Thea felt a surge of such gratitude she didn’t know how to adequately respond. When she’d thanked her cousins, who now declared they’d take her directly to their dressing rooms, she remained in the doorway.
“Can we play with the babies a little longer? See, George doesn’t want to go to sleep just yet.”
They stared at her, open-mouthed.
“You mean, instead of going to look at clothes?” Antoinette asked with a frown.
Thea nodded. “I’ve been dying to hold both little George and Katherine in my arms all the way here and I don’t think I can wait another minute.”
Her cousins exchanged glances. “Well, you’re an odd one, Thea,” Fanny remarked, “but you’re so pretty, so your future will be assured if Antoinette and I have anything to do with it. And it certainly won’t include rubbing unguents into gouty feet. If I have
my way, you’ll be outranking Aunt Minerva before the end of the season.”
“And then,” said Antoinette as she returned to her youngster and picked him up, “you can start having all the babies you want, though why you’d want to, I don’t know. I mean, the beginning part is highly entertaining but everything else after that—”
She broke off at an unusually fierce look from her sister.
Thea couldn’t believe how much fun she’d had. Trying on her cousin’s clothes, which they insisted she might borrow, had been like having the keys to some wondrous palace, but playing with the babies had been the most fun of all.
Now, as she waited in the drawing room to leave for the Assembly Rooms, giggling with Fanny and Antoinette, it was like the old days when she’d giggled with her sisters in a home filled with warmth and love and laughter.
More fun was in store when Fanny and Antoinette’s brother made his appearance, looking surprisingly elegant in a pink and gold striped waistcoat beneath his coat of navy superfine for his night on the town.
“Oh, Cousin Thea!” he declared, bringing his hand to his heart as he stood before her in the centre of the Aubusson carpet beneath the chandelier. “What a celestial vision! May I have this dance?”
Thea giggled as her cousin Bertram executed an elaborate bow before her. “What a paragon!” he went on as Thea rose then curtsied, fluttering her eyelids for Bertram’s benefit as she played along. “Aunt Gorgonia will just have to accept by the end of this visit that she will be losing you to the highest in the land. Why, I declare that the richest and the handsomest of men will come to blows trying to prove themselves worthy of you.”
Fanny and Antoinette laughed and Bertram added more soberly as he leaned against the mantelpiece, “Fact is, you look extremely fetching in that sparkling creation Fanny’s lent you. And it fits you a good deal better than it did Fanny last time she wore it.”
“Which was three days after I’d given birth and you burst unceremoniously into my room when I was seeing how many of my clothes I could still wear,” Fanny defended herself coolly as she reclined upon the chaise longue.
“Ah yes, weeping, if I recall. Fenton told me to get out using the coarsest language.”
“Well, of course he did! He was comforting me and reassuring me that I’d soon regain my figure and that I’d—”
“Always be the most exquisite creature in the entire world.”
They all turned at the caramel tones of Fanny’s husband, the incomparably handsome Lord Fenton, who appeared in the doorway like a sleek and supremely confident black cat.
With Aunt Minerva clinging to his arm.
Thea dropped back into her seat, head lowered, and waited nervously for her aunt’s reaction.
The laughter stopped, the general good humour in the room replaced by a tense anticipation. Aunt Minerva narrowed her eyes as she took in Thea’s appearance, her mouth a thin, tight line. “Thea, go upstairs and change.” Her voice was low and warning.
“But Aunt Minerva, I’m happy to lend Thea my gown,” Fanny began before her aunt cut her off, ignoring her as she prepared to speak once more to her niece. A pin could have been heard to drop in the uncomfortable silence as she held up her hand.
“Do it now, or we’ll hold everyone else up. If I’m good enough to lend you the clothes you need, you’ll show the gratitude I deserve. Now go!”
A very subdued Thea returned shortly afterwards wearing the brown and green velvet, stiffened with its monstrous padding around the hem, which made her feel like a burgher’s wife, parodied by fashion, her natural shape distorted with roulettes that encircled her upper arms. It would have been impossible to have appeared graceful, even if she were the most accomplished opera dancer in Covent Garden.
Silence greeted her as she self-consciously moved past the gathered assembly and reseated herself opposite Aunt Minerva with becoming meekness.
Antoinette sent her a silent, horrified look while Fanny pretended to be engaged in quiet chatter with her husband.
Bertram, who was playing with the lid of a snuff box as he continued to lounge by the fireplace, turned as she took her seat to remark, “That’s a mighty fetching object you have on your head, Cousin Thea. Might I ask what it is?”
“It’s a toque, of course!” snapped Aunt Minerva. “My finest, too, which I’ve gifted to Thea since it was made for that gown.”