Before Bess could be drawn into the same argument Lucy had instigated with her sister many times, the carriage came to a stop.
“Oh, Lucy,” Bess clutched her charge's hand. “Please, please promise me not to talk about The Gentle Rogue this evening. He is not a proper topic of conversation.”
And moreover, Lucy’s opinions on the gentleman highwayman were not the sort to endear her to the rest of the Beau Monde.
“Of course he isn't proper,” Lucy grumbled. “None of the interesting topics are. Yes, yes, all right. Don't worry, Bess. I won't waste this chance. I know how much everyone is sacrificing in order for me to be here.”
The brave little lift of Lucy's chin broke Bess's heart, a bit. “Oh, Lucy. It's all for you. So that you can take your rightful place, the place you were born to, if you want it.”
“I don't want it,” Lucy said decisively, gathering her skirts as the tiger jumped down from his perch behind the box to open the door for them. “But I know no one believes me, so let's just get this over with, shall we?”
It wasn’t hard to believe Lucy didn’t care about her place in society—but the chance to meet a gentleman she could fall in love with and wed? Surely most women wanted that. Or had Bess simply assumed Lucy must want that since, well…Bess did?
Beyond love and companionship, there was practicality to consider. As the duke had already demonstrated, he had no legal obligation to care for Lucy. And Lucy had no inheritance, no dowry, no income. If she didn’t make a good match, of course Gemma and Hal would always take care of her—but she would become a dependent.
As Bess had been when her parents and Davy died.
Depending on the kindness and generosity of others for her livelihood. For her home. For her life.
No. Much better for Lucy to make her debut, find a husband, and settle down. And tonight was the culmination of all their efforts in that direction.
Bess followed her young charge out of the carriage, nimbly avoiding the piles of refuse and horse manure that littered the streets just before the gates of the enormous red brick mansion squatting at the northeast corner of Berkeley Square.
The place was lit like a bonfire, tall windows pouring light out into the streets and gilding the white columns that bordered the entry. Bess's gaze took in the thronged walkway leading to the wide steps up to the front door, which was thrown open to welcome the evening’s revelers.
No one appeared to take much notice of them as they made their way up the steps and into the foyer of the house, but Bess felt the cold prickle of nervous sweat at her hairline. What if their names weren’t on the guest list? What if the stooped butler she could see standing at the end of the hallway, directing the flow of milling guests, wouldn’t let them pass? What if the Duke of Ashbourn wasn’t there to greet them?
Drat the man, how could he have left them to navigate this without him?
Bess did not allow herself to examine the buzz of anticipation she experienced at the thought of seeing the duke...of him seeing her in this improbably, unreasonably dazzling gown. A gown that fit her as though she’d been melted and poured into it because he’d given such perfect measurements to the dressmaker.
He’d looked at her, studied her, enough to know the exact proportions of her body.
And tonight, he would see her as he’d desired to see her—displaying the fine plumage of a lady. What would he think? What would he say? How would he look, when he saw her?
If she thought about it too much, it felt as if she’d swallowed a bit of honeycomb with the bees still inside.
Without fully intending it, she concocted a breathless image of herself paused at the top of the staircase, one hand resting delicately upon the balustrade, as all eyes below turned to regard her with admiration. And Ashbourn would lock eyes with her across the room and then?—
Then what? She flushed, embarrassed at her own silly fantasies.
You’re being ridiculous, she lectured herself. He is a duke. You are a nobody—worse than a nobody, a servant! This is a man who cannot forgive his stepmother, all these years later, for the unforgivable crime of being his nursemaid before she married his father.
But he was also a man Bess had witnessed struggling to do the right thing, a man of deep feeling, though he seemed not to know it.
They reached the butler, an elderly white man with an impressive set of muttonchops, who looked them up and down with a gimlet gaze that said he would not hesitate to expel anyone not on his guest list.
Bess gulped. But when she gave him their names, his supercilious expression magically melted into a restrained smile of welcome. “Ah yes, her ladyship is expecting you. Right this way, my lady, I will see that you are announced properly.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Lucy tried to protest, but the butler was having none of it. He whisked them past the line of guests waiting to be received by the hostess, who was stationed at the top of a short flight of red-carpeted stairs leading down to the ballroom.
Bess caught her breath at the sight of the dancers whirling about the floor, the men in stark black and white contrasting with the ladies in their colorful finery. The strains of a waltz floated down from the band of musicians playing from a balcony overlooking the ballroom.
A particularly throbbing chord from the violins tinkled the crystal teardrops suspended from the blazing chandelier. Sprays of lilac and clusters of wisteria burst from huge vases dotted about the room, adding their heady sweetness to the night breeze floating in from the French doors, which were thrown open to the terrace overlooking the back garden.
So enchanting was the scene, Bess barely noticed as the butler bowed to a lady with a towering pompadour of salt-white hair peppered with tiny gems that twinkled blood red when she inclined her regal head. The gems matched the deep red silk of Lady Devensham’s evening gown, trimmed with extravagant inches of blond lace and embroidered round the lower third of the skirts with a fruit and flower motif that included roses, apples, and something Bess had never seen in real life but thought from her reading might be a pomegranate.
“Lady Lucy Lively,” the butler intoned, “and chaperone.”
