Winter Dreams by Sandra Heath

Author:Sandra Heath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.

Chapter Twenty

Charles James Fox passed away one week later, but if Judith hoped his successor would change the government’s attitude toward Bella Barnardi, she was soon disappointed, for Lord Howick accorded the prima donna the same importance as had his predecessor.

On the twenty-fifth day of that almost dreamily warm September—an Indian summer if ever there was one—there had been no further word of Bella. Judith and Daniel had been invited to join Rachel and Chris for dinner at North Audley Street, and Judith drove there in her town carriage. It was good to be able to do so openly again, although she could not help keeping a watchful eye upon faces in the streets. It crossed her mind to wonder if Aunt Nicholls was nearby right now, also keeping a watchful eye. She smiled, feeling sure her guardian ghost was close by, perhaps even in the carriage with her.

She had dressed formally for the little dinner party, because now that Rachel was home in England again there was nothing she liked more than to put on the finery that had been so pointless on the rather isolated plantation in Jamaica. Judith wore a silver wreath in her fashionably dressed hair, and a silver brocade undergown with long ruched sleeves, over which she added a gray-green velvet sleeveless pelisse that whispered over the floor behind her when she walked. She clasped a reticule and folded fan in her buff-gloved hands as she enjoyed the drive through the last of the evening sunshine. Bella had been kept at the very back of her mind—refused admittance until there was no other option.

Daniel walked to the dinner party from Penventon House, and arrived just as Judith’s carriage reached the curb, and so was able to open the door and hand her down. “You look more beautiful than ever, my darling,” he said softly.

She smiled. “You, sir, know too well how to flatter.”

“If the truth is flattery, then so be it.” He kissed her on the cheek, then conducted her into the house, where Rachel and Chris were waiting.

The French windows of the dining room were open to the garden, where little lanterns attracted moths. Potted orange trees still edged the small verandah, but before many more days would have to be taken into the greenhouse for fear of early frosts. Judith glanced outside as the tablecloth was removed, and liqueurs, nuts, and fruit served. Looking at the orange trees past the handsome epergne that brimmed with flowers and moss and was alight with candles, she was reminded of Lisbon, and thus of Jamie. She had been so wrapped up in her own woes these past weeks that she had given little thought to him. The deep dread experienced the night she followed Daniel to Bairro Alto now seemed almost a dream. Six months had passed since then, during which she, not Jamie, had been the twin in danger. She knew beyond doubt that she had been saved by the vigilance of dear Aunt Nicholls.

Rachel was charming in coffee satin and pearls, her hair dressed à l’Égyptienne.

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