Although why it was considered essential for a lady to walk as if she had a book balanced on her cranium was beyond her. For the better part of two days, Daphne and Cressida had made her walk backwards and forward in Uncle Crispin’s ostentatious Egyptian-themed drawing room, with a Mrs Radcliffe novel perched precariously on her head, while they instructed her on the subtle nuances of etiquette she had never had use of before. Who knew that curtsies were graduated, for instance, saving only the deepest and most grovelling for dukes and the monarchy? There had not been much cause for curtsying in Cumbria, thank goodness. Nor for the baffling array of cutlery deemed necessary for every meal when a knife, fork and spoon had always served her perfectly well before, thank you very much. Before she had been a wispy cloud, of course.
‘And smile!’ Aunt Cressida nudged her with such force she lurched a little sideways. ‘Think of yourself as a swan, my dear. Graceful. Elegant. Effortless.’
There was no point enquiring as to where the cloud had gone, because Aunt Daphne and Aunt Cressida rarely remembered what they had said five minutes before. However, she was sorely tempted to point out there was nothing effortless in gliding like a swan in a strange place sans spectacles, but Fliss smiled tightly and tried her best, holding her head so still it made her jaw ache. She was here for her mother. Uncle Crispin had apparently made her a solemn promise upon her deathbed to give his half-sister’s daughter a Season and, while she was fundamentally too old to be launched into society, the guilt had made her agree to the offer—the guilt, Sister Ursuline’s insistence Fliss needed to go and have an adventure, and the desire to do something for the mother she struggled to remember fully yet had missed keenly throughout her life. For her tragic real mother, and her incorrigible surrogate mother, she would attempt to be a cloud or a swan or whatever other nonsense her new great-great-aunts came out with in the next few weeks and she would do it with all the enthusiasm she couldn’t be bothered to feel.
The new corset she had been trussed up in like a ham about to be boiled didn’t help. While it did serve to keep her from slouching, because bending at the waist was now quite impossible, it also constricted every organ from her lungs to her bladder. It had also pushed her bosoms up in a most inappropriate manner so they threatened to spill out of the neckline of her new, form-fitting white-silk gown. Of course, she had protested the unsuitable dress and the corset, but her aunts insisted such fashions were all ladies wore in the ton and de rigueur at Almack’s. And from the amount of foggy cleavages she could just about see all around her, presented like soft loaves on a baker’s tray, her new great-great-aunts appeared to be right. The knowledge did not make Fliss feel any better about exposing her own bakery goods to the eyes of the world.
And Fliss had definitely been thrust into the window of the bakery, despite repeatedly insisting to both the aged women and her stand-offish Uncle Crispin that she had no desire to find a husband while in town. Never had and probably never would. After years of being on her own, and after watching her mother’s disappointing marriage to her unreliable father, she could see no reason why she would want to relinquish her freedom to just anyone. If, by some miracle, she ever did find a man who wasn’t controlling or unreliable, then perhaps she would reconsider. But if she did, it would be of her own choosing somewhere very far in the future. And finally, and this was completely unnegotiable, he had to absolutely adore her. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had agreed to a Season, not to any matchmaking, therefore introducing her to all and sundry was pointless. Solid, dependable and trustworthy men would hardly waste their time in this crush. They would be far too sensible and nothing like the fops, dandies and pompous aristocratic versions here, so why her new aunts insisted on parading in a constant loop around the room was beyond her. Not only was she unlikely to remember the fifty different names of gentlemen thrown at her so far, without her spectacles, every one of the fifty faces resembled blurred pink blobs. Aside from the varying colours of hair or clothing, none of the many men she had met had any discerning features which she could recognise them by, should she need to.
Mind you, parading around the ballroom was better than standing near the refreshment table. Her aunts had a worrying penchant for the lemonade—which they mixed liberally with the brandy they hid in hip flasks in their reticules, while they regaled her with outrageous stories from their pasts—and had pressed so many glasses into Fliss’s hand her head was beginning to spin. Thanks to the rigid corset, that wasn’t the only side-effect.
‘I think I need to visit the retiring room.’
Both old ladies sighed. ‘How very tiresome. Ever since the great ball at Osterley we have trained ourselves to take no notice of such things. Isn’t that right, Sister?’
Cressida nodded sagely. ‘Indeed. And a very prudent decision it has turned out to be.’
They often talked in riddles, too, sharing knowing looks and wicked grins about experiences from their pasts which they frequently assumed she knew about. ‘That is all well and good, but the retiring room?’
Daphne flapped her hand to the left. ‘It’s over there.’
‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ Because Fliss didn’t trust herself to get there unattended. Not when she wasn’t entirely certain where ‘over there’ was. With her glasses she had a poor sense of direction. Without them she would be hopeless. ‘I’m afraid I might get lost.’ An understatement. It was almost guaranteed.
‘As long as you have a tongue in your head, Felicity, you will never be lost. Remember that, dear.’ Daphne was also prone to issue random guiding words of wisdom at odd times. ‘Head towards the alcove and you shall find it in the furthest corner.’ The hand flapped ineffectually again. ‘We shall wait for you by the refreshment table, won’t we, Cressida?’
Of course they would. Because that was where the lemonade lived.
‘Yes, indeed. Now that you mention it, I am a bit parched, Daphne.’
To Fliss’s complete disgust, the older women immediately left her on their quest for yet more refreshment. She stood impotently and watched their ridiculously tall and elaborate feathered headdresses disappear into the sea of people and allowed her irritation to bubble.
How perfectly splendid. She’d been abandoned by the only two people she knew in the room. Yet another thing to sour her already dour mood. She was stuck miles from home at a ball she didn’t want to be at, wearing a dress she feared she was spilling out of, trussed in a corset she couldn’t breathe in and, to make the occasion all the more perturbing, she couldn’t see more than two feet past her nose. As soon as she got back to Uncle Crispin’s soulless Mayfair house, she had every intention of penning a sternly worded letter to Sister Ursuline telling her the next time she had the urge to suggest Fliss have a little adventure, she could mind her own business.
Typically, within a few minutes of squeezing past the silk-clad throng she was hopelessly lost and it didn’t feel polite to ask such personal directions of complete strangers. Aunt Daphne had said the ladies’ retiring room was in a corner and Almack’s was reassuringly rectangular. If she kept resolutely to the edge, she would doubtless find the dratted room eventually, even if that involved going around a few times. Retracing her steps to the refreshment table might be more problematic, but at least left to her own devices she was spared a few minutes of pointless parading, smiling and gliding like a wispy, blind swan. A slow smile bloomed on her face at the prospect. Suddenly, being lost held a great deal of appeal.
In a secluded alcove in St James’s
Jake was still sulking when he arrived at Almack’s. Seducing an innocent, wide-eyed chit didn’t sit right with him. And, if he was being entirely honest with himself, neither did flirting with one. While he was supremely confident in his ability to do both with exceptional finesse, he made it a point of principle never to dally with nice young ladies. Bawdy young ladies, experienced older ladies and anyone who ran the gamut between was fair game, but impressionable virgins had always been off limits.
For