met him. He seems—^I don't know. So very unsure of himself." Weak-willed was what she meant. Rumor had it that he was completely under the thumb of his dominating mother, and that did not bode well for his wife. Just look at what had happened with Lord Conroy.

  "And what does that matter? With a firm hand he could be molded into the ideal husband." Lady Swinley consulted her paper. "He is a bookish sort; likely would not bother you too much once you had begotten the heir. Problem there is his mother will likely be screening any gels that capture his interest, and she is a tough one."

  "And she is a good friend of Lady Farmington," Arabella said, feeling a chill go down her back.

  "Hmm. Thought there was a falling-out there. I shall have to check into that." She made a notation.

  Standing finally and brushing her dress into the correct folds, Arabella gazed at herself in the cheval mirror at the end of her dressing room. The gown was from last year, but she and Annie had worked feverishly on it, supplying the ice blue silk with a frothy overskirt of white lace—very expensive but purchased at a warehouse, so much cheaper than the mantuamakers would sell it—and it really looked new. She gazed at her slender figure with approval. Blondes were in fashion this year, and her looks had always stood her well. Without being vain, she knew it was her chief attraction, that and her vivacious manner. It had never been difficult to gain male attention, and never had it been a more vital skill than this Season.

  "Next—do you remember from last Season Count Arndt Verbrachan?"

  "I remember him," Arabella admitted. He had flirted with her on numerous occasions, but had never seemed interested in marriage. He was good-looking in a dark, cold way and older, probably in his forties.

  "It is gossiped that he is on the lookout this Season for a wife." Lady Swinley stopped pacing and gazed at her daughter critically. She gave a n
od of approval finally, after pulling the bodice of Arabella's dress down just a little and prodding her small breasts into more showiness. "He is very, very wealthy, but as foreign nobility he will not be looking among the upper titles for his bride, even though it has been rumored that Princess Elizabeth conceived an infatuation for him some years ago and would have been glad to marry him. But he is not a prince, after all, nor even a duke. If it is true that he wishes to marry, he is a good possibility."

  Picking up a fan from the dressing table while Annie brought her Kashmir shawl, Arabella chose her next words carefully. "I have heard—" She looked down and bit her lip. "Mother, it has been whispered among some of the girls that there was some suspicion that he was responsible for the disappearance of an opera dancer that he had under his protection."

  "Pish-tush! Foolish gabble. And even if he was, those kind of girls take that risk. A man does all sorts of things with harlots that he would never try with a girl of good family."

  Arabella shivered and stared at her mother in disbelief. "Mother! She disappeared, maybe died!"

  "Slut. Likely all she deserved."

  Stunned, Arabella realized that protest was hopeless. Her mother's opinions were ever a mystery to her. Apparently in Lady Swinley's mind, the life of one opera dancer was of no account, nor did the poor girl's fate portend ill for any wife Count Verbrachan might choose. She would just have to keep her own counsel on the subject of Count Verbrachan.

  Lady Swinley stared down at the paper in her hand and then said, "The most likely, I must say, is Lord Pelimore."

  "Lord Pelimore?" Arabella slipped the silken cord of her fan around her wrist and allowed Annie to drape the soft, multicolored shawl around her shoulders. "He is sixty, at least!"

  "And what is wrong with a mature man?" Her mother threw down the paper and stamped one foot on the carpet. "First you complain Bessemere is too young and now Pelimore is too old! There is no pleasing you, and I do not know why I take all of this trouble—"

  Arabella sighed, picked up the paper and handed it back to her mother. "Tell me about him, then."

  Lady Swinley's voice took on the enthusiasm reserved for one topic, money. "He is very, very wealthy—he owns a brewery, you know—and just out of mourning for his son, who died last year without issue. His current heir is his nephew and he despises the fellow; he can't even stand to be in the same room with him. So it is a certain thing that he is looking for a second wife—^Nellie died more than twenty years ago—^and he will need one of breeding age." The baroness took her daughter by the shoulders and looked her over critically one more time. "Perfect You are perfectly lovely, as usual." A rare smile lit her face. She squeezed Arabella's shoulders and released her. "His age is in his favor, my dear, because he will not want to waste any time and will likely choose a bride early in the Season."

  The ugliness of the discussion hit her that moment and Arabella felt a dull dread sweep over her. By this time next Season she would be married and likely with child by a man she would not love. Not everyone was as lucky as her cousin, Truelove, who had fallen in love with Lord Drake and had had her feelings reciprocated. It was almost nauseating how happy True was, and yet she could not sneer at her cousin's joy. Arabella felt an envy she had never experienced before. What must that be like, to be so in love?

  Anyway, she thought, squaring her slim shoulders and heading out the door, she was not likely to experience that, as she had joked with True, until she had married, presented her husband with a couple of sons, and then taken a lover. Or perhaps she was just not capable of the emotion so cloyingly described by the more putrid poets. She was her mother's daughter, after all.

  On the way to the Parkhurst ball Lady Swinley kept up a steady stream of chatter. There were other eligibles, of course, and it would be worthwhile looking at them, but they must focus early on one, for they had little time. This Season was it; Arabella must be engaged by the end of it, or the vultures—meaning the moneylenders Lady Swinley owed—would close in around them. They could not be choosy, they must settle on one husband, and soon.

  Arabella steeled herself to enter the Parkhursts' London mansion, lit up in glittering candlelight and with flambeaux at the door, with liveried footmen lining the walk. This was it, the first ball of the Season. Here she would find out if the horrible scene at the Farmingtons' country mansion had made the gossip rounds and if she was to be cut en masse. They had visited friends already, and had received their invitation to this ball a week ago, but that could have been delivered before news of the debacle was related to the Parkhursts. The next few minutes would tell the tale of their London Season.

  She felt as though everyone in the world must know about it, and could not help reliving over and over again the awful moment of being ejected from the Farmington mansion on a frigid January evening. Lord Conroy had been peeping out from behind his formidable mother, and if Arabella hadn't been crying, her tears crystallizing into ice on her chilled cheek, she might have felt like laughing. It was like a scene from one of the more ludicrous of romances—the innocent maiden wronged and then thrown out into the night by a wicked aristocrat. And yet the thought made her indignant, too. One moment Nathan was ready to propose and the next, he was standing back and letting his mother toss the object of his supposed affections out of the house! What kind of man would do that?

  She mounted the marble steps and entered the house behind another group of people, a couple she did not know. At last in, she listened, her ears burning while the butler announced their names.

  "Baroness Swinley and the Honorable Miss Arabella Swinley," he intoned.

  The entire company gasped and drew back in horror as one, and a wave of whispered condemnations —

  "Arabella, what are you gaping at? Come," Lady Swinley hissed, grabbing her daughter's wrist and starting down the steps.

  Obediently, Arabella followed her mother down the steps into the crowd, who had, in truth, ignored their momentous arrival. She was relieved that her little daydream was not reality, but it was still to be seen how they would be greeted by the Farmingtons' intimates. And what if Lord Conroy should have come to London for the Season? It was quite likely, despite his mother's purported indisposition, and yet she had not even thought of it until now. Oh, Lord, how she hoped he didn't!

  Lady Swinley led the way to their hostess, who stood with her husband and a group of their friends. "Lady Parkhurst! How wonderful you look tonight, and Letitia, too!"

  The young lady just named, the Parkhursts* spinster daughter, thirty or older and still unwed, nodded coolly.

  Lady Parkhurst smiled and took Lady Swinley's offered hand. "How nice of you both to attend," she murmured. She turned to Arabella. "Lady Snowdale mentioned meeting with you at the Nash Emporium." Her smile was malicious. "You had a brave defender for some imagined slight."

  Managing a smile, Arabella said, "Yes, was that not absurd? It just shows how a situation can be misunderstood so very easily!"

  "I suppose," Lady Parkhurst murmured.

  So, the Snowdales had spoken of the scene, but had clearly not retailed the gossip that was behind their snub, nor had they revealed the snub itself. Could she breathe easier? Would she and her mother escape without condemnation? Why had the Snowdales been so circumspect?

  Arabella drifted away as her mother headed for a line of chairs along the wall where a couple of her bosom bows, other women acting as chaperones, were seated. Strictly speaking she should stay by her mother until claimed for a dance, but she was no green girl in her first Season. No one would look askance at a girl of three-and-twenty without her chaperone clinging to her skirts.

  The first ball of the Season. It had been many years since her first ball of her first Season, but she could readily identify the wide-eyed looks and pale complexions, and the snowy dresses of this year's new crop. There were blondes and brunettes and a few unfortunate redheads, and it seemed to Arabella that there were an excessive number of truly beautiful girls to add to the few diamonds
from the previous year who had not made a match.

  "Have you ever seen so many frightened children?"

  Arabella jumped at the voice almost in her ear, and whirled to find her friend, Miss Eveleen O'Clannahan, at her elbow. Eveleen was red-headed with sprinkling of reddish freckles across her narrow nose, though the rest of her complexion was the color of thick Devonshire cream. She was as tall as Arabella, but rather more voluptuous. Arabella gave her friend a quick hug and then put her at arm's length.

  "Eveleen, it is so good to see you! My, but you look marvelous!" She scanned her friend's gown, a rich and lustrous azure, trimmed in expensive muslin. She wore sapphires around her neck and wrist, with diamond ear-bobs. Oh, to be that rich, Arabella thought, envious of her friend's fortune. "I believed, from your last letter, that you had determined not to do this—^what did you call it? The 'annual farce of searching for a man one can bear to be near for more than a few seconds'?"

  Eveleen chuckled. "That was until my father threatened to forcibly take me back to Ireland and confine me to my great-granny's farm. As long as I pretend to search for a husband he will let me stay in London with just Sheltie to protect me."

  "Sheltie! Where is the dear old thing?"

  Eveleen glanced around and pointed to an extraordinary-looking woman who seemed, at first glance, to be a bundle of rags, until one looked closer and realized it was only a multiplicity of shawls that made her appear so. She was a great-aunt of Eveleen's, dark Irish with a thick brogue that put off the more superficial of the London crowd. Anyone who got to know her fell in love with her multiple eccentricities and marvellously original conversation. She was broody and fey and claimed to see visions, like some Gypsy from a caravan. Arabella waved—the merest genteel fluttering of her hand—and the woman peered at her, then waved gaily back before returning to a conversation with another lady. In fact . . . no, Arabella would not believe it. But yes! It appeared that Sheltie was reading the woman's palm, right in the middle of a London ballroom!