Deceived

Isabella heard Penelope give a snort of derision that she did not even attempt to turn into a cough. She gave her sister a quelling look.

“It is a great pleasure to be here, Duchess,” Isabella said, adding with scrupulous truth, “Your Scottish exhibition is quite spectacular.”

It was indeed. Ever since the Prince Regent had started a craze for all things Caledonian earlier in the year with his sudden and rather awkward nostalgic attachment to the Stuart dynasty, the Tory hostesses has adorned their houses with tartans and bagpipes and the dancing was all reels and strathspeys. Isabella could hear a fiddler tuning up in the ballroom to the right of them; when the strains of the violin where joined by the wheeze of the bagpipes, several people in the vicinity had the pained expressions of those suffering the earache.

“How marvelous,” Isabella said, as the duchess winced at the sound. She turned to Augustus. “We must certainly dance the reel later, my lord.”

The duchess beamed in relief and Augustus smiled, too, and gave Isabella’s arm a little squeeze of approval, which irritated her with its proprietory overtones. Augustus, whom she had first met when he was a diplomat at the Swedish Court and she and Ernest were in exile there, had never been any more than a useful escort to social events. She suspected that like many men over the years, he liked to give the impression of being more than merely her friend. Her presence gave the staid diplomat a slightly risqué, man-of-the-world aura that she knew he enjoyed. Yet if it had come to marriage, she knew that matters would have been very different. There was no possibility that Augustus Ambridge would have taken on her reputation and her debts in any formal sense. He would have run from the thought like a lily-livered rabbit.

The duchess was greeting Penelope now. Her tone had cooled by at least ten degrees since she was speaking to someone with barely a title and very little fortune, whom she had identified as being an unsuitable prospect for her son. It seemed that John Fordyce had other ideas, however. Led astray by Pen’s dazzling prettiness, he asked for her hand in the next Scottish dance.

“No, thank you, my lord,” Pen said sweetly, “I only reel when I am drunk, and in the words of Shakespeare, drink is good only for encouraging three things, one of which is sleep and another urine. I merely quote, you understand, to illustrate my point.”

One of the Fordyce sisters tittered behind her fan; the duchess’s face turned still with horror and John’s smile faltered as he backed away. “Some other occasion, perhaps,” he sputtered.

“Oh, I do hope so,” Pen said, smiling with luscious promise. “I look forward to it.”

“Come along, Penelope,” Freddie said hastily. “We are holding up the reception line.”

Pen permitted herself to be drawn away from the group and up the sweep of stairs toward the ballroom.

“And you think that I am outrageous, Pen!” Isabella chided, taking her brother’s arm as Augustus drew away from her with a hurried word and went off to seek the company of the duchess’s more respectable guests. “We must be a sad trial to you, Freddie.”

“Comes of having a fishmonger for a grandfather,” Freddie said cheerfully. “Neither of you ever had any idea of how to behave. I suppose I must be the one to set the good example.”

They reached the top of the staircase and he dropped their arms as abruptly as though they did not exist. A vision in pale blue had wafted across his line of sight.

“I say, there is Lady Murray!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Excuse me—squiring one’s sisters about is the most lamentable dead bore.” And with that he dove into the crowd.

“Oh well,” Pen said, linking her arm through Isabella’s and drawing her into the ballroom. “So much for Freddie’s manners! Lady Murray is his latest inamorata, I am afraid. It will end in tears.”

“Hers?” Isabella asked.

“His,” Pen said. “She dangles him on a string and there are at least three other gentlemen she dallies with.”

“Now that,” Isabella said, “is outrageous. How is it that I am tarred with scandal whilst others behave badly and no one raises an eyebrow?”

“Hypocrites,” Pen said comfortingly. “Speaking of which, look at Augustus, Bella! He has eyes for no one but himself tonight.”

It was true. Augustus Ambridge had stopped in front of one of the duchess’s long gilt mirrors and was studying his appearance with intensity. Brown hair slicked back with Mr. Cabburn’s Bear’s Grease, a sovereign lotion for reviving thinning locks; buttons polished, shoulders ever so slightly padded, jacket bolstered with buckram from the Prince Regent’s own tailor, calves plumped out with a little wadding to improve the shape of his leg…Indeed, Isabella reflected that he was the very image of an elegant diplomat, and barely an inch of it was real.

“Oh, Penelope,” she chided. “Can you not at least try to like him?”

Penelope paused, apparently to give the matter genuine consideration. “No,” she said, at length, “why should I? Since you are not to marry him, there is no obligation on me to try. You are kinder than I am, you know, Bella. I would not even give him the time of day.”