Lucia gave her an understanding pat on the arm and turned toward the steps. Lord and Lady Carlisle had already entered the residence and the butler was now staring down at Sapphire and Lucia with great interest.
“Are we going in?” Angelique murmured, so excited she could barely contain herself.
Sapphire grasped the skirting of her new shoulder-baring apple-green silk gown and started up the steps. “Of course we’re going in,” she said confidently. “I haven’t come this far to turn back now.”
“The Viscount Carlisle,” announced the footman stiffly. “Lady Carlisle.”
Sapphire handed the footman her newly printed calling card so that she could be announced.
“Miss Fabergine.”
Sapphire glided across the glittering hall and entered the receiving line behind Lord and Lady Carlisle, who were speaking with a painfully thin woman—the dowager Lady Wessex, her father’s wife, she surmised. Sapphire smiled. The dowager had never legally been his wife because he had, until her death, still been married to Sophie.
“Miss Fabergine.” The butler announced Angelique and then took Lucia’s card. “Mademoiselle Toulouse.”
Sapphire met Lucia’s gaze over her shoulder one last time, smiled and turned to be introduced formally to her father’s so-called widow.
“And this is Miss Fabergine,” Lady Carlisle said. “The young girl you and I spoke of, Lady Wessex. Her stepfather was such a dear, a handsome Frenchman. It would have been impossible for me to deny his request to escort his stepdaughter to London.”
Sapphire curtsied. “Lady Wessex, thank you so kindly for the invitation.”
The widow barely acknowledged her.
“And Lady Wessex’s daughters,” Lady Carlisle continued, moving down the receiving line. “The eldest, Miss Camille Stillmore.”
Sapphire curtsied and smiled at the daughter who appeared to be a year or two older than herself and looked a great deal like her mother. She was most certainly not an attractive woman, and her pale ivory gown overrun with ruffles did not improve her appearance. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Miss Stillmore glanced at Sapphire with the look she knew too well after being in London for two weeks. It was the look, Aunt Lucia had explained, that ugly English girls gave the pretty ones as they realized they were no match.
“Miss Portia and Miss Alma,” Lady Carlisle said, completing the introductions.
The two younger girls, who were more comely than their elder sister, bobbed curtsies, seemingly more interested to meet the new arrival. Portia appeared to be the same age as Sapphire, and Alma only a year or two younger.
“It’s very nice to make your acquaintance,” Sapphire said, returning their smiles.
“Is he here?” Lady Carlisle asked the youngest daughter, leaning closer so as not to be overheard by those passing in the hall.
“He, my lady?”
“Why, Lord Wessex, of course,” the older woman hissed under her breath. “I expected to meet him in the receiving line. That is why we were invited, was it not? To formally meet the new Earl of Wessex?”
Alma snatched a quick look at her sister, then returned her attention to Lady Carlisle. “He’s here, my lady, only…he says he prefers not to stand in the receiving line.”
Lady Carlisle raised her plucked and painted eyebrows so high that Sapphire thought they might reach her receding hairline. Then, spotting an acquaintance, Lady Carlisle fluttered her fan and walked into the next room, her husband in tow.
Sapphire waited for Angelique inside the doorway of a large parlor a little farther down the hall. Exquisitely decorated with stylish furniture and rich-hued draperies, the sound of clinking glasses and restrained laughter came from inside.
“So, my chicks, shall we stick together?” Lucia asked, putting one arm around Sapphire and the other around Angelique. “Or shall we scatter?”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Angelique said, narrowing her gaze and pursing her plump lips seductively. “I believe I recognize that gentleman under the window.”
Sapphire looked at the man and lowered her voice as she spoke. “Angel, how can you know him? We’ve barely been here long enough to—”
“Find me if you need me,” Angelique said, moving off in her new lavender and white silk evening gown.
Lucia and Sapphire watched Angelique cross the room, and then Lucia turned to her goddaughter. “So what will it be, my dear? Shall we corner this scoundrel together?”
“Thank you, but no. I can do this on my own.”
“Very well, puss.” Lucia pecked the air close to Sapphire’s cheek with her rouged lips and walked away, lifting her hand to Lady Morrow who stood beyond them. “Lady Morrow,” she called in her French accent, “so good to see you again, ma chère.”
Sapphire’s pulse raced and she felt butterflies in her stomach. She leaned against the wall for a moment and watched the stylishly dressed guests come and go. There were at least two hundred guests socializing in the two parlors to the right of the front hall and the large drawing room on the left that seemed to have been cleared of furniture for dancing. She was overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds: the glittering jewels hanging from slender necks and earlobes, the stiff white cravats gentleman wore around their necks, the hushed voices, the lively strum of instruments as the musicians struck up a lovely dance.
Sapphire watched as couples moved opposite one another, advancing and retreating, locking arms and then separating to weave their way among the other dancers. She tapped her kidskin slipper beneath her gown, remembering how Armand and her mother had hosted parties at Orchid Manor. They had danced half the night in the tropical garden where Armand had built a platform for such occasions. How her mother had loved dances…. When Sapphire closed her eyes, she could almost hear Sophie’s laughter, see Armand draw an arm around her and whisper in her ear. She remembered dancing with Maurice, as well, and the feel of his arms around her…
“You would care to dance? Excellent.”
Sapphire’s eyes flew open as a man closed his hand over hers and pulled her into the drawing room to join the other dancers. Before she could open her mouth to speak, Blake Thixton released her, pushing her onto the dance floor in the direction of the other ladies as they and their partners separated. Sapphire realized she knew the steps from lessons in Martinique; it seemed as if her mother had spent her whole life preparing her for this introduction to London society. The dance was a variation of the Roger de Coverley and she took her place across from Thixton, staring at him.
She forced a smile, advanced, retired and curtsied to his bow. The moment they joined hands to begin the figure, he spoke harshly beneath his breath. “I thought I warned you not to come here again.”
To the many men and women who lined the walls of the drawing room to observe, or to the other dancers, it must have appeared that Sapphire and Thixton were conversing pleasantly as they danced. She would certainly not be the first one to disclose otherwise.
“I must speak with you,” she said, loathing the fact that he was holding her so tightly when he rested his hand on her waist. Loathing the fact that her eyes kept straying to his mouth, that strange waves of heat washed over her each time he spoke.
“Let me guess—you must see me so that you can tell me more about how you are Wessex’s daughter and what the estate owes you.”
“Yes.” The dancers parted and he released her. “I mean no,” she said in his ear, and then sailed away.
It