Once she’d finished her chocolate, she got up and let Sarah bustle her into her shift and stays and button up her gown. Then she sat down in front of the dressing table to watch the maid put up her hair. She felt aimless, sitting idly while Sarah made the braids for her coronet. But there was not a thing she needed to do until her morning callers arrived. She could lie abed the whole morning if she wanted.
She could not enjoy her leisure, though. Unlike most ladies of fashion, she was used to a life of activity. Over the last few years, she had thrown herself into the running of Weartham with vigour. Here she was expected to do as little as possible. The housekeeper reported to her each day, but it took all of half an hour to approve her exceedingly sensible suggestions and peruse her flawless menus. Rose was usually twiddling her thumbs by eleven o’clock. And this was only her second week in London.
Her first week had been taken up with her presentation to the Queen, a necessity before she could enter society. The dressmaker had made her elaborate court dress—convention demanded a full-skirted gown in the style of the last century—within just a few days, and Gil’s aunt Leven had sponsored her. Once that was over, the invitations had begun to trickle in, and now there was a steady flow every day. Balls, musicales, routs. It was the little season. The last hurrah of the top ten thousand before they returned to their estates for winter.
Now each afternoon brought a rash of fresh callers to Stanhope House. Rose was an object of considerable curiosity: Lord Stanhope’s hitherto invisible wife. They came to stare and wonder, and sometimes to ask sly questions. Why had she not come to London before now? Was it true she had only just been presented? At her age and married these five years?
She was a mermaid. A bearded lady. Freakish and fascinating. The latest on dit. She was the neglected wife of that notorious lothario, Lord Stanhope. It was difficult not to feel gratified by the surprised expressions on the ladies’ faces and the admiration in the gentlemen’s eyes when she stepped forward to meet them. They had assumed she was ugly. Perhaps they had been told she was ugly. A galling thought, that.
Gil had been present during the first two days but since then had been conspicuously absent. Three afternoons in a row now, she had faced the callers alone. He didn’t explain his absences to her, just took himself off in the mornings, returning for dinner in the evening. And it wasn’t as though there was anyone else in the house. Gil’s sister was staying with cousins in Bath, and his brother James was rarely to be seen, though he too lived at Stanhope House. James’s existence seemed to revolve around sporting events, drinking and gambling, and he kept hours that rarely brought him into contact with Rose.
Rose had never felt more alone in her life than she had these last few days. Even when Gil had first abandoned her at Weartham, she’d at least had Harriet. Here she had no one. And every day, a dozen curious callers. There was nothing to do but to paste a smile upon her face and parry the questions and stares as best she could. Put a brave face on it, even when one of Gil’s former lovers, Lady Cairn, appeared. A pretty woman, Rose had to admit, but unlikeable. She’d gravitated to the only gentleman present, ignoring the ladies for the most part. And she’d smiled like a cat with a fish when Rose had admitted she didn’t know where Gil was.
“Are you looking forward to the ball tomorrow, milady?” Sarah asked, interrupting her train of thought.
“Yes, I am,” she surprised herself by replying. For some childish reason, she was excited at the thought of going to a ball—her first official ball. She didn’t count Nev’s masked one.
She wondered if Gil would deign to dance with her. She knew she wasn’t an especially good dancer, not having had much practice. Just with the dancing master and the other girls at the seminary. Oh, and Will, of course, at the annual village dance—though only country dances were danced there.
Sarah’s voice was dreamy. “Which gown will you wear, milady?”
“The blue, I thought,” Rose replied distractedly.
Sarah stared at her, aghast. “Not the silver?”
“You think the silver more suitable?”
“Infinitely, milady.”
“Then I shall bow to your superior judgment.”
Sarah smiled complacently, satisfied with the outcome of their discussion. She went back to the braiding of Rose’s hair. And Rose went back to wondering what callers this afternoon would bring.
“Lord and Lady Stanhope,” a footman announced.
Gil stepped forward, Rose’s arm on his, to greet Lord and Lady Clive, the hosts of Rose’s first ball.