All Around the Ton by Elizabeth Boyce

Author:Elizabeth Boyce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, historical
Publisher: Crimson Romance
Published: 2013-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Dressing up beauty continuously wears it out.—Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

Jane stiffened her spine against a strong case of nerves as Sophia’s butler announced her to the crowd. Since the moment she’d first been spotted, whispers had followed her progress towards the candlelit ballroom. If the men watched her with undisguised interest, many of the women blanched and fanned themselves, as if a specter walked in their mist. She’d known most of them, after all, in her former life, and it had required all her composure to remember her role on that long walk down the stairs. To be a woman of experience and confidence. Because she’d not felt so alone since that day at the graveyard, when she’d buried her father.

Word had obviously gotten out that Jane Fitzsimmons’s French cousin was being celebrated tonight. A throng of Londoners had been gathering outside the mansion since midday, many of them wearing bright red bows of support on their coats and lapels. Reporters had also collected, pencils in hand. No doubt, Lillianne, as a stranger to English Society, would revel in such a welcome. And thus so would Jane. She’d worked too hard at this to disappoint Benjamin, who would join them later in the evening. Would she be able to disguise her imprudent feelings? They’d had only the most stilted interactions since that conversation in the family parlor. They were united in their quest for the missing dossiers, and nothing more.

With a bright smile on her face, one she hoped was suitably mysterious, she crossed into the ballroom, which was festooned with late summer flowers. She approached Sophia, who was beaming encouragement, as the whispers swelled around her.

“Lord above, she might be her twin!”

“But so much more sophisticated, don’t you think?” said another.

“Look at that dress! How shocking but utterly delicious! Our Miss Fitzsimmons was a brave one but never so fascinating.”

A rather bald observation, that. She nearly lost her footing.

“Madame Fauchon,” Sophia said, regal in a gold evening dress with an embroidered overlay. “How proud I am to have you as a guest of honor in my home. So many here are eager to make your acquaintance. Do come and stand beside me, so you may greet your admirers personally.”

No sooner had Jane taken her place than a line formed, snaking through the room, people pushing for a place near the front. For a moment, mayhem reigned. One matron actually shoved another out of the way to secure a more advantageous position. To think she’d once measured her worth by her place among them, these so-called doyennes of Society. Their strict rules and codes of conduct had been instituted for one reason and one alone: to prove themselves superior. They didn’t judge a person’s suitability by intellect, achievement, or even kindness.

Their standards were far more rigorous.

Did one have the necessary bloodlines, for instance, to merit inclusion? Because the marriage mart was a bit like being at Tattersalls during the Thoroughbred sale. You had better know what you were buying.

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