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“The happiest day of my life was when you said you preferred me to Nash.”
“Please let me go, Lord Silverton; people are staring.”
Silverton dropped his arm, and Kitty carried on walking. “You don’t seem to understand me, my Lord. The happiest day is destined to be the one where I gain what has been denied me from birth—respectability.”
“Oh, Kitty, Kitty, we could be so happy together!” Silverton urged. “Forget Nash. Come and live with me. I’ll make his generosity pale into insignificance compared with the...ruby and diamond necklaces, gowns, and carriages I’ll shower upon you.”
“As your mistress?” She shook her head. “Goodnight, Lord Silverton. Now, please leave. I am nearly at Mistress Kate’s, and I do not want Nash to observe you following me.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Araminta stared across the river and shivered. Not from the cool breeze that had sprung up, making this evening considerably colder than that fateful evening eight months before, when Lord Ludbridge had proposed in the rotunda on the hill a few hundred yards away, but from anticipation of how she and Lord Ludbridge might come to a new understanding.
Debenham had been out all day—gaming, she had no doubt. Once, this would have made Araminta furious, but tonight it was marvelously convenient. Debenham hadn’t inquired where she’d be, so it had been easy to slip away to Lady Mark’s riverside entertainment and assume he’d not follow. When various admiring gentlemen stopped to pay their respects, she’d pretended her husband was somewhere in the crowd.
The event brought back strong memories of the last time she’d attended Lady Marks’s soiree. She touched one of the colored lanterns which festooned the tent like a Persian Alhambra and wondered where Lord Ludbridge had got to.
It really was exceedingly irritating as Araminta was in a fever of expectation to see him again. She was certain she’d made plain that she had something very enticing to which he could look forward to, so when Mr. Woking appeared before her, proferring a choice of claret or Madeira, she chose the latter with ill grace. But as she’d just drained the last of hers, another bolstering draft was just what she felt she needed.
“All alone, Lady Debenham? Where is that reprobate uncle of mine when you need him, eh?”
Araminta sent him a narrowed look, as she tried to interpret whether he’d spoken mockingly or with genuine sympathy. Surely, despite his supposed disappointment when she’d reneged on her agreement to marry him eight months before to the very day, he didn’t still harbor a grudge? Yet aside from a sprinkling of fresh-faced debutantes, there were few to rival Araminta in beauty. It would seem, then, that Mr. Woking’s clear desire and obvious distress at having been denied Araminta for his wife were still keenly felt, which gave Araminta a surge of gratification, and she said airily, “I expect he’ll arrive when he pleases. He does like to keep his eye on me, Mr. Woking. Who is that young lady who is staring at us? See, over in that corner.”
Mr. Woking turned, squinted, then raised one eyebrow. “Miss Lucinda Martindale, Lord Beecham’s ward. I didn’t think she was officially ‘out’.” He sent the young lady who was quite conspicuous with her bright, golden ringlets and her pretty, petite figure, a lavish bow, muttering under his breath. “I wonder who is chaperoning her. I believe she’s gone through five governesses in the past two years. Miss Hazlett is no doubt having her work cut out.”
“Did you say Miss Hazlett?” The name of Araminta’s illegitimate half-sister amid this gathering of gentry was somehow shocking. “I thought she worked for the Lamonts. Or, she did.”
“That’s right, but now she is Miss Martindale’s governess. Speaking of the Lamonts, there’s M
iss Maria Lamont over there, which means her brother is about, and he owes me a pretty sum.”
“Oh, you men and your love of gaming. I wish Debenham weren’t so fond of it. Excuse me, Mr. Woking. Someone is beckoning to me.”
Relieved to at last see the object of her desire, Araminta turned her back on the young man and hurried across to the doorway through which Lord Ludbridge had just entered, alone. His eyes lit up when he saw her, but though her own were dancing with invitation, Araminta put her fingers to her lips.
“At last, you have arrived, my dear Lord Ludbridge,” she murmured, holding up her fan to shield her excitement from others. “I’ve been in a fever of anticipation to see you again.”
“And I, you, Lady Debenham, for I have found your ruby necklace.”
“You have?” Araminta’s smile spread and her heart pounded as she imagined Lord Ludbridge, later this evening, holding up her hair from behind and fastening the catch over her naked throat during their forthcoming tryst. “Oh, Lord Ludbridge, you are my hero, and I intend to reward you.”
“Alas, I have not yet secured it, for it was around the throat of a very beautiful actress, the much-celebrated Miss Kitty La Bijou, whom we both saw in Romeo and Juliet several months ago.” He thrust out his hand, and she gasped to see the expertly rendered sketch which so clearly identified her necklace.
Araminta thought she would faint clean away upon the spot. “Kitty La Bijou? How is that possible?”
“Ah, Lady Debenham, Lord Ludbridge. I’m so glad you both have graced my entertainment with your presence.” Their hostess smiled warmly at each, beckoning over a servant to refill their glasses. “I promise the fireworks will surpass even those of last time but alas, I do not see Lord Debenham. Will he be attending?”
“I do hope so,” Araminta lied smoothly. “He has an important parliamentary dinner he was bound to attend.” Araminta was about to turn again to Lord Ludbridge in order to prettily request his gallant company, on the basis of Debenham’s request that he squire her in his absence, when, to her chagrin, his attention was claimed by a garrulous matron and her simpering charge.
Meanwhile, Lady Marks was similarly waylaid, and while Araminta could have been included in the discussion, she chose to absent herself momentarily so she could put her best-laid plan into action. Congratulating herself on her cleverness, she withdrew from her reticule the discreet note she’d written earlier that evening, and put out her hand to waylay a bewigged footman on his return from supplying a garrulous group with more champagne.
“I need you to give this to that gentleman over there,” she said, handing the note to the waiter and pointing to Lord Ludbridge. “The tall, fair-haired gentleman beneath the gold lantern.”
“The one standing beside the gentleman with whiskers, ma’am?”
“That is correct.”
Assured that the recipient had been properly identified, and reassured that the nature of the note was cryptic enough that it would cause no damage if perchance it fell into the wrong hands, Araminta sent a final seductive glance in Lord Ludbridge’s direction before leaving the tent for the welcoming fresh air.
