Reawakening Miss Calverley by Sylvia Andrew

Author:Sylvia Andrew [Sylvia Andrew ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4603-4937-3
Publisher: Harlequin

Chapter Ten

Antonia collected her maid and the all-important papers, and with a sigh of relief delivered them the next day to the Foreign Office. She still had no idea where she had been for those ten days of her life, but she seemed to have suffered no harm, and, by some miracle, it hadn’t yet come to the ears of society. She was sure there must be a simple explanation and that, given time, she would remember it. For that reason she continued to put off telling her father about it.

* * *

Sir Henry’s health slowly improved, and he was able to accept Lady Carteret’s invitation to be the guest of honour at a ball to be held at Marchant House the following week. Lady Pendell swiftly commissioned London’s foremost modiste to make her niece an appropriate gown for this, her first appearance in London society. Antonia had accompanied her father on his travels as unofficial ambassador to the great and the powerful all over Europe, and as a result had a self-possession that many an older woman would envy. So she made it plain that she had no wish to wear what Lady Pendell thought suitable for her London début. ‘At twenty-three I can hardly be described as your average débutante,’ she said. ‘I would find it very difficult to act as demurely as you seem to think I should. And I would just look silly in white frills, with a wreath of roses on my head.’

‘My dear Antonia, as far as London is concerned, you are a débutante,’ said Lady Pendell firmly. ‘And if, as I hear, you can deal with a gang of Spanish brigands, surely you can manage to act a little out of character here in London! I will let you off the roses—your mother’s pearl-and-crystal aigrette will do very well instead. But you will wear white.’

Antonia protested, but her aunt was adamant. However, when they visited Madame Rosa’s establishment in Bruton Street, Lady Pendell agreed that Antonia’s choice of a dress of white, self-striped silk, its neckline and hem richly decorated with tiny gold-and-crystal beads, was ideally suited to her niece’s gracefully confident manner. Antonia herself was delighted with it, and soon she was looking forward to her first view of the phenomenon known as London society at Lady Carteret’s ball.

* * *

James Aldhurst, however, was not looking forward to Lady Carteret’s ball. Not in the slightest. He had failed to find any trace of Anne, though he had spent hours haunting the streets round Grosvenor Square until some of the servants in the big houses had started to look at him with suspicion. And as time went on without a sign of her he began to fear he would never see her again. He could not bear the thought. He had had such hopes. Anne would have taken away the hurt of his bleak early childhood at Roade, and made the place habitable for him. Together they would have built a life there, the sort of life his grandparents had enjoyed and his parents had never wanted.

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