Read Online The Adventuress: HFTS5 by Marion Chesney, M.C. Beaton - Free Book Online Page B

“for I speak many foreign languages. In which one would you like to converse?”
    Emily looked at him miserably wondering what to say, but she was saved by Rainbird, who threw open the door to the front parlour and began to announce new arrivals.
    They came in droves, pushing and shoving to get in, apologising for being late, the ladies lisping and cooing and the men bowing, waving lace handkerchiefs, and flicking little snuff-boxes open.
    The earl backed away as Emily was surrounded by eager and curious London society.
    Emily found she was not expected to say anything but merely to listen and smile. Joseph’s jaunty music continued to liven the rooms of the thin house, which was slowly being crammed with people.
    The earl caught Fitz’s eye and signalled they should take their leave. Emily had retreated to her throne and was holding court as men and women clustered around her. Then, just as the earl was edging his way through the press to make his farewells, one excitable young miss waved her glass in the air and half the contents went over Emily’s gown and the other half on the breeches on Lord Agnesby, an elderly fop who was standing next to Emily.
    Emily dabbed at the spilled champagne on her gown with a handkerchief and said mournfully in her clear, carrying voice, “Dear me, I am soaked through to my dicky.” There was a startled, shocked silence, for to refer to one’s petticoat as a dicky was to use the lowest possible form of slang.
    Trying to cover up her obvious gaffe, Emily made matters worse by turning to Lord Agnesby and saying, “I trust your breeches are not ruined.”
    There was an indrawn hiss.
No
lady ever let that word “breeches” fall from her lips. She might coyly refer to them as inexpressibles but never by any other name.
    Emily’s social future hung in the balance.
    Then into the silence came the Earl of Fleetwood’s pleasant husky voice. “Your Royal Highness,” he began. Then he started and appeared to collect himself. “I beg your pardon, I mean Miss Goodenough. Mr. Fitzgerald and I wish to thank you for a handsome entertainment. I shall call on Your … on you tomorrow in the hope I can persuade you to come driving with me.”
    There was a little excited fluttering and whispering about him. One young lady hissed excitedly to her friend, “I
told
you she was a princess. After all, our dear Princess Charlotte talks as if she had lived all her life in a stable!”
    The earl and Fitz bowed and withdrew. It took them quite ten minutes to fight their way out.
    “Whew!” said Fitz, mopping his brow after they had walked a little way away from the house. “You saved her. You certainly saved her. What an angel, but what language! Who do you think she really is?”
    “I don’t know,” said the earl thoughtfully. “But I mean to find out!”
    Emily thought her guests would never leave. She smiled until her face felt stiff. She was deeply grateful to Mrs. Middleton, who, enlivened by several glasses of champagne, was talking away with great panache, and fielding all the questions thrown at Emily like a social expert.
    Emily managed to murmur to Rainbird that she was anxious for the evening to be over.
    Rainbird retired to the back parlour, told Joseph to stop playing, and the sulky orchestra that it might resume its labours.
    The orchestra began where it had left off with that dreary pavane. As steady as a dead march, the measured notes fell on the guests’ ears.
    It is only the right music that can soothe the savage breast and lie sweetly on the spirit. The orchestra’s selection was like a death’s head—slow and mournful notes to remind society of the futility of life and the instability of the spleen.
    At first they began to leave in ones and twos and then in great groups. There were a few gentlemen who seemed determined to worship at the shrine of Emily’s beauty forever, but when Rainbird stopped passing around with glasses of wine and champagne, it occurred to them that