Cousin Cecilia by Joan Smith Page B

against the others? She could bar—and it would have to be by main force—the girls from attending the next assembly. This no sooner occurred than to be rejected. The occasions when the couples were together were already too few. Besides, it might be recognized as retaliation and she was more subtle than that.
    What would please her much better would be to have the girls’ cards so full that they could barely squeeze Dallan and Wideman in for one dance. And that meant bringing in reinforcements.
    London was the obvious place to recruit them. With the Season drawing nigh, crowds would be gathering, and some of them would agree to spend a few days before the Season at a country party. She jotted down half a dozen names, and felt that if half of them accepted, it would provide a beau each for her cousins and Kate Daugherty.
    She debated a moment whether to send the invitations by mail or deliver them in person, and soon opted for the latter. A day in London would provide a pleasant diversion for her cousins. What day should they go? Lord Wickham was to call today, and tomorrow was Sunday. The London crowd would be thin on a Monday, as weekend parties sometimes lasted an extra day. She tentatively settled on Wednesday as the day for the trip. It only remained to get Mrs. Meacham’s approval and drop a line to Papa’s housekeeper in Hanover Square to prepare the house.
    She did not broach her plan the instant her cousins came down to breakfast. There was still some discussion of the assembly to be indulged in. Cecilia received many questions as she had been singled out by Lord Wickham. “What is he like?” was the most often asked one. She patiently repeated that he was very civil, not so very toplofty, and so on.
    “I thought him an excellent dancer,” Martha said, to remind them that she had been singled out for his second partner. “Better than Henley. Henley was going to ask you to stand up, Cecilia, but he was afraid you would refuse.”
    “I hope I am not so rude as that! I should have been happy to stand up with him,” Cecilia assured her.
    “He’s taken the notion you dislike him.”
    Cecilia knew that a feud in that quarter would only keep Henley away and was quick to mend the quarrel. “Only because I teased him a little about his jacket?” she laughed lightly. “You must tell him I was only funning. I only tease those men I like,” she added. “He looked very well, did he not? Quite an unexceptionable jacket he wore last night.”
    Martha smiled and said she would tell him next time she saw him.
    “When will you see him again?” Cecilia asked at once, and heard that no firm call was planned.
    “Is there no private party planned for a Saturday night?” she asked, and was told there was none. “A pity local company is so thin. Our wits are gone begging! Why do we not have a party, Mrs. Meacham?” Their shocked faces told her this was innovation of a strong order, to be having a party for no obvious reason.
    “They always go to Jack Duck’s on Saturday night,” Alice announced baldly. “George says it is the best night.”
    “Then Saturday is precisely the evening we must have our party,” Cecilia countered.
    “It is too late for this week,” Mrs. Meacham mentioned. “We could get it together for next Saturday.”
    “Excellent. Let us send out the cards this very day. I shall send one to Lord Wickham as well, with your permission, ma’am.”
    Her hostess looked shocked at the idea. “Oh my dear, we cannot ask him!”
    “Is he as ramshackle as all that?”
    “Nothing of the sort. The hitch is that he never accepts an invitation anywhere. He received many offers when he first returned, but he never accepted them.”
    Cecilia had no wish to receive a refusal. “You told me he never attended the assemblies either, but he went last night.”
    “So he did, and it was the greatest surprise in the world. Whoever would have believed it? Everyone spoke of it. And of you, too, Cecilia. You were