A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting(68)

‘Indeed! I must tell Mother – you know she is a great friend of Mrs Burrell, she will be so glad to hear the acquaintance is shared. In fact, Mother was saying she should like to meet you. Will you be attending the Jersey ball tomorrow evening?’

Just so, thought Kitty smugly.

‘I will,’ she replied.

‘Very good,’ he said approvingly. ‘I hope you will save me the first dance tonight, Miss Talbot? I should very much like to have the waltz, if the lady patronesses permit it.’

He looked at her with unmistakable ardour in his eyes.

‘As would I,’ she said faintly. A young lady could only waltz at Almack’s once specifically invited to do so by one of the patronesses, and an invitation was not guaranteed – but while Kitty should, she knew, be eager for the honour, she could not help shiver at the thought. Try as she might to bully herself into overcoming this weakness, Kitty still found herself quite averse to the idea of being held so closely by Pemberton. She could see the appeal of the dance, of course, but could not escape the fact that when she imagined dancing it, it was not Pemberton she was partnered with.

As they walked towards the supper room, Mr Pemberton began to enumerate all the ways in which his family was connected – however loosely – to the rest of the Almack’s patronesses, an oration that lasted all the way through supper. Kitty was somewhat disappointed to find that, instead of the sumptuous feasts at the private balls she was by now used to attending, refreshments at Almack’s consisted only of thinly sliced bread and pound cake. But by the lack of surprise on the faces around her, she supposed that this must be quite normal – the habits of wealthy people were still so mysterious to her – and she smiled to think that she was becoming quite spoiled.

Kitty managed to escape Mr Pemberton once supper was concluded, foisting him upon Miss Bloom – really, the girl owed her some recompense for her recently announced engagement – and circling the edge of the dance floor with Aunt Dorothy, until they were hailed by Lady Radcliffe, who stood with Lord Radcliffe.

‘Mrs Kendall!’ the Dowager trilled in excitement, quite ignoring Kitty, who took the inadvertent snub without offence, as Lady Radcliffe pulled Aunt Dorothy into a low-voiced tête-à-tête.

‘Miss Talbot.’ Radcliffe bowed in greeting. ‘I would express my shock at seeing you here, and yet I find I am not all that surprised. Is there anything you are not able to do?’

She took the compliment with a smile. ‘Would you believe it was all Cecily’s doing?’ She explained the story to him.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Poetry came in useful, after all this time? By Jove, who would have thought.’

‘And to think I begrudged her education,’ Kitty said contritely. ‘Terribly short-sighted of me. I had no idea Mrs Burrell was such an academic.’

‘And what do you think of these grand halls, then?’ He widened his arms to encompass the room. ‘Do they live up to your lofty expectations?’

‘They do,’ she replied. ‘I cannot believe I am here.’

‘The food is somewhat disappointing, I know,’ he said apologetically.

‘Isn’t it,’ she said with great feeling, and they shared a laugh.

‘What is on the agenda tonight, then?’ Radcliffe asked. ‘Any further faux faints?’

‘So long as you hold your temper, that should not be necessary.’

‘Do not worry, I have already promised my mother to speak only of the weather and my health,’ he reassured her. ‘Though if your Pemberton approaches, I shall find myself tested, I imagine.’

‘You could apologise to him,’ Kitty suggested. ‘You were very rude.’

‘I could never apologise to someone with such a villainous moustache,’ Radcliffe informed her primly. ‘It would be quite beyond the pale. Besides, it was he who behaved like a dolt, not I.’

Kitty sighed. ‘I hope to improve his conversational skills if we marry,’ she confessed. ‘He would be far more palatable if he were less …’

‘Narcissistic?’ Radcliffe suggested impishly. ‘Dangerously deluded?’

‘If he listened more,’ she corrected.

‘Ah, reaching for the stars, I’m afraid,’ he said, in commiserating accents.

‘Oh, so you believe me unequal to the task?’ she said. ‘Do you realise that I would have been prepared to marry much, much worse than Pemberton?’

His smile faded a little. ‘I believe it,’ he said at last. ‘And I do not think you unequal. Though I confess to wishing the whole endeavour were … unnecessary.’

Kitty faltered, a little perturbed that he should have ruined their fun with such a weighty statement.

‘That would have been quite a different world indeed,’ she said at last, clearing her throat a little and looking down for fear that the moment would otherwise become quite unbearably intimate.

‘Do you expect to be invited to waltz, tonight?’ he asked after a pause, and she was grateful for the change in subject.

‘I suppose we shall have to see, though I think it unlikely this evening,’ she said, trying for levity. ‘Are you fearful a lady patroness might suggest yourself as a partner? I have not forgotten the strength of your refusal when last I asked – no doubt Lady Jersey would be shocked by your sudden dash from the room …’