Page 24 of In the Eyes of Lord Lingley

The whispers surged louder.

“It must be the color of the season!” a woman gasped,

“Look, it exactly matches the roses in her cheeks. Stunning!” another declared.

“Maman! Je dois avoir une robe en Mary Rose!” a girl exclaimed. “She is resplendent! Surely it will be all the rage! Tomorrow! First thing, or we shall never beat out the rest!”

Mary felt her blush descend towards her toes. “I cannot believe it. What could be the meaning of this?”

“You are a beautiful, wealthy, pleasant woman. Why would they not admire you? They shall soon learn that there are many positive attributes for which to admire. Now drink your champagne, you promised de Lattre de Tassigny the next.”

Mary felt an imposter by the time that she joined Lingley for the supper set. She had been nothing but herself, but to a man, every one of her partners felt she was the most interesting, intelligent woman in the world. She was at a loss as to why not a single acquaintance from her previous life had found her thusly, and yet here, she could do no wrong. Surely her manner of dress was not so pivotal.

When she asked her husband, he shrugged. “There is something unfathomable in the masculine brain. What may be seen as undesirable in an unattached female, suddenly becomes desirable when it becomes known that some other man found it so.”

“Mr. Darcy once announced at an assembly that he would not give consequence to a lady who was being slighted by other men…”

“That sounds as if it was something the idiot might have said in an effort to depress someone’s expectations,” he snorted derisively. “But it is rather the usual. We are not an imaginative lot as a species.”

“Much like sheep, it seems,” Mary laughed at him. “Once one decides to go his own way, the rest follow, assuming he knows what he is about when really he just thought he saw a strange bird.”

“An exotic bird of paradise amongst the pigeons of Hertfordshire,” he agreed. “And I have never been more grateful that I caught a glimpse.”

“Spare my blushes, your highness.”

“I cannot help it,” he sighed. “Your blushes in that gown…”

They were joined by several of her other partners and their dining companions and spent the dinner hour in an interesting discussion of the pitfalls and even a few benefits of Napoleon’s war as seen by those who had been most affected by it. Many of them had been sent to England for sanctuary and to protect the successions of the oldest families, but some had stayed and even fought. Mary was enthralled by some of their ideas which she had never been in the way of encountering, and she spent the rest of the evening equally captivating the remainder of her dance partners.

By the final dance, a waltz, she was incandescent with her success. Lingley twirled her about the floor and basked in the luminosity of her pleasure. When the music ended, he gave her a low bow to her deep curtsy and then whisked her away, glad to have her all to himself once more.

Chapter 15

They slept late the next morning and enjoyed a lazy breakfast in their private sitting room. The pastries in Paris had spoilt her forever for English breakfast fare, and Mary moaned in pleasure as the buttery and flaky pastry seemed to melt in her mouth. Lingley had paused, his own pastry held halfway to his mouth as he watched her. He was so enthralled that he nearly screamed when the door flew open and a very well-dressed woman with a fierce scowl stomped into the room, trailed by a flustered butler and two floundering footmen.

“Jonathan Carlos Alphonse Felipe Ferdinand de la Vega Lingley!” she snapped, bringing him out of his chair like a scalded cat. “Mon Filleul! How could you come to Paris without a single word of greeting?”

“Marraine,” Lingley bowed, gathering his scattered wits. “I was not aware that you had returned since King Louis ascended. I sent an announcement to your London address.”

“Silly boy, half of England has come to enjoy their first unhindered glimpse of the continent since the disorder and the little Corsican, and the rest stayed home to work the fields!” She gave Mary a penetrating, though not unkind, look. “You are higher than I, my dear, and must ask for the introduction.”

“Oh!” Mary cried, coming to her feet as well. “My apologies. Might you introduce me, husband?”

“My Marraine, my dear, Carmen de Gaulle, Duchesse de la Rochefoucald.” He announced affectionately. “Madame la Duchesse, Mary-Hannah Bennet Lingley, my darling wife.”

“So, it is true! I heard you had married from no less than four personages this morning, one of them my modiste! I was livid until I remembered that I had not yet attended to all of my correspondence, and you were saved by the date of your last letter. Let me look at you, dear.” She circled Mary, inspecting her as minutely as Madame Courant ever had. “Lovely, very lovely. Are you well educated, Your Highness?”

“Not as well as I would have wished,” Mary answered, choosing honesty over pride. “I am the daughter of a very minor landowner and am completely unfamiliar with the expectations of the Ton, let alone the aristocracy.”

“You are well spoken,” she declared. “Your French is flawless and accent superior to most English.”

“She is a great reader and has taught herself several languages,” Lingley announced stoutly. “Her Spanish is even better than her French, and we are working on her accent in Italian.”

“Very nice,” the woman agreed. “I assume you know nothing of court if you are unfamiliar with the Ton?”

“You are correct,” she admitted with a wince of mortification. “I was unaware I was marrying higher than a viscount and future Earl, which seemed an unimaginable reach at the time. I was little pleased to discover his Spanish titles, already overwhelmed with the others.”

“I assume from your actions last evening,” she turned to Lingley, “that you are unaware that King Ferdinand reaffirmed your titles several weeks ago when he was crowned and added to your holdings in Spain. It was in all the papers as it had been made known that you were soon to travel to meet your parents.”