Free Regency Innocents by Annie Burrows

over their table, her beady eyes fixed on Felice’s emerald ring. ‘Though I had heard …’ She paused to smile like a cat that had got at the cream, and Heloise braced herself to hear whatever gossip had been noised abroad concerning the Earl and her sister. ‘I had heard that you were going to make an announcement at the Dalrymple Hamilton ball.’
    â€˜Circumstances made it impossible for us to attend,’ Charles replied blandly.
    â€˜Ah, yes, I hear there was some unpleasantness in your family,
mademoiselle?’
    Laying his hand firmly over hers, Charles prevented her from needing to answer. ‘Mademoiselle Bergeron does not wish to speak of it.’
    â€˜Oh, but I am the soul of discretion! Is there nothing to be done for your poor sister? Too late to prevent her ruination, I suppose?’
    â€˜Oh, you have the matter quite out. The affair is not of that nature. The young man fully intends to marry my fiancée’s sister. Has done for some considerable time. It isonly parental opposition that has forced the silly children to feel they needed to run off together in that manner.’
    Heloise marvelled that he could appear so unconcerned as he related the tale. Deep down, she knew he was still smarting. But it was this very
sang-froid
she had factored as being of paramount importance to her scheme. Why should she be surprised, she chastised herself, when he played the part she had written for him so perfectly?
    â€˜A little embarrassing for me to have an escapade of that nature in the family,’ he shrugged, ‘to be sure. But it is of no great import in the long run.’ With a smile that would have convinced the most cynical onlooker, Lord Walton carried Heloise’s hand to his lips and kissed it.
    â€˜Of course I never held to the prevalent opinion that you would make the younger Mademoiselle Bergeron your wife,’ Mrs Austell declared. ‘A man of your station! Of course you would prefer the more refined Mademoiselle Bergeron to her flighty little sister. Though I must warn you—’ she turned to Heloise, a malicious gleam in her eye ‘—that you ought not to make your dislike of Wellington so apparent when you get to London. They idolise him there, you know. If anyone were to catch a glimpse of that scurrilous drawing you made of him …’ She went off into a peal of laughter. ‘Though it was highly entertaining. And as for the one you showed me of Madame de Stael, as a pouter pigeon!’
    â€˜I collect you have had sight of my betrothed’s sketchbook?’
    â€˜Felice handed it round one afternoon,’ Heloise put in, in her defence. ‘When a few ladies connected with the embassy paid us a visit.’
    â€˜Oh, yes! Such a delight to see us all there in her menagerie, in one form or another. Of course, since the oneof myself was quite flattering, I suppose I had more freedom to find the thing amusing than others, to whom
mademoiselle
had clearly taken a dislike.’
    At his enquiring look, Heloise, somewhat red-faced, admitted, ‘I portrayed Mrs Austell as one of the birds in an aviary.’
    With a completely straight face, Charles suggested, ‘With beautiful plumage, no doubt, since she always dresses so well?’
    â€˜Yes, that’s it,’ she agreed, though she could tell he had guessed, even without seeing the picture, that all the birds portrayed on that particular page had been singing their heads off. If there was one thing Mrs Austell’s set could do, it was make a lot of noise about nothing.
    And dare I ask how you portrayed Wellington?’
    But it was Mrs Austell who answered, her face alight with glee. As a giraffe, if you please, with a great long neck, loping down the Champs-Elysées, looking down with such a supercilious air on the herd of fat little donkeys waddling along behind!’
    â€˜For I see him as being head and shoulders above his