8
The ball had been a smashing success. Thanks to Lady Gordon’s assistance, the gentlemen who had attended were not vulgar fortune hunters, though most would benefit from an advantageous marriage. Using her familiarity with society, Lady Gordon had invited those gentlemen she knew to be presentable, mannerly, and genteel. (Mr. Pryce was an exception, as his manners were not universally pleasing, but Lady Gordon had predicted, quite rightly, that he would prove amusing. And since he was connected to practically every noble family listed in Debrett’s, it had done no harm to invite him for that reason, as well.) Each of the gentlemen, realizing they had been one of a select few, were happy to be chosen and even happier to dance attendance on a unique, refreshing group of young women.
After the ball, the Ladies of the Registry, instead of finding themselves ostracized by those who made up London society, were embraced by them. For it’s an indisputable fact that when a woman no longer seeks acceptance, she suddenly becomes irresistible.
Another surprising result of their ball was that Monsieur de la Tour was enjoying as much popularity as the ladies were. Not only was he receiving invitations to numerous society affairs, but he had also been granted an elusive voucher to Almack’s. This was due in large part to Lady Jersey having waltzed with him after he had been released by Diana from their dance.
“It seems an unnecessary expense,” Monsieur de la Tour told the ladies, speaking of the voucher, “so I doubt I will use it.”
“Let me pay for it. I would be glad to,” Regina said.
“I appreciate the kind offer, but it has never been an ambition of mine to join high society. They are a capricious bunch. Besides, I already have the opportunity to dance with the loveliest women in London,” he said, with a bow to Lady Regina and Diana.
“It would probably be a very effective advertisement for your services,” Regina said.
“True. After your ball I acquired three new students.”
“That’s wonderful! Was Lady Gordon one of them?” Diana asked.
Diana thought it very interesting that the suave and confident Frenchman grew self-conscious at the mere mention of the lady’s name. “No, of course not. Lady Gordon has no need of dancing lessons. She is already a very accomplished dancer. It would be a futile exercise for me to cultivate her acquaintance, in more ways than one.”
Diana, who had assumed she’d done Monsieur a favor by presenting him to Lady Gordon, now wondered if she’d done him an injury. She had thought her two friends well suited to each other, and she knew Lady Gordon to be lonely and suspected Monsieur de la Tour was as well. But while Diana cared nothing for rank or social status, Lady Gordon might think very differently. Her first husband had been an important figure in political circles and a nobleman. Monsieur de la Tour might be correct in thinking Lady Gordon would never consider a poor dancing master as a second husband, if that’s what he meant by saying any further association with her would be futile. And from the tone of his voice when he said it, Diana suspected that was his meaning.
The Ladies of the Registry had met a few days after the ball to rehash that glorious evening and recount their experiences, and soon formed the habit of meeting regularly either at Lady Gordon’s or Lady Regina’s home. They frequently encountered one another at social events around town as well. And they had decided to host another evening event together, although not a private ball. This time they planned an excursion to Vauxhall Gardens, and each lady was to choose one gentleman to invite as her escort. And while it was not uncommon for a gentleman to escort a lady to an evening’s entertainment, it was unusual for an unmarried lady to be the one extending the invitation.
Mr. Pryce was calling on Miss Jarmyn, and she was apparently quite infatuated with her boyish-looking suitor, his oversized ears notwithstanding. Lady Gordon had told Diana and Regina in private that with Mr. Pryce’s tendency to use slang from a lower class of society, Miss Jarmyn might be the only young lady who could understand him. She then apologized for the unkind remark, but Diana and Regina assured her they wouldn’t repeat it and agreed that Miss Jarmyn and Mr. Pryce were uniquely suited to each other.
“Perhaps Miss Jarmyn will even teach him some new jargon,” Lady Regina said, laughing.
The other ladies hadn’t as quickly made up their minds among their various suitors but were enjoying the attention, and their regular meetings slowly changed in focus from social planning to involvement in the charitable institutions that Lady Gordon promoted. Diana knew what it was like to be a penniless young woman with few options, but she also realized her mother had protected her from a far worse fate, and so was determined to do what she could to help other poor women. She and Regina were happy to offer donations and other assistance to a home that Lady Gordon had established for some of these unfortunate women and their children.
Diana also found that she and Lady Gordon shared a similar regret: they had both hoped for children and had been denied that wish. Diana had not regretted this while she was married to Mr. Boyle; she had been extremely relieved that he seemed disinterested in the marital duties that her mother had explained resulted in a child. But when Diana later decided she would never marry again, she’d felt a sense of loss at the realization that if she gave up matrimony, she was also giving up motherhood. She and Lady Gordon spoke of it when they were alone together in Lady Regina’s drawing room one morning, and Lady Gordon confided in Diana that she had even considered bringing one of the orphans home with her.
“I am not sure what the present Lord Gordon would do, however. Have me declared mad and strip me of my fortune, I suppose,” Lady Gordon said half-jokingly, though Diana could tell it was something that she cared about deeply.
“I have thought about adopting a child as well,” Diana told Lady Gordon. “I have no one to leave Whitley House to after my death, and I would dearly love to help a child in difficult circumstances.”
“But, my dear,” Lady Gordon said in surprise, “you’re so young. You still have plenty of time to start a family. And your husband was much older than you, was he not? If you marry a younger man—” She stopped when she saw Diana blush. “I don’t mean to embarrass you, so I’ll say no more. I’m sure you take my meaning.”
Diana shook her head. “I don’t plan to remarry, Lady Gordon. My marriage was not like yours. It was a miserable experience that I have no desire to repeat. And though Lady Regina thinks this idea of hers a good one, I can’t help but distrust any man who would marry me for my fortune.”
“You must realize that such a thing is a commonplace occurrence, and many times a practical one. I think Lady Regina’s plan makes a lot of sense: Why not use your fortune to purchase the kind of husband you would like? You can ensure that he is nothing like your first husband was.”
“I think it immoral to marry for such a reason, Lady Gordon. I will not do so again,” Diana said, and Lady Gordon was taken aback by her passionate response.
“I beg your pardon—” Lady Gordon started to say, when Diana interrupted her, putting her hand out in a gesture of apology.
“No; it is I who must beg your pardon. I am far too sensitive about such matters, I know.”
“Not at all; if you feel so strongly then I’m sure you have good reason to do so.” Lady Gordon paused and looked searchingly at Diana before speaking again, a little hesitantly. “Forgive me, I have no wish to intrude on your private concerns, but I hope your husband did not . . . harm you in any way.”
“Oh, no! Mr. Boyle was not very kind to me, but neither did he abuse me. Not physically, at any rate.”
“I’m sorry he was unkind to you, but I am relieved to hear that you were not a victim of physical abuse. It’s terrible how the courts allow husbands to mistreat their wives with impunity. Some of the poor women one meets when involved in charitable activities—” Lady Gordon finished her sentence with a shudder and a mournful shake of her head.
“Many have been terribly mistreated, I know. Really, I have nothing to complain of when compared to them,” Diana said.
“That’s not true, Diana. We all have our particular burdens to bear, and one person’s suffering doesn’t negate the suffering of another person. Just because there are many unfortunate and terribly mistreated people in the world does not mean that you are not allowed to mourn the loss of your mother or regret the unhappiness of your first marriage. There is no contest for such things and, really, if there were, who would want to be the winner? We should all be trying to alleviate one another’s pain, not denying one another or ourselves the right to feel it.”
Lady Regina walked into the drawing room just as Lady Gordon was finishing her speech, and she was somewhat startled by the atmosphere that prevailed there. She hesitated just inside the door, looking from Lady Gordon’s serious face to Diana’s moisture-filled eyes.
“I beg your pardon. Am I intruding?”
Diana laughed, and quickly dried her eyes with her handkerchief. “Regina, you’re the best hostess that ever was! Here we sit, in your drawing room, and you ask if you’re intruding. No, of course you’re not. Lady Gordon was just giving me some very wise advice.”
“Oh, dear. That makes me sound like an officious busybody,” Lady Gordon protested, but she was smiling as well, and Regina came into the room and sat down, and the conversation soon turned to less serious matters.
Maxwell, like the Ladies of the Registry, had also been enjoying unprecedented popularity since the ball. It had become an open secret in London society that he was the creator of the directory; however, rather than causing him to be rejected, he’d found himself flooded with invitations and treated as something of a celebrity whenever he ventured out. He was also the recipient of further visits to his rooms by mysterious young ladies. (Jim, the young porter who admitted them, was inclined to look at Maxwell in amazed curiosity, as if wondering how this unassuming gentleman had achieved such amorous success.)
The goal of these ladies, however, was the exact opposite of what Diana’s had been: they did not wish to be removed from his directory, but rather inserted into it.
“Mr. Dean, what is the minimum amount required for inclusion in your directory?” one buxom, ruddy-cheeked young woman asked him. “If ten thousand is not enough, Pa can raise more. We own a brewery in Norfolk and our barley crop did very well this year. I’m sure plenty of young gentlemen would be happy to have unlimited access to ale. Maybe you should list that in the directory, next to my dowry,” she said, with a hearty guffaw.
Still smiling, she moved from the chair he’d originally led her to and seated herself very near to him on the sofa. “Do you like ale, Mr. Dean?” she asked in a husky whisper, leaning in so close that Maxwell became concerned her impressive bosom was about to brush against his own. He immediately jumped up and retreated across the room. She’d arrived with only a footman in attendance and had ordered the servant to wait in the hall, and Max had no desire to be found with the brewer’s daughter, unchaperoned, sitting chest-to-chest on a sofa. It was true he rarely had callers, but he hadn’t expected this one, either. He cursed his bad timing, having been surprised by her visit just as he’d opened the door to leave and thus unable to claim he was not at home. He wished now he’d thought of some other excuse to deny her admittance, but she had hustled her way inside before he’d had a chance to think.
“I am sorry, Miss . . .” he responded, before stumbling to a halt as he realized he did not even know whom he was addressing.
“Thimblethorpe. Sylvia Thimblethorpe. Do you wish to know the spelling for your directory? It is T-h-i—”
“Miss Thimblethorpe, please, I do not mean to interrupt, but there will be no reprinting of the directory, so it is unnecessary for you to spell your name for me.” Max thought he’d go mad before she got to the end of that interminable surname.
“But—” she started to protest.
“And I do beg your pardon, but I really must go,” he said, crossing back to the sofa and holding his arm out to her so that she had no choice but to take it and rise to her feet. “I am late for an appointment.”
Max led her, still protesting, to the door. After waving down a hackney, helping her inside, and watching it leave, he turned to address Jim. “Do not allow any other ladies into the building without my express permission,” he told him.
“Must be a nice problem to have, Mister,” Jim replied, looking Max up and down with a critical eye, as if trying to figure out what the attraction could be.
Max did not attempt an explanation, unconcerned with the young man’s opinion of his desirability. He was much more concerned with Mrs. Boyle’s opinion of him, and it was with her that he had an appointment that morning.
Not only did Mrs. Boyle not know how to ride, she had also mentioned she wanted to learn to drive, and he had quickly offered to instruct her. He told himself he was doing so to make up for his thoughtless behavior in publishing the directory, but he knew he was deceiving himself. He merely wanted an excuse to continue seeing her.
Diana was becoming an expert at self-deception as well. She claimed she had no romantic interest in Mr. Dean and absolutely no intention of getting married again, but she took every opportunity she was offered to be in his company, though she frequently turned down invitations from other gentlemen. She, Mr. Dean, Lady Regina, and Lord Jerome had gone twice on excursions together, Lord Jerome having very clearly transferred his attentions to Regina.
But this morning Diana would be alone with Mr. Dean for the very first time since she’d made his acquaintance, as the curricle he’d hired in order to teach her to drive only held two. And he had purposely timed their outing before noon to avoid the fashionable crowd.
After picking Diana up from Lady Regina’s townhouse, he drove her to the park, explaining to her the features of their hired vehicle, while comparing it point by point with a phaeton, tilbury, and stanhope. He knew she was considering purchasing a carriage and wanted her to make an informed decision. However, Diana comprehended very little of his explanation, so overwhelmed was she to be riding in a curricle with a gentleman. She had never been on a drive in an open carriage with any man, not even her late husband, who had thought the possession of a sporting carriage that only carried two persons the height of frivolity and absurdity.
Diana was not of the same opinion and thought that it might be enjoyable for her and Lady Regina to go on drives together, especially when the weather was so pleasant and the park was bursting with color, as it was now. And though she and Mr. Dean were avoiding other people so that he could safely conduct her driving lesson, Diana found the thought of promenading on a Sunday afternoon from the seat of a curricle she was driving while nodding at her various acquaintances to be a thrilling prospect, indeed. She might not care about social prestige or prominence, but she and Regina did find delight in taking part in activities that they would have been excluded from only a few months previously and had agreed to enjoy their social success while it lasted.
Diana had resolved similarly regarding Mr. Dean’s attentions, although her conscience sometimes bothered her, as she felt it was unfair of her to encourage him when she had no intention of marrying him. But then she would remind herself that it was her fortune that attracted him, not her person, so she was in no danger of hurting him. However, she did wonder sometimes if he could be that good of an actor as to simulate such delight in her company if it was merely her bank balance that pleased him.
Today, for example, when he had helped her into the curricle, he had clasped one of her hands in his while he placed his other hand gently at the small of her back. Both this and his queries about her comfort were done with such an air of protective concern that she felt . . . cherished. It was a feeling she’d never before experienced, coupled as it was with her physical reaction to Mr. Dean’s presence. She began to wonder if there were advantages to marriage that she hadn’t previously considered, since while she’d been married to Mr. Boyle he had rarely touched her, nor had she wanted him to.
Mr. Dean’s thoughts must have been running upon similar lines, because he suddenly said, “You must have been very young when you were first married.”
“I had just turned eighteen,” Diana said. Her smile faded and she sat up straighter in the seat, rigid and tense, her usual reaction whenever she was asked about her marriage.
“And you were made a widow at a young age as well,” Mr. Dean said sympathetically. “I am very sorry for your loss.”
Diana had schooled herself to accept such condolences with a polite expression of thanks or a gracious nod of the head, but she found those niceties eluded her at that moment. “You need not be sorry. I am far happier as a widow than I ever was as a wife,” she replied, so weary of hiding her true feelings that she tactlessly blurted them out.
Seeing Mr. Dean’s shocked expression, Diana figured she had lost any respect he might have had for her so there was no longer any need to guard her tongue as she had trained herself to do these many months. “Now you see, Mr. Dean, why I was so opposed to your directory. My marriage, as you so rightly assumed at our first meeting, was one of financial necessity, and my only hope of escape from that union was death; either mine or my husband’s. You cannot know how it feels to wish for freedom so fervently that you cannot grieve the death of another. Indeed, my primary emotion upon his death was relief.”
Diana could not look at Mr. Dean; she was too ashamed, and therefore stared straight ahead, her gaze focused unseeingly on a flowering rhododendron, its bright pink flowers an indistinct blur. The silence felt unbearably tense and heavy, but Diana could not bring herself to break it, as she already regretted revealing her darkest, ugliest secrets, and felt she might lose her composure completely if she spoke again. She was surprised when Mr. Dean brought the horses to a stand and reached out to cover her hand with his own.
“I am truly sorry that your marriage was an unhappy one. And I regret more than I can ever express that I added to your pain by listing your name in the directory,” he said. “But you should not continue to berate yourself for the very natural feeling of relief you experienced at the ending of a miserable situation. It’s true that I have not known you very long, but I feel certain you did nothing to hasten your husband’s death, and probably what you could to prevent it.”
“Naturally I did all that I could! It was a very sudden attack, but then he was bedridden for weeks afterward. He had the best of physicians; I even called in a doctor from town. I tried everything . . .” Diana said, her voice breaking off as tears threatened again to overcome her.
“I have no doubt that you did. You must stop blaming yourself for something that was beyond your control.” And raising her hand to his lips, he bestowed a kiss on her wrist, which peeked out from above the clasp of her short kid gloves.
The breath caught in Diana’s throat, and she finally turned to look at him. The expression in his eyes was so very sympathetic that Diana felt as if the ache that seemed to be a permanent part of her, the guilt she’d carried for so long, was lessening the longer Mr. Dean looked at her. She felt a burst of gratitude and affection for him and wished she was brave enough to return his kiss. But the brazenness of that thought caused her to be overcome with shyness and broke the spell he seemed to have cast over her. She lowered her eyes from his and gently withdrew her hand.
He seemed to come to his senses as well, for he cleared his throat before saying in a hearty tone of voice: “Perhaps it’s time for you to take the reins, Mrs. Boyle. It appears that this is a quiet part of the park, well suited for you to practice in safety.”
Diana was relieved at the change of subject and threw herself wholeheartedly into the driving lessons. She found them quite enjoyable, but was unable to tell if the acceleration of her heartbeat was caused by the excitement of controlling a matched team of horses or the enforced proximity with Mr. Dean.
It was only later, after the lessons were finished and Mr. Dean was in possession of the reins once again, that Diana returned to the subject they’d previously discussed.
“Thank you, Mr. Dean, for your great kindness to me this morning. You must be regretting your offer to teach me to drive. I’m sure you had little expectation, when you did so, that I would make you the recipient of uninvited, and most likely unwanted, confidences,” she said, with a wry smile.
“On the contrary, I am honored,” he said. “And it helps me understand better your strong feelings about your inclusion in the directory.” There was a pause as Mr. Dean exchanged nods with an acquaintance who passed them on horseback before he continued: “I’ve wanted to explain to you for some time, Mrs. Boyle, that I did not compile that directory because I think of marriage as a glorified business transaction. That is not at all how I view marriage, and it pained me to know that I gave you that impression.” He glanced over at Diana, who did not interrupt him and whose expression encouraged him to continue. “I know many younger sons, like myself, who greatly desire to marry and start a family but are prevented by their circumstances from doing so. I merely thought that if one of those gentlemen met a lady of fortune whom he did esteem highly enough for marriage, and vice versa, then there would be no obstacle to their being wed. And perhaps a younger son, like myself, who would otherwise be destined to lead a solitary, lonely life, might instead find himself the companion of the loveliest, sweetest, most charming woman he had ever met—” He broke off suddenly, and cast Diana a sheepish look.
“I am speaking generally, of course,” he said, with a self-mocking smile.
“Of course,” she agreed, though she treasured this description she did not think she was incorrect in assuming to be of her. And she wondered if marriage, when one was able to carefully select a mate, might not be such an awful institution after all.