“You are going to the Vauxhall Gardens masquerade tonight.”
“I’m not.” With its secret paths and illuminated groves, it posed the perfect place for trysting couples. Harry would undoubtedly lead one lady or another down to one of those trysting places.
Katherine hopped to her feet in a flurry of greenish-blue diaphanous Grecian skirts. She made a splendid Amphitrite, the goddess of the Mediterranean Sea. Her lips pulled. Unlike her, with her foolish shepherdess costume. Of course Harry would have always preferred one such as sophisticated Katherine to Anne and her silly golden ringlets. “But you always love a masquerade, Anne,” her sister said, pulling her back from her self-pitying musings. Katherine hurried over and picked up the costume set out by her maid earlier that evening. “Tell me you don’t long to don this splendid garment.”
The world, twin sister included, still saw Anne as a young lady fixed on nothing more than the fabric of her gown or her attire for a silly masquerade. “I don’t long to don that splendid garment,” she mumbled. Harry hadn’t. He’d seen her as a clever woman with real thoughts inside her head.
And I let him go.
Agony knifed at her heart, once again.
“You’re going.” She crossed over and threw the wispy, silken confection at Anne. Her mouth tightened. “I’m fetching your maid and you’re putting the damned garment on. I’ll sooner eat this costume than see you pine for the Earl of Stanhope. Do you understand me?” The impassioned response burned her sister’s cheeks red.
Quite clearly. Anne’s guilt intensified at her sister’s clear displeasure with Harry. Katherine and Harry had been friends long before Anne. Back when she had identified him as a scoundrel and cad, Katherine had confided in him and embraced his friendship. Until Anne had gone and ruined that, too…
“Don’t be foolish. You are my sister,” Katherine snapped, clearly interpreting her twin’s private musings.
The door opened so swiftly Anne would wager her every worldly possession the maid had been waiting outside in the hall. Her sister handed the costume off to the young woman. “My sister requires assistance.” She sailed to the front of the room “This is not finished, Anne. And do not tarry, we’ve a masquerade to attend.”
~*~
A short while later, Anne wound her way through the long corridors and down the winding staircase to the foyer. Her mother and Katherine stood in costume, quietly conversing. An uncostumed Jasper, with arms folded behind his back glanced up. He murmured something to his wife.
Katherine glanced upward. Pleasure lit her eyes. “Splendid, Anne. You look just splendid. Doesn’t she?” She jabbed her husband in the side.
Jasper grunted. “Yes, indeed.”
Her mother studied her with a critical eye and frowned. “You look pale,” she said bluntly.
“I have a mask on,” she murmured when her slippered feet touched the floors.
“Only partially.” Mother’s lips tightened. “Oh, this will never do. The ton will take one glimpse of your swollen eyes and wan complexion and know you’re pining.”
Anne spun on her heel. “You’re indeed, correct.” And Mother was largely incorrect on most scores. “I shouldn’t attend.”
She placed her foot on the bottom step when Katherine settled her hand on her shoulder. “You’re going.” She firmly steered her back around.
Ollie, the family butler threw the door open, anticipating her sister’s efforts. Katherine took her by the elbow and guided her outside and onward to the waiting carriage. “Trust me, you’ll feel a good deal better when you are there.”
She very much doubted that.
~*~
Lord Edgerton’s amused chuckle cut into Harry’s silent ponderings. “You’ve consumed nearly an entire bottle of champagne, Stanhope.”
Harry downed the contents of his sixth glass, polishing off as his friend predicted, an entire bottle of fine, French brew. He managed a lazy grin and held the empty glass up in salute. “Indeed.” He scanned the crowd at Vauxhall Gardens purposefully.
After he’d taken his leave of the grasping, self-centered brat, Lady Anne Adamson a week ago, he’d expected word of her betrothal to the Duke of Crawford to break as the latest source of gossip. In the first days, he’d taken care to avoid any polite Society event where he might see the shameless creature who’d broken his fool heart. He’d resumed his all-too comfortable life, returned to the Forbidden Pleasures. Except, all his attempts to bury himself in some nameless, faceless creature who didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes, a creature who still haunted his thoughts, had proven futile. In the end, he’d not touched a single woman.