“Lady Bellingham is never one to be put off,” Eliza said as her mistress straightened a flounce in her old gown and patted her hair into place. She thought fleetingly, and with no regret, of Harry’s old breeches folded out of sight at the bottom of her trunk. Her disreputable leather hat she had carefully hidden with her fishing pole in a dark recess of the stable.
Kate made her way down the carpeted hallway to Lady Bellingham’s sitting room and tapped lightly on the door. She heard a muffled “Come in!” and opened the door to see her hostess pacing back and forth in obvious agitation, her brow puckered and her plump, beringed hands clasped to her bosom.
“Ma’am? What’s the matter? What can I do?”
“Oh, my dear Kate. Do come in, child, yes, come right in and sit over here on this chair. That’s right. Your new gowns have arrived. Madame Giselle has performed marvels with the materials we selected. Just look at the evening gown, my dear.”
Kate was perfectly willing to be distracted at the sight of all those wonderful boxes. She opened them with great enthusiasm, tossing the silver tissue paper about as she unearthed her clothes. There was a severely cut gold-velvet riding habit with a plumed, high-poked hat to match, a morning gown of soft yellow muslin with laced frocking, and the most beautiful dress she had ever beheld, a pale-blue-velvet evening gown, fashioned high in the back in the Russian style, with plunging neckline and long, fitted sleeves sewn with tiny seed pearls on the cuffs. Kate drew the gown from its silver tissue paper and held it in front of her.
“My love, it suits you to perfection. How very elegant you will be tonight, to be sure.”
“Tonight?” Kate ceased her exuberant pirouette and looked at her hostess.
Lady Bellingham refused to meet her eyes.
“What is happening tonight, ma’am?”
Lady Bellingham sat heavily down on a settee and began to wring her hands.
“My dear ma’am, whatever is the matter?” Kate quickly sat down beside her and captured her fluttering hands in her own.
Lady Bellingham embarked on a somewhat tangled explanation of what she had unwittingly let slip, “Oh, dear, I hadn’t intended— that is, dear child, of course I was going to tell you. The earl, you know—”
Slowly Kate pulled her hands away. So that was why Lady Bellingham appeared so very upset. The good lady didn’t have to finish, for Kate knew that tonight, dressed in her beautiful new gown, she was to be escorted by the earl of March to some occasion. Did Lady Bellingham think her dim-witted? From her first day in London, when her hostess had begun making oblique yet complimentary references to the earl of March, she had realized that it was he who was responsible for her presence here. She’d cursed her stupidity for not understanding from the first, when her father had been so adamant that she visit the fashionable Lady Bellingham, whose relationship to her own family was so tenuous as to be laughable. She hadn’t even known of the relationship until Sir Oliver brought it up. She had passed from shock at the earl’s sly maneuvering to outrage when she discovered that even the lowest scullery maid considered her all but betrothed to the earl. She felt even now, as she gazed with a hard look at Lady Bellingham’s crumpled features, that he had taken ruthless advantage of her. She had known that it was just a matter of time until he came to pay her court, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
“Kate, my dear, I realize that you and the earl have had some sort of misunderstanding. But surely you must see that your marriage to him would bring you the greatest advantages. Come, child, don’t be so upset.” Lord, how had she ever allowed Julien to embroil her in such a wretched tangle? She’d always had a weakness for the boy, and look where it had landed her.
Kate turned away, angry at herself for being such a fool and at the earl for placing her willy-nilly in such an untenable position. It was on the tip of her tongue to unleash her anger and frustration at Lady Bellingham, but she realized the good woman really had as little to say in the matter as she did.
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