Page 1 of Not Quite a Lady
Chapter One
Almack’s Assembly Rooms: late March 1815
‘My dear, I agree it would be laughable if it was not my own cousin involved with the creature, but as he is, I simply cannot find it in me to be amused.’
The speaker’s affected voice was instantly recognisable as Lily entered the room. Lady Angela Hardy. Behind the screen in the retiring room her fingers stilled on the recalcitrant knot in her garter, then slowly curled.
‘Oh, I do so understand and sympathise. So vulgar: the whole family will be devastated if your suspicions are true. And that impossible hair. And the clothes! No wonder she has stayed unmarried so long.’
‘With that amount of money?’ The third female voice was harsher. ‘I cannot agree. Personally I am amazed no-one has snapped her up before now, despite the grocer grandfather and the carrot curls and her age.
‘Society is littered with gentlemen in dire need of a fortune to restore their own. Worse handicaps than red hair and vulgarity have been overlooked often enough – and at least her parents are dead.’
Lily wrenched the knot undone, then retied the garter with enough force to cut off the circulation to that leg. As she straightened she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror and pushed a stray lock of dark auburn hair back behind her ear. It wasnotcarroty. And what, precisely, was wrong with her gowns? Nothing, except that those three witches could not afford anything so fine.
Lady Angela and her two bosom bows, Miss Fenella George and Lady Caroline Blackstock, seemed in no hurry to takethemselves back to the dance floor.
Probably they had no partners, Lily thought unkindly, applying her eye to the join in the screen panels.
From the expression on Angela’s face her friends would be made to regret the remark about age. Lily, the object of their venom, might be twenty six, but Angela was all of twenty five and just as dangerously on the shelf.
As her father had taught her, Lily closed her eyes and thought calming thoughts.Never let your temper master you, Lily my girl,Papa had said so often.We redheads are at enough of a disadvantage without making an exhibition of ourselves. Flying into a rage is bad business. Keep calm and get even later.
The door opened again, admitting a small group of young ladies, flushed from their exertions in a country dance.
No, get even now.She would probably regret it, but she was sick and tired of playing the meek little miss and pretending that she did not hear the catty remarks about her parentage, her money or her looks.
With a twitch at her satin skirts that made the rows of fringing toss, Lily sailed out from behind the screen. Her appearance effectively silenced Angela, who froze, her mouth half open.
‘Lady Angela, Lady Caroline, Miss George.’ Lily dropped a neat little bob of a curtsey. ‘So edifying to hear your opinions, as always, but if I might just drop a little hint, Lady Angela? I heard two of the Patronesses earlier this evening commenting on your misfortune in not receiving an offer again this Season.
‘They seemed to feel that your so freely-expressed views might have something to do with it. How did they describe you? Oh yes,the bran-faced spinster with the adder tongue. So unfair I thought. After all, I am sure with the application of enough of Rowland’s Kalydor Balm, even the most sallow complexion must improve. It can do nothing for the tongue, of course.’
Lily smiled sweetly and swept past the giggling girls who had just come in, ignoring the livid fury on the faces of the trio she had been addressing.
As the door swung shut behind her she caught the first spluttering words from Lady Angela. ‘The cat, the vulgar little cat! She’ll live to regret she ever–’
The music and the babble of conversation cut off the rest of the threats as Lily made her way out into the main assembly room at Almack’s. She was already feeling guilty for losing her temper, but at least she had had the discretion not to have named the Patroness who had uttered that damning verdict. All of them except Lady Jersey were present this evening, so hopefully Angela would not guess which was responsible.
As she made her way around the edge of the room to where she had left her chaperone, Lily glimpsed an elegant figure making his way in.Adrian.At last.
He had been his usual offhand self when she had tentatively enquired whether he would be present this evening, and Lily had learned better than to try his patience by pressing him. That a baron was taking an interest in her was exciting enough, that the handsome, assured, thoroughly top-lofty Lord Randall seemed on the point of offering was a miracle.
The cold blue eyes swept the room haughtily before he turned and made some remark to the men who had come in with him.
Who was he looking for? Her? Or for some family member – his cousin Angela for example? And would Angela pour out the tale of how that vulgar Miss France had insulted her? Of course she would.
Lily ran the tip of her tongue between lips which seemed suddenly dry. If she let Lord Randall slip through her fingers now, then her father’s ambitions, her family’s future social prospects, her own carefully mapped-out destiny, would slip away too.
Adrian Randall was a leader in Society, for all his notorious debts and spendthrift ways, and if he spurned the Grocer’s Granddaughter, then the other hopefuls with their pockets to let would think twice about being seen taking up what he had rejected.
Adrian was making his way towards her now and taking his time about it, greeting friends as he did so.
Mindful of her chaperone’s strictures and her aunt’s warnings, Lily contained her impatience and waited demurely upon his pleasure. Oh, but he was handsome. Slender and pale, blond and languid, a complete contrast to her blaze of dark auburn hair, her green eyes and her restless energy.
He reached her side at last and she managed a start of surprise that would have deeply gratified Lady Billington, her excruciatingly expensive hired chaperone, if she had been privileged to observe it.
‘My lord.’ Her curtsey was another triumph of hard-learned decorum.
