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Chapter Five
As debuts went, Hattie’s had, unsurprisingly, been rather awful. While some of that was down to her own strange mood—she had alternately pondered and worried about Jasper incessantly since yesterday and could not seem to get the image of him tenderly cradling that little girl out of her mind no matter how much she tried. However, as that conundrum still hovered in the background, the sheer unmitigated misery of Queen Charlotte’s Annual Debutantes Ball now dominated the foreground.
The patronising pity had been just as copious as she had expected, the subtle whispers and open stares were exactly as she had predicted. But what she hadn’t anticipated was how vulnerable that all left her feeling, how envious she was of Annie and Kitty dancing, or quite how excluded she felt at not to be able to join them.
Her well-meaning family must have spread the word of her unfortunate limitations beforehand—or more likely her well-meaning brother who was the worst of the lot because he was convinced she was so fragile—as not a single gentleman had asked her to dance. Instead, several of his bachelor friends took the time to stand by her chair to talk to her, but by their discomfort and furtive, longing glances towards the dance floor as they awaited their next partner, it was apparent most were only doing so on sufferance. An awkward set of circumstances which served to make her more self-conscious about her situation than she would have been if they had left her to her own devices with the rest of the wallflowers.
The only saving grace of having press-ganged gentleman after gentleman chat about the weather out of duty was that it did help keep some of the fortune hunters at bay, but an hour in and the wolves were circulating. All waiting for the opportune moment to approach and plight their mercenary troth. And what a disparate bunch of suitors they were, all eyeing her like the hapless prey in possession of a large dowry that they assumed she was hoping would attract someone. All convinced she was prepared to lower her standards enough to consider them now that her limp had made her less of a catch, and all of them of the firm belief that she would be grateful for whatever crumbs she was offered simply because she must be desperate for a husband.
Well the joke was on them, because huge dowry and limp aside, she wouldn’t entertain any of them and was not averse to telling them so if they made pests of themselves. For now, the constant stream of press-ganged gentlemen and the daggers she kept shooting the rest were enough to keep most at bay.
‘I am afraid, duty calls me again to the dance.’ The handsome baronet who had stood with her for the entire cotillion bowed, his apologetic expression not quite covering his relief that his current duty was done. ‘Would you like me to fetch your mother or your brother to keep you company?’ He managed to say this with such condescension that she was sure if she’d had an invalid’s blanket around her knees he would have tucked it in.
Hattie wanted to growl at him for making her feel like such a chore but settled for an equally insincere smile. ‘I am quite capable of fetching them myself should I need them, thank you very much.’
At a loss as to how he should respond to such a waspish comment, he bowed again and scurried away as if his breeches were on fire, leaving her properly alone for the first time all evening without a press-ganged decent gentleman or convenient family member in sight.
Just in time for the first waltz of the Season.
The one dance that every debutante dreamed of dancing.
The one dance so guaranteed to make or break a girl’s reputation that even the dustiest wallflowers had all miraculously found partners, as the mothers and fathers of the ton called in favours to ensure their daughter was not one of the hopeless lost causes sitting it out.
Which left Hattie sticking out like a solitary sore thumb in the seats reserved for them because not even her meddling, overprotective brother had managed to secure her any company for this dance.
As the musicians played the opening bars, she caught sight of Lord Boredom out of the corner of her eye walking towards her with two cups of punch in his hands and decided she was all done with being a sitting duck and an object of pity.
She ignored the shriek of pain from her atrophied right leg and forced it to move at pace into the crowd headed towards the dance floor, then used those convenient bodies as camouflage to slip out of the ballroom altogether. Assuming she must be headed to the retiring room, one of the palace footmen pointed down a hallway. ‘Tis the first door off the atrium, my lady, to the right of the main entrance.’
She thanked him and set off, wondering if she could feasibly hide for the next hour in the retiring room without being dragged back by her mother or if she should simply march out of the front door and keep going until she reached Mayfair. The former smacked of cowardice, the latter became more tempting the closer she got to the exit and the prospect of blessed escape.
She could plead a sudden headache, she supposed.
Or use her dratted leg as a more believable excuse, which nobody would dare argue with because they all walked on eggshells wherever that was concerned. She could send a note via one of the footmen to her mother the second the carriage departed, claiming she was in too much pain so had decided to take herself home to rest her leg rather than ruin their fun. Hope against hope that such a cruel lie wouldn’t spoil the evening for the rest of her family, or worse, wrench Annie or Kitty away from the ball on a false pretence because her entire family tended to wrap her in so much cotton wool nowadays it was suffocating...
‘I am an invited guest, damn it!’ The shouting snapped her out of her futile pondering. ‘I have an official invitation!’ She would have recognised Jasper’s deep, irate tone anywhere and as it seemed to be coming from up ahead she hastened towards it. ‘I demand to be let in!’
Whatever the doorman answered was too muffled to hear but the sounds of some sort of a scuffle were unmistakable. Curious and concerned after what she had witnessed yesterday, Hattie ventured towards them and then stopped, stunned at the sight of a dishevelled Jasper being manhandled towards the front door by two burly footmen.
The second he spotted her he put up more of a fight. ‘Hattie! Tell these idiots I have an invitation!’ He waved the crumpled card in the air. ‘Tell them I solemnly promised your mother I would come and that I promised to save you from Lord Boredom!’ Something was off about his diction. Every word with an ‘s’ in it came out a little slurred. ‘Tell them that I might not be good for much, might unintentionally let people down in their hour of need, but Jasper Beaufort always keeps his sworn promises no matter what!’
Thankfully, the noise from the ballroom drowned out his shouting before the honourable guests inside heard but it wouldn’t be long before he made a complete spectacle of himself.
‘This man is drunk, my lady,’ said one of the liveried footmen trying to hold him back as she approached. ‘A filthy drunkard in no fit state to attend this ball.’
Drunk he might be but filthy he wasn’t. Even in a state of dishabille Jasper looked better than most of the gentlemen here. His cravat might be undone, and his shirt untucked but otherwise he was dressed appropriately. Although it appeared, by the incorrectly buttoned waistcoat, he might well have started drinking before he changed for the ball. Although why he was here at all after his bad news yesterday was a complete mystery to her.
‘This man is the Earl of Beaufort, heir to the Duke of Battlesbridge and a good friend to my father, the Duke of Avondale.’ She skewered the footmen with her most imperious glare. ‘You will unhand him immediately.’
At the mention of his title, the footmen wavered and loosened their grips, but didn’t let go. ‘Lord or no, he is in no fit state to meet Her Majesty.’
‘That I will concede, gentlemen.’ For Jasper’s own good, Hattie could not allow him to stumble roaring drunk into the ballroom of St James’s Palace. She offered his captors her mother’s most charming smile, the one which always got the canny Duchess of Avondale exactly what she wanted without ruffling any feathers. ‘But I suspect it is nothing some strong coffee and some fresh air will not fix.’
Hattie regarded Jasper with amused pity. The sort her parents had often used on her brother Freddie when he used to come home the worse for wear. ‘So, if you will allow me to take charge of him, I shall personally see to it that my brother escorts him home.’ Freddie was better equipped to deal with this than she and he knew him better. Was certainly privy to the whole situation rather than the snippets she had been trying to piece together, and it was hardly proper for her to escort a drunken bachelor home alone.
‘I am not going home!’ Two large feet braced themselves on the floor while his big body swayed between the footmen who seemed to be the only things keeping him upright. ‘I promised both you and your mother I would be here, so here I am!’ He made an ineffectual break for freedom and was once again restrained by the palace staff while two elderly matrons chose that moment to investigate the commotion and stood openly staring in outright disapproval. ‘I’ve come to save you from all the fortune hunters!’
Hattie strode forward to claim Jasper’s arm before more onlookers decided to gather. ‘Which room would be best for us to retire to while I convince him to see reason?’ She wafted her free hand away from the crowded ballroom. ‘As I dare say the last thing we all want is Lord Beaufort causing more of a scene at the most auspicious ball of the social Season than he has already. I sincerely doubt Her Majesty would be impressed to read about an altercation involving a peer of the realm and her staff in tomorrow’s papers either. It would royally spoil her birthday and neither of you deserve to be blamed for that.’ Such an eventuality wasn’t in any way their fault, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to sow some seeds of doubt to expedite matters. ‘Or worse, if this incident attracts any more attention than it has already...’ she flicked her gaze to the two staring women, then back to the men imploringly ‘...then Her Majesty’s whole night will be ruined too.’
