“It has been years since I spoke with Lady Weatherby,” George said. “I don’t know if I’ll have anything to say to her.”
“Oh, I imagine you’ll think of something.”
“I imagine I will.”
“Ah, I see my wife over there,” Lord Arbuthnot said. “She’s doing that thing with her head that either means she needs my assistance or she’s about to die.”
“You must go to her, then,” George said. “Clearly.”
“I suppose she’ll need my assistance either way,” Arbuthnot said with a shrug. “Godspeed to you, son. I hope your evening proves fruitful.”
George watched as Lord Arbuthnot made his way across the room, then turned to carry out his mission.
It seemed it was time to dance with Sally Weatherby.
Chapter 22
Mr. Coventry was an accomplished dancer, but Billie could give him no more than a fraction of her attention as he led her through the intricate steps of a cotillion. George had finished talking with the older gentleman, and now he was bowing before a lady of such staggering beauty it was a wonder all the people around her didn’t need to shade their eyes from her miraculous glow.
Something seething and green churned within her, and the evening, once so magical, soured.
Billie knew that she shouldn’t have asked Mr. Coventry to dance. Lady Manston would have had an apoplexy if she’d been there. She probably still would, once the gossip reached her. And it would. Billie might have avoided London for years, but she knew enough to realize that this would be all over the ballroom within minutes.
And all over town by the next morning.
She would be branded as overly forward. They would say she was chasing Mr. Coventry, that she was desperate for reasons no one quite knew, but she must have a wicked secret because why else would she throw over centuries of convention and ask a gentleman to dance?
And then someone would remember that unfortunate incident at court a few years earlier. Dreadful thing, really, they’d all cluck. Miss Philomena Wren’s dress had caught on fire of all things, and by the time anyone knew what was happening, there was a pile of young ladies moored helplessly on the floor, unable to move against the awkward weight of their wide-hipped skirts. Wasn’t Miss Bridgerton there? Hadn’t she been on top of Miss Wren?
Billie had to clench her jaw just to keep from growling. If she had been on top of Philomena Wren, it had only been to put out the fire, but no one would ever mention that.
That Billie had also been the cause of the fire was still a closely held secret, thank heavens. But honestly, how could a lady be expected to move in full court dress? Court protocol demanded gowns with panniers far wider than anything women wore in day-to-day life. Billie normally had a wonderful sense of where her body stood in space – she was the least clumsy person she knew. But who wouldn’t have had difficult maneuvering in a contraption that had her hips jutting out nearly three feet in either direction? And more to the point, what idiot had thought it a good idea to leave a lit candle in a room populated with misshapen ladies?
The edge of her dress had been so far from her actual body that Billie hadn’t even felt it when she’d knocked into the candle. Miss Wren hadn’t felt it, either, when her dress began to smolder. And she never did, Billie thought with satisfaction, because she’d been sensible enough to leap atop the other girl, smothering the flame before it reached her skin.
And yet when all was said and done, no one seemed to recall that Billie had saved Miss Wren from death and disfigurement. No, her mother was so horrified by the entire situation that they’d abandoned their plans for Billie’s London Season. Which, Billie had tried to remind herself, was what she’d wanted all along. She’d been fighting against a Season for years.
But she hadn’t wanted to win her point because her parents were ashamed of her.
With a sigh, she forced her attention back to the cotillion she was apparently dancing with Mr. Coventry. She couldn’t recall doing so, but she seemed to have taken the correct steps and not trod on any toes. Luckily she had not had to make too much conversation; it was the sort of dance that separated a lady from her partner as often as it brought them together.
“Lady Weatherby,” Mr. Coventry said when he was near enough to speak.
Billie looked up with sharp surprise; she was quite certain Mr. Coventry knew her name. “I beg your pardon?”
They stepped apart, and then back together. “The woman Lord Kennard is dancing with,” Mr. Coventry said. “Weatherby’s widow.”
“She’s a widow?”
“Recently so,” Mr. Coventry confirmed. “Just out of blacks.”
Billie clenched her teeth, trying to keep her expression pleasant. The beautiful widow was very young, probably not more than five years Billie’s senior. She was exquisitely dressed in what Billie now knew was the latest style, and her complexion was that perfect alabaster Billie could never achieve without arsenic cream.
If the sun had ever touched Lady Weatherby’s perfect cheeks, Billie would eat her hat.
“She’ll need to remarry,” Mr. Coventry said. “Didn’t give old Weatherby an heir, so she’s living off the largesse of the new Lord Weatherby. Or more to the point…”
Again, the cotillion pulled them apart, and Billie nearly screamed with frustration. Why did people think it was a good idea to conduct important conversations while dancing? Did no one care about the timely impartation of information?
She stepped forward, back into Mr. Coventry’s conversational sphere, and said, “More to the point…?”