Marquesses at the Masquerade(45)

She didn’t humor him with a response but turned and walked away. She found Phoebe waiting in the corridor, waving a magazine. “We have received a new La Belle Assemblée. You must see this most darling gown.”

*



Dinner at the Sommerville house was a boisterous, giggling affair. The females chatted over each other, holding multiple simultaneous conversations about gowns, bonnet decorations, parties, who had come to call that morning, and who had danced twice at a ball. Their father quietly stabbed his food, his expression pained.

Annalise didn’t recall having so much difficulty swimming in the swirling conversational current three years ago. Now, she struggled to keep one strain of thought in her mind. Had she grown more like her father, turning over one thought like a rock in his hand, quietly examining each facet and fissure, before setting it down and picking up another?

“Annalise, darling, I went through your gowns,” her aunt said. “Why, they are the ones you brought last time.”

“I’m afraid I’ve been in mourning clothes for so long that I hadn’t noticed,” Annalise confessed. She had lost her sense of time. Her parents’ deaths still seemed very recent, but all her mourning clothes felt new, even though they were more than two years old.

“It can never do.” Her aunt dabbed currant jelly on her slice of pork. “We must have new gowns made in haste. I dare not let you out in those clothes. What if someone recognizes them?”

“What if someone recognizes her poor behavior?” her uncle said in a low voice, sliding his insult into the conversation.

Her aunt laughed as if it were a joke, but Annalise felt the prick of the words.

Phoebe continued her recital of upcoming engagements. “We have the masquerade on Thursday. I must spend the entire day working on my costume. And then there’s the Danvers’ ball on Friday.”

“Mr. Sommerville,” his wife said in an imploring tone, “may we use the carriage to go shopping tomorrow?”

“If you promise to stay out of the house for several hours.”

His wife chuckled. “You are so witty, Mr. Sommerville.”

“May I come?” Shelley begged. “I should like new gloves.”

“Of course, my love,” her mother said.

“And we are going to the theater on Saturday,” Phoebe continued.

“Oh, I haven’t been to the theater in ages,” Annalise said. She remembered how she and Patrick had playfully sneaked glances at each other with their opera glasses.

“It’s Love’s Joy and Misery!” Her aunt clapped her hands. “All my friends are talking about it. We simply have to go!”

“Phoebe wants to go because Edgar Williams plays the lead.” Shelley rolled her eyes. “She thinks he is handsome.”

“I do not!” Phoebe cried.

“Well, he is handsome!” her aunt agreed, causing her daughters to giggle behind their hands that her mother would acknowledge another man as handsome. Aunt Sally blushed at her daring. “Of course, he is not as handsome as your papa.”

Uncle Harry glanced heavenward as if to say, Why, Lord, have you saddled me with this lot? and then cut into a parsnip.

“Tell me who are the handsome gentlemen this season,” Annalise said to Phoebe to make conversation. “Whom are all the ladies wild for? Whom shall I set my caps for?”

Phoebe began naming names. Mr. That, Sir This, Lord Who. Her mother inserted annual incomes and estates with each. Naturally, some of the titled gentlemen were above the Sommervilles’ touch, but Phoebe said their names with the wistful look of a young girl who dreamed of capturing the heart of a handsome fairy-tale prince. Phoebe finished her list with, “And the Marquess of Exmore, of course.”

Annalise blinked. Exmore?

Oh, yes, his wife died, she remembered. The marchioness had passed away about the same time as her mother fell ill. He had been so devoted to his wife that, in Annalise’s mind, he remained eternally married. She couldn’t imagine him with a different wife.

Her aunt shrieked, “That... that man!”

Uncle Harry set his fork down. “Phoebe, do not use that man’s name in our decent home.”

“But why?” Phoebe asked.

“I’ve told you before,” Uncle Harry said. “He is not respectable.”

“Pardon?” Annalise burst out with a bark of laughter. Was this a joke? The Marquess of Exmore not respectable? Had the earth changed its rotation? Was winter now summer?

“But... but... he is at all the balls,” Phoebe said.

“Surely, you are in jest,” Annalise said. “Uncle, I cannot believe Lord Exmore to be anything other than a model of propriety.”

Her uncle pointed his fork at her. “Do not question me, foolish girl. I said you may not mention his name at my table. His deeds are not fit for innocent ears.”

Annalise still couldn’t believe they were speaking of the same Exmore she knew. The man who had admonished her for reckless behavior. Who had counseled that one day she would love more wisely and maturely. “That cannot be.”

“He changed after his wife died,” her aunt quietly explained.

“Not another word!” her uncle boomed. “Or you will have to leave the table.”

Silence ensued for several seconds.