One Night for Love (34 page)

And then it became known that the Miss Doyle who was living with Lady Elizabeth Wyatt as her companion was in fact Miss
Lily
Doyle, formerly and briefly the Countess of Kilbourne. And that she was to attend Lady Ashton’s ball. It occurred to very few, if any, that as the daughter of a mere infantry sergeant, a member of the lower classes, Lily had no right to appear at a society ball or that Elizabeth was committing a serious breach of etiquette by taking her there.

The fact was that everyone was avidly eager to set eyes upon Lily Doyle, and if that could be done only at the Ashton ball, well then, so be it. Some of those who had already seen her in the church at Newbury remembered the thin, unkempt woman, whom all of them had mistaken for a beggar, and wondered in some fascination how Lady Elizabeth could have the audacity to think of introducing her to society—even if as a paid companion she would be
expected to sit quietly in a corner with the chaperones. But most of those same people were glad for their own curiosity’s sake that Elizabeth
did
have the audacity—they wanted a second look at the woman they had seen so briefly.

Those who had never seen Lily craved a glimpse of the woman who had somehow snared the Earl of Kilbourne into such an indiscreet marriage in the Peninsula and had then proceeded to set the whole
ton
on its ears. What must a woman be like, everyone asked, who had spent all her life with the riffraff of the army?
Vulgar
? How could she possibly be anything else?

Lady Ashton’s ball was always a well-attended event. This year was to be no exception. Indeed the
beau monde
, usually flagging with a certain ennui this far into the Season, buzzed with eager anticipation of an entertainment that was sure to be
different
.

And then two days before the ball the Earl of Kilbourne himself arrived at Kilbourne House on Grosvenor Square. One day before the ball the whole of London knew it—and that he had accepted his own invitation from Lady Ashton.

The Duke of Portfrey had arrived, Lily saw as soon as she entered Elizabeth’s drawing room. She had known that he was to escort the two of them to the ball, and so seeing him was no shock. But it was a meeting that played upon her nerves. He had been out of town since her arrival with Elizabeth—not that she would have seen him even if he had been there. She had seen no one except Elizabeth and the servants and the various teachers who had come to give her instruction. She wished the duke had stayed away from town even though she had convinced herself in the
month since she last saw him that there was nothing sinister about him.

She stopped not far inside the drawing room door, but not too far into the room—she had been taught the exact distance—and curtsied. It had taken her an absurd amount of time to learn to curtsy correctly. A mere bending of the knee and bobbing of the head was not good enough—it made one look like a servant. The opposite extreme—almost scraping the ground with both her knee and her forehead—was far too lavish except perhaps when being presented to the queen or the prince regent. And it sent Elizabeth into whoops of infectious laughter. Actually, Lily was forced to admit, the learning had been fun—to borrow the word Elizabeth liked to use about the activities of the past month. There had been a great deal of shared laughter.

“Your grace,” she said, keeping her eyes modestly lowered while she curtsied, raising them as she rose to look directly at him—not too boldly, but with her chin held just so, and her back and shoulders straight but not as stiff as a soldier on parade would hold them.
Relaxed, dignified grace
was the term Elizabeth used frequently.

“Miss Doyle?”

The duke made her a slight but elegant bow. Everything about him was elegant, from the fashionably disheveled Brutus style of his dark hair on down to his equally fashionable dancing pumps. Lily had learned something of fashion during the past month—both gentlemen’s and ladies’ fashions—and recognized the distinction between good taste and dandyism. His grace dressed with immaculate good taste. He was really very handsome for an older man, Lily thought. She did not wonder that Elizabeth had accepted him as her beau. But he was looking closely at her too, even using his quizzing glass with which to do so,
and she was reminded of the discomfort he had caused her at Newbury.

“Extraordinary. Exquisite,” he murmured

“But of course,” Elizabeth said, sounding very pleased indeed. “Did you expect otherwise, Lyndon?” She smiled warmly at Lily. “You do indeed look lovely, my dear. More than lovely. You look like—”

“A lady?” Lily said into the pause that Elizabeth had filled with an expressive hand but no words.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Oh, that, yes, without a doubt,” she said. “But
poised
is the word I was searching for, I believe. You look—oh, to the manner born. Does she not, Lyndon?”

“You will perhaps, Miss Doyle,” the duke said, “do me the honor of dancing the first set with me?”

“Thank you, your grace.”

Lily stopped herself from either biting her lip or saying what she had been telling Elizabeth for the past week—to no avail. She had argued that though she had the most magnificent ballgown she had ever seen, and though she had learned how to curtsy, how to hold her head and her body and her arms just so, and though she had learned how to address various people and how to do ridiculous things like use her fan correctly—it was not intended, it seemed, merely to cool her off when she felt hot—she really could not possibly think of participating in the ball as a dancer. It was true that she had had dancing lessons three times each week and had been pronounced an apt and graceful pupil by a fussy master who caused her and Elizabeth to explode into merry laughter every time he left, but even so she did not feel even nearly confident enough to perform the steps at a real live
ton
ball. She did not even feel competent enough to stand perfectly still in the darkest shadows at a
ton
ball.

“Shall we be on our way, then?” the duke suggested.

Five minutes later Lily was sitting in his grace’s crested town carriage beside Elizabeth, facing the duke, who sat with his back to the horses. They were on their way to Lady Ashton’s ball. It was Lily’s duty to accompany her there, Elizabeth had said when Lily had first protested in dismay. And of what use was a companion if she could not move in society as an equal of her employer? Elizabeth had no use for another servant—she already had a full complement. She needed a
friend
.

Lily was terrified. Newbury Abbey had given her a taste of what life among the upper classes was like. It was an alien, totally unfamiliar world. That fact had been a large part of her reason for welcoming the knowledge that she was not after all married. And yet now she was to attend a
ton
ball in London during the social Season. Her stomach felt decidedly queasy despite the fact that she had eaten no more than a few bites of her dinner. And if her knees would hold her upright when she was forced to descend from the carriage, she would be very surprised indeed.

She hoped that after the Duke of Portfrey danced with her she would be able to fade into the shadows—but
were
there any shadows into which to fade at a grand ball? She hoped Elizabeth would not force her to dance with anyone else. She hoped no one would know who she was. She was well aware, of course, of the fact that some of tonight’s guests must have been in the church at Newbury for the wedding she had interrupted. But she did not believe any of them would recognize her. Why should they? She certainly looked very different. She
hoped
no one would recognize her. Surely she would be tossed out ignominiously if anyone discovered who she was—or more important, what she was not. She was not a lady.

The Duke of Portfrey was looking at her quite steadily, she saw when she stole a glance at him. He always made
her feel breathless—not in the way that Neville did, and not exactly with fear. She could not identify the feeling except that it made her uncomfortable.

“It is really quite remarkable,” he murmured.

“Is it not?” Elizabeth said gaily. “Cinderella herself, would you not agree, Lyndon? But not incredible, you must confess. There was a great deal of beauty and natural grace and refinement on which to build. We have not created a new Lily. We have merely polished the old and made her into what she was always meant to be.”

“I wonder.” His grace raised his eyebrows and kept his eyes on Lily. He spoke softly, leaving Lily with the uncomfortable impression that Elizabeth had misunderstood his earlier remark.

But there was no more time for that particular discomfort. The carriage was slowing and then stopping. They were behind a line of carriages, Lily could see when she looked out through the window. Ahead of them a great deal of light spilled from the open doors of a brilliantly lighted mansion. A red carpet extended from the doors all the way down the steps and across the pavement so that guests alighting from their carriages would not have to set their feet on hard, cold ground.

They had arrived—or very nearly so. They would have to await their turn while the carriages ahead of them drew up one at a time to the carpet, where liveried footmen helped their richly clad passengers to alight.

Lily wished fervently that their turn would never come. And she wished it would come
now
, without any further delay, without any further moment for thought.

“You will be entering the house and the ballroom on my arm, Miss Doyle,” his grace said quietly, clearly detecting her agitation, though she had thought she was showing no outer sign of it. “You will be quite perfectly
safe. And even without my escort, you look every inch the lady and quite lovely enough to excite the admiration of every other person in attendance.”

Lily had no wish to attract such notice, but his words were reassuring, she had to admit. And suddenly he looked perfectly dependable and trustworthy to her. She felt herself grow calmer. Until, that was, the carriage moved forward another few inches and one of the footmen opened the door and set down the steps.

Neville did not arrive early at the ball. He dined with the Marquess of Attingsborough, and they lingered over their port longer than was necessary.

“The fact is I have not set eyes on her,” the marquess told him. “Elizabeth has kept her very close. I would not even have known she was in town if I had not been at Newbury when she left there. The word is out now, though. The whole world knows she will be at the ball—and you too, of course.”

Neville winced. He thought he knew—he
hoped
he knew—what Elizabeth was up to, but he was not sure he liked her methods. This was going to be an alarmingly public encounter. And at a
ton
squeeze too. He would have preferred to call quietly at Elizabeth’s, but she had refused to allow it. He would be willing to wager that Lily did not even know he was in London.

He tried not to imagine how she might react to the knowledge—or how she might react to seeing him unexpectedly tonight.

But poor Lily—she would have far more than that with which to contend tonight. He would have expected Elizabeth to be more sensitive to her feelings of inadequacy than to haul her off to a
ton
ball when even ordinary day-by-day
life at Newbury Abbey had been beyond her ability to cope with. She would just not be able to handle such an ordeal, and she would hate it. The nervousness he felt as he finally approached Cavendish Square with his cousin and ascended the stairs to the Ashton ballroom was as much for her as it was for himself.

“The devil,” he muttered to the marquess as the two of them stood in the doorway. “Why am I doing this?”

The dancing was unfortunately between sets, and there was a very definite hush at his appearance, to be followed a mere fraction of a second later by a renewed buzzing of conversation while a ballroomful of people did a poor job of pretending to mind their own business. Lily must indeed be here, then. Neville did not believe his appearance alone would be causing such an obvious stir.