Miss Fellingham's Rebellion (22 page)

“That may be so, my dear, but if I could only understand how you could have forgotten what could possibly have been the most important meeting of your life. You might have been a marchioness, my dear. A marchioness.” At these words Lady Fellingham dissolved into a fit of tears.

Catherine found that she actually wanted to explain her odd behavior to her mother, but she knew it would be of no use. Lady Fellingham would not believe her or would assume she had misunderstood the situation or would insist that even if her understanding of the situation had been accurate at one time that surely was no longer the case. Her mother would simply not be able to believe that all her hopes and fine dreams would come to naught.

She was still considering her next words when the drawing room doors opened again, this time to admit Evelyn.

“You are returned,” she said, smiling at Catherine. “Lord Deverill called in your absence, but we explained to him that you had gone out for the afternoon.” Then she winked. Melissa saw this and broke into a fit of giggles.

“If you would just tell me what was so important that you had to go out today of all days,” Lady Fellingham pleaded, with a disapproving look at her youngest daughter for her inappropriate display of humor. As if anything could be humorous on a day like today! “You who spends all her days sitting in her father’s study. The one day I come to look for you and you are gone.”

“I went shopping,” she explained to the group at large.

Even Melissa and Evelyn, who were aware of her scheme, were shocked by this statement.

“Shopping?” her mother echoed. “What on earth for?”

“I bought the most darling— Wait, I’ll show it to you.” And she opened the doors and called into the foyer. “Caruthers. Caruthers. Where is he? Ah, there you are, my good man. Could you please get me my package? It was dropped off earlier.”

“Very good, Miss Catherine.”

Caruthers disappeared for a moment, and while he was gone, Lady Fellingham said, “Evelyn, did she really say shopping?”

“I believe so, Mama.”

The butler returned with the tall box, and Catherine took it from him with a thank-you before shutting the door behind her. She presented the case to Evelyn with an elegant flourish. “I don’t quite understand it myself, Mama. For some reason I woke up this morning with one thought in my head. I know I am not given to impetuous behavior the way you and Evelyn are, but you will forgive me, won’t you just this once, for being so weak as to follow an impulse.”

Now Lady Fellingham’s resolve to stay angry at Catherine began to weaken. Nobody knew better than she how unimpulsive her oldest daughter was. Perhaps the errand had been too important to delay. “But why must it have been today of all days. Why today?” she asked again.

Her children were no longer listening to her. Melissa and Evelyn were looking at the box in amazement. “Go on, open it,” Catherine said.

Evelyn eagerly untied the pretty pink ribbon, pulled off the top and she shrieked, “It’s my bonnet. It’s my bonnet!” She leaped up and hugged Catherine with so much force that Catherine had to anchor herself against the settee lest they both tumble to the floor. “It is a Madame Claude original and quite the most beautiful one I have ever laid eyes on. And yellow! You dear sweet thing, yellow is quite my favorite color for a bonnet.”

“Let me see,” Melissa pleaded.

Freeing the bonnet from its box, Evelyn placed it carefully on the top of her head, as if it were made of eggshells, and tied the ribbons under her chin. “How does it look?” she asked, swiveling her head this way and that. “Do say it looks splendid.”

Catherine looked fondly at Evelyn in the ostrich-plumed confection. “It looks splendid.”

“I want to try it.” Melissa tried to grab the bonnet, but Evelyn danced away before she could establish a grip.

Lady Fellingham also showed an interest. “Come here, dear, let me take a look at you.” She fluffed Evelyn’s curls that were revealed by the bonnet. “You do look splendid. How thoughtful of Catherine to have bought you such a becoming present.”

“Cathy, tell Evelyn that it’s my turn to try the hat now,” Melissa said, determined to have her chance.

But Catherine had no intention of disturbing her mother’s tête-à-tête with Evelyn. “Let’s us retire to the study and have a chat,” she said, causing her sister to clap her hands in delight. “Don’t. Make no loud noises and no sudden movements. Back out of the room very slowly. Here, I’ll get the door.”

Melissa complied with her instructions, though she had to cover her mouth to stop from giggling, so funny was it to her the notion of stealing out of the room under the nose of her mother.

Once they were alone in the large dark room, Melissa said, “Oh, Cathy, you should have seen it. Evelyn was magnificent. I had no idea she could be such an out-and-outer.”

Neither had Catherine and even hearing the claim from her sensible youngest sister, she could scarcely credit it. “Tell me what happened.”

Melissa needed no further inducement and she pulled her legs under her in the big armchair as she launched into her tale. “As instructed, Caruthers sent a boy up to inform me that Lord Deverill had arrived and I came down directly. Poor Mama, she really had no idea what to do. She kept insisting to poor Caruthers that you were in the study and that he must have overlooked you. Examine all the chairs, she ordered, and check behind the curtains. Every time he came back to tell her you weren’t in the study, she sent him back again. I can’t recall how many times he walked back and forth between the drawing room and the study. She was completely baffled and had no real understanding of what was happening and finally left the drawing room to check the study herself. When she came back, she was terribly pale and explained to Julian that you had caught the headache and had retired to your room for a rest. He was very polite about it and said he’d be on his way, but Mama insisted that he stay. I suspect she thought you might walk through the door at any moment. And when she noticed that he had forgotten to bring his drawings with him, she insisted that he send a footman to fetch them. Nothing he could say would dissuade her, even his sworn statements that he didn’t have any drawings, and a footman was dispatched posthaste regardless.”

Although she knew it was unkind, Catherine could not help but smile at the picture her sister painted. Poor Caruthers, sent to inspect an empty room over and over again. The study was large, but there were few places to hide, as she knew from personal experience. Once she had concealed herself behind the heavy red drapes—it had been the morning of her come-out and she simply wanted a few moments of peace and quiet after so many weeks of frenzied preparation—and her mother had found her with little difficulty.

“Julian was still trying to make his excuses when Evelyn came in,” Melissa said. “Oh, she was something. She came in and sat down and started talking to Julian about the most boring subjects. She devoted twenty minutes to women’s hairbands alone. I have never seen anyone talk so and about such inconsequential things. By the end of the two hours, he looked like he was ready to strangle someone. Oh, it was fun. ’Tis a shame you couldn’t be here to witness it. Afterward I said to Evelyn that I didn’t know why you had done him such a rotten turn, and she told me that he had treated you poorly and had made you sad. I thought he was a very nice gentleman, but if he’s going to hurt you then he’s not a gentleman at all, and I’m glad Evelyn bored him to flinders.”

Evelyn entered the room still wearing her new bonnet despite the fact that it didn’t match her afternoon dress.

“Evelyn,” Melissa cried excitedly, “tell Cathy what you told Julian about evening gowns.”

“I simply explained how the newest designs from Paris have lower waistlines.” She smiled. “Nothing to get excited about, dear.”

“Oh, but she didn’t,” she told Catherine earnestly before turning back to Evelyn. “You really didn’t. You went on and on about it, meticulously detailing every time in the last two decades that the waistline has moved more than a half inch in either direction. She was marvelous, I tell you. Simply marvelous.”

Evelyn, unused to being admired by anyone in the family, much less Melissa, who so clearly preferred Catherine to her, blushed with pleasure. “Well, he is such a scion of fashion, I thought he’d want to know.”

All three sisters dissolved into delighted laugher. Catherine felt tears forming in her eyes, and she grasped her stomach in pain. “I need to stop,” she said, trying to breathe deeply and failing miserably. “I’ve got a painful stitch.”

But the laughter continued for several minutes longer. Only the entrance of Caruthers with the announcement that dinner would be served in one half hour silenced them.

“I better go dress,” Catherine said regretfully. It was the first time since they were children that she was reluctant to end an interview with Evelyn. “I don’t want to anger Mama further.”

“She has calmed down quite a bit. The bonnet was a brilliant stroke,” Evelyn assured her.

“It seems to have worked like a charm, but I would not have you think me calculating, my dear. I bought the hat on a whim, with no intention of smoothing mother’s ruffled feather. Indeed, if I’d been so clever, I would have bought
her
the Madame Claude original,” Catherine said, smiling. “Now I really must change.”

At the door, Evelyn put her hand on her shoulder and said with surprising gentleness, “You do realize, darling, that Lord Deverill is not going to give up. And after today’s escapade, he might not be in such a pleasant mood.”

At the mention of Deverill, Catherine tensed, clutching the bronze knob with white fingers. “No, I don’t suppose he will.”

Evelyn’s brows drew together sympathetically. “He assured me that he looks forward to seeing you tomorrow night at Lady Rivington’s ball.”

“Must I go?” Catherine asked.

“Yes, I don’t think you have sufficient funds to buy Mama enough bonnets to wrangle free of the engagement,” Evelyn said.

Catherine knew this was true. Her mother, who had abandoned all hope of seeing her matrimonially unsuitable daughter wed years ago, was now unable to accept that Catherine would not marry a personage so exalted as a marquess. If the irony of the situation weren’t so tragic, she would have laughed.

“Very well then, I shall go,” she conceded. At least at a glittering function surrounded by the
ton,
there would be little opportunity for a tête-a-tête.

“And you will be beautiful,” promised Evelyn, “and you will flirt with all the young bucks and you will have a grand time and you will show the Marquess of Deverill that you do not need his condescension and you will come home victorious and then, if you still want to, you can cry in my arms.”

Melissa, who was clever enough to fill in the details, even if no one explained them to her, said, “You can cry in my arms, too, if you want.”

Catherine was much moved by these displays of sympathy and released the doorknob to give her sisters a hug. As she wrapped her arms around Evelyn, she thought that perhaps the situation wasn’t all terrible. If she could hold her sister, with whom she’d been at odds for years, with so much affection, then perhaps Deverill hadn’t done her an entirely bad turn.

CHAPTER TEN

Betsy was putting
the finishing touches on Catherine’s hair when Evelyn entered the room.

“Mama says we will be leaving in— No, you can’t possibly wear that,” she said, interrupting herself midsentence when she saw her sister’s dress.

Catherine, trying to keep her head still for the maid, asked Evelyn what she found wanting. “This gown just arrived from the dressmaker this very morning.”

“But the color, darling,” said Evelyn, looking stunning as usual in a white silk gown in the Grecian style decorated with pink rosettes. “You can’t possibly wear that shade.”

Careless of Betsy’s efforts, Catherine looked down at the dress. “What’s wrong with yellow? Yesterday, you said jonquil is one of your favorite colors.”

“Well, it is, though seeing it upon you, I’m no longer quite so sure.” Evelyn shook her head. “There’s nothing
wrong
with yellow on a woman of different coloring, but on you, dear, it looks wretched. Or rather you look wretched.” Evelyn went to the wardrobe and examined her sister’s dresses. “Surely there is something here that’s appropriate, if not becoming.”

“But Mama picked out this dress,” Catherine protested. “She said it went with my eyes.”

Evelyn laughed. “I don’t see how it could. You don’t have yellow eyes.” She made a moue of disgust as she contemplated her choices, which were limited to varying shades of pink and light blue with the odd pistache tossed in. “No wonder you haven’t gotten married. All these years we thought it was you and your sullen nature, and now we discover at the eleventh hour that it was Mama’s fault all along. You can’t wear that dress or indeed any of these dresses.” She took out a pink afternoon dress and waved it in the air distastefully. “These are completely unsuitable. You look like a dead fish in pastels. Your complexion is too sallow. I wonder why I have never noticed before.” As she put yet another pink dress back on the rack, a red ball gown caught her eye, and she considered it carefully.

“Please, Evelyn, don’t tease yourself about it. I assure you that a few pastels are not all that’s standing between me and holy matrimony.” Catherine looked at herself in the beveled glass, admiring Betsy’s handiwork, particularly the strand of pearls that she had weaved in among the ringlets. As for the dress… She knew that it did not show her to the best advantage but neither did she know what her best advantage was. “What do you suggest?” she asked, realizing this was her sister’s specialty.