Free Dangerous Escapade by Hilary Gilman Page A

their journey.

 
    Six

 
    It is not to
be supposed that Mistress Kitty, inured to the more exotic splendours of Rome,
Vienna, and Madrid, would find much to impress her in the fashionable
watering-place of Bath. She compared it unfavourably, indeed, with Baden-Baden,
where a good many of her adolescent summers had been passed. But she settled
down happily enough in the pleasant house Lord Debenham had acquired for the
season and was willing to own herself glad of the change.
    It was in Bath
that she tasted the first pleasures of being female and realized that even
tight lacing had its compensations. She was not to be seen formally until my
Lord's Ball, but on the several shopping expeditions she made in company with
Lady Horatia, she was at first astonished and then delighted to find that she
commanded an uncommon degree of admiration wherever she went. Lady Horatia also
rejoiced in her charge's success, which she not unnaturally regarded as a
compliment to herself.
    Lady Horatia had
no doubt that Kitty would be besieged with partners at the coming Ball, but as
she said to her nephew: “My dear Anthony, I cannot but feel our sweet Kitty
would go on very much more comfortably at her party if she were acquainted with
one or two young ladies of her own age. Do you not think that I might perhaps
take her to the Pump Room tomorrow in order to introduce her to some sweet
girls I know of?”
    The Earl shrugged.
“Whatever you think best, dear Aunt. I believe that you will find Lady Amelia
at the Pump Room tomorrow, indeed, for I have just received this note, which
informs me that the family arrived in Bath this afternoon. Perhaps you would be
good enough to introduce them.”
    “But my dear,
surely that is a pleasure you would prefer to reserve for yourself?” responded Lady
Horatia, with a touch of malice.
    She found Debenham
was regarding her very seriously. “I realize that you have discovered in some
way my feelings for my ward, but pray believe me when I say that there is no
possibility of my breaking with Amelia. I must request you not to tease me on
the subject. I know I can rely on your affection. It can afford me nothing but pain
to see them together; to be offered the chance of comparison is what I dread. But,
dear Aunt, I shall find it very much easier if I am not conscious that I am
watched and my behaviour noted.”
    Lady Horatia was
much affected. “My dear boy, I shall never refer to it again, I promise. But
how I wish it were not so, for, of all the women in the world, Kitty is the
very one to make you happy.”
    He made no
reply, and Lady Horatia slipped from the room, from whence she retired to her
chamber and relieved her feelings by setting them all down in a lengthy letter
to the Comtesse de Longueville.
    True to her
promise, she escorted her charge to the Pump Room the next morning. Mistress Kitty
could not comprehend the pains her mentor took with her that morning, but Lady Horatia
was determined that Kitty should outshine poor Lady Amelia in every way, if only
for her own satisfaction. His Lordship would not be there to compare the two
women, but the rest of the Polite World undoubtedly would.
    And so, when
Kitty finally entered the Pump Room that morning, she was a vision of
fashionable loveliness. Lady Horatia had arrayed her in dull amber silk lavishly
trimmed with gold lace, in which costume she entered the fashionable throng
like a golden rose. Several ladies took an immediate and lifelong dislike to her
upon first sight while, upon the impressionable men, she produced a quite
contrary effect.
    She and Lady
Horatia soon became the centre of a crowd of admirers, well-wishers and
hangers-on, and Kitty passed the morning very agreeably being introduced to as
many of the fashionables as her guide considered suitable. The Polite World had,
of course, long been agog with the news that Debenham had become the guardian of
an heiress; now they were delighted to find that she was a Beauty as well.