Chapter 19: The Dowager's Ball

The Dowager's ball filled both drawing rooms and the hall, and spilled out onto the garden terrace by half past ten.

Over two hundred guests arrived.

Ottoline had noted every face, and she had marked the ones who stayed away, enjoying that even more.

I wore green, which I had never done in my life.

It was the colour of the inside of a leaf, and cut low.

The Dowager had pinned the pearl comb into my cropped curls with her own hands.

My husband wore every ring he owned.

He had put on all four of them and the saffron waistcoat.

He stood at the head of the stairs receiving the ton.

"Take them off," I had said, in the dressing closet.

"Not tonight," said Gervase. "Tonight I am the legend.

"I should like to be it one last time, on purpose."

Georgiana arrived at eleven, in a gown the Dowager's woman had let out in the night.

It was the colour of dove feathers, and it made her look like a woman who had been allowed to sit down.

She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at the room.

Her hand went white on the banister.

"The Chairman is by the second window," I said, beside her. "The old man with the white eyebrows."

"I know," said Georgiana. "I saw him first."

"Do you want to leave?"

"Yes," she said. "Very much."

She stayed where she was.

Brayne came at midnight in a new plum coat, with four gentlemen behind him.

He kissed the Dowager's hand and said she was looking splendid.

"Montague," said Ottoline. "I had a wager with myself that you would come."

"I came, my dear Ottoline, to see the family united."

"How dreadfully loyal of you."

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