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FOR THE PAST SEVEN years the first ball of the Season had been held at the private residence of Lord and Lady Fancott. This year was no exception. Coveted invitations, strictly limited to precisely three hundred guests, were sent out the week before. Dianna received hers on a rainy Tuesday while having tea with her mother.
“I do not wish to attend,” she said after only the barest of glances at the thick ivory envelope with its telltale wax insignia boasting a fanciful F sealing the back. Taking a sip of warm tea drizzled with honey, she held the delicate porcelain cup aloft as she gazed out the window. Rain fell in a steady drizzle, soaking the tree lined street and row of tidy brick townhouses on either side of it.
“Do not be ridiculous.” Tearing into the invitation as though it were the first present on Christmas morning, Martha Foxcroft’s face lit up as she silently mouthed each word. “Oh, this sounds lovely, Dianna. What do you think would be better, your blue gown with the pearl beading or the green with the white lace?”
“Mother...” Even knowing that any attempts at contradicting her mother were useless, Dianna couldn’t help but try anyways. Given that her current mood perfectly matched the drab weather outside, she had positively no interest in attending a ball where her every move would be scrutinized and her every word speculated upon.
In her desperation to flee Ashburn, Dianna had failed to consider what other repercussions Miles’ return would bring. Chiefly among them that the flames of gossip she’d been forced to endure following the abrupt end of their engagement four years ago would be ignited anew.
Having already been forced to endure more stares and whispers than she cared to count while simply walking down the street and through the park, she was loathe to think of what awaited her at a ball filled with men and women eagerly clamoring to find out if she and Miles had reconciled or not.
Had she been thinking clearly she would found a reason to avoid London entirely, but on the morning she and Charlotte departed Ashburn her mind had been anything but clear.
“Well?” Martha persisted. “What do you think? The blue or the green?”
“I think I am not feeling well,” Dianna demurred. She knew changing her mother’s mind would be the equivalent of turning water into wine, but she could not help but try.
“I do not see what that has to do with selecting a gown. The ball is six days away. If you are not feeling better by Thursday we will send for the doctor, but I am sure you will be fine,” Martha said with a dismissive wave of her hand before she stood up and lovingly placed the invitation on the mantle above the fireplace.
A woman who had once been a great beauty in her youth and valued appearance and status above all else, Martha now chose to live vicariously through her daughter - when it suited her. When it did not, she lived her life as though Dianna did not exist, flitting from social function to social function and leaving Dianna in the care of her sister Abigail.
Growing up, Dianna had never understood why her mother would rather dance until dawn with strangers than stay home and read her only child a bedtime story. Now, being both older and wiser, she understood Martha was a bitter woman at heart who wanted more than she’d been given and would never be capable of being satisfied with what she had. Dianna still loved her nevertheless, and the habit of trying to please her mother was not one easily broken. She’d been trying to win her mother’s favor since she was a little girl and now, some eighteen years later, she was still trying.
“I will wear the green with the white lace,” she said with a sigh. “It is the more comfortable of the two.”
“Comfortable?” Martha tilted her head back and laughed. “Darling, who cares for comfort? Beauty is not comfortable. The blue, I think. I do so love the bead work.”
Why ask my opinion if you never heed it? Dianna wanted to snap. Instead she bit her tongue, choking on the sour taste of silence. Every once in a great while she mustered the courage to disagree with her mother, and every time it ended the same: with her in tears, Martha suffering from a case of the vapors, and nothing changed. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “The blue.”
“Marvelous. Now why don’t you go upstairs and get some rest.” Crossing the drawing room in a brisk swish of dark purple skirts, Martha placed the back of her hand across Dianna’s forehead in a rare display of maternal concern. “I am not surprised you are not feeling well. Ever since you returned from Ashburn you have been looking rather pale and these dark circles beneath your eyes are not at all attractive. I knew you should have returned with your father and I, but you insisted on remaining.” Clucking her tongue, she dropped her hand. “I only hope your appearance resolves itself before the Fancott ball. I don’t know how you are going to catch a husband looking as you are.”
Were it anyone else Dianna would have taken insult, but she knew her mother meant no genuine harm with her thoughtless remarks. If anything, Martha most likely believed she was helping instead of hurting. Such was her way, and becoming angry with her would be the equivalent of shouting at a bird for chirping or the sun for shining.
“Mother...” Hesitant to broach the subject, but knowing it would be better to deal with it sooner rather than later, Dianna took a breath and said, “Have you heard anything about Lord Radnor as of late?”
Martha’s eyes, the same soft blue as her daughter’s, narrowed ever-so-slightly. “I know he has returned to England, and I know he will most likely be accompanying his mother and sister to London for the Season. Other than that I have heard nothing, nor do I care to. ”
Taken aback by her mother’s cavalier response, Dianna set her cup of tea down with an uncharacteristic clatter. “You... you don’t?”
All of her life she’d known one thing to be true: her parents expected her to marry Miles Radnor. The betrothal arrangement had been a feather in both of their caps; one they’d worn proudly for it had ensured their daughter an excellent match and their future grandchildren titles of inheritance. When Miles disappeared, they’d been as devastated as she. Perhaps even more so, although for entirely different reasons.
For a long time they both held out hope Miles would return and all would be as it had been; only in the past twelve months had Martha begun discussing other suitors of marriageable age. Dianna assumed with Miles’ reemergence her mother would be eager to rekindle their courtship.
She never imagined Martha would want nothing to do with him.
“Why would I? That man is no longer our concern.” Perching on the wooden arm of a sofa, Martha pursed her lips. “He humiliated us, Dianna. And he broke his word. Do you honestly think I would want a man like that married to my daughter? No,” she said before Dianna could answer. “Absolutely not. We shall find you a titled gentleman with an upstanding reputation who is willing to overlook a bit of scandal and that horrendously short hair of yours. You deserve nothing less.”
It was, without a doubt, the nicest thing her mother had ever said to her.
Feeling a bit dazed, Dianna stood up. “I... I believe I will go take a nap down.”
“See that you do. Oh, and darling?”
“Yes?”
“I will have one of the maids bring up a cool compress for your face. Those smudges really do look dreadful.”
Dianna bit back a smile. “Thank you, Mother. That would be very nice.”
Rain fell from the heavens without cease for the next five days. On the morning of Farcott Ball, however, as though by some divine intervention, the skies parted and the sun finally emerged, chasing away the gloomy gray stormclouds that had been threatening to take up permanent residence over London.
Waking to the sound of sparrows chirping, Dianna blinked sleepily, a smile curving her mouth as she opened her eyes to the sight of fresh sunlight spilling through the gossamer curtains.
It is a sign, she decided as she got out of bed and washed her face in a basin of warm water a maid had set out on the dressing table while she still slept. A sign that things were going to be better. That she was going to be better.
Dabbing at her neck and chest with a towel, she smiled at her reflection in the round looking glass, pleased to note her cheeks held a rosy flush and her eyes boasted their old familiar sparkle.
Having been kept busy with endless fitting appointments in preparation of the ball and a steady stream of social calls that yielded surprisingly pleasant company without any hint of the gossip she had been dreading, Dianna thought of Miles not at all.
Well, she corrected after meeting her own rueful gaze in the mirror, almost not at all.
The truth of it was he would always be a part of her. But a part of her past, not her present, and certainly not her future. As her mother insisted on pointing out - once a day every day - there were countless other eligible suitors to be charmed, and when Dianna put her mind to it she was nothing if not charming.
To be honest, it was all a bit exciting. For the first time in her life she would be experiencing a true London Season; not as a girl engaged to be married or one recently spurned, but as a woman ready (and finally willing) to find love. Picking up a fine toothed comb, she began to run it gently through her tousled curls, a bit awed by the newfound determination she saw gleaming in her eyes.
She could finally admit, to herself if no one else, that the broken engagement had destroyed her confidence. Not only had she been abandoned by the man she’d grown up thinking would one day become her husband, but she’d done nothing discernible to earn such a rejection, giving her cause to believe it had been her fault Miles left.
Following several long days of contemplation, she’d come to realize it hadn’t been her fault at all. There was nothing wrong with her. She’d done nothing bad. For four long years she’d sat in the shadows, bewildered and hurt, blaming herself for something she’d had no control over. At long last she was ready for a new beginning. At long last she was ready to step out into the light.
Beginning with the Farcott Ball.