Cinders & Sapphires, page 25
The duchess’s fine nostrils quivered as she examined Rose. “Odd that you were not at the wedding,” she continued.
Lord Westlake coughed in embarrassment. Lady Gertrude and Lady Cynthia exchanged malicious glances.
“Oh, I think she was, Your Grace,” Lady Gertrude said. “Only you might not have recognized her because—”
“Why, here he is!” Lord Westlake exclaimed in relief; and at the same moment Ada said, “Laurence! We wondered where you were.”
Lord Fintan smiled as he joined them. His cheeks were slightly flushed, as if with the heat of the sun. “Lady Ellingborough, how delightful to see you after such a long time,” he said, coming to stand at Ada’s side. “My mother frequently asks after you—”
“I am quite well, thank you.” The duchess raised a hand to her lorgnette and studied Rose. “I was just wondering why I had not had the pleasure of making Lady Rose’s acquaintance at the wedding.”
Rose began to realize why the upper classes were the upper classes. They didn’t get embarrassed. They didn’t take a hint. They just kept on drilling until people gave up in exhaustion and let them have their way. No wonder they’d won the battle of Waterloo.
Lord Westlake cleared his throat and lunged for a passing footman who had a tray full of drinks. “Champagne,” he said. “I think we should have a toast.”
“A toast?” The duchess raised her glass and her eyebrow.
“Yes, to my future son-in-law.” Lord Westlake raised his glass to Fintan, who smiled and raised his own.
“Indeed!” The duchess finally looked away from Rose, to Ada.
Rose was startled. Ada was marrying Lord Fintan? She turned to her sister, but a small sound, the tiniest gasp, distracted her before she could speak. Rose looked toward the sound and saw that her stepsister, Charlotte Templeton, had joined them. She was standing as still as a photograph. Then her color returned. No one else seemed to have noticed.
Rose found her voice. “Ada, I had no idea.…”
A moment later, she was embarrassed at the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. She was pleased—of course she was pleased. The engagement had been expected by everyone—everyone, that is, who didn’t know Ada as well as Rose did. Fintan would make her an excellent husband. He was clearly in love with her, they had so much in common, and…and she hoped she had sounded as happy as she knew she ought to feel.
“I’m hardly surprised,” said Lady Emily, raising an eyebrow. “Ada and my brother make a natural couple.”
“Of course, I simply…” Rose trailed off in confusion. Looking at Ada, she said, “Of course you will be very happy.” She wished she could ask Ada if she was sure, very sure, she knew what she was doing. She remembered the way Ada’s face had brightened when she opened a letter from Ravi, the passion with which she had spoken of him, the risks she had taken to meet him. Could Fintan really have replaced him so quickly?
Ada smiled back at her. “Who can doubt it?” she said.
“Did I miss an announcement?” Charlotte’s smile embraced them all as she stepped into the circle. “Dear Ada, I wish you joy. And Laurence too, of course.”
The others crowded in with congratulations, and Rose found herself, not for the first time, subtly edged out.
Ada glanced back over her shoulder with a small apologetic smile for Rose, and Rose made sure to make her answering smile as warm and glad as it could be. The last thing she wanted was for Ada to worry about her. She deserved to enjoy her happiness and not be burdened by Rose’s discomfort.
She stepped back into the shade of the arbor, still watching the group she had just left. Ada, a slight figure in a dress the color of wisteria blossoms, framed by the heavy, dark figures of her father and Laurence. Rose noted the warmth between her sister and Lord Fintan as Ada placed her hand on his arm. There was the vivacity in her laugh as she echoed his jokes. And there was a slight flush on her cheeks and a slight glitter in her eye that could have meant many things.
Rose looked up to the great, elegant iceberg of Milborough House, the serene women draped in stone that framed the upper drawing-room windows.
Ada is as much the Averley family’s face to society as this house is, she thought. It is a wonderful marriage, correct in every way. Of course Ravi was impossible. And yet, and yet…Rose played with a strand of her pearls, anxious without really knowing why. She thought again of Ada’s smile when she’d received a letter from Ravi, compared it to the one she wore now. It was like comparing a real rose to the silk ones on Charlotte’s dress.
“I just cannot understand why I should not have been introduced to Lady Rose at your wedding, Lord Westlake.” The duchess’s refined vowels sliced through the air. Rose closed her eyes and groaned gently to herself. She let the waves of the crowd usher her even farther away from her family’s summerhouse. Perhaps it would be possible to find a spot in the gardens where there was some silence. At least it was no hardship to wander alone through the gardens of Milborough House, she thought, as she walked away from the group.
Rose strolled past the flower beds as the kiss of croquet balls echoed from a little farther away, mingled with shrieks of well-bred laughter. She smiled as she saw a very young couple walking together, under the discreet but careful gaze of their mothers. The girl seemed hardly older than fourteen, and the boy still had the pink cheeks and coltish long limbs of a schoolboy.
“Lady Helen Fairfax and dear Blanchford,” a woman nearby commented to her friend. “Such a sweet couple. I expect they’ll be engaged this season.”
Rose was struck by the adoration with which Lady Helen looked up at the boy. Yes, she thought, that’s how Ada used to look at Ravi. Rose glanced back toward the group, feeling troubled. But Ada was hidden by the crowd.
Rose walked on, unnoticed, trying to escape the snatches of lazy conversation that followed her: “Lady Verulam’s ball is to finish the season.…” “Where is that amusing Sebastian Templeton…?” “The situation in Europe is really quite grave.…” “What will replace the Russian craze…?” “I long for a new couturier to break the monotony of Poiret.…” No matter how far she went, it was impossible to find silence.
She found herself near the servants’ entrance, where the tables were spread out. The only things brighter than the footmen’s white gloves were the ice swans weeping themselves away in the midst of the ruins of luncheon. She could see the inviting steps down to the kitchen. It was such hard work being a housemaid, but at least she’d had friends. She drew nearer, shielded by the hedge. A footman and a housemaid were laughing together, sharing a cigarette by a small, dirty window. Rose’s slipper caught on the gravel, and the maid looked up and caught her eye. Rose felt a hopeful smile waver on her lips, but the maid’s laughter was instantly replaced with a cold, professional mask. The footman dropped his cigarette, and both of them went back to wiping plates. A resentful silence bristled from them. Rose couldn’t blame them. She’d have felt the same, if she had caught a lady seeming to spy on her. She turned away, an ache in her chest.
A certain change in the tone of the crowd caught her attention. Garlanded hats turned, like flowers to the sun, toward the house. Near Rose, one elderly dowager leaned to whisper to another. “It can’t be!” replied the second woman, sounding disapproving.
Curious, Rose looked up at the terrace and saw a broad-shouldered young man standing on the top step, facing the crowd. He seemed to have just come through the open French windows. His hair was unfashionably long and tousled, the breeze plucked at his red-gold curls as if he stood on the bridge of a ship. Rose understood at once why people were staring and smiling. He wasn’t dressed at all for a garden party. His long sleeves were stained with something gray and blue, and he wore no hat at all. She found herself feeling irritated. Whoever he was, he was clearly so certain he would be well received that he hadn’t even bothered to dress correctly.
“The Duke of Huntleigh,” announced the butler.
“My dear Alexander…” Rose’s stepmother swept forward to welcome him, her brightest smile vying with her diamonds to out-dazzle the sun.
“Huntleigh!” exclaimed a lady nearby, and she and her neighbor glanced at each other. “Trust the countess to capture the season’s roariest lion.”
Rustles of excited whispers ran through the crowd like a forest fire. Clearly the Duke of Huntleigh was another desirable prize for the season’s ladies to grapple over. Rose had met a few of these prizes—not for long, no one wanted to waste time on a former housemaid who did not even have a dowry to go with her new title—and had quickly decided that not even a hundred thousand a year could make up for a lifetime of having to make conversation with them over the tea table.
Rose glanced up at the Duke of Huntleigh again. He was just walking down the steps with the countess; his mouth curved into a small smile as he looked at the crowd. It wasn’t a smile of happiness. There was something contemptuous in the way he waved away the footman who stepped forward to offer him a glass of champagne.
Rose turned away. But no doubt everyone thinks his fortune makes up for his arrogance, she thought. Oh how I hate this world, where no one’s smile is real.
LEILA RASHEED is a British writer based in Birmingham, UK. She is the author of many children’s books, most recently Empire’s End: A Roman Story. She grew up in Libya and has lived in Belgium and Italy. She has a passion for history and loves learning about how people lived in the past. As a teenager in England she enjoyed visiting stately homes, which helped inspire Somerton. She also runs a mentoring service for England-based children’s writers of colour, called Megaphone: www.megaphonewrite.com.
Leila Rasheed, Cinders & Sapphires
