Miss Westlake's Windfall (20 page)

Before they could leave Tess had to make sure their butler understood his instructions, should Leo and Emery arrive. If Mr. Tobin was not too tired, he was to put on the costume Tess had laid out for him in the spare guest bedroom, figuring that Leo would come to Westlake Hall first, to deliver Emery. Then Leo was to come fetch Tess and Ada at the Meadows. After a brief appearance, which could be none too brief for Lady Ashmead, they could hurry home to Emery, leaving the others to enjoy the rest of the ball. Old Cobble rubbed his bald head. He thought he could remember, all right. Hadn’t Miss Tess repeated the orders five times over?

They were off. Ada tried not to chew on her lip while they drove to Chas’s house, for what kind of princess had so little confidence? She prayed for enough backbone—or Tess’s trident—not to collapse if he did announce his betrothal, as the neighborhood expected.

When they reached the door, which was opened ceremoniously by two liveried footmen, they were greeted by a host of other maids and footmen.

“Who’s the cove in the hallway dressed like an MP?” Algernon whispered while they handed over their wraps.

“That’s Epps, his lordship’s butler,” Ada told him, smiling at her old acquaintance and accepting his compliments on her gown. Epps kept his eyes averted from the rest of the party.

Since this was a masked ball, Lady Ashmead had dispensed with a receiving line but, since she was still Lady Ashmead, each guest was to be announced at the entrance to the ballroom. They were not, naturally, expected to give their own names.

“The Lady in Blue,” Epps announced, thumping his staff on the floor for attention. “Or out of it,” he muttered to himself. “And Mr. Waistcoat.”

He rapped his staff on the floor again after Tess whispered in his ear. “The most revealed—er, revered—Sirenia, the Sea Goddess.”

When the room was hushed once more, Epps intoned: “Her royal highness, Princess Pretty of Pitsaponia.”

He looked back and dropped his staff altogether. Algernon had decided that Robin Hood was too tame by half. Not willing to give up his bow and arrow, though, he’d taken the classical route. A sheet, some high-laced sandals, and a woven band of greenery was all it took.

“Cu—Cu—” the butler choked, while Algernon prodded him with his bow. Epps gave up. “Eros, by Zeus.”

“I always thought Eros was the Roman chap. Ought to be by Jupiter, eh?”

Algernon ought to be drawn and quartered. If this was Love, Ada thought, mortified, no wonder there were so many arranged marriages. Eros with skinny shanks and spots? Cupid with no wings, no chin, and no aim? Love with such low intellect? Heaven help them all, and Algernon Johnstone when she got her hands on him.

Ada was never so happy to wear a mask. She wanted to slink away into a corner so no one noticed she was with the gangly, gawky gosling. She wanted to curl up behind one of the giant ferns Lady Ashmead had placed around the ballroom floor so no one recognized her as the hairy-kneed halfwit’s relation. She need not have bothered, for no one noticed her or the dunderheaded deity. Every eye in the room was on Jane or Tess. The dancers started bumping into each other and the orchestra musicians started playing the wrong notes. A servant with a tray of wineglasses walked right into one of the ferns.

Lady Ashmead clapped her hands together like an Oriental potentate, beckoning their party to the raised dais where she was holding court. The viscountess was not in costume, but she was definitely in her element, finding fault with everyone. For once she did not have a piece of needlework in her lap, having exchanged her embroidery for a long-handled lorgnette. She surveyed the Westlake party through it as they traversed the miles-long—it seemed to Ada—distance across the ballroom.

As they walked, slowly, to accommodate Tess’s fluttering, frond
-
like trails of gauze, and Jane’s mincing steps, Ada got a chance to look around. She noticed Chas instantly, partnering a diminutive shepherdess in tiered layers of lace petticoats no farm girl could ever have afforded. Lady Esther looked like a wedding cake, while Viscount Ashmead looked like ... like ... Ada could not think of a comparison. He simply took her breath away. His face was nearly healed, except for a reddish spot on one cheek. He looked magnificent!

Somehow his mother had coerced him into orange doublet and dark hose, under the richly embroidered surcoat. Nothing could show his broad shoulders or fine, muscular legs to greater advantage. Ada had to keep herself from staring at those limbs a lady was never supposed to notice, limbs that made Algernon’s spindly stalks look like insect appendages. Chas’s dark hair was combed down, over his ears instead of back, giving him a courtly appearance, like a true parfait gentil knight of poetry, of romance, of girlhood dreams.

Tess had to tug on Ada’s arm before she came to a total halt on the dance floor. They continued on toward their hostess. Ada made an effort to study the room so she could compliment Lady Ashmead: the floral swags, the swathes of silk, the viscount’s legs. Heavens, the heavy crown was muddling her mind! That must be it.

Ada nodded toward the vicar, whose only disguise was a scarlet face, but Ada could not tell if he wore such a blush for the sake of his rejected proposal, or for her sister’s immodest appearance. Squire Hocking made her party a self-conscious bow, before turning back to his wife. Masks were their only effort at costumes, but since he wore an orchid in his boutonniere, and she wore one at her breast, no one was baffled as to their identities. Others of the company waved or bowed or curtsied, and a few of the gentlemen dared to ask Tess or Jane for dances. Only Lieutenant Nye approached Ada, to remind her of their promised set. The riding officer was garbed as a jester, an unfortunate choice, in Ada’s estimation.

Then they were at the dais, bowing as if before royalty. The silence was awesome as Lady Ashmead inspected her neighbors through the looking glass.

“You, sir, are excused to the card room,” she told Uncle Filbert. “Try not to lose your shirt, only that abominable waistcoat.”

She pointed the lorgnette at Algernon. “As for you, I should send you to the nursery where you belong, but you’d likely move in and I’d have you on my hands for the next ten years. Go have some punch in the refreshments room. With any luck, you’ll pass out under a table and we won’t have to look at your knock knees.” Algernon bowed, blew her a cheeky kiss, and left.

Jane stepped forward, simpering about the graciousness of the invitation, the grandeur of the setting, the glorious time they were all sure to have.

“You mean the gentlemen. Go.” As Jane flounced off on the arm of a masked cavalier, Lady Ashmead muttered, “Bachelor fare, more bosom than brains.”

Then it was Jess’s turn. “Speaking of lightskirts, what are you supposed to be, missy, some kind of mermaid?”

“Sirenia, madam, of Sebastian and the Sea Goddess, my epic poem, soon to be a book and an opera.” Not cowed at all, having survived many a lecture from Lady Ashmead, Tess spoke loudly enough for those nearby to hear, and hopefully remember.

“Humph. Sebastian, sea bastard, it’s one and the same. At least your smuggler had sense enough to stay away.”

Before Jane could say something unfortunate, Ada put in, “He is kindly fetching my brother back from Portsmouth for us.”

Lady Ashmead snorted again and tapped Tess’s nearly bare shoulder with her looking glass. “Well, if that outfit’s art, I’ll eat my hat.” Her hat was a purple turban, with a diamond pinned to the side.

“Start munching, Mother, for I find the goddess exquisite.”

Chas had returned from the dance floor, Lady Esther on his arm. The little shepherdess happily reclaimed her lamb, a stuffed creature on wheels, with ribbons and flowers around its fleecy neck, to match those that trailed from Lady Esther’s straw bonnet. Lady Ashmead had adamantly refused to permit a live farm animal in her ballroom, no matter how much the heiress was worth.

Followed by a flock of young gentlemen baa-ing for her next dance, Lady Esther gaily wheeled her lamb off to the row of gilded chairs where her chaperone was napping. Chas did not even watch her go. He winked at Ada instead, begging her to laugh with him at the absurdity.

How lovely of him to protect Tess from another social disaster, Ada thought. And how delightful of him to ignore the heiress. She smiled back, at which he bowed toward Tess.

“I fear your divinity is too awesome for this poor mortal, goddess, but may I make you known to Apollo here as a suitable dance partner?” He whispered in her ear as the toga-clad gentleman bowed: “Rich as Croesus, my girl, and a shareholder at Covent Garden.”

Tess floated off on the arm of the sun god, describing her grand opus.

Chas swept Ada a low, hand-flourishing bow. “Might a poor knight pay his devoirs to a princess, or is that aiming too high still?”

Ada curtsied to the ground. “Prithee, Sir Knight, rise, that I might know thy name.”

“My name? I hadn’t thought of—” He looked down at the family insignia stitched on his tunic, the winged lion and roses. “Sir Sewsalot.”

His mother rapped his knuckles with her looking glass, but Ada replied, “A worthy name for a worthy knight.”

“Worthy enough for a dance, Highness?”

Ada handed him two fingers, which he raised to his mouth in the courtly manner, but he kissed her fingers, rather than the air above them, then led her toward the dance area.

“Would you mind if we strolled a bit instead of taking our places in the set? I, ah, have to make sure everything is ready in the supper room.”

“As if your servants wouldn’t have everything in train.”

Chas smiled, showing his even white teeth, and squeezed her hand where it rested on his arm. “But look, dear heart, they are forming lines for the dance. We’d never get to talk, what with changing partners for the next half hour. It’s been so long since we’ve had a moment alone.”

Forever, it seemed to Ada, who would have followed him to the ends of the earth for one of those heart-warming smiles, much less the supper room, which ought to be empty enough at this time of the evening for them to share a kiss.

It was and they did, before the footmen came in to start filling the tables with trays of lobster patties and oysters. Chas led her toward the windows, damning the cold air that kept them from the gardens, the dark, empty gardens.

Out of hearing of the servants, if not quite out of sight, the viscount stroked Ada’s soft brown curls where they tumbled down her shoulders. Ada had argued with Tess that, if she had to wear the heavy crown, she would wear her hair loose. She was glad she’d won the argument when Chas said, “I’ve been longing to do this since you walked through the door.”

She brushed a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “Me too.”

“You should always wear your hair loose like this.”

“Silly, you know that would not be at all the thing.”

“Surely a princess can make her own rules, can’t she? What is the point of being royalty if you cannot have your wish?”

“Alas, I am only a make-believe princess, Sir Sewsalot.”

He bent his head to kiss her again, saying, “Not to me, you’re not.”

Just as their lips would have met—or Ada would have demanded an explanation of those breathtaking words—they heard a commotion behind them. As they separated and turned, a small, frothy figure hurtled through the room and into Chas’s arms, weeping against his chest and wailing: “He thot my theep!”

Chapter Twenty-two

“This time I really am going to murder him.”

Chas awkwardly patted the sobbing shepherdess on the back. “You will have to get on line.” Lud, if Ada had not been here, the crowd of guests who rushed after Lady Esther into the supper room would have found her in his arms, alone. He’d be betrothed before the beauty’s next bleat. He did not think Lady Esther had planned to entrap him; he did not think she had enough in her brain box to plan such a scheme. Still, the viscount set her aside none too gently and strode across the room to where half his mother’s company was now clustered. Lord Ashmead plucked one sheepish-looking sprig in a sheet out of the herd and dangled him in the air.

“You, sir, are a disgrace. You will get on your knees and apologize to the lady.”

Unfortunately, when Algernon bent down, the guests behind him could see that the clunch was wearing as much under his short sheet as a Scotsman wore under his kilts. The ladies started screaming again. This time Chas grabbed up Algie’s bow and snapped it in his hands, then every arrow in the quivering Cupid’s quiver. “Your neck is next, you blithering buffoon, if you are not out of my sight in five seconds.”

Algernon was gone in four, in such a hurry that the sheet billowed out, offering another view of less than heroic proportions.

The men were swearing, holding their hands over their ladies’ eyes, and the women were squealing, between peeks.

Lady Esther was still weeping. Lud, Chas thought, her sheep would drown if it weren’t already dead, stuffed, and skewered. Then he looked at Ada, standing nearby with her hands over her mouth and her shoulders shaking. The wretch was giggling! Chas tried to look stern, telling her to behave like a lady, like the other tearful, littery chits. Then he realized, no, he did not want his Ada to be like the other starched-up females who never saw the absurdities of polite society. He liked her very well, just the way she was. Besides, he could hardly hold back his own hilarity. They both started laughing out loud, to be joined by an uncertain chuckle here and there, then a general cheer of merriment.

“They are not laughing at me, are they?” Lady Esther looked up at him with sky-blue eyes awash in tears, lower lip atremble.

“Never, my dear. Who would laugh at such an angel?” Chas patted her arm again, very much as he would pat his dog, and directed the servants to serve the champagne. As the footmen handed glasses around, and Epps poured the sparkling wine, Chas called for a toast.

The glass fell out of Ada’s suddenly numbed fingers. He was going to do it. Chas was going to announce his engagement to the heiress
—to the angel, she corrected herself. She felt like one of Algernon’s broken arrows.