Lady Jane's Ribbons (6 page)

The ballroom at Lyndon House was one of the most beautiful in London, a vast chamber with pink marble columns set against walls adorned with intricate gilded plasterwork. Shining Italian crystal chandeliers were suspended from an azure sky sprinkled with countless golden stars, where the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece flew in divine splendor. The orchestra played from an apse high on the wall opposite the line of tall French windows that stood open on to the lantern-lit terrace and the
illuminated
gardens where guests could be seen strolling among the trees. Outside, there were flowers, but there were so many more inside, festooned with almost careless abandon and yet looking so very perfect, their pale
colors and sweet perfume forming the ideal foil for the harsh glare of the chandeliers and the heavy haze of cigar smoke which was already rising to dim the beauty of the ceiling.

A number of people were waiting for the master-of-ceremonies to announce their names before they could proceed down the steps to where Mr and Mrs Lyndon were waiting to greet each new arrival, and so Jane and Charles took their places at the end of the queue. Mrs Lyndon had decided to look as flowery as her decorations, for her silver muslin gown was
sprinkled
with little artificial roses, and there were more in her salt-and-pepper hair. She wore the famous Lyndon pearls, not one of which seemed smaller than a marble, and she was flushed and smiling, evidently more than pleased with the way things had gone so far. Beside her, looking tall, dark, and a little fearsome, her banker husband glanced shrewdly around, his sharp eyes very quick and clever above his hooked nose. He was, thought Jane, for all the world like a large bird of prey, and it was just as well for Blanche’s sake that she took her looks from her mother.

Jane felt almost sick with apprehension. What on earth was she going to say to them? How could she possibly smooth things over? Charles put his hand over hers, squeezing it comfortingly. ‘It’ll be all right, Jane, don’t worry so.’

‘I can’t help it. Can you see Blanche anywhere?’

‘No, but she’s bound to be here somewhere. Perhaps she’s dancing.’

‘With the Duke of Dursley, no doubt.’

‘If she is, Henry has only himself to blame.’

Jane glanced around again, and then her gaze was drawn inexorably toward the only man who was ascending the ballroom steps when everyone else was descending; it was Lewis. Her heart seemed to skip a beat, as always it did when she saw him. He looked so distinguished, his black velvet coat cut with the excellence attributable only to Weston of Bond Street. His hair seemed more golden than ever beneath the brilliance of the chandeliers, and he was toying with the spill of lace protruding from his cuff, as if his thoughts were very far away from the ballroom. He was coming straight toward her.

She couldn’t look away from him, and he seemed to suddenly sense her gaze, looking directly into her eyes. He paused, a faint smile touching his lips, and then he inclined his head before passing straight by. He didn’t say a word, and his acknowledgment had been so slight as to verge on a snub. Color leapt to her cheeks and she gazed ahead again, resisting with all her power the overwhelming urge to turn and look at him again. She was
trembling
inside and her hands felt suddenly very cold.

Then the master-of-ceremonies staff was striking the floor and their names were announced.

However, even as Jane and Charles began to descend the steps, by pure chance the orchestra struck up the first waltz of the evening, and Mr and Mrs Lyndon decided it was time to abandon their post and begin to enjoy the ball themselves.

Jane was a little ashamed of the rush of relief which flooded through her as she watched them whirl away onto the crowded floor, but she thought it was probably just as well that the moment had been postponed yet again, for the incident with Lewis had so ruffled her that she doubted if she would have handled the meeting very well at all.

Charles smiled at her, glancing heavenward at the gods and goddesses on the ceiling. ‘They’re smiling on you from Olympus, evidently.’

‘For the moment.’

‘Forget Lewis Ardenley, he’s not worth even a moment of pain.’ he murmured, slipping a hand to her waist and allowing her no choice but to join the throng on the sanded floor.

Flowers, jewels, costly silks and velvets seemed to spin past as they danced, and the laughter and drone of conversation were almost lost beyond the sweetness of the music. For a few brief minutes, Jane forgot all her
problems
and gave herself to the pleasure of the dance, but as the final chord was struck, and she and Charles stepped off the floor once more, she at last saw Blanche.

She was seated on a small crimson velvet sofa, her ivory fan wafting
prettily
to and fro as she smiled attentively at her companion, the winning, rakish, slippery Duke of Dursley. He was evidently employing his every wile, holding her hand, gazing ardently into her eyes, and doing his fascinating best to impress her. At thirty-five, he was handsome enough, with dark hair, soft brown eyes, and a full, rather sensuous mouth, but there was something about him which told that the real Dursley was very different from the charming, courteous gentleman he was at present striving to appear. He looked the elegant, easy-going fop in his black satin coat and silk pantaloons, but he had a reputation which was undesirable to say the least, and his gambling debts were almost legendary. His lineage might stretch back to the Conquest, but he wasn’t at all the gracious lord such ancestry should have produced, and he was certainly all that was wrong for someone as sweet-natured and trusting as Blanche.

Jane looked at her brother’s fiancée. As the belle of the ball, it was most appropriate that she wear a gown which sparkled with semiprecious stones. Each tiny movement she made caused a glitter which attracted many
admiring
glances, for not only was the gown very beautiful indeed, but its wearer
was also. She had rich chestnut hair which was dressed up beneath a diamond tiara, and her pale complexion included a sprinkling of freckles over her retrousse nose, enhancing rather than detracting from her looks. Her eyes were of the softest brown, with long lashes which made her look very shy when her glance was downcast. It wasn’t downcast now, however, for she was smiling at the attentive duke and tapping his arm with her ivory fan.

Jane sighed as she watched. Oh, Henry, she thought sadly,
you
should be sitting there with her now, not that odious toad Dursley. Even as she thought this, she saw Blanche glance up at the great golden clock high on the
ballroom’s
west wall, her expression a little perplexed; then she adjusted the feather boa resting over her arms and returned her attention to the duke. Jane knew that she’d been wondering where Henry was. The time was long overdue to tell her what had happened, but how to winkle her away from the persistent lord at her side, that was the problem. Jane was quite
determined
not to confess her brother’s sins in front of the man who was trying so openly to take his place!

She had no chance to approach Blanche for the moment, however, for she was claimed from Charles by an extremely large and slightly merry general, who wouldn’t take no for an answer where the cotillion was concerned. Since he was an old friend of her family, Jane felt obliged to accept, and so stepped back onto the floor to join one of the sets.

As the cotillion progressed, she saw Lewis and Alicia together for the first time. They were descending the steps into the ballroom, and Alicia was
leaning
clingingly on his arm, her lovely face turned toward him. He bent his head to say something and Alicia laughed. Jane had to look away, unable to bear watching their easy intimacy.

For the next hour she had no chance to go to Blanche, and she was forced to endure numerous glimpses of Lewis and his mistress. They danced together all the time, thus breaking one of the cardinal rules of etiquette, for it simply wasn’t done for a lady to devote her attention to just one partner. Jane tried not to think about them, concentrating instead upon the problem of how to get Blanche on her own to tell her about Henry, but that
seemingly
simple task was proving quite impossible. The Duke of Dursley didn’t leave her side to begin with, and besides, Jane was herself besieged by a succession of gentlemen anxious to dance with her. There was an elderly great-uncle who kept asking her where Henry was, and a dashing young guards officer who thought himself so much the thing that he talked of nothing else, to say nothing of the various friends and husbands of friends who whirled her onto the floor for a seemingly endless round of landlers, contredanses, cotillions, polonaises, and waltzes. Time ticked relentlessly on, and not once was she able to draw Blanche aside to explain Henry’s absence, or offer the fast-diminishing consolation that he might still arrive.

Just before supper was to be served in the adjoining room, Charles at last
managed to claim Jane again, leading her onto the floor for the lancers, the new dance which had reached London from Wales only the previous summer, and which had already become all the rage. It was fashionable to try and outshine everyone else in the five separate figures, so the floor was more crowded than ever, the crush being so great that Jane wondered if the master-of-ceremonies would have to send some people off, but the dance began, and practically everyone was soon moving to the music.

As she danced, Jane noticed that for once Alicia was not dancing with Lewis but with Lord Sefton, the fifty-year-old leading light of the Four-
in-Hand
Club, and the gentleman who had agreed to supervise the
forthcoming
Midsummer Day race to Brighton. Bluff and jovial, he wasn’t the most elegant of dancers. Glancing around, Jane wondered who Lewis was with, and then she saw that he’d managed to winkle Blanche away from the duke. The two seemed to be engaged in deep conversation, and soon left the floor, sitting on a sofa to continue their talk. Lewis seemed concerned, Jane thought, and even as she thought it he rose to his feet, looking around the crowded floor as if searching for someone in particular. That someone was evidently Jane herself, for his gaze became steady the moment he saw her. He seemed far from pleased about something.

The dance ended and supper was announced, but as Jane and Charles began to make their way with everyone else toward the adjoining room, Lewis paused for the briefest of moments to whisper something to Alicia before making his way through the crowd toward them.

‘Jane, I must speak with you. In private.’

She halted in surprise, and Charles looked less than pleased. ‘I say, Ardenley …’ he began coolly, but Lewis interrupted him.

‘You’ve every right to feel affronted, Charles; but this is very important. Jane?’

Jane nodded then, smiling apologetically at Charles. ‘Forgive me, Charles, I shall not be long. If there’s any of that caviar, please save some for me.’

He inclined his head a little stiffly and relinquished her hand to Lewis. ‘I don’t take kindly to this, Ardenley, not in view of all that’s happened.’

Lewis’s clear, gray eyes rested on him for a moment, but he said nothing more, drawing Jane’s hand through his arm and leading her away. ‘Shall we adjourn to the garden?’ he suggested quietly.

She halted close to the nearest French window, where the cool air breathed in from the terrace, and where there were very few people because nearly everyone had gone to sample the supper. ‘Can’t it be said here?’ she asked, remembering his public snub of earlier and not having any intention of allowing him further opportunity to hurt her.

‘No, Jane, it can’t, since I’ve no desire at all to be overheard. And before you gain the wrong impression, let me assure you that what I have to say concerns Blanche and not our own differences.’ His hand was firm on her
elbow as he virtually steered her out into the darkness, where the light from countless colored lanterns cast soft pastel shades over the terrace and the gardens beyond.

He led her across the cool grass to a little gazebo by a lily pond, and there he turned her to face him. ‘What do you know about Henry’s whereabouts tonight?’

The garden lights reflected in her eyes as she looked at him in surprise. ‘I – I think he’s in Brighton,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation.

He gave a slightly disbelieving laugh. ‘So, you
do
know!’

‘Why do you say it like that?’

‘Because I didn’t think you’d be so cruel as to leave Blanche in the dark about it, that’s why!’ he snapped. ‘I thought better of you, Jane. Isn’t Blanche supposed to be your dear friend? How could you leave her
expecting
to see him at any moment? I haven’t told her anything, it isn’t my place to do so, but you should tell her immediately!’

She drew back a little, at once angry and hurt at his harsh tone. ‘Condemn me if you wish, sir, but don’t presume to know my every thought. It so happens that I’ve made a number of attempts to speak to her alone, to explain, but all of them failed, and anyway, Henry could indeed walk in at any moment!’

He stared at her. ‘How can you possibly say that?’

‘Because it’s true… isn’t it?’ She searched his face then, realizing that he knew something she didn’t. ‘What is it, Lewis? Why are you so sure he won’t be here tonight?’

‘Because he told me he was staying overnight in Brighton when I spoke to him earlier today.’

Now it was her turn to stare, and to accuse. ‘You
saw
him? Lewis, why on earth didn’t you remind him about the ball?’

‘Because he gave me no opportunity. He was waiting at my house when I returned after leaving you. He brushed aside my reminder that he’d deserted you – he was interested only in a new development concerning the race. It seems that when Chapman accosted him this morning, he wagered a great deal of money that the Nonpareil would outrun the Iron Duke. It’s not merely a race now, Jane, it has a fortune resting upon it. Because of this, Henry wants the best bloodstock available to pull his coach, and so he approached me about it, because my estate at Maywood lies, as you well know, directly on the Brighton road, and because there aren’t any finer horses in the realm than those in my stables. I refused to help him, since I think stagecoach racing the end in foolhardy practices, and since I happen to agree with you that he’s already devoting far too much time and
attention
to his ribbons when it’s Blanche he should be thinking about. He left in rather high dudgeon, and it was as he was driving off that he said he’d be in Brighton overnight if I happened to change my mind. I called him back, but you know how he springs that damned highflyer of his; he was gone in a
trice and I doubt if he heard.’

Jane turned away. ‘My every instinct told me he wouldn’t be here tonight, but I still kept hoping against hope that he’d prove me wrong.’

‘Forgive me for speaking so harshly to you, Jane, but when I was with Blanche and it seemed so obvious that she still thought he was coming, I thought … well, it doesn’t really matter what I thought; I was evidently quite wrong and spoke very much out of turn.’

She was silent for a moment, the gentler note in his voice unnoticed as she wondered anew how to tell Blanche. ‘What am I going to say to her, Lewis? She’s going to be horridly upset and it will ruin her evening! Oh, I shall never forgive Henry for this, never!’

‘Perhaps you would find it easier if I accompany you? After all, I’m the one who can say beyond a doubt that he’s staying in Brighton and that you didn’t know.’

She gave him a suspicious look. ‘Why are you being so helpful and
agreeable
? It’s totally out of character.’

‘It isn’t totally out of character, you just choose to think that it is. I’m offering because it seems the right thing to do, especially after I spoke so rudely to you earlier.’

‘Ah, so it’s your conscience. Tell me, sir, is that the only thing your conscience weighs so heavily about?’ She couldn’t help the taunt. Would he protest his innocence again as he had before?

He met her gaze. ‘Yes, Jane, it is, since I have nothing else about which to feel even remotely guilty. You’ve been in the wrong all along. Now then, shall I come with you?’

She wanted to take him up on it so much, but for the moment Blanche was more important. ‘To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if I can bring myself to tell her anything, not now that I know Henry’s gone so far as to actually stay in Brighton.’

‘Something has to be said to her.’

She nodded unhappily. ‘I know. But what?’

‘A white lie of some sort?’

‘I suppose so. Can you think of anything?’

‘You said that with the firm conviction of one who believes beyond a doubt that untruths are second nature to me.’

‘Aren’t they?’

‘To go into that would be to digress quite considerably from the matter in hand.’

‘And would focus a most unwelcome spotlight upon the deviousness of your character,’ she added.

‘A spotlight upon
you
, madam, would reveal a preponderance of rather ridiculous and misplaced pride, but I don’t think we’ll go into that either. Now then, since the object of all this is to spare Blanche’s feelings, and since we can hardly disguise the fact that dear Henry has removed himself to
Brighton for the night, the only thing I can suggest is that we tell Blanche that he had had every intention of being here by, er, midnight,’ he glanced at his fob watch, ‘but that since that hour has now passed and there’s still no sign of him, we can only deduce that he has been unavoidably detained on some pressing matter. It’s the truth, and yet not the truth, the perfect white lie.’