A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (7 page)

“
How dare he! I have never
been introduced to the man. To think that he can come to my home
and demand to see me…” Aurora had never heard the likes of
it.

Rebecca stood and straightened her
afternoon gown about her legs. “Let me handle this. I should be on
my way home, anyway, to get ready for the ball tonight. I’ll speak
with Lord Griffin on my way out.” Her deep brown eyes flashed and
turned almost black. “I can promise you, Aurora, Lord Griffin will
rue the day he made any demands upon you.”

Aurora loved it when Rebecca became
impassioned about something. She almost wished she could sneak down
to the parlor to witness the scene about to take place.

Instead, she vowed to write about
it.

Thank the good Lord Rose had gone out
to fetch a new journal already.

~ * ~

Aunt Sedgewick’s nasally voice
assaulted Aurora’s ears like an entire flock of geese being drowned
together in the Serpentine. “My dear, you must accept a dance with
Lord Hingham, if he should ask. Preferably a waltz, of course. He
would make a lovely match for you. And he does not seem to mind
about your mother’s regrettable origins.”

Aurora bit her tongue—literally. It
just would not do to lash out at her aunt in the midst of a London
ball. At least not now, before everyone had arrived and the dancing
had begun. Perhaps she could get away with it when the crowd had
thickened and the orchestra was playing, when the level of the din
was up to a full roar. At the moment, the din rested at a mere
kitten’s mewl.

She’d never understand her
aunt’s necessity of arriving at such events so early in the
evening, before anyone interesting had descended upon the scene and
made their presence known. Particularly since it just
wasn’t done
. “Yes, Aunt,”
she replied as submissively as she could muster.

The old dragon then had the audacity
to raise her quizzing glass (for that was what it was, despite Aunt
Sedgewick’s propensity for calling it a lorgnette) to her eye and
giving Aurora’s gown a thorough inspection. “I must have another
discussion with your father, and the sooner the better. It is a
travesty he allowed you out of the house in that dress. The
scandal! Why, even a married lady might be thought fast in such a
color.”

Oh, dear good Lord. Aurora closed her
eyes and counted to ten in her head. Still seething. Perhaps she
had better make it one hundred.

Yes, it was true. She had dared to
wear a lovely, rich blue silk to the ball and not some insipid
pastel. In truth, it was almost turquoise. She’d never found a
lovelier length of fabric in her life, so of course, she had to
purchase it and have a ball gown made from it. The hue brought her
clear, blue-green eyes to life in her looking glass in a manner no
other gown had ever done. She could only imagine how her eyes must
look in the candlelight of the ballroom.

With her almost-black hair and the
deep tone of her skin, she looked downright sickly in almost any
pastel. Particularly in pink. Yellow and peach were hardly better.
Only the light blues and greens did her any favor at all, but she
could hardly wear those two colors and only those for the remainder
of her unmarried life.

Besides, Aurora was only
weeks away from being four-and-twenty. Certainly
not
a debutante. If
anyone looked down upon her for wearing a touch of color, then they
could go and rot, for all she cared—Aunt Sedgewick included. She’d
even cast Father in with the lot, should he side with his sister
over his daughter.

She could discern no
suitable response for her aunt. If she argued her side of things
and pointed out the flaws of Aunt Sedgewick’s thinking, she would
be an ungrateful child. But she most certainly would
not
agree with the
woman.

Thankfully, Rebecca and her family
arrived, working their way through the receiving line. An
unfamiliar young lady accompanied them, wearing a silver gauze
gown.

“
Oh, pardon me, Aunt. Lady
Rebecca is here, and I simply
must
speak with her.” Which was the truth. With all of
the interruptions that afternoon, Aurora had neglected to mention
Lord Norcutt’s dilemma. She left her aunt’s side before the old
biddy could stop her, fairly bounding across the
ballroom.

Rebecca motioned her over. “Lady
Phoebe, have you met Miss Hyatt? Aurora, Lady Phoebe Seabrook is
the daughter of the Marquess of Laughton, whom Father has only
today befriended.”

Seabrook. For some reason, the name
was familiar. But Aurora could not fathom why, since she’d never
laid eyes upon the woman before in her life. She’d remember her, if
not for the shade of her eyes, then for the shape of her face. It
was rather more oblong than could be considered attractive. She’d
apparently attempted to fluff her bland brown hair out at the sides
to distract from the length of her face, but its effect was quite
the antithesis. Lady Phoebe’s face reminded Aurora of a horse.
Still, she smiled and nodded at her new acquaintance.

“
Lord Laughton requested
that we bring Lady Phoebe along tonight,” Rebecca continued, “since
he had other obligations and she would otherwise be forced to stay
in their townhome alone all night.”

“
How lovely to meet you,”
Aurora said. “Have you been in Town long?”

Lady Phoebe’s grey eyes ought to have
sparkled like her gown did in the candlelight, but instead seemed
flat. Distant. “I’m delighted to meet you, as well. Only a few
days, Miss Hyatt. We tend to stay at Harrogate Palace during the
Season—Father comes alone to serve in the Lords and then returns
home. But this Season, he felt it would behoove me to take part in
the marriage mart. There are few suitable prospects in Yorkshire,
anymore.”

“
Indeed,” Aurora responded.
Her eyes followed a group of gentlemen on the opposite side of the
ballroom. “One might say the same of the whole of England.” If one
were rather picky about said prospects, as she tended to
be.

“
One might also say,”
Rebecca countered with a twinkle in her eye, “that one who said
such things might need to broaden one’s horizons.”

“
And who are you to talk of
such things?” Aurora retorted. “You’ve been on the marriage mart
almost as long as I have, with no beaux to show for it. Not for a
lack of their attempts, either.”

“
Phoebe!” said Miss Iris
Leggett, working her way through the growing crowd, her fan at the
ready in one gloved hand. “I had no idea you would be in Town this
Season. You should have called on me.”

Oh, dear good Lord. Iris
Leggett had always grated on Aurora’s very last nerve. If she
wasn’t a busybody gossip-in-the-making, Aurora didn’t know who
would be. And
that
was who Lady Phoebe chose for a friend? She couldn’t stop her
eyes from rolling to the ceiling upon the arrival of this newest
member to their little grouping, so she hoped only Rebecca had seen
it.

“
Miss Leggett, are you and
Lady Phoebe dear friends?” Rebecca asked, somehow masking what
should be scorn in her voice to the general ear, but Aurora could
still make it out. “I was unaware. You both must greatly desire
some time to yourselves, in order to catch up on old
times.”

“
Oh, but we do not wish to
be churlish,” Lady Phoebe said, despite the fact that her eyes were
already scanning the room for a spot they could sneak off
to.

“
Nonsense,” Rebecca said.
“Miss Hyatt and I are more than happy to allow dear friends some
time to themselves.”

Not to mention the fact that it would
give the two of them some time alone. “Indeed,” Aurora chimed in,
almost too abruptly and with a nod of her head that was more
forceful than necessary for a simple agreement. She really needed
to get a grasp on herself. It must be from all the afternoon’s
worry over her missing journal.

Miss Leggett gave a shy smile. “Well,
if you’re certain…”

Aurora took hold of Rebecca’s arm and
led her away before anyone could say anything else. “We would be
delighted to catch up with you both later this evening,” she called
out over her shoulder. She really oughtn’t to lie like that. But
since no one would know other than Rebecca, was it all that
horrible?

She shook her head as though to clear
her mind once they had escaped to an alcove overlooking the
veranda.

“
Thank goodness,” Rebecca
said. “I don’t know that I could handle both of them at once for
very long.”

“
I know very well that I
could not,” Aurora said with a shudder. “Besides, there is
something I meant to talk with you about this afternoon, before we
were cut short.”

“
You want to tell me about
your story
here
?”
Rebecca looked around, then pulled her deeper into the alcove. Her
eyes frowned as she whispered with a goodly amount of force. “I do
not imagine that is the wisest course of action, Aurora, even if we
are somewhat secluded.”

“
No, no. Not my story.” She
waved a hand through the air. Some day, she really needed to learn
to speak without gesturing so very much. “Lord
Norcutt
,” she hissed.

“
You have a story about
Lord Norcutt already? Oh, dear.”

Aurora sighed. Rebecca could be quite
obtuse, at times. “Do be quiet and listen for a moment. I do not
have a story about him. Well, not one I wrote, at least.” This was
not going according to plan. She took Rebecca’s hand and directed
her to sit at a table by the window, covered in pots of daisies in
every color.

Rebecca scowled and looked back into
the ballroom. “The dancing will begin soon. We haven’t much time.
If we aren’t out there in a few moments, we will be without
partners for the first set. Father will be highly
displeased.”

“
Hush and this will only
take a moment. I hope.” Aurora bit her lip, debating if there were
a better way to bring the matter up at all. Nothing came to mind.
“Lord Norcutt asked for my assistance while we were on our way to
Hyde Park. You see…er, well, he seems to have developed a bit of an
attachment. To you. He wanted me to see if you might be amenable to
his advances. He’s already spoken with your father…”

Aurora cringed and waited with her
eyes closed for the appalled gasp that was sure to come—unless
Rebecca was so horrified she could do nothing but laugh
inappropriately.

Neither event occurred.

Oh, dear. Rebecca must be taking it
worse than she thought. Granted, Lord Norcutt was not a man Aurora
would ever consider, but he was not a warty toad. Surely the idea
of his pursuit was not quite so repellent as to warrant this
reaction.

She peeked through her eyelashes,
prepared for the worst from Rebecca. Bawling. Gagging. Screaming.
Dashing to the window to toss herself off the ledge.

Instead, Rebecca merely looked back at
her, a serene expression in her eyes. They weren’t even glazed
over.

Oh.

“
Might I encourage him to
proceed, then?” Surely not. Surely Rebecca was jesting. This could
be nothing but a joke.

Rebecca smiled. “Yes, that would be
acceptable.”

Acceptable? What had
happened to her friend? Her friend who always encouraged her to
hold out hope for the right gentleman to come along. Her friend who
read her suitors’ stories with equal parts disdain and horror,
demanding that Aurora must never even consider accepting their
offers or else risk losing her friendship, since they were clearly
unworthy of her. Her friend who rejected more gentlemen’s pursuits
in a single Season than the average young lady of the
ton
received in a
lifetime.

Aurora’s jaw gaped open.
She forced it closed. “Very well. I shall pass the word on to him
this evening. Unless you would like me to wait?” She
should
wait. Perhaps
Rebecca just needed a little more time to realize what she was
doing.

“
No, that will not be
necessary. This evening will suit.” Rebecca stood and straightened
her shimmering pink silk gown. “We should return to the ballroom
now, before anyone misses us.”

Aurora followed along behind her,
wondering how Lady Rebecca Grantham seemed to almost be floating
along the floor ahead of her.

How very peculiar.

Chapter Five

1 April, 1811

The moment of truth has
arrived. If, perchance, someone did happen upon my journal, surely
the scandal will be revealed tonight. After all, no one could hold
such a juicy bit as all of that secret for more than a few hours. I
know gossip, and I know the purveyors of gossip. I’ve just never
really
been
gossip before. Should one feel substantially different when
one is the subject of rumor and innuendo? All right, I agree. Rumor
and innuendo would not quite apply to me in the present
circumstance. I really, truthfully wrote the words. Lord help
me.

~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt