The Favored Child by Philippa Gregory

Author:Philippa Gregory [Gregory, Philippa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007370139
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2003-06-17T07:00:00+00:00

15

I had not been lying to James Fortescue when I told him that all the dances for the evening were taken. But he was right to be confident of me – I had saved the dance before supper so that he might take me from the bright crowded ballroom into the supper-room and sit down with me on a bench with half a dozen of the young people whom I now called my friends.

Mama had been playing cards and she came up behind me when I was at supper and dropped a hand on my shoulder to prevent me rising. ‘You stay,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t want you to leave early, but I have to go home. This beastly cold I took the other day outside the milliner’s has made me too hot to enjoy playing any more. It has so destroyed my judgement that I am likely to game away John’s fortune unless I leave.’

‘How will you get home?’ I asked.

‘I’ll take a chair,’ Mama said equably, ‘and I’ll send out one of Mrs Gibson’s men to bring a chair to fetch you home.’

‘Excuse me, Lady Lacey,’ James interrupted, rising to his feet, ‘but I beg you will not take such trouble. I will undertake to bring Miss Lacey safe home to you. And if you will allow me, I will go and make sure there is a chair waiting for you at the doorway now.’

Mama smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Fortescue,’ she said. ‘I should have known that you would be so kind. I shall expect Julia home at eleven, when the ball closes.’

James gave her his arm and took her through the crowds of the supper-room to the bright hall beyond.

‘Lucky you!’ Mary Gillespie said under her breath. ‘I’d push my mama downstairs and break her leg if I thought James Fortescue would take me home.’

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