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Two minutes later, Lina was swathed—positively swathed—in white lace.
“Perhaps it’s overpoweringly innocent,” Helene said dubiously. She had picked out the pattern and fabric herself, ordering it from a modiste, Madame Pantile, whom she’d long heard was liable to make ill-fitting and over-trimmed clothing. And Madame Pantile had certainly lived up to her reputation. Every inch of Lina’s gown was trimmed with blonde lace, or point lace, or bunches of white ribbon.
“Are you certain that the wreath isn’t too much?” Lina said, showing the first signs of uneasiness.
“Oh no!” Helene said. “I consider the wreath a stroke of genius! Who but Madame Pantile could have designed a wreath made of silver oak leaves ornamented with heron’s feathers? At least…that’s what she told me they were. Who would have thought that heron’s feathers were quite so tall?”
“My head will topple to the side if I’m not very careful,” Lina said, demonstrating her predicament.
“Excellent. You need to look awkward while dancing.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Lina commented. “Wearing shoes that are too large makes it extremely difficult to be graceful.”
Helene beamed. “That was a clever notion of Esme’s, was it not?”
The night was going as well as Felicia could possibly have hoped. Mayne was at her side just enough so that her friends and her enemies couldn’t help but notice his devotion, and yet he wasn’t there so much that she felt constrained in recounting every detail of his physique and technique to her friends. Her husband was off in the card room, apparently acting in an appropriate manner. The ballroom was an utter crush. In all, the only thing missing to make her ball discussed throughout those boring fall months was a Sensation.
Something had to happen. An elopement, a betrayal, an argument. Something! She glanced around the room. What a pity it was that Esme Rawlings had married Lord Bonnington. Infamous Esme could always be relied upon to create some sort of a sensation, but now she had dwindled into positive respectability. There she was, dancing with her husband and it must be for the third time, at least. That was a scandal, to Felicia’s mind, a scandal of hideously boring proportions.
At that moment there was a bit of a flurry at the door, and Felicia turned with relief. Perhaps the Regent had decided to—no.
Who on earth could it be?
A grotesquely bedizened girl, with plumes so high they were likely to be set alight by the candelabra hanging from the ceiling, had appeared at the top of the short flight of stairs leading to the ballroom. Felicia didn’t recognize her escort but there, behind her, was Earl Godwin so that must be—
There was a titter in her ear. “Famous, my dear! Your ball is going to be notorious!” The Honorable Gerard Bunge suddenly appeared, for all the world like a jack-in-the-box in amethyst stockings, if such a thing existed. “That must be the vicar’s daughter, or rather, the strumpet as Mayne had it!” He reeled slightly from the force of his own giggles. “Could be Mayne’s going blind if he mistook that one for a Bird of Paradise!”
“She’s rather an eyesore, is she not?” Felicia said with amusement. “Come along, Bunge. I must greet her, you know.”
At the tap of a hostess’s fan on their shoulder, her guests fell away before her, leaving Felicia a full view of the uncultivated lass whom Mayne, her darling Mayne, had insulted. And what a mistake that was! Felicia had rarely seen such an ungainly, rustic girl as the one clumsily curtsying before Lady Bonnington.
“You’d better make haste,” Bunge said in her ear, as they expertly made their way through the crowded room. “She just poked the Duke of Girton in the eye with those plumes. How could Mayne ever have thought this one was a fashionable impure? They wouldn’t have let her in the door of the opera house!”
Felicia held out her hand languidly. The country miss bobbed an inept curtsy and gabbled something. Felicia backed away as quickly as she could, to avoid being struck in the face by her waving plumes.
“I must say, this is quite a surprise, to see you in the presence of Lord Godwin,” she said aside to the countess. “I thought you two were quite, quite adverse to being in each other’s company.”
“Oh, we are,” Helene Godwin said cheerfully. “But I couldn’t allow Mrs. Holland to come to town without a chaperone.”
“Mrs. Holland!” Felicia exclaimed.
Lady Godwin clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh no, I let the truth out! Well, the fact is that Mr. Holland, my brother-in-law, married his fiancée this morning. But we didn’t want to announce the news until the happy couple has informed her father, in Scotland. He is a vicar, you know, and I believe he hoped to marry them himself. So you must promise not to tell anyone, Lady Saville!”
Felicia nodded, already planning the three or four acquaintances who would be lucky enough to hear the news first.
Lady Godwin drew a little closer. “The dear girl was so devastated to hear of the rumors flying around London—you do know what I mean, don’t you?”
“A crime!” Felicia whispered back, ignoring the fact that she herself had been instrumental in spreading most of those criminal rumors.
“Yes, I do agree,” Lady Godwin said. “You know, Lady Saville, you or I may chat about a matter of interest that occurs in the ton, but we would never make something up out of whole cloth! And I’m afraid that is just what the Earl of Mayne must have done. Why, everyone in London knows that my husband dismissed his mistress months ago.”
Felicia nodded vigorously. “I had heard the same myself, from a number of people,” she assured the countess. “Mayne has much to answer for!”
“Dear Mrs. Holland is happy now,” Lady Godwin said. “All’s well that ends well, after all. And who could possibly think her a woman of ill repute after seeing her endearing little face?”
“Who indeed?” Felicia murmured, suppressing a shudder as she watched the new Mrs. Holland stumble her way through a country dance.
“Marriage solves so many problems,” Lady Godwin commented. “Now she and my dear brother-in-law can go back to the country, and she can simply forget this unpleasant little episode.”
