The Romance Read Online Free Page A

even though one lived only a few streets away. So coachmen fought each other for places and cursed and threatened each other with their long whips.
    Then there was the queue to get up the staircase to greet one’s hosts before edging into a crowded salon to shout bon mots, carefully rehearsed for days on the part of the gentlemen. As an entertainer with one good popular ballad would take it up and down the country, so the gentleman of fashion, having found one good bon mot, would work it to death in salon after salon, head thrown back, eyes half-closed, witticism delivered at full volume.
    As they sweated in buckram-wadded coats, corsets, and high starched collars, the gentlemen envied the ladies the current fashion in thin loose muslin gowns. Since washing all over except for medicinal purposes was only a recent fad, the air was heavy with the smell of perfume, which combined with more evil smells of unwashed bodies and musk from pastilles sucked to counteract the nasty effects of rotting teeth. As she inched to the top of the stairs, Belinda began to feel quite faint and could only marvel that her mother, that dedicated invalid, should appear to feel no ill effects whatsoever.
    Then at last she was able to make her curtsy to Lord and Lady Dunster, who sat, throne-like,on two carved chairs to receive their guests. Then it was shuffle and push into the next room, where sweating waiters circulated with iced champagne, easing their bodies eel-like through the press, holding their trays high above their heads.
    ‘I am so thirsty,’ mourned Lizzie, ‘and I would like a glass of champagne, but how am I to get one. Jump?’
    But Belinda had spied Lord St. Clair, and her fine eyes gleamed with the pleasure of the hunt. ‘Mama,’ she hissed, plucking her mother’s sleeve. ‘Saint Clair is over there.’
    With amazing energy, Lady Beverley propelled her daughters in that direction.
    For a brief moment, Belinda found herself jammed up against the Marquess of Gyre, chest-to-chest. She blushed and slid past him. He swivelled to watch her, amazed at the stab of sweet excitement that brief contact had caused.
    Lord St. Clair was standing with his bosom friend, Mirabel Dauncey, an equally willowy and foppish creature. ‘So I’ve got to get me a bride,’ said Lord St. Clair, stifling a yawn. ‘Should I just ask anyone?’
    ‘Won’t do,’ drawled Mr. Dauncey, raising his quizzing-glass and staring around the company with one huge magnified eye. ‘Might get a shrew. Might get some creature who will jaw you to death. Oh, demme. Who’s this old fright?’
    Lady Beverley was smiling in a predatory way as she edged up to them. ‘Lord Saint Clair, I believe,’ she fluted, extending a thin white-gloved hand like a swan’s neck.
    ‘Charmed, madam,’ said Lord St. Clair, rolling his eyes at his friend.
    ‘I am Lady Beverley, formerly of Mannerling.’
    ‘I’ve got that place,’ said Lord St. Clair. His pale-blue eyes raked Lady Beverley.
    ‘You are the most fortunate of men,’ said Lady Beverley. ‘There is no finer house in England.’
    ‘It’s in the
country,’
said Lord St. Clair pettishly.
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Lady Beverley with undiminished enthusiasm. ‘Such lawns, such vistas.’
    Belinda saw Lord St. Clair roll his eyes again in the direction of his friend, signalling that he wanted to escape.
    She edged forwards until she was standing in front of her mother. ‘We met last night, Lord Saint Clair.’
    Belinda gave him a dazzling smile. Still Lord St. Clair would have effected his escape had not a dandy drawled somewhere behind him, ‘Who is that shiner talking to Saint Clair? Most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, demme.’
    Saint Clair looked at Belinda with new eyes. He had never until that moment consideredasset. ‘Of course we did,’ he said with a little bow, the crush not permitting a full scrape. Lord Gyre moved close to them.
    ‘I never forget beauty,’ Lord St. Clair was saying.
    Belinda cast