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“I hope so,” Esme said, as they started walking. “Will you 40 Eloisa

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stay for the evening, Helene, please? If I am indeed scandalizing the county by holding an at-home while in mourning, I would be grateful for your company.”

Helene nodded in a tight-lipped kind of way that indicated that she wished to be gone, but would stay for the evening.

“Thank you,” Esme said, kissing her friend’s cheek.

“I’ll only make a brief visit,” Helene said. “I will return long before the baby is due.”

“You probably won’t recognize me by then,” Esme said morosely. “I already look like a moving elephant.”

Helene laughed. “A very small elephant, darling.”

< 6 =

Extreme Youth and Scorn Are Close Associates Holkham House

Limpley Stoke

“I simply can’t believe that Mr. Darby has come to Wiltshire!” Lady Imogen Maclellan said to her stepsister. “Who would have thought? Emilia Piggleton told me all about him. She actually saw him at Almack’s one night, but of course he didn’t ask to be acquainted with her. Do you think I should wear my new gown, Henrietta? It was only delivered yesterday. You remember, the sprigged India muslin. Except that Mrs. Pinnock—”

Her mother appeared in the doorway, interrupting the conversation. “Good evening, darlings,” said Millicent Maclellan, the Dowager Countess of Holkham. “We probably ought to begin to make our way to dinner.”

“Mama, do you know who has picked out the very same dress as I?” Imogen said, in the affected, rather snappish way she had lately adopted. “Our beloved next door neighbor, Selina Davenport! Mrs. Pinnock told me.”

“Oh dear,” Millicent said. Selina Davenport was the closest thing in Wiltshire to a high-flier. She was married to a squire who cared more for his hounds than his wife. Not that that was unusual, but it was rumored that a pile of dogs 42 Eloisa

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shared the ancestral bed, and where Selina slept was an object of everyone’s curiosity.

“It’s disgraceful,” Imogen said scornfully. “I don’t know why Selina can’t simply accept the fact that she’s a married lady, and be done with it. She’ll have had the bosom lowered on the gown, and she’ll sit there with the tiniest bodice on this side of London. Likely she’ll insist on sitting beside me all evening.”

“Only to share in your popularity, dearest,” Millicent said.

“And I don’t like your peevish tone. Women will be your greatest ally during the season, but not if everyone decides that you are a sharp-tongued snippet.” Imogen had just begun attending local parties, and already had a phalanx of local boys clamoring for her attention. It had had an unfortunate effect on her disposition.

“No one will take a second glance at me when Selina’s bosom is hanging out for all the world like a piece of washing!”

“That is a most unladylike remark,” her mother said.

“Why don’t you wear your ivory gauze tonight instead of the sprigged violet?”

“I suppose,” Imogen muttered. “What are you going to wear, Henrietta?”

“My Italian crape.”

Imogen stared. “I thought you were saving that for something quite special.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“Lady Rawlings is in mourning, Henrietta. There won’t be dancing.”

Henrietta opened her mouth, but Imogen corrected herself. “Not that the mourning signifies, because you don’t dance. So why on earth should you wear your Italian crape? I thought you were saving it for the next assembly in Tilbury.”

Henrietta shrugged. “Why should I? As you say, I can’t dance. So why shouldn’t I wear what I want? It doesn’t make a bit of difference.”