The Golden Season (28 page)

“Not her. Too wanton for regret!”

Her heart pounded with trepidation. But this was
Sarah
. “Thank you, Mr. Smyth. Perhaps in a few minutes? I have spotted a friend with whom I am eager to speak—”

The shop bell jangled again. Lydia spun around. Sarah had left.

“It is for the best, Lady Lydia,” Childe said sotto voce. “She understands this, as must you.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Lydia snapped and was promptly ashamed. Her anger was meant for herself. If she had really wanted to speak to Sarah she would have done so, not vacillated. Childe only meant to spare her.

Childe did not appear offended. He shrugged with elaborate ennui. “It is the way of things, my dear. One might comport oneself however one desires as long one remains circumspect.”

“I do not agree with the choices Mrs. Marchland has made,” Lydia replied, “but I disagree more strongly still with the idea that while one might know the most dissolute people as long as they have been ‘circumspect’ with regards to their transgressions one must refuse to acknowledge a beloved friend because she has not.”

“I agree in principle,” Childe said. “But I am far too lazy to work up much affront on the matter and too worldly, as are you, Lady Lydia,” he reminded her. “From her most laudable retreat, it is clear Mrs. Marchland knows.
She
is playing the game by the rules. Can we do less?”

Lydia did not answer, but began mechanically picking through some swatches of trim on a table near at hand.

Childe made it sound so sensible. So simple. But it wasn’t. It was confused and murky. The
ton
’s rules had never chaffed before because they had never impinged on her liberty before.

Liberty?

The conventions she had flouted in the past had been minor ones, childish tantrums that had fostered a false sense of free will: a low décolletage, a chaperone lax in her attentiveness, friends who were considered worldly, conversation less than demure. But as far as Society was concerned she had always acted within the boundaries of what was acceptable.

She frowned, disliking the path her thoughts took. This was her environs. This was all she had known. Yes, there were things about it that were unpleasant—and the charge of artifice was just. But how much more unpleasant would be a complete lack of artifice, and the resultant dearth of beauty and elegance? If the cost of a certain moral ambiguity currently seemed high, it was a price she had long since deemed worth paying.

But then she thought of Ned and it struck her forcibly that a moral debt was not the only price she’d paid for her place in the
beau monde
. The toll on her heart was still being tallied.

But, she thought defiantly, Ned had accrued a similar debt and done so apparently without the upheaval she was experiencing. He was being mature about it. Damn him. She flung down the ribbon that had been hanging unseen from her hand and turned around, distracted and distraught.

Oh, where
was
he? Why hadn’t he attended any of the events and entertainments of the past two weeks? Had he taken his promise of friendship so lightly that he had left without a single note of farewell?

Was he courting someone rich
?

“Lady Lydia, please do not look so distressed,” Childe said.

She blinked. She had forgotten he was nearby.

“Who knows? Perhaps you shall meet her again in, say, Calais, where Brummell is holding court. Faith, ma’am, I shouldn’t be surprised. All the best people are being banished these days.”

He mistakenly attributed her unhappy expression to Sarah. Thank heaven. He was the only suitor she had. Though she never wanted for attention or lacked for dance partners, no gentleman seemed inclined to seek more than a dance or a conversation. She understood why. This past month and more she’d always been in Ned’s company. Her favor toward him was noted by any other would-be contenders for her hand and they had withdrawn from the field. Only Childe Smyth seemed unaware of it. Or he did not care.

And now Ned had disappeared and the Season was coming toward its end and she was growing desperate.

That could not happen. At least for a short time, Sarah had her prince. Without her place in Society—without Ned—Lydia had nothing and no one. She had known that state before; she would not know it again. She had already lost Ned. She could not lose anything more. She
would
not.

She would shine down the sun at the Spencers’ masquerade ball.

She must.

She turned to Childe, smiling with all her remembered flirtatiousness at her command. “Why . . . you are right! We shall all meet in some other clime.” She slanted a wicked glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “I only hope it is not one as hot as the one we doubtless deserve.”

He laughed.

Charmed.

It was another foul night, cold and dank. The newspaper had already deemed 1816 “The Year without a Summer,” and so it appeared to be. The skies were constantly churning with dark clouds, the infrequent rents in this clotted layer giving rise to garish and gorgeous sunsets. Scant compensation for the grim days and dark nights. A masquerade ball seemed just the thing to lighten the spirits and chase away the cold and gloom.

“Dear Lord, if we enter before midnight it will be a miracle,” Lydia said to Emily, snapping the curtains shut over the windows of the hired hack, Eleanor’s ducal carriage having broken an axle that afternoon. Lydia’s own famous barouche had succumbed discreetly to the auctioneer’s hammer last week.

They had been en route for over two hours, though the distance between Eleanor’s home and Spencer House was less than three miles. Lydia’s nerves had frayed during the long wait on roads packed with other carriages. “And then we’ll be obliged to wait for hours at the top of the stairs to be announced and five minutes later the ball will be over.”

The crush of carriages arriving for the masquerade ball given in Wellington’s honor had caused traffic to back up for a mile in and about the area, not only due to the hundreds of coaches carrying guests but from the hundreds upon hundreds of pedestrians choking the thoroughfares and lining the streets in hopes of glimpsing those arriving in their fancy dress, a free spectacle for a population plagued with economic hardships.

“All for the good,” Eleanor replied. “Five minutes spent trying to find space enough to breathe is quite enough.” She picked up the child’s toy broadsword she carried and swung it warningly.

Eleanor had elected to attend the ball as Joan of Arc, a role that suited her attenuated form and aesthete’s countenance. She’d clubbed her hair at the nape of her neck and wore a deceptively simple shift of unadorned white mull. When Emily had suggested she did not look very warriorlike, Eleanor had countered that she was depicting Joan after the Catholic Church got hold of her, as virgin sacrifice not as a battle maiden. Though she did carry a small silver broadsword, she claimed it was not as a concession to the martial aspect of the story but simply in anticipation of the overheated crowds, to be used on anyone standing between her and an open window.

“With this large a guest list, no one will leave until dawn,” Emily reassured Lydia, patting her hand. Emily had finally succumbed to Lydia’s pleas that she quit her self-imposed exile from Society and join them tonight. “And even if the time is curtailed, there will not be one person who does not think of you long after the ball.”

Thank heavens for Emily, Lydia thought. She understood the pressure for Lydia to perform well. And that’s what it was, a performance. Before when she had arrived at a fete or ball, it had been with anticipation of pleasure in the company she would see and the conversations they would have. Not tonight. Tonight she felt only a fevered sort of anxiety she would have to mask.

Lydia turned her hand, catching Emily’s and giving it a squeeze.

Emily was as close to family as she had, an acquired convenience that had become a valued friend and beloved confidante. If she lost all else, she would still have Emily. She could think of nothing that could alter that, no change in circumstances of rank, wealth, or reputation that would compromise Emily’s loyalty.
She
should have been so good a friend to Sarah. . . .

“Thank you, Emily,” Lydia said.

Emily blushed, dipping her head and almost dislodging her wig and enormous mobcap. She had dressed as Mother Goose in old-fashioned black bombazine, a simple lace-edged kerchief draped across her plump shoulders, and a white wig with ringlets atop her head. On one hip, she’d affixed a papier- mâché goose that dangled rather haphazardly without the support of her arm. Lydia only hoped it was not hollow, lest she be obliged before they left the party to empty its paper gullet of items Emily might secrete away inside.

“Childe Smyth at least will stay until the last,” Eleanor purred from her corner of the carriage.

Yes. Childe would be waiting for her. He had sent her a gift this morning, a fan fashioned of gold lace, the ribs holding it together also gold. It was an expensive trifle, suggesting a warmer regard than mere friendship that nothing else in his manner had indicated. She’d never caught Childe looking at her with the sort of warmth Ned . . . She looked away, her vision abruptly shimmering, and collected herself.

She prayed Ned would be attending the party.

She prayed he would not.

Not that Ned would ever let it be obvious that his interest was no longer keen. He would trade pleasantries with her. They were, after all, such good friends. But she would know that she was no longer the focal point of his attentions. That place would go to another. Younger? Prettier? Definitely more wealthy.

Dear God, she prayed, let him
not
be there!

“His grandfather is purported to be failing fast,” Eleanor drawled.

Lydia’s head swung around in confusion until she recalled they’d been discussing Childe. The unusual terms of the older Smyth’s will were on the lips of the entire
beau monde
.

“Yes,” Lydia agreed. “I believe his situation is dire.”

“I have heard a rumor,” Eleanor went on mildly, watching her closely, “that Mr. Smyth carries on his person at all times a special license to marry from his godfather, the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that when he receives word that his grandfather’s last minutes are approaching, he can pop off with some likely female and checkmate the old man on his deathbed.” She gave a little sniff. “How convivial for Mr. Smyth that he has a godfather with such power.”

“Why doesn’t he simply wed and be done with it?” Emily asked as she pushed her slipping mobcap back into place.

Eleanor’s gaze slipped to Lydia. “Who can tell? Either simple spite or some juvenile resistance to having his life orchestrated by another. Really, I would think a man of Mr. Smyth’s age would know better. All of us eventually must submit to the will, either singly or collectively, of others.”

“I heard he hadn’t wed because his mistress threatened to leave him if he marries,” Emily piped in.

Then Emily had heard a great deal more than she. Lydia turned to her, startled. “Mistress?” she asked incredulously. This was the first time she had heard anything of a mistress.

She looked at Eleanor, who knew everything, for answers. Eleanor was glaring at Emily. Emily was looking about the carriage with an expression of feigned innocence.

“Childe Smyth has a
mistress
?” Lydia asked.

Emily nodded. “And has had for, oh, nigh on a decade, I believe.”

Lydia’s mouth nearly fell open. She turned to her other friend. “Eleanor?”

Eleanor shifted with a touch of impatience. “Of course he keeps a mistress. Many men do. But it is only to Childe’s credit that you did not know about her. He is most discreet. Unlike some whom we shall not name.”

Her glare failed to embarrass Emily. Having volleyed this bit of verbal cannon fire into their midst, the older woman wriggled back into the corner of the carriage, folding her hands over her round tummy and closing her eyes.

“Who is she?” Lydia asked, more intrigued by the notion that Childe Smyth kept a mistress than offended by it. “What sort of woman would she be?”

“No one knows,” Eleanor replied. “No one ever sees her. He keeps her well away from Society in her own house with her own servants. Some say a Spanish lady of noble antecedents, others a French émigré.”

“He must care for her very much.”

Eleanor waved a hand. “Come now, Lydia. Childe is notoriously fastidious. He would keep a mistress only out of convenience and an assurance against an unpleasant contagion.”

Lydia felt the heat rise to her cheeks, but she would not be gainsaid. “If there is no true affection between them, why would she threaten to leave him if he marries?”

Eleanor shrugged. “It is a game, Lydia. She is angling for a new protector. By leaving Childe before he dismisses her, she can present herself as not being cast aside. Emily’s unnecessary speculation notwithstanding.” She shot a glare in Emily’s direction.

“Childe’s failure to marry has no more to do with his mistress than yours does with Ned Lockton, barring the fact that you wasted precious time with him that could have been better spent acquainting yourself with other gentlemen.” Eleanor had met the news of Ned’s poverty with all the outrage Lydia lacked, roundly cursing him for his deception while conveniently ignoring Lydia’s own.

“Acquainting myself? Is that what we’re calling it?” Lydia asked. “After being so forthright regarding Childe Smyth’s personal situation, I think we can do no less with mine. You mean seducing marriage offers.”

“Yes.”

Her momentary indignation evaporated. Eleanor was right. She had wasted weeks. She had been complacent, so sure of herself. And Ned.

The carriage slowed to a halt again, but this time the driver shouted. Lydia glanced out the window. They’d turned onto the drive leading to Spencer House and now waited in a long line of vehicles inching toward the gate. The fence surrounding the grounds was hung with dark crowds of sightseers calling for the occupants of the carriages to let down their windows and be seen. More than a few did so and were cheered roundly for their efforts.