ignoring this interruption. “She is mischievous, with an innocence that leads her to view herself, and her circumstances, as a delightful game. Clemence has no idea where such a path as she follows must lead her in the end.” Kenelm spoke the name in tones of such reverence as are normally reserved for the Deity. Maddy glanced at him, startled, for she had once had a school friend by that uncommon name.
“She is but newly on the stage,” Kenelm added, “and has already attracted much attention. Nothing is known of her background, though she is believed to be of good family.”
“And if Mama learns about your tendre for her,” Alathea interposed, “there’ll be the deuce to pay. Must we speak of nothing but your actress? I find her tedious.”
“Not ‘my’ actress,” Kenelm protested. “I have not the most distant reason to suppose that I am at all the favorite in that quarter.” Maddy found this unexpected humility endearing. Kenelm prepared to escort his charges into Gunther’s, the celebrated Berkeley Square confectioner who specialized in ices, cakes, and biscuits, fine and common sugarplums. “And you, my girl,” he said sternly as he took firm hold of his sister’s arm, “will cease your gabble-mongering or it’ll be bellows to mend with you!”
Had Maddy not been engrossed in her own thoughts, she might have been privileged to view Kenelm’s actress, for that fashionable damsel was an interested witness of their alightment from Kenelm’s well-sprung equipage. The dazzling Clemence impatiently tapped a shapely foot, and appeared likely to accost the small party, but her pale, dark-haired escort dissuaded her. Nor did Kenelm, ushering his charges inside the august establishment, notice this byplay. It was as well; Kenelm had no great love for Alastair Bechard. Clemence, a distracted expression on her mobile features, allowed herself to be led away.
Chapter Four
Maddy was bored. True, she’d learned a great deal about the Jellicoe family since her arrival in London, and had a much better notion of how to properly comport herself, but she was tired of being confined to her aunt’s luxurious, overstaffed home. She thought wistfully of the Duchess’s gentle soliloquy on Pall Mall and St. James Street, Piccadilly and Bond Street, those main thoroughfares of the fashionable world. Kenelm’s promised tour of London had not as yet materialized, and her few outings had been unbearably sedate, for Letty did not wish her niece to be seen racketing around London until after her debut. Maddy vacillated between elation and dejection. She wished to hear no more of her aunt’s strictures on how she must behave, yet what young girl could remain nonchalant when she was about to take her place in Society?
Maddy was yet innocent enough to be dazzled by those illustrious personages whom she had been privileged to glimpse, among them Lord Alvanly, the celebrated wit who almost rivaled Brummel, and Lord Petersham, as famed for his equestrianism as for the strange, voluminous pantaloons that he affected. Maddy had also been privileged to view Hariette Wilson, the much-discussed lady of leisure known by her countless admirers as the Queen of Hearts, but refrained from mentioning that particular incident in any of the lengthy missives that were dispatched with faithful regularity to Whipple House. Maddy glanced warily at her aunt. Claude de Villiers, in a postscriptum to his wife’s latest letter to their only offspring, had expressed strong displeasure that his sister was taking an unconscionable long time to see the thing done.
Blissfully unaware of her brother’s displeasure, Letty was in an excellent mood, a happy state prompted not so much by gratification that the gala evening that she’d organized promised to be a triumph, as by the successful application of a concoction known as Emulsion of Roses. This restorative, which claimed to return the skin to the fresh bloom of youth and to correct the
“She is but newly on the stage,” Kenelm added, “and has already attracted much attention. Nothing is known of her background, though she is believed to be of good family.”
“And if Mama learns about your tendre for her,” Alathea interposed, “there’ll be the deuce to pay. Must we speak of nothing but your actress? I find her tedious.”
“Not ‘my’ actress,” Kenelm protested. “I have not the most distant reason to suppose that I am at all the favorite in that quarter.” Maddy found this unexpected humility endearing. Kenelm prepared to escort his charges into Gunther’s, the celebrated Berkeley Square confectioner who specialized in ices, cakes, and biscuits, fine and common sugarplums. “And you, my girl,” he said sternly as he took firm hold of his sister’s arm, “will cease your gabble-mongering or it’ll be bellows to mend with you!”
Had Maddy not been engrossed in her own thoughts, she might have been privileged to view Kenelm’s actress, for that fashionable damsel was an interested witness of their alightment from Kenelm’s well-sprung equipage. The dazzling Clemence impatiently tapped a shapely foot, and appeared likely to accost the small party, but her pale, dark-haired escort dissuaded her. Nor did Kenelm, ushering his charges inside the august establishment, notice this byplay. It was as well; Kenelm had no great love for Alastair Bechard. Clemence, a distracted expression on her mobile features, allowed herself to be led away.
Chapter Four
Maddy was bored. True, she’d learned a great deal about the Jellicoe family since her arrival in London, and had a much better notion of how to properly comport herself, but she was tired of being confined to her aunt’s luxurious, overstaffed home. She thought wistfully of the Duchess’s gentle soliloquy on Pall Mall and St. James Street, Piccadilly and Bond Street, those main thoroughfares of the fashionable world. Kenelm’s promised tour of London had not as yet materialized, and her few outings had been unbearably sedate, for Letty did not wish her niece to be seen racketing around London until after her debut. Maddy vacillated between elation and dejection. She wished to hear no more of her aunt’s strictures on how she must behave, yet what young girl could remain nonchalant when she was about to take her place in Society?
Maddy was yet innocent enough to be dazzled by those illustrious personages whom she had been privileged to glimpse, among them Lord Alvanly, the celebrated wit who almost rivaled Brummel, and Lord Petersham, as famed for his equestrianism as for the strange, voluminous pantaloons that he affected. Maddy had also been privileged to view Hariette Wilson, the much-discussed lady of leisure known by her countless admirers as the Queen of Hearts, but refrained from mentioning that particular incident in any of the lengthy missives that were dispatched with faithful regularity to Whipple House. Maddy glanced warily at her aunt. Claude de Villiers, in a postscriptum to his wife’s latest letter to their only offspring, had expressed strong displeasure that his sister was taking an unconscionable long time to see the thing done.
Blissfully unaware of her brother’s displeasure, Letty was in an excellent mood, a happy state prompted not so much by gratification that the gala evening that she’d organized promised to be a triumph, as by the successful application of a concoction known as Emulsion of Roses. This restorative, which claimed to return the skin to the fresh bloom of youth and to correct the
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