Page 21 of Wild Lily
Chapter 4
March 1878
No. 110 Piccadilly
“Our latest invitations!” Marianne sailed into the drawing room, flourishing aloft the latest crop of large envelopes in her hand. She lifted one to her nose and, closing her eyes, inhaled.
“How many?” Lily stopped her pacing, grateful for the diversion from her worries over the imminent arrival of their first guests for tea.
“Three. Smelling marvelous, too,” she said with the charm of a conspirator as she tore open one and plunked in the wing chair opposite Lily.
So many had arrived in that past few days that Lily had had to make a master list of all the details. What to wear was the least of their worries. Papa’s expenditure of more than forty thousand dollars on both her and Marianne’s wardrobes meant they could appear anywhere and be appreciated, even envied. But who their hosts were, what their rank was, who else might attend, who got the deeper curtsy, all were murderously delicate points that could kill their social acceptability. And acceptable, they must be, declared her father.
Dizzy with the complexity of who had invited her and her cousin to an array of luncheons, teas and musicales, she and Marianne had reassured each other their studies of such niceties had been superb. Their knowledge of etiquette finite. But the crush was great. Into the London Season only a week, they were exhausted and not rising before ten. Today was their first at-home tea and they’d been nervous as cats all morning.
“Oh, dear,” Lily said beneath her breath. “I don’t like the look on your face. Is it from someone on Papa’s ‘Awful List’?”
Writing down names of undesirable contacts from his business dealings, her father had dubbed his list ‘The Unsuitables.’ These were men or entire families whose presence was not welcome to the Hannifords’ home. He’d made it clear they were not to be accepted under any circumstances, even if their lineage in Debrett’s Peerage did go back to William the Conqueror. Among them, the names of the Duke and Duchess of Seton, their son, the marquess of Chelton, and their daughter, Lady Elanna, did not appear—and Lily was delighted. But feared none of them would ever call.
“No. Very nice.” She put down a large card on the table beside her and went to work on the next one.
“Who? Do tell.”
“A dinner party at the home of the Earl and Countess of Ely a week Wednesday.”
“Ely? Doesn’t he have a son who is a widower?” Lily recalled her father saying something like that. Meanwhile, Marianne tore open another envelope like a child opening birthday gifts.
“Mmm. Yes. And an ancient keep in need of a new roof. But this—“ Marianne covered her mouth with two fingers. “Oh, my.”
“What?”
“We’re to go to a house party.” Her dark green gaze locked on Lily’s.
“Whose? How many days?” Could anyone keep up polite appearances for days, especially if, as Papa said, many of the married couples switched bed partners at night?
“Five days. Kent.” She let the card drop to her lap, her vision glassy.
“Who?”
“Carbury.”
The name rang a bell but Lily couldn’t place— “Oh, no.”
Marianne slowly nodded. “The Earl of Carbury. From the night at the Paris Opera.”
Julian Ash, in all his impeccable glory, swam up like a genie before her eyes. Graceful, ruthlessly correct, every black hair in place. Julian of the intense looks. Julian of the warm hand. Julian.
Lily swallowed. “Carbury and he are neighbors.”
“Yes. Chelton will be certain to attend.”
Lily shifted in her chair, swinging around to stare into the fire. Since that night by his side, she had not mentioned the illustrious, unforgettable lord. He of the heroism in the Rue de la Paix. He of the opera box. He of the inscrutable lure to her senses.
Foster’s voice intruded on her reverie.
“Miss Hanniford, Mrs. Roland, the Countess de Chaumont.”
The French lady sailed into the drawing room in her newest finery, a bright mandarin silk tea gown that she’d purchased from Worth with the compensation she’d received for her services to the Hanniford women.
