In the box opposite the crowd had begun to grow thinner, only Lady Amelia Pridham, Mr Dashwood, and Viscount Winwood remaining. Mr Dashwood having borne the Viscount company on his adventures of the previous night, Lady Amelia was scolding them both for their folly when Mr Drelincourt entered the box.

Mr Drelincourt wanted to speak with his cousin Rule, and was quite put out to find him absent. Nor was his annoyance assuaged by the naughty behaviour of my Lady Rule, who, feeling that she had a score to pay off, chanted softly:

“ The Muse in prancing up and down Has found out something pretty, With little hat, and hair dressed high—”

Mr Drelincourt, reddening under his paint, interrupted this popular ditty. “I came to see my cousin, ma’am!”

“He isn’t here,” said Horatia. “C-Crosby, your wig is l-like the last verse of the song. You know, it runs like this: Five pounds of hair they wear behind, the ladies to delight, O!—only it doesn’t delight us at all.”

“Vastly diverting, ma’am,” said Mr Drelincourt, a little shrilly. “I quite thought I had seen Rule beside you in this box.”

“Yes, b-but he has walked out for a while,” replied Horatia.

“Oh, and you c-carry a fan! Lady Amelia, only see! Mr Drelincourt has a fan m-much prettier than mine!”

Mr Drelincourt shut the fan with a snap. “Walked out, has he? Upon my word, you are monstrously used, cousin, and you a bride!” He peered through the glass in the head of his cane at the boxes opposite, and uttered a titter. “What fair charmer can have lured him—Good God, the Massey! Oh, I beg pardon, cousin—I should not have spoken! A jest—the merest jest, I assure you! I had not the least intention—la, do but observe the creature in the puce satin over there!”

Viscount Winwood, who had caught something of this interchange, started up out of his chair with a black scowl on his face, but was restrained by Lady Amelia, who grasped the skirts of his coat without ceremony and gave them an admonitory tug. She got up ponderously, and surged forward. “So it’s you, is it, Crosby? You may give me your arm back to my box, if it’s strong enough to support me.”

“With the greatest pleasure on earth, ma’am!” Mr Drelincourt bowed, and tittupped out with her.

Mr Dashwood, observing the bride’s expression of puzzled inquiry, coughed, exchanged a rueful glance with the Viscount, and took his leave.

Horatia, her brows knit, turned to her brother, “What did he m-mean, P-Pel?” she asked.

“Mean? Who?” said the Viscount.

“Why, C-Crosby! Didn’t you hear him?”

“That little worm! Lord, nothing! What should he mean?”

Horatia looked across at the box opposite. “He said he should not have spoken. And you said—only the other d-day—about Lady M-Massey—”

“I didn’t!” said the Viscount hastily. “Now don’t for God’s sake ask a lot of silly questions, Horry!”

Horatia said, with a flash of her eyes: “Tell me P-Pelham!”

“Ain’t nothing to tell,” replied the Viscount, wriggling nobly. “Except that the Massey’s reputation don’t bear probing into; but what of that?”

“V-very well,” said Horatia, a singularly dogged look about her mouth. “I shall ask Rule.”

The Viscount was seriously alarmed by this threat, and said rashly: “No, don’t do that! Damme, there’s nothing to ask, I tell you!”

P-perhaps Crosby will explain it, then,” said Horatia. “I will ask him.”

“Don’t you ask that viper anything!” ordered the Viscount. “You’ll get nothing but a pack of scandal-mongering lies from him. Leave well alone, that’s my advice.”

The candid grey eyes lifted to his face. “Is R-Rule in love with Lady M-Massey?” Horatia asked bluntly.

“Oh, nothing like that!” the Viscount assured her. “These little affairs don’t mean being in love, y’know. Burn it, Horry, Rule’s a man of the world! There’s nothing in it, my dear gal—everyone has ’em!”

Horatia glanced across at Lady Massey’s box again, but the Earl had disappeared. She swallowed before replying: “I kn-know. P-please don’t think that I m-mind, because I d-don’t. Only I think I m-might have been told.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I thought you must know,” said Pelham. “It’s common knowledge, and it ain’t as though you married Rule for love, after all.”

“N-no,” agreed Horatia, rather forlornly.

Chapter Nine

It was not a difficult matter for Lord Lethbridge and Lady Rule to pursue their newly declared friendship. Both being of the haut ton they visited the same houses, met, quite by chance, at Vauxhall, at Marylebone, even at Astley’s Amphitheatre, whither Horatia dragged the unwilling Miss Charlotte Winwood to see the still new wonder of the circus.

“But,” said Charlotte, “I must confess that I can discover nothing to entertain or elevate the mind in the spectacle of noble horses performing the steps of a minuet, and I cannot conceal from you, Horatia, that I find something singularly repugnant in the notion that the Brute Creation should be obliged to imitate the actions of Humanity.”

Mr Arnold Gisborne, their chosen escort, appeared to be much struck by this exposition, and warmly felicitated Miss Winwood on her good sense.

At which moment Lord Lethbridge, who had quite by accident taken it into his head to visit the Amphitheatre on this particular evening, entered the box, and after a brief interchange of civilities with Miss Winwood and Mr Gisborne, took the vacant chair beside Horatia and proceeded to engage her in conversation.

Under cover of the trumpets which heralded the entrance into the ring of a performer who was advertised on the bill to jump over a garter fifteen feet from the ground, at the same time firing off two pistols, Horatia said reproachfully: “I sent you a c-card for it, but you did not come to my hurricane-party, sir. That was not very friendly of you, now w-was it?”

He smiled. “I do not think my Lord Rule would exactly welcome my presence in his house, ma’am.”

Her face hardened at that, but she replied lightly enough: “Oh, you n-need not put yourself about for that, sir. My lord does not interfere with m-me, or—or I with him. Shall you be at the ball at Almack’s Rooms on Friday? I have promised M-Mama I will take Charlotte.”

“Happy Charlotte!” said his lordship.

Almost any right-minded young female would have echoed his words, but Miss Winwood was at that very moment confiding to Mr Gisborne her dislike of such frivolous amusements.

“I own,” agreed Mr Gisborne, “that this present rage for dancing is excessive, yet I believe Almack’s to be a very genteel club, the balls not in the least exceptionable, such as those held at Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens. Indeed, I believe that since Carlisle House was given up the general ton of these entertainments is much raised above what it was.”

“I have heard,” said Charlotte with a blush, “of masquerades and ridottos from which all Refinement and Decorum—but I will not say more.”

Happily for Miss Winwood no ball at Almack’s Rooms was ever sullied by any absence of propriety. The club, which was situated in King Street, was in some sort an off-shoot of Almack’s in Pall Mall. It was so exclusive that no one hovering hopefully on the fringe of Society could ever hope for admittance. It had been founded by a coterie of ladies headed by Mrs Fitzroy and Lady Pembroke, and for the sum of ten guineas, a very modest subscription, a ball and a supper were given once a week there for three months of the year. Almack himself, with his Scotch accent and his bag-wig, waited at supper, while Mrs Almack, dressed in her best saque, made tea for the noble company. The club had come to be known as the Marriage Mart, a circumstance which induced Lady Winwood to persuade Charlotte into accepting her sister’s invitation. Her own indifferent health made it impossible for her to chaperon Charlotte herself at all the places of entertainment where a young lady making her debut ought to be seen, so she was once more extremely thankful that Horatia was suitably married.

Lord Winwood and his friend Sir Roland Pommeroy, a very fine young buck, were chosen by Horatia as escorts to the ball. Sir Roland expressed himself to be all happiness, but the Viscount was less polite. “Hang you, Horry, I hate dancing!” he objected. “You’ve a score of beaux, all of ’em falling over themselves for the chance of leading you out. Why the plague d’you want me?”

But it seemed that Horatia for some reason best known to herself did want him. Warning her that he had no notion of dancing through the night and would probably end in the card-room, the Viscount gave way. Horatia said, with truth, that she had not the least objection to his playing cards, since no doubt she would find partners enough without him. Had the Viscount realized what particular partner she had in mind he might not have yielded so easily.

As it was, he escorted both his sisters to King Street and performed his duties to his own satisfaction by leading Horatia out for the opening minuet, and going down one of the country dances with Charlotte. After that, seeing his sisters comfortably bestowed in the middle of Horatia’s usual court, he departed in search of liquid refreshment and more congenial entertainment. Not that he expected to derive much enjoyment even in the card-room, for dancing and not gaming being the object of the club stakes would be low, and the company probably unskilled. However, he had caught sight of his friend Geoffrey Kingston when he first arrived, and had no doubt that Mr Kingston would be happy to sit down to a quiet game of piquet.