Page 21 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

She wore a simple, high-waisted white gown of silk tricot with layers of lilac fringe at the hem. A swath of cord or some such trimming draped around the small, high bodice, bringing attention to that area. Cord trim along the small puffed sleeves bared most of her upper arm, a smooth sweep of dark golden-brown skin meeting the elbow of her white gloves. Her dark brown curls were tucked into a smooth coronet laced with a string of glittering diamante and an ostrich feather, dyed lilac, that curled forward over her head. She looked like she might be an installation of any great house, daughter of a baron, an earl, even a duchess.

An effect of her theater training, of course. She was practiced at pretending to high birth and manners. It was a role she had memorized as well as the scornful ripostes of Beatrice.

And she had found her way to the side of the highest woman in the room—Andover’s cousin Diana, daughter of the previous Earl of Suffolk, who was staying in Cheltenham for the cure and had been installed at Suffolk House for the duration.

Cousin Diana was too wise to bow to the dictates of fashion that bared skin in a drafty room. She sat with straight back in a gown of cascading silk with sleeves that went all the way to her wrists, a lace ruff that covered her bosom up to the chin, and a long mink tippet draped around her shoulders. Her gown was a pale pink trimmed with green scallops—no widow’s weeds for Cousin Diana. The scallops were an interesting motif, and Dante thought how they might look in the dressing room for the mistress’s chamber at his house.

Lady Diana took the younger girl’s hand and patted it in a motherly caress.

“But of course you must stay here. There’s not a single decent set of lodgings to be had in this town, other than the Great House, and I find the company there has been sadly degraded ever since those Irish sisters sold it. But when Phillis ran off to be married, what was poor Francis Mary to do?”

“Now, Cousin Diana, I hope you don’t think I am degrading the Great House.” Dutton joined the small group. Of course he would; Dutton never failed to place himself at the side of the most attractive female in the room. “I’ve given an excellent dinner there once or twice.”

“And no doubt contributed to a great influx of traffic that would wear on the nerves of one so delicate as Miss Evans.”

Dante nearly snorted at the idea of Cerys Evans being delicate, but Cousin Diana had a point to drive home. “She is much better off here. Andover is a flirt and a great one for his amusements, but you will have a quiet refuge out of the general way of things, and you will not be prey to whatever rough or tedious company turns up in rented lodgings.”

Thus Cousin Diana dismissed Cheltenham’s dozens, perhaps over a hundred establishments, a great many of them laboring to appeal to the genteel or merely decent. She patted Cerys on the hand again.

“Shall we have dancing after dinner? Or music? I’ll ask Andover to get up some amusement for us. It is so good to have interesting company. Michael and I never had children, you know, and I do like a bit of liveliness. Though he created enough on his own, you might say.”

Cerys seemed to sense a rancorous path there and steered clear of it. “There are several among our troupe who are musical, Lady Diana. I am certain we could provide some means of entertainment.”

“I guessed you to be an accomplished young lady.” More patting. “And I told the Viscountess so when she wrote me. The whims of youth!” She chuckled. “Now, where is that very droll Mr. Manelli? The sight of his handsome countenance would refresh me a great deal.”

“How fortunate for you, Cousin Diana,” Dutton said stiffly. He was apparently irked that Dante should be wanted and determined to remind her ladyship that, by Andover’s marriage, Dutton was allied with the Howard family as well. “Here is your brooding Italian, right here.”

“Ah, Signor Manelli!” The older woman’s eyes lit with appreciation as Dante stepped forward. “Tell us all the news of Italy.”

“I have not been there for some time, Lady Diana, so I cannot be certain my news is current.”

“Ah, but you still have family there, do you not? My half-sister Margaret, she is in Calcutta, don’t you know. Married to a director of the East India Company, now. Clever Margaret. She’s done well for herself, despite being my father’s natural daughter.”

Lady Diana winked. Clearly she was not one to fret over or cover up the existence of illegitimate children. Given the great number that the royal dukes had produced, the existence of natural children could hardly be ignored in polite circles, though the high sticklers tried.

“Then perhaps you might tell us the news of India, my lady, as it is far more distant from us than Italy.”

Hopefully the woman realized these were separate continents, but too many English, ensconced in their tiny island, had little understanding of the geography or indeed the extent of the rest of the globe. The British Navy was the greatest in the world—Nelson, at Trafalgar, had established that—and British ships brought goods to these shores from every corner of the earth, abetting the belief that England was the center of the world by culture if not by Mercator projections.

It remained to see whether the British Army and its allies could halt the depredations of the little general on the Continent. But Dante knew better than to raise such unpleasant subjects in the drawing rooms of the great.

“I’d rather hear your news, frankly,” Lady Diana said. “You Italians are such an interesting people. So passionate and brooding. And you, dear.” She turned to Cerys. “You’ve a touch of darkness in your looks as well. Italian? Indian?”

“My grandmother was African, ma’am. My mother was born on Barbados, but my grandfather brought them both to England with him. My father was Dutch. I’m told I have his eyes.”

Dutton’s eyes lit with a new interest as he appraised Miss Evans, and Dante could guess why. All of a sudden the girl was exotic to him, with a heritage in tropical climes. And if Miss Evans’s mother had been a natural child herself, born of an African woman that an enslaver had made his mistress, her own birth put Miss Evans firmly in the demimonde, or at least on the far fringes of respectable society.

Lady Diana didn’t bat an eye. She came from an older age, with different manners, and while she might have been born a gentlewoman, her husband, by all accounts, had been a man of the world. “And are you going to tell us who your grandfather was?” she asked coyly. “Your English grandsire.”

Cerys maintained her pleasant smile. “I make no claim to him, ma’am, as he never made claim to me.”

Her ladyship let out a bark of laughter. “Steel in her backbone! Oh, very good, child. Don’t waste yourself on the theater for too long. Your family will want you back soon enough.”

She turned toward the door as newcomers entered. “Oh, I’ve seen that pair at the Great House. He’s an out-and-out cad, Miss Evans. Don’t let him catch you in a dark corner. As for his lady.” Her smile lifted into a sneer. “I’ve never seen one so keen for climbing the social ladder, claws out. Wonder how long it will take her to come make sweet to me.”

Dante followed her gaze to the door and froze, as if the woman smirking from the doorway had been a Medusa, turning everyone she gazed upon to stone.

It could not be.