James, hearing his name, looked towards them and coloured.

“Will you excuse me?” said Daniel.

Annabelle watched him go with regret, but she was reminded that every cloud has a silver lining when she was joined by Caroline who, having lost her companion, sought out her aunt.

“You seem happy,” said Annabelle.

“I am. I was just talking to James—”

“James?” asked Annabelle. “Isn’t it a little early to be calling him James? You have only just met him.”

Caroline gave a despairing sigh, as if to say, Aunt Annabelle, you are so behind the times.

“He happened to be in the neighbourhood,” Caroline went on. “Hearing that his uncle was staying close by, he came to pay his respects. Ah! They have finished talking. I must not monopolize you, Aunt Annabelle. I am sure there are some old people here you would like to talk to.” And so saying, she returned to her new swain.

Annabelle watched her go.

To her dismay, she saw that Daniel, having spoken to his nephew, seemed to be about to leave. He was walking towards the horses with a resolute air. Annabelle experienced the same sinking feeling she had felt the last time he had left a house party at which she had been present. But this time she quickly rallied, for she had been half expecting it ever since she arrived.

And then suddenly he stopped. He hesitated, as if he were wrestling with himself, then he turned and walked towards her with a serious look on his face.

“Annabelle,” he said, taking her hands. “My fool of a nephew has managed to entangle himself with an opera dancer who is threatening all kinds of things if he doesn’t marry her. He has not the age or experience to deal with her and I have, so I am on my way to London at once. I have no right to speak to you, but today’s leave-taking has reminded me of another one, a year ago, when I would have asked you to marry me, had not my brother’s sudden death called me away from you.

“I thought it was only a temporary separation, since I intended to seek you out and propose to you once I was free to think of myself again. But circumstances changed so radically that I could not, in all honour, speak. You see, I had to settle my brother’s many debts and so I was a great deal poorer than when we had first met, whilst you had inherited a fortune and so you were a great deal richer.

“I set out to mend my fortunes, so that I would be able to offer you my hand honourably. But when I met you by chance in the inn, fate stepped in. I have no right to ask you to wait for me, but I cannot let my chance slip away again. You see, I love you, Annabelle. I have loved you for a very long time. So I ask you, though I have no right to do so, will you wait for me?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

His face fell.

“It might take years for you to restore your fortune,” she said, smiling, “by which time I will be in my dotage, if my niece is to be believed. So I rather think we should seize our youth whilst we can and marry without delay!”

He laughed and squeezed her hands. “Your niece is a very wise girl,” he said. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly. “I have been wanting to do that again for a very long time,” he said.

“And I have been wanting you to,” she replied.

In answer, he kissed her again.

They would have continued thus for the rest of the afternoon had they not been interrupted by a startled cry and then a gasp of horror.

Annabelle, surfacing from Daniel’s embrace, saw Caroline standing there.

“Aunt! I wondered where you were! I wanted to tell you it was time to go, but I see now that I have arrived not a moment too soon to rescue you from this … this seducer!” She grabbed Annabelle’s wrist and pulled her away from Daniel, glaring at him all the while.

“My dear girl …” began Annabelle.

“I assure you, my intentions are honourable!” said Daniel to Caroline. “Your aunt has very kindly consented to become my wife.”

Caroline let out a cry of horror. “No! Aunt Annabelle! Say it is not true!”

“I am afraid it is,” said Annabelle.

“But at your age! You will be a laughing stock!” said Caroline in horror. Then her face fell and she added tragically, “But of course, now that you have been compromised, you can do nothing else. And perhaps it is a good thing after all. You will be thirty soon and will need a companion for your twilight years.” She smiled bravely. “I am very happy for you, after all.”

“That is very generous of you,” said Annabelle with a twinkle in her eye. “To make you feel better, I hope you will consent to be my bridesmaid.”

“Oh, yes!” said Caroline, brightening at once. “I will need a new dress, new shoes …”

“Yes, you will need all those things, and have them, too. And then, perhaps, you will invite me to be the matron of honour at your own wedding to Able, which must surely soon follow mine.”

Caroline looked at her in astonishment. “My dear Aunt, what can you be talking about? I am not going to marry Able. Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“I rather thought you were in love with him.”

“How absurd! Of course not. A slight infatuation, perhaps, contracted when I was only sixteen. But I am older and a great deal wiser now. I am going to marry James!”

Cynders and Ashe

Elizabeth Boyle

One

London — 1815

“You expect my daughter to wear that gown?” Lady Fitzsimon’s acid tones carried to every corner of the elegant dress shop on Bond Street.

“My Lady, it is exactly the gown you ordered,” Madame Delaflote replied. Used as she was to the fits and fleeting fancies of London ladies, she took Lady Fitzsimon’s protests in her stride.

Either the lady was doing this to get her bill lowered — which would never happen, for Madame Delaflote never gave up a shilling that could possibly be wrung from a client — or she was just being aristocratic merely because she could.

In that case, Madame Delaflote had naught to do but wait her out.

From behind the curtain that separated the showroom from the workroom, Miss Ella Cynders flinched with each protest as if she were being flogged. For the dress was her creation, her finest — if she was inclined to boast — but she knew that it had been a risk making it for Lady Fitzsimon’s daughter.

“The Ashe Ball is tonight, Madame!” Lady Fitzsimon was saying. Ella glanced out and found the matron waving her invitation about for all to see. Invitations to the Ashe Ball were so coveted, so limited, that most who held one kept it carefully guarded. For without that printed invitation, one could not enter. Proof of this being demonstrated at the moment by her ladyship, who was keeping hers on her person, never far from sight, and, better yet, close at hand to flaunt over those who hadn’t been invited. “My daughter cannot go in that!”

Ella watched the lady point at the dress her daughter was modelling as if it were made of rags — when nothing could be further from the truth. The fair green silk, embroidered with silver thread and adorned with thousands of seed pearls, was an artistic triumph. Ella and the two other assistants, Martha and Hazel, had all but worn their fingers to the bone to get the gown ready in time.

It was a fairy-tale dress destined for an unforgettable night.

“My good lady,” Madame Delaflote said, “your daughter shines like the rarest jewel in that gown. Lord Ashe won’t be able to take his eyes off her.”

“Of course he won’t — she looks naked in it,” the lady declared.

Not exactly naked, Ella would have told her, but the illusion was there. As if she were a woodland nymph stepping from her hidden grove. Sleeveless and cut low in the front, the dress clung to the wearer as if it were a second skin.

“That gown is ruinous! Why, she looks—” Lady Fitzsimon’s hands fluttered about as she searched for the right words.

From behind the curtain, the three assistants finished her sentence for her.

“Gorgeous,” Martha whispered.

“Breathtaking,” Hazel added.

“Unforgettable,” Ella said.

“Common!” Lady Fitzsimon declared. “As if she’s just stepped from the stage of a revue. I want Lord Ashe to fall in love with my daughter. Marry her. Don’t you realize he must choose his bride tonight? Tonight, Madame! The gown Roseanne wears must be perfect!”

“Stupid cow,” Martha muttered, her less than refined origins coming out. “That gel fair on sparkles in it.”

“Aye, she does,” Hazel agreed. “Like a princess.”

Ella agreed, for she and Roseanne were of similar colouring and build, and she had tried the dress on herself to make sure the blush green silk — like the first verdant whisper of spring — would bring out the girl’s fair features.

“If you think I am paying for this, you are sadly mistaken,” Lady Fitzsimon said, sounding more like a shrewd fishwife than a baroness.

Madame Delaflote took a furtive glance at the curtain, where she knew her assistants were most likely eavesdropping. Her brows rose in two dark arches, the sort of look each of them knew was a dangerous harbinger.

If Lady Fitzsimon refused this dress, someone would pay for it.

“And whatever are those things sticking out from her back?” the lady continued.

“Wings, My Lady,” Madame Delaflote told her. “You asked for a fairy costume, and those are her wings.”

“They are a nuisance. However is she to dance? They’ll get crushed in the crowd before the first set — and then what? She’ll be in the retiring room for a good part of the night having them clipped off.” Lady Fitzsimon shook her head. “No, no, no, this will never do. And I blame you, Madame Delaflote. Everyone says your gowns are the finest, but I hardly see what you were thinking to dress my daughter like a Cyprian.” She turned to Roseanne. “Take it off at once, before someone sees you in it and thinks we actually ordered such a shameful piece.”

Ella cringed. For the gown had been her idea, her creation. And if Lady Fitzsimon wouldn’t pay for it, refused it, well, she knew very well who would be paying for it — her.

“She’s not taking it?” Hazel whispered, as Roseanne slipped into the changing room and Martha hurried after her to help her out of the gown.

Meanwhile, Madame Delaflote and Lady Fitzsimon continued their heated exchange.

“My Lady, that gown is exactly what you ordered.” If there was one thing that could be said about Madame Delaflote, she was a determined soul.

“I ordered a gown that would set my daughter apart — not have her appear like some Covent Garden high-flyer.”

Madame Delaflote sucked in a deep breath to be so insulted, for her gowns were sought after, fawned over, ordered months in advance (as this one had been) and no one called them tawdry.

And certainly no one had ever refused one.

Yet here was Lady Fitzsimon in high dudgeon, having gathered up her daughter, by now properly dressed in a blue sprig muslin day gown, and leaving.

Ella closed her eyes and wished herself well away from this disaster. But a loud whoomph, and Hazel’s muffled giggle brought her back to the present.

The other two had parted the curtain and there in the front of the shop lay Lady Fitzsimon on the floor.

In her rush to depart the shop, she’d run right into a footman who was delivering a missive. His notes and messages had fluttered up in the air as he had tried to catch the lady from falling, but her girth had defied even his strength and the two of them had ended up in a tangle at the doorway.

Madame rushed forwards to help the baroness, as did Roseanne, but the matron was too furious to have any assistance. She righted herself, caught her daughter by the arm and marched from the store, her nose tipped haughtily in the air.

An embarrassed silence filled the shop, but only for a moment. Madame snapped her fingers, as if that was enough to dismiss the situation, then got back to business, calling for her assistants, and greeting the waiting clients with her usual French airs.

The footman gathered up his notes, with Hazel’s help — for the girl had a romantic nature and flirted shamelessly with all the handsome footmen who came and went from the shop. They all knew Hazel and she knew them.

The cheeky fellow handed over a pair of missives and winked at the girl before he turned to leave.

Madame, however, was in no mood for such behaviour and snatched the mail from Hazel’s hands. She sent the girl a scathing glance that sent her scurrying to the back room.