The Adventuress: HFTS5 by Marion Chesney, M.C. Beaton Page B

conceive how, in this very cold weather, I’m ever to bring my five hundred together …… in short, my dear, names like
    Wintztschitstopschinzoudhoff
    Are the only things now to make an evening smooth off—
    So, get me a Russian—till death I’m your debtor—
    If he brings the whole alphabet so much the better
.
    And—Lord! if he would but in character, sup
    Off his fish-oil and candles, he’d quite set me up!
    Au revoir, my sweet girl—I must leave you in haste—
    Little Gunter has brought me the liquors to taste
.
    —Thomas Moore
     
    “Will she be expecting you, do you think?” asked Fitz, as he and the earl strolled along Curzon Street.
    “I do not know, my friend.”
    “Surely you gave some reply to her invitation?”
    “I never reply to invitations unless they be to dinner. I either go or don’t go.”
    “I confess to certain tremors of excitement,” said Fitz. “Is she really so beautiful?”
    “Miss Goodenough is extremely beautiful and very much out of the common way.”
    “What is this ridiculous story about her being a princess?”
    “It is a usual practice,” said the earl, “when some hostess fears people will not attend her festivities, to send her servants out gossiping and spreading lies to excite curiosity.”
    “You make me feel like a flat. I had not heard of such a practice.”
    “My late wife, Clarissa, once created a sensation in Grosvenor Square by having it put about that she intended to display a two-headed monkey at her rout. There was no such animal, but silly society fought and pushed and screamed to get into my house. So determined were they to have a new piece of gossip that a remarkable amount of them claimed to have seen this monkey and even fed its two heads with nuts.”
    “So even if no one believes her to be a princess, they will insist she is until a better piece of tittle-tattle comes along?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Perhaps this Miss Goodenough will turn out to be the bride for you,” said Fitz, with a sidelong look at his friend’s handsome face.
    “Too young and too beautiful. I am looking for a lady of mature years, but not too old to bear children, and of good intelligence and dignity. If they are young, they are silly, and if they are beautiful, they are empty-headed and vain, having never had to make the least push to entertain.”
    “Are you not afraid that some of the house’s notorious bad luck will stick to you?”
    “Not I. I am not superstitious, but then, I am no gambler.”
    “It all looks very quiet,” said Fitz as they turned the corner into Clarges Street. “No carriages, no crush.”
    “Then the princess tale has not taken,” said the earl. “Society must be becoming more sophisticated. And I must be getting old. I am beginning to wish I had stayed quietly at home with a book. The relief of finding myself in comfortable surroundings after the noise of Limmer’s Hotel makes me reluctant to go out anywhere.”
    “I wish you had stayed long enough at Limmer’s to find out how that fellow, John Collins, makes that delicious gin concoction of his.”
    “Alas, no one yet has mastered his recipe, and so the only place you can find such a drink is at Limmer’s. Here we are!”
    Emily was beginning to feel faint with the strain of waiting.
    She was a sitting on an an ornately carved gilt chair on a little raised dais in the front parlour. This throne-like effect had been created for her by Rainbird and Angus.
    Her hair was dressed in one of the new Roman styles, with a fall of glossy ringlets from a knot at the back of her head and swept severely back at the front to show a tiara of diamonds and pearls to advantage.
    Her gown was one she had bought in Bath. It had orginally been a modish creation of oyster satin but had been embellished by a London dressmaker with pearl embroidery, which managed to make it look somewhat like a coronation gown. It had a square décolletage, cut daringly low to expose the top of her breasts. Her long silk