"You see?" she said to Vera. "He did not forget us. That proves that he is not an entirely selfish man. And he was kind enough to procure you an invitation too, Vera."
"I find the very fact that he acted so soon ominous," Vera replied calmly. "Do have a care, Georgie. That man is dangerous."
Georgiana prepared with special care for the evening. With the exception of the dinner party at Chartleigh, it was a positive age since she had been to any very glittering entertainment. Making one's debut during the Season really did spoil one, she reflected. One assumed that life for a girl past schoolroom age was always like that, a constant round of exciting activities.
She had her hair cropped and curled close to her head. She had a new gown of peach satin and lace made and spent a whole morning on Bond Street with Gloria choosing slippers and gloves and a fan. She was going to be quite dazzling, she decided, even if there were very few people to see her.
Ralph liked her new hairstyle. He looked a little dubious when he first saw it. She was in the drawing room drinking tea with his mother.
"Georgiana!" he said. "All your lovely hair is gone."
"Don't you like it?" she asked. "It is very fashionable, you know."
"Let me have a good look," he said, crossing the room to her and taking her chin in his hand. He spent several moments examining her head. "Yes," he said at last with a smile, "it does suit you, dear. I like it."
"I almost fainted dead away when I saw what she had done," his mother said from behind him. "Such a boyish look might be passable for a very young and foolish girl, but perhaps a countess should cultivate a more dignified image, would you not say, Ralph? Chartleigh would never have tolerated any unladylike appearance in me."
Georgiana kept her eyes on Ralph's. They smiled back at her. His hand was still beneath her chin.
"Boyish?" he said. "No, I think not, Mama. Elfin, perhaps. And very pretty. And remember that my wife is indeed very young, though not, I think, foolish. And this Chartleigh will not tolerate her being made to feel obliged to behave older than her years."
He spoke very pleasantly and quietly. Yet Georgiana's eyes widened in surprise. It was the closest she had ever heard him come to defying his mother. And he had done it in her defense. A few minutes later Ralph was obliged to ring for the dowager's maid to help her to her room. She had one of her frequent headaches.
Ralph came to her room when she was ready to leave for the party. She was turning in front of the pier glass, trying to see how the scalloped hem of her gown would look if she were twirling in the dance. She stopped in some confusion when he entered. She had not expected him. He rarely entered her room.
"You do look lovely," he said as she was appreciating his own appearance, quite resplendent in gold and brown. "I had hoped your gown would be a suitable color."
As Georgiana raised her eyebrows in inquiry, he drew a long box from behind his back and held it out to her.
"For me?" she asked.
"I bought it for you this afternoon," he said. "I do hope you like it."
Georgiana found a single strand of pearls inside the box. She looked up at the eager, boyish face close to her own. "They are lovely, Ralph," she said. "Thank you. Whatever made you think of buying them for me?"
"I realized that I had not bought you a gift since our wedding," he said. "It was remiss of me. I am not used to pleasing a lady."
She held the box out to him and turned her back when he lifted the pearls from their satin resting place. He put the pearls around her neck and she bent her head for him to secure the clasp. He rested his hands on the bare skin of her shoulders after completing the task. Georgiana put up her own hands and patted his lightly. He put his arms right around her from behind and drew her against him.
Georgiana was touched by the gift. She felt a rush of warm affection for her husband. But she was on her way to a party with a new gown and a new hairstyle. She was not at that moment thinking of love or passion or even the lamentably sexless state of her marriage.
"Oh, do have a care, Ralph," she said quite good-humoredly. "You will crease my sash, and I shall ruin that neckcloth your valet must have sweated over for half an hour."
He let her go immediately and without a word. She examined her pearls eagerly in the mirror, fingering them in admiration, turned to pick up her wrap and her fan from a chair, and gave Ralph a smile bright with affection as she preceded him from the room. By that time he had erased his expression of deep hurt. She was quite unaware of the way he had winced as he released his hold on her.
The party turned out to be not nearly the squeeze that Georgiana was used to, but nevertheless she found herself flushed with enjoyment after the first hour. There was dancing, and Georgiana loved to dance. Ralph partnered her for the opening set of country dances, and she found as she had at Chartleigh that he was a graceful partner. She felt almost regretful when Stanley came to claim her for the second set.
Georgiana found her brother-in-law quite a trial. He was actually older than she by four months, but he seemed years younger. She did not doubt that in a few years' time he would be quite a gay young blade, but his attempts now to be worldly-wise were merely ludicrous. At least he no longer made a fool of himself by trying to flirt with her as he had at first. She had given the poor boy a freezing set-down four days after their return from Chartleigh and felt sorry for him all of an hour afterward.
She waited with some impatience for the arrival of Lord Beauchamp. She might have known that he would be fashionably late, she thought as she saw him finally, standing with languid grace in the doorway, surveying the gathering. And she noted with some glee that he put all the other men quite in the shade, except perhaps Ralph, his ice-blue satin coat and knee breeches and snowy white linen and lace in marked contrast to the darkness of his hair. Georgiana noticed these facts with almost clinical detachment. She did not feel a tremor. She was not at all interested in falling in love with the man.
He crossed the ballroom to talk to Ralph, who was in conversation with two other men, and then to the dowager, over whose hand he bowed with grace. Finally he approached Georgiana. She had been waiting impatiently. Another set was about to form, and she had been hoping that no one else would solicit her hand.
"Ah," he said, bowing elegantly before her, "my cousin, the little countess. And easily the most lovely lady to grace this ballroom tonight."
Georgiana smiled dazzlingly. "You flatter, sir," she said. "Have you come to dance with me? I do hope so. I should hate to be a wallflower. And there is a shortage of men here. I fear the lure of cards has drawn some of them away."
"How could anyone be so ungallant and so blind to the charm they have abandoned?" Roger Beauchamp said. "May I have the honor, ma'am?"
