The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet by Mary Balogh

he said.
    She grinned at him and then remembered that ladies did not grin. She was reminded by the arrival of the Duchess of Bridgwater, whom Lord Francis handed into the carriage. The coachman put up the steps and began to close the door. But Cora leaned hastily forward.
    “Yes, then,” she said. “And thank you. You are very kind.”
    “T HIS IS E LIZABETH’S doing, at an educated guess,” her grace said when they were finally on their way, her voice not unkind. “Elizabeth holds the strange and rather painful belief that feet must be made to appear as small as possible. I should have remembered that, dear, when I allowed her to accompany you to the shoemaker’s. Tomorrow, or as soon as your feet have healed, we mustbegin all over again. Betty, I believe, wears just the size of these slippers.”
    Betty brightened considerably.
    “Lord Francis said that small feet on a large person would look silly,” Cora said.
    “And Lord Francis is an authority on feminine beauty and fashion,” her grace said. “You would do well to pay him heed, Cora. But I would be willing to wager that he did not imply that you are
large
. Did he perhaps use the word
tall
? He is far too well-bred to have used the former.”
    She was not in disgrace after all, Cora thought. She sank back against the squabs and relaxed. It really was fun to be part of the
ton
for a short while. Tonight she had danced with numerous gentlemen and even with a duke’s son—it did not matter that he dressed like a peacock. The blisters had been won in an almost worthwhile cause. She had enjoyed herself greatly. And tomorrow she was to drive in Hyde Park at five o’clock in the afternoon.
    She closed her eyes and thought of the letter she would write to Papa and Edgar tomorrow morning.
    L ORD F RANCIS K NELLER was in the depths of gloom. He toyed with breakfast, pushing the kidneys into a neat triangle at one side of his plate and lining up the three sausages like soldiers at the other. One soldier was taller than the other two—he moved it to the middle for better symmetry. He could not decide at quite what angle to set his toast on the plate for best aesthetic effect.
    His heart was squashed flat against the soles of his riding boots.
    He had been feeling almost cheerful when he had got up after only a few hours of sleep following the Markley ball. All through his morning ride in the park he had feltalmost cheerful. He had kept thinking about the rather odd Miss Cora Downes, and somehow every thought had brought amusement—and occasionally an actual chuckle—with it.
    He had been somewhat exhilarated at his plan to bring her into fashion, perhaps even to find her the husband the Duchess of Bridgwater had brought her to London to find. He had thought that perhaps at last he would have something
amusing
on which to fix his mind and his energies. It might not be easy to bring Cora Downes into fashion—though none of her partners last evening had looked as if he had had to be coerced into dancing with her. There had been some lascivious glances, of course, especially when she had been dancing most vigorously.
    By the time he had reached home and stabled his horse and walked back to his rooms for breakfast, he had still felt almost cheerful. There was always the qualification of the
almost
, of course. Always deep within, sometimes beyond the medium of conscious thought, was the awareness that today, no matter how much he was out and about in Society, he would not see Samantha.
    He had been
almost
cheerful. This afternoon he would take Miss Downes up in his phaeton and would drive her in the park and see what amusement might be derived from doing so.
    And then he had sat down to breakfast and his newspaper and his letters. And instead of reading the paper first and then tackling the post, he had thumbed through the letters and discovered one from Gabe—his close friend, the Earl of Thornhill. And because Gabe was his friend, and because he lived in Yorkshire