Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(78)
The Duke of Lindow’s ball
In the time that Diana had lived in the nursery wing, the castle had been en fête twice, but this was the grandest occasion of all. The green salon, the drawing room, and the ballroom shone with candles and masses of lilacs in vases that stood as tall as a ten-year-old child. There were tubs of bluebells and tulips, and even a fairy grove of miniature willows on one of the galleries overlooking the ballroom.
Diana stayed in the nursery until the last minute, declining to join the family for a private supper beforehand—because she was not a member of the family, and she had to remember that.
Lavinia’s and Lady Knowe’s plan was to restore her reputation this evening. She would be a lady again, under the chaperonage of Lady Gray.
Her soul shriveled at the thought.
One of her cousin’s evening dresses had been altered to fit her. It was silk, in a color that Lavinia, who knew everything about fashion, called the “stifled sigh.” Diana would have called it pale lilac.
Its bodice was almost nonexistent, but its skirts, overlaid with cobweb-thin lace, swelled from her hips. The skirts were just the right length to flirt with the air and show off her ankles. Best of all were the slippers that Joan lent her: silk lutestring, with lace accents and a small rose on each toe. A cluster of tiny amethysts in the center of each rose provided the finishing touch.
Joan’s shoes were frivolous and heeled. They made Diana’s ankles look delicate and her calves deliciously slender. She loved them with a passion.
She wore no wig. No plumes, no basket of fruit, no sailing ship. None of the objects her mother had insisted she balance on her head in the name of fashion. Just a few silk roses tucked here and there, each adorned with glittering amethysts.
Before her debut, two maids had spent most of the afternoon making a fuss over her. With a white robe thrown over her dress, one maid applied color to her lashes, her lips, her cheeks, while the other worked on her wig.
Now Mabel came in to help her with her corset, and spent the time complaining because Godfrey had brought two toads into the nursery, only one of which could be found.
“Sooner or later, it will leap out of a pitcher of milk,” Mabel said sourly. “Jump on my leg perhaps. Or hide in one of the beds!”
Diana murmured at the right moments while Mabel first powdered the back of her hair, then the front. She thought about lip rouge, before remembering that she didn’t own any.
“You look lovely!” Mabel said, sounding faintly surprised.
When Diana stepped before the glass, a lady dressed in a gown the color of a sigh smiled back at her.
“He’ll be sorry he gave you up,” Mabel said with great satisfaction. “I’d better get back to Godfrey. A body never knows what mischief that boy will get up to next.”
Diana should go to the ballroom now. One moment she felt like a crusader, ready to do anything to clear North’s reputation and her own. The next, she was rigid with humiliation, her heart withering at the idea of greeting people whom she had first met as the fiancée of a future duke.
All the neighboring gentry were coming, some from as far away as Manchester and Rochdale. Both wings of the castle were filled with guests spending the night, those who would dance until dawn and climb into their carriages after a leisurely breakfast.
She could not continue to hide in her bedchamber, if only because Lavinia would drag her down to the ballroom. She had to descend the stairs and pretend that she was and had been a guest of the duke and duchess, and that rumors of her employment were an unfortunate, and wholly misguided, result of her deep love for her orphaned nephew.
With a gulp, she forced herself from her chamber. Lavinia was waiting for her at the bottom of the marble steps leading to the entry, and spun her in a circle, crowing about how exquisite she looked.
Diana had never felt beautiful, not compared to Rose. Certainly not during the Season, when her towering wig and extravagant attire drew everyone’s gaze. In her cousin’s shining eyes, she saw the truth. She was beautiful when she was allowed to be herself.
Lavinia was wearing a white gown overlaid by translucent silk gauze, embroidered with scattered tea roses in precisely the right shade to complement her lip color. She looked like one of those naughty French angels in paintings who lounged on clouds wearing nothing but a few wisps of carefully painted silk. Were those angels?
Diana’s knowledge of art was as scant as her understanding of peafowl. Perhaps those ladies were actually courtesans.
“Look at this!” Lavinia whispered, pulling her in front of a mirror in the entrance hall. “We look so much alike!”
“Not really,” Diana objected.
“We must owe our bosoms to some formidable ancestress. I hope she made as good use of them as we will tonight!” Lavinia’s giggle threatened to split what little silk was holding her breasts in check. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaimed. “Where is your lip color?” She stuck a hand in her pocket and brought out a tin no larger than the tip of her thumb. “Here.”
“My mother always made me wear pale shades,” Diana said dubiously. “That red will make my mouth look even larger.”
“Your mother is a fool, and if we agree and move on, we’ll all be better off,” her cousin said briskly. “There is nothing a man loves better than naughty lips on a chaste lady.”
Diana obediently pulled off her right glove and dabbed dark rose on her lips, trying not to think about how swollen it made them look. As if she’d been kissed for hours.