with more pearls. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to most of the other gaudily attired young ladies with their beads and feathers, rubies and emeralds.
It was late in the evening when she spied the Marquis of Longham, standing by himself just inside the door as if he had only then arrived. His pose was nonchalant, and Lydia, who was dancing a Chaîne Anglais with the Honourable Douglas Fincham, youngest son of the Earl of Boreton, was forced to admit to herself that his figure was made for tight jackets and close-fitting pantaloons. Not long before, these would not have been allowed at a ball, knee-breeches being the accepted dress, but now only Almack’s stuck to the old ways, and here was a man for whom the new fashions must have been made. His long-tailed black evening coat was exquisitely cut to his broad shoulders and narrow waist, while his black pantaloons served to outline muscular thighs that drew a sigh of admiration from many a débutante. Lydia told herself severely, but not very honestly, that she was immune.
‘For someone who don’t have a feather to fly with, he’s in prime twig,’ commented her partner, who considered himself no end of a fine fellow. He was very young and extremely chubby, like a round young puppy. His shoulders were padded and his waist corseted and his collar points scratched his cheeks whenever he moved his head. His enormous cravat was tied into an intricate pattern of loops and folds, while across his pink and yellow striped waistcoat hung a multitide of chains and fobs. Beside the elegantly clad Marquis, he looked a veritable macaroni. ‘But it don’t signify,’ he added. ‘Everyone knows his father is batty and has lost his fortune.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Lydia asked, forgetting her determination never to listen to gossip.
‘It is common knowledge,’ he said airily. ‘His creditors will be hammering on his door before the Season is out, unless he can find himself an heiress.’
‘And I think you would be wise to refrain from such scandal,’ she said sharply, making him redden from the wilting points of his collar to the roots of his fair hair. ‘He might call you out for it.’
‘Why, I set no store by Canterbury tales,’ he said, speedily recovering from this rebuke, having little imagination and an extraordinary idea of his own worth. If a young lady gave him a put-down, it only meant that he should try the harder to engage her attention.
Correctly judging his character, she set about teasing him so that by the time the dance ended and he returned her to her aunt he did not know whether to be elated or resentful. Aunt Aggie was in lively conversation with one of the dowagers who sat in regal splendour along the side of ballroom, making sweeping and quite scandalous statements about all and sundry, but she was attentive enough to look up at her niece with a humorous quirk of her brow and a flutter of her fan behind which she was heard to murmur, ‘A veritable pea-goose, my dear. Do send him about his business or he will cling like a leech.’
Lydia stifled a giggle but she was saved having to take her aunt’s advice because Douglas drifted off, and she joined Tom and Frank who stood near by waiting to claim their partners for the next dance. Frank had already stepped forward to stand before Miss Thornton, when Lady Thornton pushed herself between them and drew the Marquis towards her daughter.
‘Well, of all the put-downs!’ Lydia exclaimed, feeling very sorry for the dejected Frank, as he turned away to seek solace in the card-room while Amelia Thornton, pink of face, set off with the Marquis. ‘Lady Thornton is making a fool of herself with her daughter besides, throwing her at every unmarried man in the room from old Lord Winters who is sixty if he is a day to Douglas Fincham who was only yesterday taken out of short coats; the only thing they have in common is a title — or the expectation of one — and a fortune. As for the Marquis of Longham, I thought he had more sense than to be used in that fashion.’
‘He could hardly snub the poor girl by refusing,’ Tom said, reasonably. ‘That would have made matters worse.’
‘I feel sorry for poor Miss Thornton, for she will not be allowed to make up her own mind,’ Lydia went on, her own sense of justice making her admit Tom was right. ‘I’ll wager if I were to present myself as an eligible man, Lady Thornton would have me stand up with her.’
Tom turned to stare at her. ‘I say, Lydia, you wouldn’t dare,’ he said, then added, as he saw the gleam in his sister’s eye, ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
‘Why not?’ The sight of the Marquis of Longham dancing a quadrille with Amelia Thornton and showing every sign of enjoying it made Lydia feel as if it was she and not Frank who had been snubbed, and filled her with an illogical desire to do something entirely reckless.
‘You’d never pull it off,’ he said. ‘Lady Thornton will see through you and then you will be sent home to Raventrees in disgrace, and what will Papa do with you then? No, no, you cannot.’
‘Cannot?’ she queried, raising one arched brow. Ever since they had left the cradle, Tom only had to say she would not dare to do something than she needs must do it. ‘Will you take a small wager that I cannot, Thomas? Shall we say twenty pounds?’
He stared at her for a moment and then laughed. ‘You’re on! Twenty pounds say you cannot hoodwink Lady Thornton into accepting you as a man and allowing you to dance with her daughter.’ He paused. ‘You’ll have to gull Miss Thornton as well or she will kick up a fuss before you have taken half a turn about the room.’
‘Naturally, everyone must believe it. I shall let Miss Thornton into the secret when the dance is ended.’ She smiled, her boredom vanishing in this new challenge to her acting ability. ‘I’ll need a title and a name which is credible but not too easily discounted. It had better be French; their nobility is in such a tangle since the Revolution, no one will suspect.’ She paused, then laughed. ‘I know, we will use Mama’s name. How does Comte Maurice de Clancy sound to you? I am the only son of a French émigré who came to England to escape the Terror when I was but a babe, which accounts for my being able to speak both languages perfectly. Oh, how glad I am that Mama insisted on speaking French to us! And if I assume an accent, it may help to disguise the fact that my voice is somewhat high.’ She sighed. ‘I am very much afraid I shall have to be a very effete suitor.’
‘But you need a fortune, and how is that to be contrived? You can be sure Lady Thornton will want to know about that before her daughter is allowed to stand up with you.’
Lydia thought for a moment. ‘Jewels smuggled out by my parents during the Revolution, caskets of the stuff, gold too, and none of it trusted to a bank. Given that piece of nonsense, the tattlers will do my work for me, then it will be enough if I give the appearance of being well-breeched. Her ladyship will never be able to disprove it before my wager is won.’
‘When is this deception to take place?’ her brother demanded. ‘It must be done publicly, you know, and I must see it with my own eyes.’
She laughed, realising the occasion had to be right; she could not expect to deceive her aunt, however short-sighted she was, or Frank Burford, who had already seen her dressed as a man. ‘I will tell you when I am ready.’
They were interrupted by the Marquis who, having returned Miss Thornton to her mama, was now bowing in front of Lydia and claiming the waltz. She smiled a mischievous little smile which both intrigued and alarmed him and allowed herself to be led on to the floor.
She had spent hours in the schoolroom learning the steps of the waltz with her brother and such friends who lived in the neighbourhood of Raventrees, though she had never danced it on a crowded ballroom floor, but she need not have worried, for her partner was expert and was so tall that he made her feel small and feminine, an unusual sensation for her. They moved as if moulded together and she hardly noticed
