Wilton did not call the following day, a fact which filled Diana with profound gratitude. The slight pique she felt at his omission was overwhelmed by the memory of Amanda’s peals of laughter when she had entered the house covered in mud. Despite valiant efforts to control herself, Amanda had been helpless with mirth for quite five minutes, and this measure of her appearance had made Diana all the more determined to smarten it.
Thus, the two of them had set out early the next morning on a lengthy shopping expedition, returning with two gowns that Diana could wear with only small alterations and the satisfaction of having ordered a great many more. She had also equipped herself with new gloves, hats, and other necessities, to the immense gratification of numerous Milsom Street shopkeepers. There remained only one great question in the matter of toilette.
“I suppose I must cut my hair,” said Diana, critically evaluating her image in her dressing-table mirror. The great knot of deep gold low on her neck seemed incongruous with the new blue muslin dress she was wearing.
Amanda, who had accompanied her to her bedchamber, got up and walked all around Diana, her dark eyes narrow with speculation. “I don’t know. Your hair is not the latest thing, of course, but it is somehow right on you.”
Diana laughed. “I am a hopeless dowd, you mean.”
“Not at all! You are just…yourself.”
“And how am I to take that?” Her expression was wry. “Is not everyone? And is ‘myself’ an outmoded country miss?”
“I am not saying it properly.” Amanda surveyed her friend’s tall willowy figure, lovely in the draped muslin. It was so lucky that the dressmaker had had this model made up. The deep, vibrant blue, against Diana’s bronze hair and pale skin, transformed her from a commonplace pretty girl into a beauty who drew one’s eyes and fixed it. Her sherry-colored glance seemed brighter, and even her smile was now dazzling rather than merely pleasant. The unusual knot of hair seemed to confirm her compelling individuality, emphasizing the intelligence and discernment visible in her face and warning observers that here was no milk-and-water miss such as they might meet twenty times a day. Amanda felt it would be wrong to change that, but she did not know how to convey her intuition.
“I admit I am reluctant to cut it,” added Diana, turning her head to look at her hair. She too felt some intimation of lightness.
“How long is it now?”
“Nearly to my knees!” She laughed. “Horridly old-fashioned.”
“Let us leave it for now,” decided Amanda. “You can always have it cut off, but once it is gone…” She shrugged.
Diana gave a small involuntary shiver. “Yes.” She held out the skirt of her gown and turned to look at the back in the mirror. “How splendid it is to have a new dress. Perhaps I shall become utterly improvident and order a dozen more tomorrow.”
Amanda laughed. “Do. And you must wear that one to the concert tonight. You look beautiful!”
Diana threw back her head and drew in a breath. The image her mirror showed her was gratifying and far removed from the mud-plastered apparition of yesterday. Captain Wilton—as Amanda had labeled him—was in for a surprise.
“Robert Wilton will never know you again,” said Amanda, uncannily echoing this thought.
“If he is there,” replied Diana with airy unconcern.
Amanda eyed her. She had been very interested to hear of Diana’s encounter. Though not, of course, precisely what she’d had in mind when she suggested the stay in Bath (she suppressed a smile), the meeting was nonetheless a beginning. And Captain Wilton was just the sort of man she would have Diana meet. She had been careful to drop only a few scraps of information about him, and she was gratified to see Diana transparently disguising a strong interest. She decided to make another test. “Oh, I daresay he will be. Robert will be very bored on leave and eager for diversion.”
Diana studiously examined the line of her hem. “Is he so jaded?”
“Oh, no. Quite the opposite. He has been in the army since he was very young, and had few opportunities for entertainment.”
“He was in the Peninsula with George?”
“Yes. That is, not with him, exactly. Robert was attached to the headquarters staff. He visited all the regiments at one time or another, carrying messages or observing. Which is not to say that he did not see a good deal of action, for he did. I believe he received a special commendation at Salamanca.”
“Ah.” Diana turned, gown forgotten. “He looked ill. Or, not ill precisely, but worn down.”
“He was wounded at Bordeaux, I think, after we had come home. Does he seem very bad?”
Flushing a little, Diana retreated again. “I know nothing of him, of course. I thought he was a little thin and pale, and his leg is stiff.”
Amanda nodded wisely. “That does not sound too serious. But if he is still on leave, it must have been. I suppose he is as wild to rejoin Wellington as they all are.”
“Has he no…family?” asked Diana haltingly.
“Oh, lud, yes. He is the brother of Lord Faring and has several sisters. His father is dead, but Lady Faring, his mother, is quite a figure in London—one of the leading hostesses.”
“I wonder he does not stay with her.”
“Perhaps Faring puts him off. He is a dreadful dandy.” She giggled. “You should see him, Diana. He cannot turn his head, his collar is so high and starched, and his waist is cinched so small he is shaped like an hourglass.”
“Ridiculous,” she agreed. “But hardly enough to put one off London, I should think.”
“Oh, but he is—they are, I mean. Most of the military men can’t abide dandies, or the haut ton, because they were all so stupid about the war, you see. They acted as if it were unimportant. George calls them—what is the word—fribbles.” She giggled again. “When he is in a kind mood, that is.”
Diana smiled. “It is lucky we came to Bath, then. The town seems full of soldiers.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
Amanda’s smug tone made Diana look more closely. Amanda had schemes in mind, she saw, and she suddenly wondered if some of them might not involve herself. The idea startled her, for the Amanda Diana remembered would have had little time for or interest in maneuvering others. Diana could see how George’s state might alter this, but what else was Amanda plotting? This question, presently unanswerable, was unsettling.
* * *
That evening, they attended a concert in the lower rooms. Diana had thought that George Trent would refuse to come, but he said nothing and seemed content when they met him in the drawing room and walked downstairs together. He had been much less prickly since they arrived in Bath, Diana realized. He still looked like a ghost of his former self, his massive frame barely covered by his flesh and his face thin and lined behind the black eyepatch. But his temper was improved, and, when they entered the concert room, she understood at least part of the reason. George was greeted from all sides by men like himself—soldiers discharged from Wellington’s army. He fell immediately into intent conversation about recent developments, leaving Diana and Amanda to find their own seats among the rows of gilt chairs. Neither had the slightest objection, however. Indeed, Diana could see that Amanda was overjoyed at her husband’s rekindled animation, and she felt happy for both of them.
Diana looked about the room with interest, sitting very straight, conscious for almost the first time in her life that she looked well-dressed and elegant. Amanda had lent her a string of pearls to wear with her new blue gown; a fringed shawl was draped across her elbows, and she carried a pair of gloves she had purchased that day. As the hall filled and the murmur of talk grew louder, Diana felt her heartbeat quicken. Society was what she had longed for so ardently years ago. Her chance had come when she had almost given up hope, and she was terribly excited.
Amanda had been nodding to the left and right, smiling and occasionally raising her hand in greeting. “I had no notion we would find so many acquaintances here,” she said. “Half the army seems to be in Bath. I had supposed most were in America. Why, there is Anthony Linton!”
“I don’t see nearly as many uniforms as on the street,” commented Diana.
“Those must be the new arrivals. They don’t wear uniforms once on leave, of course.”
Diana assimilated this information. She had, she realized, been covertly on the lookout for a blue coat trimmed with red and gold.
“George knows everyone much better than I, naturally,” continued Amanda. “But it is very pleasant to have even a nodding acquaintance with so many. It makes one feel at home.”
Diana, who had begun to feel just the opposite, scanned the room again. It was filled with strangers—far more men than women—talking in small, earnest groups.
At the signal, the audience settled into chairs, and, after a short interval, the music began.
Diana, who had never been musical, found the performance merely pleasant, and, from the looks of the other listeners, she thought that many would concur. The rush to resume conversation or visit the refreshment room at the first pause was marked. She and Amanda were swept along irresistibly and had some difficulty in procuring glasses of lemonade and chairs at one of the small tables. Her unconcern at George’s desertion wavered a bit, as did her elation at being out. Then, at that inauspicious moment, Diana saw Robert Wilton making his way through the crowd around the entrance to the refreshment room. At once, her interest revived. He wore a plain blue coat tonight and buff pantaloons, and he carried an ebony cane upon which he occasionally leaned when someone accidentally jostled him and threw him onto his stiff knee. He was gazing at the various groups of people, and Diana sat a little straighter, waiting for his eyes to encounter hers.
They did so, and passed on without a flicker. She frowned, then realized that he could not be expected to recognize her without the mud. Her lips curved upward at the absurdity of it. How were they to meet? Forgetting her earlier scruples, she turned to Amanda. “There is Captain Wilton.”
“Where?” Diana indicated him. “So it is.” Amanda raised a hand and, when she managed to catch his eye, nodded and smiled. Robert Wilton immediately started toward them, though his progress was slow because of the crush.
“Mrs. Trent,” he said when he finally reached them. “I was hoping to see you here this evening. I meant to call, but I have been fully occupied correcting a mix-up about my rooms here in Bath. My letter reserving them seems to have gone astray.”
“How annoying. I hope you have accommodations.”
“Now, yes.” He turned toward Diana with an expectant smile. He had been too occupied maneuvering through the crowd to look at her before. What he saw struck him dumb with dismay.
“You have met my dear friend Diana Gresham, I believe,” said Amanda, a laugh in her voice.
Wilton nodded, swallowing nervously.
Diana, who had observed the change in his expression with surprise and chagrin, merely bowed her head. She had imagined a very different scene when she anticipated this meeting. Why was he so patently disappointed? Was it her face, her gown? Something in her appearance had clearly put him off, and this daunting knowledge made her incapable of speech. She had lost whatever assurance she had once possessed, she saw, in the years of solitude.
“A very odd meeting,” added Amanda in the silence that followed, puzzlement replacing humor in her tone. “Is it your habit to strike up acquaintance with unknown ladies so, Captain Wilton?”
“No. No.” He was too uncomfortable to acknowledge her joke. Robert Wilton had come to this concert solely to meet Diana again. His memory of the girl who had been so sporting about an embarrassing accident had grown rosier with each passing hour. He imagined that he would talk with her as easily as he did with any of his numerous male friends. Her features having been a mystery, he thought of her simply as an attractive personality.
But this hopeful vision had been shattered with his first sight of her gleaming hair, her elegant attire and delicately lovely face. She was even more beautiful than the women his mother pushed upon him, and she would no doubt find him as clumsy and tiresome as did they. Wilton cringed at the memory of a succession of awkward encounters. He knew nothing of London gossip or the current news of close-knit society families, and every girl he had danced with or taken to dinner in town had made it clear she found him dull and unamusing. His looks were not such as to dazzle, and his long absences from England left his wardrobe outmoded. His wide knowledge of the war and sound views upon it failed to arouse a spark of interest. Thus, he had long ago concluded that he was hopelessly out of place in the drawing room. And now, faced with a Diana no longer covered with mud but resplendent as any society miss, he felt only that he must escape before he saw bored contempt in her eyes too.
Amanda, seeing that, inexplicably, the whole responsibility for conversation seemed to rest with her, said, “When did you return to England, Captain Wilton?” Her mystification was plain. Why, she might have been asking, are two people whom I know to be intelligent and interesting standing still and silent as stones?
The implication did nothing to put Wilton at ease. “In July,” he replied.
“Just after we did. And have you been staying with your family?”
He nodded quickly and started to make some excuse to take his leave.
“Oh, there is George.” Mrs. Trent summoned her husband with a gesture. “George, we have found Robert Wilton.”
The two men greeted one another cordially and at once fell into a discussion about Wellington’s plans for meeting Napoleon in pitched battle in Flanders.
Diana watched as Captain Wilton’s constraint vanished and his blue eyes lit with enthusiasm. He smiled over some remark of George’s, and she drew in a breath. She had almost forgotten that smile; it made him seem a different person.
Resentment welled up in her. Why should he be so eager and talkative with George and so sullen and silent with her? What about her offended him? She had done nothing except get in the way of his carriage. But perhaps now that he had seen her, he found she could not compare with the London girls he knew. Diana nodded to herself. Yes, that must be it. He was accustomed to the daughters of the haut ton, and she had none of their polish.
Diana glanced again at Wilton’s face, so alive now. That was what he had expected, undoubtedly, and she could not manage it. A sharp pang of disappointment went through her. She had hoped for something from him, she realized, despite her stern resolutions, and she had behaved stupidly, charmed by a man of whom she knew nothing. She must fight this susceptibility in herself. She would seek an introduction to every gentleman known to the Trents, she decided, and she would treat each of them with equal consideration and interest. That would soon cure her of the lamentable tendency to idealize anyone
And so, as the evening went on, Diana actively encouraged a willing Amanda to present her to officer friends, and she exerted herself mightily to chat and laugh at their sallies. Making conversation was not as difficult as she had feared it might be after her encounter with Robert Wilton. Others appeared flatteringly eager to speak to her, and even reluctant to relinquish places at her side. Diana began to enjoy herself very much indeed, and, by the end of the outing, had not a glance to spare for Captain Wilton, who stood alone in a corner and watched her with a bitter expression.