Southampton Row - Anne Perry [17]
No drinks were served in the brief time before the butler announced dinner. It was customary merely to sit and exchange a few pleasantries with whomever one might know until the procession to the dining room commenced.
The host would lead the way, with the senior ranking lady on his arm, followed by the remainder of the guests, in order of the ladies’ rank, followed at the last by the hostess on the arm of the senior male guest.
Emily had time only to speak for a moment with Rose Serracold, easy to see with her ash-blond hair and sharp, straight profile even before she turned her pale aquamarine eyes to regard the latest arrivals. Her face lit with pleasure and she moved swiftly to Emily’s side, twitching her flesh-pink taffeta dress. The gown plunged to the waist at the front, over claret-red embroidered brocade, which was echoed in mid-hip panels and an underskirt. It made her slender hips look richly curved and her waist a mere handspan. Only a woman of supreme confidence could have looked so dazzling in such a gown.
“Emily, how delightful to see you!” she said with enthusiasm. Her glance swept up and down Emily’s dress in immediate appreciation, but with a flash of amusement she deliberately avoided saying anything about it. “What a pleasure you could come!”
Emily smiled back. “As if you had not known I should!” She raised her eyebrows. They both knew Rose would have been familiar with the guest list or she would not have accepted.
“Well, I did have just the slightest idea,” Rose admitted. She leaned a little closer. “It feels a trifle like the ball the night before Waterloo, doesn’t it?”
“Not an occasion I recall,” Emily murmured in mock spite.
Rose made a very slight face at her. “Tomorrow we ride into battle!” she responded with exaggerated patience.
“My dear, we have been at war for months,” Emily replied as Jack was drawn into a group of men close by. “If not years!” she added.
“Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes,” Rose warned. “Or in Lady Garson’s case, the yellow. That woman drinks enough to drown a horse.”
“You should have seen her mother!” Emily shrugged delicately. “She could have drowned a giraffe.”
Rose threw back her head and laughed, a rich, infectious sound that caused half a dozen of the men to look at her with pleasure, and their wives to stare with disapproval, before deliberately turning away.
The dining room was blazing with light from the chandeliers and reflected from a thousand facets of crystal on the table and the sheen of silver on snow-white linen. Roses spilled out of silver bowls and long vines of honeysuckle trailed down the center of the cloth, sending up a rich perfume.
At each place setting there was a menu card—written in French, naturally. The guest’s name was on the front to indicate where each person should sit. The footmen began to serve soup, according to each guest’s preference, the choice being oxtail or bisque. Emily was placed between a Liberal elder statesman on her left and a generous banker on her right. She declined the soup, knowing there were a further eight courses to come, but the banker took the oxtail and began to eat immediately, it being correct to do so.
Emily glanced across the table at Jack, but he was busy conversing with a Liberal member who would also be defending his seat against a vigorous attack. She caught the odd word, indicating that they were concerned with the factions among the Irish members, which would almost certainly make the difference if the main parties were close in number. The ability to form a government might depend upon winning the support of either the Parnellites or anti-Parnellites.
Emily was tired of the issues of Home Rule simply because they had been argued over for as long as she could remember, and seemed no closer to