To Gabby’s mind, Sophie’s memories stood in direct opposition to Peter’s view of scandal.
“But Peter said—” Gabby stopped. She didn’t really want to confide the sneaking suspicion she had, that Peter didn’t want to kiss her anywhere, not on a balcony, nor in a carriage, nor anywhere else.
“Who tried to kiss you? Was it that dreadful Mr. Barlow? I saw you dancing with him.”
“Yes,” Gabby said gratefully. “He asked if I would like to see the balcony, and then …”
“He’s a loose fish. What did you do?”
“I elbowed him and walked out.”
“Well, Peter must approve of that,” Sophie observed. “I expect he was jealous. It’s my impression that Patrick takes great pleasure in interpreting my behavior as scandalous, and likely Peter is the same. But there’s no way you could have known that Barlow is such a turnip.” Sophie rose. “We should reappear in the ballroom, or my husband will search me out. He’s still absurdly besotted.”
And when Gabby smiled, the duchess added, “We haven’t been married long. I daresay we will grow tired of each other any moment.”
“I doubt it,” Gabby said, looking at the exquisite woman before her. “Your husband is a very lucky man, Your Grace.”
“You promised,” Sophie complained. “My name is Sophie.” She took Gabby’s hand. “Patrick would fuss if I left the room with Barlow. The man is a gross lecher. I’ll find you a perfectly unexceptionable escort so that Peter can’t complain.”
To Gabby’s pleasure, she and Sophie were met at the bottom of the stairs by Peter and Lucien Boch, who was, rather unexpectedly, escorting Phoebe’s mother, Mrs. Ewing.
“How lovely to see you!” Gabby said warmly to Emily Ewing.
“You missed the supper dance, Duchess,” came a deep voice to her right. Gabby turned to find Sophie laughingly tapping a very handsome man with her fan. Gabby rather thought he must be the duke, and when he cupped a hand around her new friend’s waist and dropped a kiss on her eyebrow, she was quite sure he was.
Five minutes later, there was a little flurry as the three men made certain that their respective escorts were comfortably seated in the supper room, after which they began to fight their way through the crowd toward the tables.
“This is splendid,” Sophie declared. “It will take them at least a half hour to snatch even the barest chicken wing, so we can become better acquainted in the interim. I must tell you, Mrs. Ewing, that although I have been positively thirsting to own Gabby’s gown all evening, I now find myself quite moonstruck over yours as well. It’s lowering to be so riveted by jealousy.”
Emily smiled, her blue-gray eyes uncertain. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
Just then Lucien reappeared and touched Emily’s shoulder. She turned to look up at him, and her rather solemn face broke into a dimpled smile. “Mr. Boch?”
Lucien appeared to have momentarily forgotten what he meant to ask. “I…I merely wondered if you would prefer fowl or fish, Mrs. Ewing.”
“Fowl, please,” she replied. Lucien paused, and then caught sight of Sophie’s and Gabby’s interested eyes. He turned rather blindly into the crowd and disappeared.
“Goodness me,” Sophie said with a gurgle of laughter in her voice. “I have known Lucien Boch some five seasons, and I have never seen him struck dumb before this evening.”
A faint blush rose into Emily’s cheeks. “Mr. Boch escorted me to this ball merely as an act of charity. He is a very kind man.”
Sophie twinkled at Gabby. “What do you think? Could kindness explain why the sweetest-tongued man in all London suddenly began stammering at the mere sight of Mrs. Ewing’s smile?”
“Of course, I am not well-acquainted with Mr. Boch,” Gabby replied mischievously, “but he struck me as eminently logical before this evening….I wonder what could have turned him into such a noodlehead, if not your smile, Mrs. Ewing?”
Emily’s blush deepened. “Truly, Mr. Boch is simply a good friend. There is naught more to his escort than pure kindness.”
Gabby took pity on her. “How is Phoebe today, Mrs. Ewing?” She turned to Sophie. “Mrs. Ewing’s niece and I traveled from India on the same vessel.”
“Phoebe is most amusing,” Emily replied hurriedly, obviously grateful for the change of subject. “She has developed a veritable passion for cooking—” She stopped, remembering that a properly raised child would have nothing to do with the kitchens.
But Sophie’s face was alight with interest. “How old is your Phoebe? My very favorite place to be, as a child, was in the kitchens. I prided myself that Cook was unable to make jam without my skills as a tester.”
Gabby laughed. “I know exactly what you mean! Our cook was kind enough to make me the primary household authority on custard tartlets. I absolutely loved to spoon in the filling.”
Emily almost gaped. She herself had never been allowed anywhere near the kitchens. In fact, it was a rare day when she and Louise were allowed to leave the nursery at all. “I thought perhaps I should dissuade Phoebe,” she admitted. “Cooking is not a very ladylike activity, after all.”
“I suppose it is different when one actually has children,” Sophie said thoughtfully, “but I often promised myself as a child that I would not encourage too many of those ladylike but useless activities.”
Gabby nodded. “I had a succession of governesses as a young child, and some of them had the most arcane ideas of what a lady should do with her time!”
Just then Lady Sylvia bustled up. “Gentlemen have deserted you, have they? Thought I’d go sit with all the old biddies, Gabrielle. After all, yer escorted by two married ladies. Just look lively, gel. You don’t want anyone to think you’re napping.”
“No, of course not, Lady Sylvia,” Gabby murmured.
As Lady Sylvia trotted away, Sophie met Gabby’s eyes in perfect agreement. “All very well for her to say,” Sophie complained. “She had a nice nap at the side of the room, didn’t she?”
The gentlemen returned, plates in hand. And five minutes later, Quill walked up. To Gabby’s great pleasure, it was clear that he and Sophie’s husband, Patrick Foakes, were the best of friends.
The supper room was filled with chattering, elegant gentlefolk, none of whom appeared the slightest bit exhausted. Peter began a rather ponderous discussion of the polonaise, and Gabby soon entered a kind of sleepwalking state. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes from drooping, although she conscientiously repeated to herself Peter’s admonishments about ladies not showing signs of exhaustion.
Quill gave her a sharp look and then raised a finger, summoning one of the footmen. In a moment or two a steaming cup of tea was placed before Gabby.
“Oh, thank you,” she said gratefully.
Peter looked disapproving. Clearly tea was not the appropriate drink for that hour. But Sophie was happily requesting the same, and so Gabby sipped her tea in peace and looked about the room.
At the table just behind Sophie’s shoulder, one of those interesting events that Sophie had promised appeared to be brewing. Gabby had spent a good deal of her life fashioning stories and telling them to herself, and now she rapidly concocted an explanation for why the double-chinned lady with the nodding feathers on her headdress was looking so very infuriated. Clearly she must be a relative of the jowly lord wearing a silver-blue coat next to her. And he must be throwing out lures to the young miss across the table, whose bodice was quite as low as Gabby’s. But of course the double-chinned lady wanted her jowly brother to marry someone quite different, perhaps the stern-looking maiden in the olive gown, who sat next to her.
“What are you thinking of, Gabby?” Sophie leaned toward her. “You look to be so much more amused than the rest of us.”
“I was spinning stories,” Gabby admitted. “Since I know almost no one in London, I was making up tales about strangers.”
Sophie laughed. “You’re a storyteller! How splendid. Please, tell us a tale and then we shall compare it to the tr
uth. What a splendid game.”
Gabby hesitated. But Peter and Lucien were smiling in approval. Only Quill looked censorious. So she explained the tale she had woven for the next table.
Sophie’s clear laughter rang out, and most of the London ton craned their necks, discovering with interest that the Duchess of Gisle seemed to find Peter Dewland’s future wife most entertaining. Unfortunately, the jowly man’s attention was also caught.
Sophie had her back to the jowly man’s table and indeed had no idea that the entire room was looking at them, so she continued blithely, “You are not far from the truth, Gabby. But the lord and lady are married. The tension you sense—”
Her husband clapped his hand over her mouth. “You are a caution, my dear wife,” Patrick breathed into Sophie’s ear. Then he removed his hand, replacing it with a swift, hard kiss.
Sophie twinkled at Gabby. “You see, Gabby darling, men simply live to correct our follies.”
Gabby laughed.
But laughter—alas, Madame Carême had forgotten to put laughing on the list with wiggling. Perhaps Madame believed that laughter was unlikely to occur in the highest society.
Whatever the reason for Madame’s oversight, a room plumb full of the haut ton watched in fascination as Gabby’s bodice lost its fragile claim to modesty and slid below the bosom it was designed to adorn. Gabby gave a little scream and pulled futilely at the strained silk.
Peter closed his eyes in horror. Emily froze, and Sophie instinctively leaned forward to shield Gabby. Patrick and Quill acted as one man. They both wrenched off their evening coats. Quill reached Gabby first. She felt his large comfort at her shoulder just as folds of black finecloth covered her shameful gown from sight.
Clutching Quill’s coat, Gabby looked up, only to meet Peter’s horrified gaze. Tears rose to her eyes.
“Miss Jerningham is overtired,” Quill said brusquely. Then, without a second’s pause, he plucked her off her chair and into his arms. In an instant they were gone from the room.
Sophie’s husband, Patrick, burst out laughing. “I gather that Quill’s leg is much improved. I haven’t seen such a romantic sight in years.”
“There’s nothing romantic about it,” Peter snapped. He owed Quill a thank you, certainly. The best thing was for Gabby to go home immediately and allow the gossip to die down. Not that it would, he was sure of that.
In fact, it was a night that very few people in the London ton ever forgot.
A moment or two later Sophie Foakes, the Duchess of Gisle, stood up. But as she did, she seemed to catch the hem of her gown in her slipper, or perhaps she misplaced her hand as she rose from her seat.
Whatever the cause, the attendees at Lady Fester’s ball were treated to the unprecedented pleasure of witnessing another lady’s bodice drop to her waist—within a mere five minutes of the first!
Sophie’s husband had already removed his coat and so he was able to clap it around her shoulders, although some of the onlookers thought that the duke’s laughing remonstrance, clearly heard by all—“For goodness sake, Sophie! There’s such a thing as taking loyalty too far!”—did not properly address the issue.
It was widely agreed in many a ladies’ parlor, the following morning, that the French mode of dressing had been adapted too rapidly by the young ladies of the ton. Madame Carême, too, came in for a share of censure.
But it was even more widely agreed in many a gentlemen’s club, the following afternoon, that Peter Dewland was one of the luckiest men in London. The same truth had already been established about Patrick Foakes, the Duke of Gisle, and so his manifest good fortune was hardly mentioned.
QUILL STARED into the fireplace, the taste of doom in his mouth. He had stepped over the bounds of civility. He had lost all claim to the title of gentleman. Not only did he snatch his brother’s intended wife up in his arms and carry her off before the interested eyes of half of London, but later …
Yes, later.
He sighed and stretched his leg. Miraculously, it seemed utterly untouched by the experience of carrying Gabby through Lady Fester’s house and into the carriage. Quill had deposited Gabby on the seat, with every intention of escorting her home in the most proper fashion. But then she started sobbing.
At first he couldn’t understand a thing Gabby said. Then her words tumbled together into a miserable acknowledgment of a fact that, unfortunately, Quill agreed with.
“He’ll never love me!” Gabby had cried, her breath caught with sobs. “Peter looked at me with just the distaste that my father—that my father—” And her speech wandered into tangled incoherencies again.
Quill felt helpless in the face of such a storm of female unhappiness. Awkwardly, he pulled her head against his shoulder and patted her back. But he found himself patting his own evening coat, since she was still wearing it, and he couldn’t tell whether she even felt his touch through its thick folds.
Then Gabby raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. “Peter will never love me the way I love him, will he, Quill?”
Quill’s heart skipped a beat. “It depends on how you love him,” he finally said, well-aware that his pedantic tone was not at all suitable to the occasion.
“I love him,” Gabby sobbed. “I love his…I love his picture, and I thought he would never look at me with reproach. And he does! And he wouldn’t kiss me, and I so wanted him to kiss me. Probably every man would look at me that way, but I can’t bear it, because I thought that Peter would be, would be—” And she broke down sobbing and collapsed against Quill’s chest again.
Quill couldn’t make heads or tails of her explanation. He did grasp that Gabby wanted Peter to kiss her. Well, naturally she does, he told himself. She’s in love with him. She’s marrying him.
“I am sure that Peter wants to kiss you,” Quill said, taking a deliberate plunge into the shady area of possible untruths.
“He doesn’t! We went on the balcony, and when I kissed him, he pushed me away! He was very fierce,” she added.
“Peter has a strong sense of propriety,” Quill answered, relieved. This wasn’t as bad as he thought. “Peter would never kiss a woman in the middle of a ball.”
“Why not? A horrid man, Mr. Barlow, tried to kiss me.”
“Because propriety matters to Peter,” Quill replied lamely. He was wishing desperately that someone else had joined them in the carriage. Where was Lady Sylvia? This sort of conversation needed a woman’s touch.
“I don’t think so,” Gabby whispered. She was starting to calm down, only occasionally giving a little hiccuping sob.
Quill took out a large linen handkerchief and dried her face. Tears had turned Gabby’s lips a deep crimson that did nothing for his peace of mind.
“I don’t think Peter wishes to kiss me at all.” The rejection in her voice caught at Quill’s heart. “I’m going to be married to a man who doesn’t like kissing me.”
“Your conclusions are illogical,” Quill pointed out. “Just because Peter has a strict sense of propriety doesn’t mean that he—”
“He didn’t enjoy kissing me,” Gabby replied firmly. “I could tell. Do you think that he is in love with someone else?”
To Quill’s relief, she seemed to be calming down. “I doubt it,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “Peter has squired quite a few ladies about without showing signs of being smitten. In fact, he used to escort your friend the Duchess of Gisle occasionally, when she was Lady Sophie York.”
“Perhaps he was in love with Sophie, until she married the duke,” Gabby said dolefully. “And now he’s being forced to marry me against his will.”
“I never saw any sign that he was in love with Her Grace,” Quill said, feeling a distinct surge of guilt at how close she was to the truth—half of it, anyway.
“Whether Peter is or isn’t in love with someone else, he doesn’t care for kissing me. Why, I might die without ever being properly kissed by my true love.”
At that Quill gave a bark of laughter. “Don
’t you think you’re being rather melodramatic, Gabby?”
“I am entitled to be as melodramatic as I please. I’ve just been rejected by my future spouse. Ladies have thrown themselves off bridges for less!”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“A traveling company came to our village, and the heroine threw herself off the bridge, or perhaps it was a balcony. At any rate, she did it because her betrothed fell in love with someone else,” Gabby explained. “It was most affecting.”
“Rubbish.”
“It was affecting. I wept so much at the end that my father was mortified and wouldn’t take me to the performance the company gave the following night.”
“I would have refused to take you as well,” Quill observed. “You obviously didn’t enjoy the evening.”
“Oh, yes, I did,” Gabby cried. “It was lovely! The playwright had a very fine understanding of the pains of love, especially how much women suffer. It’s not uncommon, you know. Women’s hearts are much more tender than are men’s.”
To Quill’s pleasure, Gabby’s face had brightened and she was obviously feeling more cheerful.
“What about Ophelia?” she demanded. “When Hamlet rejected her, she went stark raving mad and threw herself into a river, didn’t she? You know that part when he tells her to enter a nunnery? That was just the kind of look that Peter gave me tonight!” Gabby’s face was the picture of self-conscious woe. She was clearly visualizing herself as a forlorn Shakespearean heroine.
Quill grinned. “Let me get this straight. Because Peter quite properly refused to kiss you in clear sight of most of the London ton, you are considering a bath in the Serpentine? I could instruct the coachman to turn in that direction,” he said helpfully. “Of course, there’s a bitter wind on the river tonight, but I gather that won’t stop you, since you are so desperate.”
“I gather you think that I am making too much of it?” Gabby gave a watery chuckle. “That’s a fault of mine,” she admitted candidly.
“Deuced uncomfortable habit.”