The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown (Lady W 1) (34 page)

He grinned, his lonely dimple deep in his cheek. And then he winked at her, the rat.

“Sorry,” he said, and kissed her.

“That’s four,” she said, and then completely lost count after that.

Mia Ryan

Mia Ryan writes to stay sane. Those around her know that she hasn’t been writing enough when she starts slipping into bouts of inane chatter about painting bathrooms, crocheting blankets, and planting a garden. All of these things she has tried, actually but with tragic results. Fortunately, she is hard at work right now on her upcoming novel, due out from Avon Books in late 2003. Visit
www.miaryan.com
to learn more about it.

Thirty-six Valentines

Julia Quinn

For Karen, Suzie, and Mia—what chutzpah!

And also for Paul, even though he almost threw my laptop off the balcony. (It wasn’t the computer’s fault, honey.)

Prologue

I
n May, Susannah Ballister met the man of her dreams…

There is so much to report from Lady Trowbridge’s ball in Hampstead that This Author scarcely knows how to contain it all in one column. Perhaps the most astonishing—and some would say romantic—moment of the evening, however, was when the Hon. Clive Mann-Formsby, brother to the ever-enigmatic Earl of Renminster, asked Miss Susannah Ballister to dance.

Miss Ballister, with her dark hair and eyes, is recognized as one of the more exotic beauties of the ton, but still, she was never considered to be among the ranks of the Incomparables until Mr. Mann-Formsby partnered her in a waltz—and then didn’t leave her side for the rest of the evening.

While Miss Ballister has had her share of suitors, none was quite as handsome or eligible as Mr. Mann-Formsby, who routinely leaves a trail of sighs, swoons, and broken hearts in his wake.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
,
17 M
AY
1813

In June, her life was as perfect as can be.

Mr. Mann-Formsby and Miss Ballister continued their reign as society’s golden couple at the Shelbourne ball late last week—or at least as golden as one can imagine, given that Miss Ballister’s locks are a rather dark brown. Still, Mr. Mann-Formsby’s golden hair more than compensates, and in all honesty, although This Author is not given to sentimental ramblings, it is true that the world seems a touch more exciting in their presence. The lights seem brighter, the music more lovely, and the air positively shimmers.

And with that, This Author must end this column. Such romanticism rouses the need to go outside and let the rain restore one’s normally grumpy disposition.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
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16 J
UNE
1813

In July, Susannah was beginning to picture a ring on her finger…

Mr. Mann-Formsby was seen entering Mayfair’s most exclusive jewelry establishment Thursday last. Can wedding bells be far behind, and can anyone truly say they don’t know who the prospective bride will be?

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
,
26 J
ULY
1813

And then came August.

The foibles and affairs of society are usually mind-numbingly easy to predict, but every now and then something occurs that confounds and startles even one such as This Author.

Mr. Clive Mann-Formsby has proposed marriage.

But not to Miss Susannah Ballister.

After an entire season of rather public courting of Miss Ballister, Mr. Mann-Formsby has instead asked Miss Harriet Snowe to be his bride, and, judging by the recent announcement in the
London Times,
she has accepted.

Miss Ballister’s reaction to this development is unknown.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
,
18 A
UGUST
1813

Which led, rather painfully, into September.

Word has reached This Author that Miss Susannah Ballister has quit town and retired for the remainder of the year to her family’s country home in Sussex.

This Author can hardly blame her.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
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3 S
EPTEMBER
1813

Chapter 1

It has come to This Author’s attention that the Hon. Clive Mann-Formsby and Miss Harriet Snowe were married last month at the ancestral seat of Mr. Mann-Formsby’s elder brother, the Earl of Renminster.

The newly wedded couple has returned to London to enjoy the winter festivities, as has Miss Susannah Ballister, who, as anyone who even stepped foot in London last Season will know, was courted rather assiduously by Mr.

Mann-Formsby, right up until the moment he proposed to Miss Snowe.

This Author imagines that hostesses across town are now checking their guest lists. Surely it cannot do to invite the Mann-Formsbys and the Ballisters to the same events. It is frosty enough outside; an intersection of Clive and Harriet and Susannah will assuredly turn the air quite glacial.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
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S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
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21 J
ANUARY
1814

A
ccording to Lord Middlethorpe, who had just consulted his pocket watch, it was precisely six minutes after eleven in the evening, and Susannah Ballister knew quite well that the day was Thursday and the date was January the twenty-seventh, the year eighteen hundred and fourteen.

And at precisely that moment—at precisely 11:06 on Thursday, 27 January 1814, Susannah Ballister made three wishes, none of which came true.

The first wish was an impossibility. She wished that somehow, perhaps through some sort of mysterious and benevolent magic, she might disappear from the ballroom in which she was presently standing and find herself snuggled warmly in her bed in her family’s terrace house on Portman Square, just north of Mayfair. No, even better, she’d be snuggled warmly in bed at her family’s country home in Sussex, which was far, far from London and more importantly, far from all the inhabitants of London.

Susannah even went so far as to close her eyes while she pondered the lovely possibility that she might open them and find herself somewhere else, but not surprisingly, she remained right where she was, tucked away in a slightly darkened corner in Lady Worth’s ballroom, holding a glass of tepid tea that she had absolutely no intention of drinking.

Once it became apparent that she wasn’t going anywhere, either through supernatural or even quite ordinary means (Susannah couldn’t leave the ball until her parents were prepared to do so, and from the looks of them, at least three hours would pass before they would be willing to retire for the evening), she then wished that Clive Mann-Formsby and his new wife, Harriet, who were holding court by a table of chocolate cakes, would disappear instead.

This seemed quite possible. The two of them were able-bodied; they could simply lift their feet and walk away. Which would greatly enrich the quality of Susannah’s life, because then she would be able to attempt to enjoy her evening without having to stare at the face of the man who had so publicly humiliated her.

Plus, she could get herself a piece of chocolate cake.

But Clive and Harriet appeared to be having a wonderful time. As wonderful, in fact, as Susannah’s parents, which meant that they would all be here for hours to come.

Agony. Pure agony.

But there were three wishes, weren’t there? Didn’t the heroines of fancy tales always receive three wishes? If Susannah was going to be stuck in a darkened corner, making foolish wishes because she had little else to do, she was going to use her full allotment.

“I wish,” she said through gritted teeth, “that it wasn’t so blasted cold.”

“Amen,” said the elderly Lord Middlethorpe, whom Susannah had quite forgotten was standing next to her. She offered him a smile, but he was busy drinking some sort of alcoholic drink that was forbidden to unmarried ladies, so they went back to the task of politely ignoring each other.

She looked down at her tea. Any moment now it would surely sprout an ice cube. Her hostess had substituted hot tea for the traditional lemonade and champagne, citing the frigid weather, but the tea hadn’t remained hot for very long, and when one was skulking in the corner of a ballroom, as Susannah was, footmen never came to retrieve unwanted glasses or cups.

Susannah shivered. She couldn’t remember a colder winter; no one could. It was, in a perverse sort of way, the reason for her early return to town. All the
ton
had flocked to London in the decidedly unfashionable month of January, eager to enjoy the skating and sledding and upcoming Frost Fair.

Susannah rather thought that bitter cold and icy winds and messy snow and ice was a deuced foolish reason for social congregation, but it wasn’t up to her, and now she was stuck here, facing all the people who had so enjoyed witnessing her social defeat the summer before. She hadn’t wanted to come to London, but her family had insisted, saying that she and her sister Letitia couldn’t afford to miss the unexpected winter social season.

She’d thought she’d have at least until spring before having to return and face them all. She hadn’t had nearly enough time to practice holding her chin up while she said, “Well, of course Mr. Mann-Formsby and I realized that we wouldn’t suit.”

Because she needed to be a very fine actress indeed to carry that off, when everyone knew that Clive had dropped her like a hot potato when Harriet Snowe’s moneyed relatives had come sniffing about.

Not that Clive should have even needed the money. His older brother was the Earl of Renminster, for heaven’s sake, and everyone knew he was as rich as Croesus.

But Clive had chosen Harriet, and Susannah had been publicly humiliated, and even now, nearly six months after the fact, people were still talking about it. Even Lady Whistledown had seen fit to mention it in her column.

Susannah sighed and sagged against the wall, hoping that no one noticed her poor posture. She supposed she couldn’t really blame Lady Whistledown. The mysterious gossip columnist was merely repeating what everyone else was saying. Just this week, Susannah had received fourteen afternoon callers, and not a one of them had been polite enough to refrain from mentioning Clive and Harriet.

Did they really think she wanted to hear about Clive and Harriet’s appearance at the recent Smythe-Smith musicale? As if she wanted to know what Harriet had worn, or that Clive had been whispering in her ear throughout the recital.

That meant nothing. Clive had always had abominable manners during musicales. Susannah couldn’t remember even one in which he’d had the fortitude to keep his mouth shut throughout the performance.

But the gossips weren’t even the worst of her afternoon callers. That title was reserved for the well-meaning souls who couldn’t seem to look at her with any expression other than one of pity. These were usually the same women who had a widowed nephew from Shropshire or Somerset or some other faraway county who was looking for a wife, and would Susannah like to meet him, but not this week because he was busy escorting six of his eight sons to Eton.

Susannah fought an unexpected rush of tears. She was only twenty-one years old. And barely that, even. She wasn’t desperate.

And she didn’t want to be pitied.

Suddenly it became imperative that she leave the ballroom. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to watch Clive and Harriet like some pathetic voyeur. Her family wasn’t ready to go home, but surely she could find some quiet room where she might retire for a few minutes. If she was going to hide, she might as well do it right. Standing in the corner was appalling. Already she’d seen three people point in her direction, then say something behind their hands.

She’d never thought herself a coward, but she’d also never thought herself a fool, and truly, only a fool would willingly subject herself to this sort of misery.

She set her teacup down on a windowsill and made her regrets to Lord Middlethorpe, not that they’d exchanged more than six words, despite having stood next to each other for nearly three-quarters of an hour. She skirted along the edge of the ballroom, looking for the French doors that led to the hall. She’d been here once before, back when she’d been the most popular young lady in town, thanks to her association with Clive, and she remembered that there was a retiring room for the ladies at the far end of the hall.