“No, but at Almack’s,” she began.
“At Almack’s, you had thinly sliced bread with a whisper of butter or some crumbly cake to revive you when famished. This will be a proper dinner for two-hundred and fifty.”
“Gracious!” said Miss Bright.
“I told you it would be smaller than Almack’s. Are you disappointed by the number of guests?”
“Quite the contrary,” she said. “I am amazed that anyone has that many chairs.”
MIRANDA TRIED NOT TO let her mouth drop open, nor to stare at any one thing for too long. Breadalbane House, the largest of the three houses fronting Park Lane, was everything Almack’s was not. When Miranda had approached the latter with her sister, she’d seen an unassuming building, and the interior truthfully had not been much better.
The Earl of Breadalbane’s home at Number Twenty-One, however, was impressive from the outside through to its elegant interior. A large brick façade with stone accents welcomed her on Lord Mercer’s arm with Aunt Lucinda walking behind. The entrance hall was filled with flowers, and Miranda felt as if she were transported to another realm.
Just beyond the foyer, a large circular staircase, itself decorated with garlands of white roses and laurel leaves, brought them up to a chain of three assembly rooms in which other guests were already sauntering from one to the next. The third of these, a drawing room, was the largest with an elaborately plastered ceiling.
Miranda was fairly fizzing inside, staring up at the meticulously painted central panel with blue sky, clouds, and cherubs, committing it to memory. When she finally lowered her eyes, everywhere that there was fabric, whether upon a chair or a window dressing, it was white damask.
“How on earth can it be kept clean?” Miranda wondered, thinking of the dust and ever-present soot.
Lord Mercer laughed. “I cannot imagine.”
“I think it is one of the finest houses I have ever been in,” Miranda confessed, ogling the gilded mirrors which made the room brighter and larger, as well as the fine paintings, the sculptures, the bronzes, and otherobjets d'arton pedestals either prominently displayed or tucked into alcoves.
Servers came by with trays of glasses.
“Not lemonade,” Miranda guessed as Lord Mercer handed her one as well as to her aunt. They each sipped. “Definitely not Almack’s. I am thrilled to be here.”
“You fit in perfectly,” the baron told her. “Let me introduce you to people I know so you will be able to socialize with them and to accept dance partners.”
Miranda let him take her around the room for the next hour and a half to meet the quality folk of his world. The reaction was nearly always the same as both lords and ladies tried to figure out if she was anyone important.
By their expressions, they were puzzled at her being with Lord Mercer, even when she was identified as a magistrate’s daughter. Doubtless, they didn’t consider that enough to warrant her entrance into high society on the arm of a well-liked wealthy baron who was also a revered army officer.
After they’d gone halfway around the room, she would swear she could hear murmurings in their wake.
“Are we causing a stir, my lord?”
“Not to worry,” he said. “The women wonder what type of threat you may be, and the men hope you don’t have your heart set on me because they want to have a chance with you.”
Miranda laughed. “And the truth is neither. I am obviously no threat to these ladies, and despite a room full of gentlemen, my heart is firmly my own.”
In fact, no one else in the room came close to measuring up to the dashing major. She could hardly believe he was her escort.
“You may give your heart away before the Season ends,” came her aunt’s voice from behind. Miranda had nearly forgotten her.
Both she and Lord Mercer startled at her aunt’s words before stopping at the next small group. By the time the musicians began playing, her head was spinning with faces and with names, mostly titled, many she’d read in the gossip columns of the newspapers delivered daily to her home.
Oddly, now that she could put faces to the familiar monikers, they seemed like regular people, or as regular as those who held most of the country’s wealth could be. True, they wore the finest silks and satins and dripped in jewels, and that was just the men. The women were equally togged in fashionable twig, while also sporting feather aigrettes and waving fans around as if directing an orchestra.
Yet up close, Miranda could see how utterly ordinary they were. She had expected them to be glowing with some noble light. Instead, despite how each heaped a helping of flummery upon one another, Miranda had seen more good-looking people working at the Covent Garden stalls, and that was no lie.
As the baron had predicted, it was past eleven when the first notes of “The White Cockade” caused them all to take their places under the brilliantly lit chandeliers. Lord Mercer made sure she was in the right spot. Miranda would swear he was the most striking gentleman there, and the most thoughtful.
The Earl of Breadalbane and Lady Ann Cantrell led the rest of the dancers at the front of the procession. Miranda was pleased for the dancing lessons her father had pushed upon her and Grace in preparation for Almack’s. While she was not perfect, nor did she make a fool of herself. She was in fact concentrating on not making a misstep when a hurrah went up from the crowd.
Glancing around, she immediately bumped into the back of the woman in front of her as they crisscrossed the floor.
“What’s happening?” Miranda asked Lord Mercer after she recovered her place.
