Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [95]
Perhaps she understood. For a moment there was a softness in her face, then she grinned and settled herself back, arranging her skirts to be comfortable.
“Emily was telling me about some of the latest debutantes being presented to the Queen, or perhaps it was the Princess of Wales,” she began in rather the same voice she used when telling Jemima or Daniel a particularly good story. “Apparently it is a fearful crush, and after hours and hours of standing around waiting, one finally gets to the royal presence. One is so busy keeping one’s headdress straight—all those feathers, you know—and not falling over one’s skirt, or seeming too bold with raised eyes, that one does not even see the Queen.” She tucked her feet up beside her. “Only a small, fat hand which one kisses. It could have belonged to anyone—the cook, for all we know. It isn’t the doing of it at all, it is the having done it, which matters.”
“I thought that was the case with most of society’s events,” he said, recrossing his legs.
“Oh no. The opera, as you know, is beautiful, the Henley regatta is fun—so I am told—and Emily says that Ascot is terrific. The fashions are simply marvelous—and it is always wonderfully full of gossip. It matters so much who is seen with whom.”
“What about the horses?”
She looked up, surprised. “Oh I’ve no idea about them. But Emily did tell me that Mr. Fitzherbert was there, with Miss Morden, of course. And they met up with Miss Hilliard and her brother again.”
Pitt frowned. “Fanny Hilliard?”
“Yes—you remember! Very pretty girl, about twenty-four or twenty-five I should say. You must remember,” she said impatiently. “She spoke to us at the opera, and then again at the supper table afterwards. Fitzherbert seemed rather taken with her!”
“Yes,” he said slowly. A picture of Fanny in the coffee shop took shape in his mind, her eager face soft and full of affection as she took the hat and the parasol from Carswell.
“Well,” Charlotte went on quickly, “she seems to be equally attracted to him.” There was a mixture of pleasure and a sharp, sensitive regret in her face. One moment her words were rapid as if the excitement of love were echoed in her with pleasure, and the next it disappeared as she understood the cold shock of loss. “Of course he is betrothed to Odelia Morden, and I had thought they looked so set together, in such a comfortable relationship that nothing could intrude into it, or at least not seriously.”
He looked at her face, the slight puckering of her brow and the gravity in her eyes. He knew it disturbed her, but not whether it was for the people concerned, or just the reminder of the frailty of happiness, how easily what you assumed safe can slip from your grasp.
“Are you sure it is not just a handsome man who cannot resist a flirtation?” he asked.
She thought for a moment, considering it.
“No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t think so. One …” She sought very carefully for the exact meaning she wanted. “One can tell the difference between fun and a feeling that threatens to hurt because it is not just”—she hunched her shoulders and slid a trifle further down in the sofa—“not just laughter and a little entertainment that one can forget when it is past, and go back to everything else and it will all be just the same. I don’t think Fitz can go back and feel exactly as he used to about Odelia.”
“Are you being romantic?” Pitt asked without criticism. “Is Fitzherbert a man to fall in love beyond what is pleasant and will serve his ends? After all, he has to many someone if he is to succeed in his career. He hasn’t the political brilliance to climb very far if he lacks the social requirements.”
“I’m not saying he will forgo marrying Odelia,” she denied. “Simply that there is something there which will not leave him without scars when he and Fanny