The Scandalous Life of a True Lady (33 page)

Simone wore Madame Journet’s masterpiece, the black silk gown with the glittering brilliants on the lace overskirt. The bodice was a bit snug, due to the superb meals at Griffin Manor, but Sarah assured Simone that the tighter fit simply made her breasts look fuller and the décolletage plunge a little deeper. Miss Noma had the figure for it, Sarah swore.

Simone faced the mirror and frowned. “I don’t have half the bust Claire does, and the men are doing the voting. You know how they are about big bosoms.”

Sarah’s own figure was still developing. Half out of loyalty, and half out of pride in her own work, she said, “Think of Miss Hope as a frigate. She’ll get you where you’re going, all right. But you’re like one of those fancy sloops they race on the Thames, sleek, fast, and exciting just to watch.”

Simone felt like a scow with a fresh coat of paint. Whatever made her think she could compete with Claire? The very idea of being on show still terrified her, while Claire was used to the adulation of huge audiences. And even if Simone’s gown was lovely, and her hair done in elaborate twists, Claire would still outshine her. That necklace in the safe guaranteed it.

Simone’s own neck was bare—and her upper chest too, the neckline was so low—because Harry’s blue sapphire would look dreadful with this gown. She had no other jewelry, not even a locket or a string of pearls.

“Perhaps I should take one of the rhinestone ribbons from my hair.”

Sarah screamed at the idea.

Then Harry came in and Simone forgot about her hair, her gown, her bare chest. Here was perfection. Too bad she could not wear him on her sleeve, or change the voting to best dressed couple. Harry was always the finest looking man in the room, and not just in her opinion either. She noticed how every female’s eye followed him around a room. Tonight he was magnificent.

His white satin knee breeches and white clocked stockings delineated every firm muscle, revealing a rider’s strength, a fencer’s sinew, a woman’s dream. His dark tailcoat spread without a wrinkle across broad shoulders, and his sparkling white neckcloth was tied in an intricate knot without being so high that it hid his handsome face. He wore a different stickpin from his usual sapphire tonight, which delighted Simone.

“You put on a ruby to match my gown? How clever.”

“No,” he said. “I wore the ruby to match this.” He held out a velvet pouch that she thought she’d seen in the safe.

She kept her hands at her sides. “But we agreed that I cannot accept such expensive gifts from you.”

Harry turned to the maid. “Sarah, I think Metlock needs help in the dressing room. We couldn’t get the neckcloth right, and made a mess of things trying.”

When Sarah left, tactfully shutting the door behind her, Harry placed the pouch in Simone’s hands and folded her fingers around it. “This is not a gift, not exactly, anyway. Think of it as a bonus for last night.”

“That’s worse! I didn’t let you kiss me for the money!”

“Let me? Sweetings, you nearly begged me to kiss you, and more. But I meant the necklace to be a reward for your part in switching the blackmail letters.”

“Did Danforth come for them?”

“Not yet. Almost every other chap here did, retrieving some bauble or other for his ladylove to wear tonight. This is a mere token of appreciation. Nothing more. You deserve it.”

“It doesn’t make me a whore, does it? Taking money for my favors?”

He took the pouch back and opened the drawstrings. “It makes you a sharp-witted woman who did her job well.”

Simone still wasn’t sure, until she saw the necklace Harry let trail from his fingers. Now she was sure she’d never seen anything more beautiful, more perfect for her gown, unless it was Harry himself.

Diamonds and rubies sparkled like stars on a silver chain. “This must have cost a fortune.”

He did not even try to lie. “I meant it to be a loan when I purchased it, to be returned to the jeweler when we returned to London. Like your gown, though, it seems to have been made for you, no matter who first commissioned it. No other woman could ever do it justice. It is yours.”

She still did not take the necklace from him. “You had to have known what I’d be wearing when you purchased this. Do you know everything?”

“When I need to. Tonight I need you to be dressed as finely as the other women. No, finer.”

“Did you bet on me too?”

“I tried to tell you, I am betting my life on you. Strangers are invited to Claire’s ball tonight, with hordes of raffish gentlemen coming out from town with their bits of muslin. You will stand out among the entire
demi-monde
.”

“Heavens, is that supposed to set me at ease? I am already nervous enough about the dance.”

“Come. Let us practice.”

“Not in the chair! We’ll have no more of your kind of dancing, sir. Sarah will flay us alive if we muss my hair or my gown. I am certain Metlock feels the same about his handiwork.”

“They can go to the devil.” Harry fastened the necklace around her neck, stood back to admire it, and then started humming one of the newer waltzes. He’d bribed the orchestra conductor. It was the right tune.

It was the right man.

*

Claire turned purple when she saw Simone, which did not look well with her blue-green ensemble.

“That’s my gown! The one I ordered months ago from Madame Journet! She said there was an error and it was lost.”

“Surely that is not the same gown.” Lord Gorham smoothly stepped between the two women. “You can see how well it fits Miss Royale, pet. It’s not your size.”

“Are you suggesting I am fat?” Purple turned to puce, which was worse.

“Never, my precious. You are perfect. Your gown is perfect. Remember, we are calling this the Mermaid Ball. You look like a sea nymph.”

Claire hadn’t told anyone else in the house that the ball was going to have a sea motif. Blue and green silks hung from the walls, with frond-like streamers draped over the windows. Glass bowls with live fish rested on pedestals, and large shells held exotic blooms. A dolphin fountain in the corner spouted punch, and paper dolphins swam from the chandeliers. The only way Claire could match the room better would be if she had a fish tail instead of feet.

Her watered silk ensemble was exquisite, the colors shifting as she moved. The diamond and emerald necklace sat atop her impressive bosom, and more diamonds sparkled in her ears, while pearls crowned her black hair.

“Too much ballast in the bow for a mermaid,” Harry whispered. “She’d sink.”

So did Simone’s hopes. All of the women looked gorgeous.

Sandaree wore a sari of tissue-thin white silk with gold flecks and a wide gold band at the hem. The lustrous fabric was wrapped and gathered tight at the waist, then draped to leave one shoulder entirely bare. Sandaree had painted her twining leaf design on the dusky skin there with gold paint to match the crown of gold leaves she wore. Her dark hair flowed loose down her back, past her waist. She had gold sandals on her feet, and tiny gold bells in her ears.

Ruby was in dark red as always, but tonight her gown’s neckline almost met the high waist. A slit in the skirt revealed far more leg than proper, to show white silk stockings embroidered with red roses. Ruby wore long white gloves and a long strand of large pearls. The ruby pendant she always wore hung from her forehead.

Daisy looked like another sea sprite in turquoise satin, with scalloped hem and neck. She carried a fan painted with sea serpents in a turquoise ocean. Captain Entwhistle confessed he’d heard about the ball’s theme before they left town.

Simone glared at Harry. “I thought you knew everything.”

“Everything that matters.”

Sir Chauncey’s ballet dancer’s gown had five flounces. She had a frown for him when he staggered into one.

Miss Connors’s gown was silver, what there was of it. She had a diamond pendant so large that it filled the exposed vee between her breasts.

“Glass,” Harry whispered to Simone. “Her baronet cannot afford the real thing.”

Miss Hanson wore white, like a debutante, but of muslin so thin one could see the outline of her legs through the skirt, and so damp it clung to them.

Maura wore a gown with tartan trim. “It’s all the rage, don’t you know.”

Alice wore a tent. That’s what she called the expanse of pink fabric needed to cover her stomach. But she looked happiest of all the women, there on Lord Comden’s arm. She had no thought of winning the contest, so had no taut nerves.

The voting began. Each gentleman was given a blue card and a pencil to mark his choice of best dressed mistress for the first round. The women with the three highest scores progressed to the final vote, four if there was a tie.

Everyone speculated that Lord Ellsworth and Mr. Anthony, without their original escorts, could be the deciding factors, if each of the other men voted for his own mistress. Danforth was another question, since he obviously preferred the ballet dancer to Sandaree.

“Hm, I wonder whom I should vote for,” Harry teased.

Each man folded his ballot and tossed it into a hat Lord Gorham’s butler held, after Sir Chauncey insisted on looking at the hat carefully, to make sure it contained no extra ballots. Gorham would have challenged him to a duel for the slur to his honor, if Sir Chauncey wasn’t too castaway to be taken seriously.

Twelve gentlemen were choosing between ten women. Some of the men were blinded by affection, some wanted to stay in Gorham’s good graces, a few were tired of their mistresses.

The ballots were opened in front of everyone, then laid on a table. Daisy, Alice and Ruby each got one vote. Sandaree, Claire and Simone each got three. The others got none. The ballet dancer tossed her empty wine glass at Sir Chauncey, her fan at Danforth, and herself into Lord Ellsworth’s arms. Miss Hanson ran back to her room shivering from her clammy skirts, and Maura cried.

The three finalists were brought to the front of the room, like horses at the starting gate. Gorham’s butler began to hand out the ballots, green this time, but Sir Chauncey cleared his throat, belched, and said, “How about if the losing ladies get to vote at this round too? After all, we’re judging the gowns, and no one knows more about fashion than the women.”

The men nodded sagely. The women clapped their approval.

Gorham said no. “That isn’t in the rules.”

“They may be your rules,” Mr. Anthony put in, “but it’s our money.”

“Hear, hear!”

Claire said no. “You gentlemen may not be aware of the latest styles, but you are wise enough to judge what is most becoming, most pleasing to the eye.”

“So are we,” Ruby called from across the room. “How many of the swells pick out their own clothes, much less ours?”

Maura said she knew which gown she’d like to have as her own. Daisy and Alice seconded her, although Alice added she’d have to wait to look that good in any one of the frocks.

To her utter chagrin, Claire was overruled by her own guests. The butler ripped the green ballots in half so there were enough to go around. Sandaree put her hands together and gracefully salaamed, first to Lord Danforth, then to Mr. Anthony, and to each woman in turn while the spectators applauded.

Simone pirouetted, so everyone could see the low back of her gown, and how it clung to her curves. She couldn’t help laughing, her pleasure written on her face. Harry blew her a kiss, so she curtsied and blew one back with both hands. She got cheers and smiles.

Claire raised her nose in the air. That part-Gypsy mixed breed, mistress to a notorious bastard, had stolen her gown. The Indian slave girl’s costume wasn’t even stylish by British standards, or French. Now they were changing Claire’s rules and acting like hoydens. Claire refused to look at them, she who had been the toast of London and several small principalities. She tipped her head slightly to Gorham.

He voted for her, as did three other men. Not one woman wrote Claire’s name on the ballot. She’d treated them all to her haughty disdain, and cheated them out of a fair chance at the prize money.

Sandaree received six votes altogether, some out of pity for her circumstances.

Noma, who always had a kind word or a smile or an offer to help, who put Claire in her place, received the rest of the votes. She’d won.

The prize this time was a diamond and emerald bracelet, which just happened to match Claire’s necklace. The bracelet was worth far more than the ten guineas of the other contests, but Simone accepted it from Lord Gorham with a kiss on his cheek. She would have kissed Claire too, if the other woman hadn’t stalked off to greet her newly arriving guests. Simone was shaking so hard, Harry had to fasten the bracelet on her wrist. He turned it so the emeralds didn’t show so much, to clash with her gown. “There, now you look more like a queen. Queen of my heart.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Half the libertines in London drove out for the ball with their ladybirds. Claire invited her friends from the theater and the opera. Gorham invited his acquaintances from the clubs and Parliament. Those who were unmarried, or wished they were, accepted the invitation to what looked like a Cyprian’s Ball in a country house. Few of the strait-laced locals attended, scandalized enough by rumors of spies, orgies, and foreigners. In fact, they closed their doors and kept their children inside. No one wanted their daughters getting seduced, their sons getting ideas.

The Londoners knew about the mermaid theme, unlike the house guests, and some came in costume. Several men in togas carried tritons; a few women dragged fish tails behind them. One had a small stuffed carp on her head, another’s gown was patterned in fish scales. A third appeared to be wearing nothing but net.

There was no receiving line, but a row of servants met the newcomers and directed them to the huge ballroom and the gilt chairs around the edges. Only the ten couples in the contest, it was explained, were to dance the first waltz, all at once. After that, everyone present could raise their hands for their favored couple. The three couples with the most votes got to dance again, one at a time. Three almost independent judges got to count the raised hands: Lord Ellsworth, Gorham’s butler, and a defrocked vicar from London.