‘Yes, only fancy,’ Deborah muttered glumly, sitting on a low stool to ease off her pumps.
‘Why did you not tell me?’
‘Would you mind helping me with the hooks?’ Deborah prevaricated, turning her back to her friend. While Susannah was thrilled to find one of her suitors so well connected, so far as Deborah was concerned, it only seemed to put him further from her reach than ever.
While Susannah dealt with the fastenings of her dress, she confessed, ‘I had no idea his father was an earl.’
‘Which changes everything, of course. Do you think he is a viscount, as well as being a captain?’
‘Don’t you dare toy with him, Susannah!’ Deborah whirled round, her eyes blazing with fury. ‘He has suffered enough!’
‘I wouldn’t…’ Susannah gasped.
‘You may not mean to hurt him, but I have seen the way his eyes follow you round the dance floor, while you are making up to your latest conquest!’
‘Well, I…’
‘Oh, you do not need to tell me—you cannot bear to look at him!’
‘With that face?’ Susannah shuddered. ‘Can you blame me?’
Deborah struggled to control her temper. ‘I admit he has been knocked about a bit. But only consider how he received his wounds. Fighting for his country. He is worth ten of that fribble Baron Dunning, whom you hang upon because he has a title. He worked his way up through the ranks, earning promotion through merit….’
Drawing herself up to her full height, Susannah said quietly, ‘Your mother has already made me revise my opinion of Baron Dunning. I see what this is, Deborah—you have designs upon Captain Fawley yourself.’
Deborah’s mouth opened, then closed, as she sought to refute Susannah’s argument, but realised she could not in all conscience do so.
‘I do not have designs upon him,’ she eventually managed to say. ‘But that does not mean I am prepared to stand by and watch you break his heart. I think you are a better person than that, Suzy.’
Susannah’s eyes narrowed. ‘If you do not have your sights set on him, and if you are only thinking of what is best for him, then I would have thought you would be glad that I have finally relented towards him. He is intelligent enough to know what my ambitions are. He knows I intend to make a brilliant match. Agreeing to go to one ball as his guest, letting him have one dance with me, is all he aspires to, I assure you. I won’t encourage him to dangle after me.’
‘I…I hope you will not.’
‘Of course I won’t! What do you take me for?’ She laid one hand upon Deborah’s arm. ‘Goose. I think you must really need to lie down if you are as snappish as this.’
‘Yes,’ Deborah mumbled, hanging her head guiltily. ‘Yes, I think I must.’
Though she felt wrung out after that episode, sleep remained far from her as she lay rigidly on top of the counterpane, her fists clenched at her sides. She did not know what was the matter with her. Why had she got so angry with Susannah? Oh, if only this Season was over, and she could leave London and all its painful associations behind.
As soon as Susannah’s future was settled, she would begin to scour the papers and apply for every post suitable for a lady of gentle birth.
She was never going to get married.
She did not want to get married!
Not if it meant playing the sort of games Susannah was indulging in.
* * *
A week later, as she entered the portals of Challinor House, Deborah was glad she had allowed Susannah to talk her into buying a new gown.
‘Papa will pay for it!’ she had airily promised. ‘And don’t think of it as charity. He has hired your mother to bring me to the notice of the best families, and I am sure he will think the cost of one gown well worth it to have us both looking our best when we walk into the house of a marquis!’
That had been all it had taken to sway Deborah. They both had to look the part, not just Susannah. If Deborah merely refurbished one of the few ballgowns she had, or remade one of Susannah’s cast-offs, as she had first intended, every woman there would know she was purse-pinched. And then they would look at Susannah, decked out in her finery, and see the true state of affairs. A girl who had to hire someone to launch her into society would not be looked upon with the same indulgence as one who was being sponsored, out of friendship, by a family with as good a pedigree as the Gillies.
Still, seeing the diamonds that glittered at the throats and ears of so many of the other guests as they slowly made their way up the stairs, made her feel as though it was she, and not Susannah, who was the impostor here. Though her ballgown was quite the finest thing she had ever owned, a superbly cut satin slip, with an overdress of gauze embroidered with hundreds of the tiniest beads whirling in intricate patterns, little puffed sleeves and a demi-train of spangled lace, her only jewellery was a single strand of pearls that had been her mother’s.
‘I don’t need such gewgaws at my age, dear.’ She had smiled as she clasped it about her daughter’s neck just before they came out. ‘In fact, I prefer to conceal as much of my neck as I can!’ She had recently taken to wearing an assortment of floaty scarves draped about her throat. The one she had on tonight was a delicate wisp of powder blue, which, Deborah had to admit, somehow managed to put the finishing touch to an outfit that was as elegant as anything that the other older ladies were wearing.
At length, they came to the head of the receiving line, and she finally came face to face with her host and hostess. The Marquis of Lensborough bowed his head in greeting to her mother, expressed the appropriate sentiments to her, but then merely looked at Susannah as though…she gasped—as though she had no right to be there. As his features settled into a decided sneer, Deborah took a strong aversion to him. Why on earth did Susannah want to ingratiate herself with people of his class, who would only ever look down their aristocratic noses at her? And his fiancée, a tall, rake-thin redhead, was no better. She had the most haughty, closed expression of any woman Deborah had ever met. It was a relief to get past them and make for the ballroom.
‘Ah, there is Gussy!’ said her mother, spotting the dowager Lady Lensborough holding court from a sofa in an alcove just off the ballroom proper. Deborah felt her lips rise in a wry smile. It had come as a shock when, not two days after Captain Fawley had made his promise to get them an invitation, the dowager Marchioness of Lensborough had swept into their drawing room, and proceeded to treat her mother as though she was a close friend. She soon learned that this was not so very far from the truth. They had known each other as girls, and though their paths in life had taken very different directions, they had kept up a sporadic correspondence.
She had made both girls stand, and turn and walk before her, before she deigned to hand over the coveted invitations.
‘I will not have any chit in my ballroom who will not do it credit,’ she had said outrageously. ‘You are both pretty enough, in your own ways.’ She had raised her lorgnette and frowned at each in turn. ‘It is a great pity that your daughter has not her friend’s looks and fortune, Sally. But then again, she has not the advantage of breeding. But there…’ she sighed ‘…that
