Chapter 19

June 1, 1802

Vauxhall Gardens

Two days before the Kelbourne wedding

Miss Clara Vetry considered herself a sunny person by nature. She hated to think poorly of acquaintances, and always did her

best to consider their point of view. When someone made fun of her darling reticules—the one shaped like a mouse's head seemed

to draw particular scorn—she dimpled at them forgivingly and straightened its wire whiskers.

So often criticism was the result of being accidentally poked in the leg, and one couldn't blame them for being irritated.

Whiskers were a signal characteristic of her reticules, and she couldn't give them up.

Viscount Kelbourne, for example, had smoldered at her in a most unforgiving manner when the whiskers on her darling black-and-white

skunk reticule snagged his silk stockings. He went so far as to suggest that skunks didn't have whiskers, which she could

have vigorously contested—except he made her far too nervous, so she had done nothing except whisper apologies.

The skunk-hating viscount was marrying her dearest friend in the world. She wanted to think well of him, even given his dislike

(and ignorance) of whiskers.

Yet Clara could think of nothing that would excuse his behavior at this very moment. Nothing. She could only thank her lucky stars that Torie hadn't accepted her invitation to join them at Vauxhall.

"Do I believe my eyes?" her Aunt Marigold said in an escalating whisper, staring across the dance floor into one of the open

boxes under the Pavilion.

"I can scarcely believe the exquisite decoration on the Pavilion," Clara cried, suddenly realizing that Kelbourne's appalling

behavior would be of interest to others. "Aunt, do let us go around the other side and examine that eggshell blue more closely."

"What lechery, virtually on the eve of his wedding," Aunt Marigold breathed. "Vile lechery , performed before the eyes of the world!"

Aunt Marigold was devoted to the teachings of a minister who regularly portended the end of the world due to human misbehavior,

which had a dampening effect on her mental state.

For a moment, Clara entertained the wild notion of begging her aunt to pretend she'd seen nothing, but since Vauxhall did

not offer dancing on Wednesdays, the floor was thronged with people who would be just as interested in Kelbourne's activities

as Aunt Marigold—who was now tugging on Clara's mother's sleeve.

The Right Honorable Lady Vetry turned, her mouth tight as a drawstring purse. Clara's mama had been chatting with a countess,

and though the Vetrys traced their ancestry—albeit with a few creative embellishments—to one of Henry VII's trusted courtiers,

she was clearly not be pleased to be interrupted while speaking to those of higher rank.

"May I be of assistance, Marigold?" she asked with acid emphasis.

"Look who is seating himself in the box to the left," her sister hissed.

Lady Vetry pointedly rearranged the stiff brocade of her sleeve. Her gown harked back to the days of Queen Elizabeth, a fashion she preferred to the present. Queen Charlotte's towering wigs? Heaven forbid.

Her eyes widened as she followed Marigold's gaze. "Two days before his marriage!"

Clara's heart was hammering, but she could already see that there was no way to head off a scandal. All the world that hadn't

attended Vauxhall this evening would learn everything by the next morning, when the gossip columns rolled off the press, bundled

for delivery while their ink was still wet.

Her darling Torie's fiancé—that beast—was seated in an open box with his flamboyant mistress, the infamous opera singer Gianna,

to his right. The lady had piled lightly powdered dark hair atop her head. She wore one of the new chemise gowns; tawny silk

clung to her curves.

It hardly needed to be said that Lady Vetry would never allow Clara to order a garment so scandalously revealing. Even now,

in Clara's third Season, her mother scarcely allowed her to wear white silk instead of white dimity cotton, let alone any

of the more exciting fabrics and shades.

Gianna—as the world knew her—wore the gown so well, Clara thought with a pang. Even if her mother did allow a dress like that,

Clara was too short and squat to be flattered by it.

"If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times," Aunt Marigold rabbited. "Vauxhall is no place for ladies. I shall

not join you again. A lady of quality should never rub shoulders with the demimonde."

"Don't be silly, Marigold," Lady Vetry said. "The pleasure gardens are the pinnacle of the fashionable world. One cannot afford not to be seen here, no matter whom one rubs elbows with."

"But she's just sitting there, as if she has every right to be in our presence!" Marigold cried.

Gianna was indeed looking over the crowd, her gaze cool and impertinent. Clara had the feeling that Kelbourne's mistress never

suffered from the sort of anxieties that plagued her own mind every day.

"As Mama just said, she has every right to be here," Clara pointed out. "Could we please not make a fuss about it? Torie will

be so horribly embarrassed."

"That poor girl," her mother said. "That poor, poor girl."

People often talked of Torie that way, as if she had been staked to a rock and fed to a dragon. That was dramatic, but Clara

adored fairy stories, and her mother always acted as if Torie was on the point of death. Which she wasn't.

"Gentlemen of quality do have mistresses," Clara said. "We all know that. When Kelbourne was betrothed to Leonora, he told

her as much himself. I fail to see why we should decry her , rather than condemn him !"

"Clara Vetry!" her mother cried in ringing tones, dropping the languid pose that she affected in public. "I am appalled that

you would mention such a dreadful subject."

"We are all talking about that subject, Mama," Clara objected.

Aunt Marigold was still gazing contemptuously at Gianna. "The waiters just delivered two bottles of pink champagne," she reported. "She drinks it like water, so they say. Instead of breakfast tea." Her voice grated with horror; that choice might be more offensive than the lady's profession.

Lord Kelbourne had to know that someone would tell Torie. But would he care? Presumably, darling Torie already knew of the woman. After all, she was the one who had told Clara years ago that the viscount would never give up his mistress.

All around them, chatter kicked up as people scanned that box and then made sure their neighbors did as well.

Kelbourne was staring blankly at the dance floor. Clara thought he didn't even see all the people peering at him.

She had a strong feeling that he wouldn't give a damn. Not given that sardonic tilt to his lips.

"She should jilt him and marry the duke," Clara's mother said. "I heard on the best authority that the man's brokenhearted.

His mother ordered him off to Bath to take the waters, as she feared his liver would give out from distress."

The rigid line of Aunt Marigold's mouth opened just enough to intone, "That woman is a jezebel. The viscount is a devil."

She was likely scanning her memory for applicable Biblical verses.

"Kelbourne bellowed at Lord Peyrenes in Lords, saying he was as greedy as a hog," Lady Vetry put in. "As a hog! Can you imagine?

Everyone knows that Lord Peyrenes lavishes attention on his six spaniels; they sleep in velvet beds. That is not the action of a greedy man!"

"Gentlemen have mistresses," Clara insisted. "Are all of them devils?" She would never say as much to her mother, but surely Lady Vetry knew of her husband's paramour. Clara had seen the lady in question in Hyde Park, driving in a smart two-wheeled cabriolet presumably paid for by Clara's father. Her father's mistress had been driving herself, while his wife wouldn't even walk down the street without a groom and maid in attendance.

"Gentlemen may do as they wish in their private time. They do not make a performance of themselves, parading a doxy in public,"

her mother replied, very much on her dignity. "Out of respect for their wives. Viscount Kelbourne is behaving with what one

can only describe as contempt ."

The countess with whom she had been talking earlier turned around and said, "Lady Vetry, I agree. I expect it is because he

is being forced to marry. I heard that he owes Sir William a great deal of money."

The woman beside her ladyship looked like a frog but cackled like a goose. "It's the other way around. Sir William owes Kelbourne

money, and the man has taken his daughter in payment. Of course Kelbourne doesn't respect Miss Sutton." After a pause, she

added delicately, "For more than one reason, of course."

Lady Vetry glanced at Clara, but thankfully she held her tongue. Over the years, Clara had made it clear that no one in her

family was allowed to make disparaging comments about Torie's intelligence.

In Clara's opinion, her friend was smarter than any of the women who clustered around them, their only claim to cleverness

being the ability to read the gossip columns over their breakfast tea.

She stole another look. Now Kelbourne was speaking with more animation on his face than she'd ever seen before. More than

she'd ever seen when he talked to Torie.

Her heart throbbed with sadness. When the viscount kissed Torie in front of the whole theater, she'd actually believed he was infatuated. It seemed so romantic, kissing his fiancée in the middle of a performance of Romeo and Juliet , as if the play had stirred his heart.

Men were a conundrum. She absently straightened the whiskers on her kitten bag until her mother's voice caught her attention

again.

"...diamonds!" Lady Vetry was saying, her tone exhilarated. There was nothing that Mama loved better than a scandal.

"What diamonds?" Clara asked.

"The ones she's wearing. A circlet worth a fortune."

"Payment for the wages of sin," Aunt Marigold said sourly. Her forehead was still pleated in shock; although she was always

looking for evidence of sin, her aunt was—to Clara's mind—absurdly astonished when she found it.

"I would guess that the diamonds were a gift to reconcile the woman to his coming marriage," Lady Vetry pronounced. "Not that

she could have hoped to marry him, being a woman from the gutter, but she has been under the viscount's protection for some

time."

"Years," the countess put in.

They were all silent for a moment.

Clara didn't know about the rest, but without locking a man into a marriage, she thought she'd be lucky if a gentleman stayed

with her for a year. She couldn't even find one who liked her enough to propose, let alone one who would pay for her company.

Not that being a mistress was merely a question of companionship, of course. She knew that.

"I think it's a crying shame," the countess said, finally. "Kelbourne seems to be doing this deliberately to humiliate Miss Sutton, which is so unkind. I agree with you, Lady Vetry. She ought to jilt him."

"Surely... surely he isn't," Clara stuttered. She couldn't bear it. Poor Torie had already put up with so many insults

since everyone found out that she couldn't read.

"I'd wager he doesn't give a damn because she's addled," someone else said.

"Don't forget the Dorney wards," the countess put in, a malicious glitter in her eyes. "A ninny for a nanny—that's what my

husband said."

"Torie is not a ninny!" Clara burst out. "He couldn't be so cruel as to do this deliberately."

"If that's the truth, then he simply doesn't care for her feelings," her mother retorted. "Look at the way he kissed his fiancée

in front of the whole theater—as if she were no better than a courtesan."

They were all chattering, humming like a beehive in summer, some arguing for Torie's deliberate humiliation and others that

the viscount was an uncaring lout. At the same time, they kept peeking out of the corners of their eyes, hoping Kelbourne

would pull his mistress into his arms and give them a show paralleling the one he put on during the interval of Romeo and Juliet .

Clara turned her back and desperately thought about whether Torie would want to know. Thankfully, her friend couldn't read

the gossip columns. Since Leonora left for Wales, the scandal sheets were presumably not delivered to the house any longer,

so her maid wouldn't read them to her either.

"Showering her in diamonds," the countess said, catching Clara's attention, "while his poor fiancée has a paltry emerald for a betrothal ring."

"Poor woman" seemed to be the general summary of Torie's plight.

Torie could jilt him at the altar, and after this evening, not a person in polite society would blame her. The scandal wouldn't

affect her marriage prospects since she could send a groom to Bath and retrieve the liverish duke.

But she had only one day to make up her mind. On Friday morning, Torie would walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, and

after that?

In the eyes of society, she would be a ninny and a nanny for the rest of her life.