Free Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh

London, a major extravagance but one she had deemed necessary for the occasion.
    â€œAnd you, of course,” Claudia said, “are looking as beautiful as ever, Susanna.”
    Her friend was dressed in pale blue, a lovely color with her vibrant auburn curls. She was also as slender as a girl with no visible sign at all of her recent confinement except perhaps an extra glow in her cheeks.
    â€œWe had better go downstairs,” Susanna said. “Come and see the ballroom before Frances and Lucius arrive.”
    Claudia draped her paisley shawl about her shoulders and Susanna linked an arm through hers and drew her out of the room in the direction of the staircase.
    â€œPoor Frances!” Susanna said. “Do you suppose she is horribly nervous?”
    â€œI daresay she is,” Claudia said. “I suppose she always is before a performance. I can remember her telling the girls in her choirs when she taught at the school that if they were not nervous before a performance they were sure to sing poorly.”
    The ballroom was a magnificently proportioned room, with a high, gilded ceiling and a hanging chandelier fitted with dozens of candles. One wall was mirrored, giving the illusion of an even greater size and of a twin chandelier and twice the number of flowers, which were displayed everywhere in large urns. The wooden floor gleamed beneath the rows of red-cushioned chairs that had been set up for the evening.
    It was a daunting sight.
    But then, Claudia thought, she had never bowed to nervousness. And why should she now? She despised the
ton,
did she not? The portion of it that she did not know personally, anyway. She squared her shoulders.
    And then Peter appeared in the doorway, looking all handsome elegance in his dark evening clothes, and behind him came Frances and Lucius. Susanna hurried toward them, Claudia close behind her.
    â€œSusanna!” Frances exclaimed, catching her up in a hug. “You are as pretty as ever. And Claudia! Oh, how very dear and how very fine you look.”
    â€œAnd you,” Claudia said, “look more distinguished than ever and…beautiful.” And glowing, she thought, with her vivid dark coloring and fine-boned, narrow face. Success certainly agreed with her friend.
    â€œClaudia,” Lucius said, bowing to her after the first rush of greetings had been spoken, “we were both delighted when we heard that you were to be here this evening, especially as this will be Frances’s last concert for a while.”
    â€œYour
last,
Frances?” Susanna cried.
    â€œAnd very wise too. You have had a busy time of it,” Claudia said, squeezing Frances’s hands. “Paris, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Brussels…and the list goes on. I hope you will take a good long break this time.”
    â€œGood
and
long,” Frances agreed, looking from Claudia to Susanna with that new glow in her eyes. “Perhaps forever. Sometimes there are better things to do in life than singing.”
    â€œFrances?”
Susanna clasped her hands to her bosom, her eyes widening.
    But Frances held up a staying hand. “No more for now,” she said, “or we will have Lucius blushing.”
    She did not need to say any more, of course. At last, after several years of marriage, Frances was going to be a mother. Susanna set her clasped hands to her smiling lips while Claudia squeezed Frances’s hands more tightly before releasing them.
    â€œCome to the drawing room for a drink before dinner,” Peter said, offering his right arm to Frances and his left to Claudia. Susanna took Lucius’s arm and followed along behind them.
    Claudia was suddenly very glad to be where she was—even if there
was
something of an ordeal to be faced this evening. She felt a welling of happiness for the way life had dealt with her friends over the past few years. She shrugged off a feeling of slight envy and loneliness.
    She wondered fleetingly if the Marquess of