Courting Magic (Kat, Incorrigible #4)(7)
Fortunately for both of us, Angeline and Elissa had somehow managed to persuade Stepmama that she needn’t be involved in my fitting with the modiste or in my preparations tonight. She had declared herself to be more than happy to leave the hard work of my début in my sisters’ hands. Still, from the way her fan had been flapping away in the perfectly cool room, I could only imagine what she’d expected to see.
She dropped the fan to her side now, letting out a long breath. “Ohhh, it’s a miracle. You look perfectly acceptable! Isn’t it a miracle, George?”
“Eh?” Papa lowered the book that he’d been reading while they waited. His blue eyes were still slightly bleary with distraction as he first looked up, but they sharpened, focusing on me. “My goodness. Kat, is that really you?”
“Well, of course it is,” Elissa said, and laughed. “Really, Papa. She’s a young lady now, remember?”
He blinked twice, slowly. “So she is.”
I rolled my shoulders uncomfortably under my short, puffy sleeves. The string of pearls that Elissa had given me bumped against my skin, smooth and cold. “You needn’t look at me as if I were a stranger, Papa.”
“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said quietly. “It’s only…” He sighed, slipping the book into an inner pocket of his coat. “I’m afraid I am becoming a foolish old man after all. You see, I had rather hoped to have you with us for some years yet. I find I’m not quite ready to let you go.”
The look of undisguised panic on Stepmama’s face was more than enough to release the sudden constriction in my chest. I laughed, moving forward. “Don’t worry, Papa. I don’t expect to be off your hands for some time yet.”
Stepmama’s fan started flapping again. “Now, Kat. You mustn’t be so pessimistic.”
“I’m not,” I said cheerfully, and curtsied to my brother-in-law. “What do you think, Mr. Collingwood? Will I do?”
“You certainly will,” he said, and smiled. In his black coat and silver waistcoat, Elissa’s husband looked dashing, dark and dangerous, like the highwayman he had once pretended to be in the days of their long-ago courtship. The truth was, though, Mr. Collingwood was the kindest sheep of a man imaginable. “I hope you’ll save two dances for me?”
“One dance,” Elissa said firmly as she tucked her hand into his arm. “We must keep Kat’s dance card open for all the young men waiting at the ball.”
“Frederick’s reserved a dance, too,” I said. “So I’m already in demand.”
“Oh—!” Stepmama winced. “Kat, you won’t say anything of the sort in public, will you? You may think you’re only being amusing, but if anyone heard you—”
“I beg your pardon, Stepmama,” Elissa said smoothly, “but we mustn’t keep the coachman waiting. You know how crowded the streets are at night.”
“Oh! Of course, of course.” Stepmama bustled forward, the massive peacock feather in her hair waving above her like a banner. “Come along, George! You know what London traffic is like.”
Sighing, Papa followed after, while Elissa gave me a private smile.
I smiled back and mouthed, “Thank you.” Stepmama and I might have learned, over the last few years, how to coexist without bloodshed, but I was infinitely grateful that Elissa and Angeline were directing my début.
Elissa had been right: the streets were ridiculously crowded, with chains of carriages piling their way at a snail’s pace into the most fashionable sections of town. Boys with torches ran in front to light the way, but they were hardly necessary. Lights blazed on both sides of the streets we drove through, as every other residence seemed to be hosting a crowded ball or musicale of its own.
It was a far cry from the events I’d been to in our little Yorkshire village, where six or seven families might come together for a dance from time to time, but nothing ever rivaled Squire Briggs’s massive Christmas festivities—which never boasted more than fifty people at once.
Still, it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. I’d visited Elissa in London before, even if I hadn’t been officially “out” at the time. As I looked out of the closest carriage window, letting Stepmama’s nonstop stream of suggestions and commands pass over my head without remark, I knew perfectly well that I ought to calmly and quietly make myself ready for the evening ahead. There was so much to prepare for, after all, from remembering all the inane social rules my sisters and Stepmama had drilled into my head, to beginning the mission that Mr. Gregson had set for me.
There was certainly no reason to waste any of my final moments on the memory of fierce green eyes finally meeting mine again after all those years of waiting…or on completely unproductive fantasies of how one particular young man might react when we met again that night.
This time, I would actually be prepared.
I hoped he was even more taken aback by my appearance than my family had been.
I hoped…
By the time we finally reached the Hadlows’ massive square block of a townhouse, I was ready to leap out of the carriage door just to escape my own spiraling, uncontrollable thoughts. I drew in a deep, steadying breath and waited to step outside like a lady, taking my place behind Stepmama and Elissa in the queue of people shuffling up the front steps.