Season for Temptation

Chapter 18. In Which Julia Comes to Appreciate French Sartorial Genius

“Please sit still, mademoiselle Julia, or I will burn your ears off with the curling tongs.”

Julia sighed and tried once again to hold still. It wasn’t the first time Simone had admonished her to stop squirming. Though she didn’t think the capable maid would really burn her, she didn’t want even so much as a single singed curl tonight.

Tonight, of all nights, she had to be absolutely perfect in every regard, for tonight was the grand ball at Alleyneham House.

The very thought of it made her insides quiver, as if her stomach were full of butterflies — or perhaps something less pleasant, like snakes.

Despite her best intentions, her fingers began to tap again. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to find a comfortable seated position.

Simone sighed theatrically and drew back her hands, saving mademoiselle’s ears once again from a tragic burn.

“I’m sorry!” Julia cried. “I’m just rather nervous, I suppose.” She hadn’t been able to eat anything since breakfast, and her head spun with jittery fatigue.

Simone frowned at her charge. “And why is this?” asked the maid skeptically in her lilting accent. “Have you not been to a ball before?”

“Of course I have,” Julia replied, biting her lip. “But this one is special.”

Simone continued to stare at Julia with expectant raised brows, and Julia tried to think of an appropriate explanation.

Louisa met James at Alleyneham House last year, and I want to meet someone like him at the ball this year. Because I want someone exactly like him. Him, in fact.

No, the truth would never do. But it weighed on her like an albatross, ill-fated and undeniable, sinking her mood. There was only one James, and he was already engaged. How could she go to a ball and dance with other men, encouraging them to desire her, court her, and marry her?

She didn’t know, but somehow she had to. She had promised she would. She had promised herself and her family, and even James.

“This ball will be such a grand event,” she managed at last. “So many glittering people. It’s practically the height of the season. I’m worried I’ll be a wallflower.”

Well, that part was true enough.

Simone seemed to accept this excuse. She abandoned the curling tongs and poked a pearl-headed pin into a coil of Julia’s hair.

“I find that to be unlikely,” she replied. “Certainly the viscount and the baronet Sir Stephen will dance with you.”

“Certainly,” Julia agreed miserably. So what if they did? She was still a fool, living a lie that could only hurt herself and her family. A stupid, simple, country fool.

The full import of the event hit her suddenly, with all the impact of a runaway coach and four. What was she doing, anyway, hoping to ensnare wealthy men at a ton party? She, Julia Herington, didn’t belong with the likes of the Earl and Countess of Alleyneham. She belonged in the nursery at Stonemeadows Hall, reading her young sisters and brother a story.

She felt as if her tight bodice was squeezing the air out of her chest, preventing her from drawing breath. She doubled over, light-headed, and moaned.

“You are disarranging your gown,” Simone informed her calmly. “You will not appear your best if you do not sit up straight at once.”

It wasn’t exactly a sympathetic statement, but it was as sobering as a bucket of cold water. Julia sat bolt upright and allowed Simone’s clever fingers to tuck and pull the fabric of her gown back into order.

She noticed these deft movements only vaguely. Her mind still spun ahead to the inevitable consequences of her stupidity. She’d fail to find a husband; her parents’ money would be wasted. She would have to return home and would languish away, an intolerable burden on her family for the remainder of her life. Unless she could somehow persuade Louisa and James to take her in at Nicholls.

Perhaps she could serve as governess for their children.

“I feel sick,” she whispered. Her vision grew dark around the edges.

Simone grasped her shoulders and shook her. “Look at me.”

She waited to continue until she had fixed Julia’s wide gaze with her own sloe eyes. “Breathe deeply, mademoiselle. Calm yourself and do not think these things that are bothering you. Are you or are you not Lady Irving’s niece?”

“Yes,” Julia replied automatically. “Well, only by marriage, but technically, yes. I believe she thinks of me as a niece. I think of her as an aunt, after all.”

Simone ignored this babbled explanation. “Then you will do nothing wrong. If you appear confident as does your aunt, everyone will believe you are so, and no person will question what you do.”

She paused for a moment, then admitted, “That is not perfectly correct. Your aunt does some things a young lady should not. But still you should be calm. Think of how your sister always appears, so possessed of herself.”

Julia breathed in and out, slowly, concentrating on the movement of air through her lungs. Simone was right. Why should everyone be watching her to see how she behaved? If they were, they would take their cue from her own demeanor. They would assume that she was fashionable and confident and eager, and that her heart was as untouched as her body.

Suddenly Simone’s final sentence sank into her consciousness. “Simone, where’s Louisa? Why hasn’t she been in to join us yet? Doesn’t she need your help, too?”

“Do not unquiet yourself again,” Simone said calmly, running an expert eye over Julia from head to foot. “Mademoiselle Louisa will be very well. Stand, please, and permit me to observe you. I believe you are very nearly ready to descend.”

She adjusted a final pin in Julia’s hair, and with a nod of satisfaction, offered her hand to assist the younger woman to rise.

Julia stood obediently and turned in a slow circle for Simone’s inspection. The maid’s usually impassive eyes widened, and she drew in her breath sharply.

“Nom d’un nom,” she breathed out. “I am a genius, truly.”

“What? Why? What do you mean?” Julia was puzzled.

A slow smile spread over the Frenchwoman’s face. “You look wonderful, ma belle. You have never looked finer. I say again, I am a genius. I shall ask your aunt to pay me more money.”

Julia laughed unsteadily, then moved across the room to peer at herself in the glass.

It was her own self… but she had never seen herself look like this. Her anxiety melted into astonishment at the very sight.

Wispy curls framed her forehead and face, while the long mass of her fair hair was held back by two fine pearlescent Grecian-style bands. Behind their restraints, Simone had coaxed her hair into a neat chignon style, but with additional twists that made of Julia’s hair a glossy pile of sophisticated coils. Even when Julia prodded them with a curious finger, their perfection remained unmarred.

“Amazing,” she breathed. Her hair had never looked so tidy and stylish in her life.

Below the mass of her hair, her skin glowed pale and rosy next to the ivory triumph of Madame Oiseau’s first and most elaborate creation. The delicate silk fell in a lustrous sweep from the low-cut neckline down to Julia’s slippers. The skirt of the gown was gathered at the back into folds that just swept the floor in a suggestion of a train, and the dress’s net overlay added a gold-tinted shimmer. Long ivory gloves and delicate pearl jewelry completed the sweetly sophisticated ensemble.

Julia turned and stared at herself in the glass, and turned back and stared some more. When she met her reflection’s eyes, they were still disbelieving. This young woman was. . beautiful? Elegant? How could this be?

Simone had worked a miracle, for the woman in the mirror looked like she could do anything. She could be fascinating and charming, and she would never take a false social step. Men would fall at the feet of this woman. If her heart was hurt, no one would ever notice, because she would tilt her head back proudly and smile.

Julia tilted her head back proudly and smiled. The woman in the mirror smiled, too, right back at her.

It made her feel better. She tried again, and this time the smile was even real.

“Oh, Simone, how did you do it?” she finally said, touching the glass one last time. “I look. . I look like a real town lady.” She choked on the words, and turned to face the maid.

“And so you are, when you are at a party,” Simone replied. “Especially this night. Remember that people know only what you want them to know about you. And in this”—she wagged a dexterous finger at Julia’s ensemble—“they will know that they should admire you and be charmed.”

She smiled at the younger girl. “So, feel your most charming, ma petite. You are enchanting. You cannot fail to please.”

Julia’s throat caught. She grasped Simone’s hands gratefully and managed a watery smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“There, child, no crying.” Simone patted her hands, then opened the bedchamber door for Julia to exit down to the drawing room. “I am very wonderful, I know, but how much will it help you to cry and undo the magnificence that I have created?”

As Julia passed through the doorway and headed for the stairs, the maid added too softly for anyone else’s ears but her own, “Il va craquer, je suis sûr. He will never resist her when he sees such a beauty. I am a genius, vraiment.”

She permitted herself a small smile as she watched Julia begin, with an expression of great concentration, to descend the stairs deliberately, holding her skirts away from her feet. Then, with an anxious glance at Louisa’s closed bedchamber door, Simone returned to Julia’s room and began to tidy up the litter of leftover pins, curl papers, and other evidence of her undeniable brilliance.

James waited downstairs in the entry of Lady Irving’s house for at least one of the ladies to make her appearance. He had been perfectly punctual, though he should have known that women preparing for a ball tended not to keep to a scrupulous timeline. He hadn’t been able to keep himself away any longer, though. There was nowhere else he wanted to be.

Given a few unexpected minutes of quiet, he idly paced back and forth, his cloudless face giving no hint of the hectic buzz of his thoughts. Despite himself, despite his years of experience with the ton, he found himself anticipating the night’s ball with as much pleasure as if it were his first.

Something wonderful was going to happen tonight, he had a feeling. By gad, his very fingers were tingling.

His mouth crooked into a wry smile as he regarded himself in the decorative pier glass of Lady Irving’s fashionable entryway. He had wanted to look especially well tonight, for whatever happened, and he’d let his fastidious manservant arrange his cravat. Delaney’s standards were amazingly high, and they’d wasted eight starched neckcloths before the valet had been satisfied. It was ridiculous, of course, but the effect was rather good, if he did say so himself.

“Drat.” A voice from the bottom of the staircase broke into his reverie.

James’s smile broadened. He knew who that had to be. Without turning to look, he said, “Hello, Julia.”

She gasped, and he turned to face her, grinning at her surprise. “James! I didn’t see you there.”

He opened his mouth to offer his usual friendly, joking reply, and then he just left his mouth open.

She was luminous.

She was herself, of course, but more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Was it the elegant sweep of her gown? No, her sophisticated clothing was but the gilt on the lily. She herself made it shine. Her skin glowed; her hair was bright; her lips were rosy.

She was the loveliest creature he’d ever seen.

He sagged against a wall. He needed to get hold of himself. This would not do. This would not do.

He closed his mouth and drew in a deep breath through his nose, and felt somewhat normal again. At least, if you were comparing him to someone who’d just been hit on the head with a club, run over by a carriage, and then been committed to Bedlam.

He was quite certain at that moment that there was indeed a God, because Julia didn’t notice him gaping at her like a schoolboy seeing his first nude statue.

All right, that wasn’t the type of thought that was going to help him get hold of himself.

He shook his head again to clear it, and noticed at last that Julia was behaving rather oddly. She was turning in slow circles, wrenching her head to one side. She looked as if she were having a tooth drawn by a set of clock gears.

“Er — is everything all right?” he managed.

Julia continued to turn in that odd way. “I’m not sure,” she said over her shoulder. “Simone had me all prepared like a perfect town lady, and then I was trying to be so careful as I came down the stairs, thinking that I mustn’t miss any of them, that I concentrated too hard instead of just going down normally, and I forgot how to move my feet properly. So I actually did miss one of the steps and my foot slid onto my hem, and now I’m afraid I’ve ripped it.”

She stood straight at last, flushing the embarrassed pink he knew by heart. “Could you check it? It’s the part in the back just next to the train. I can’t twist around quite far enough to see it.”

“Of course,” he replied. He crouched at her feet like a supplicant, his eyes not seeing her dress. The position gave him another welcome few seconds to hide his face for fear of what his expression would show her.

He took another deep breath, then cleared his throat as he stood slowly. “Your gown is fine. You look very nice.”

He still couldn’t trust himself to say more, or even to meet her eye. He pretended to check the arrangement of his cravat again in the glass.

At the edge of the glass, he could just see Julia’s reflection. She lifted her chin and smiled at his lukewarm compliment, cool and proud, looking for all the world like a princess.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding not quite like her usual self.

He turned to face her again, his face schooled into what he thought was a look of normal, friendly interest. “Why were you so worried about your dress?”

She grinned at him — her regular, everyday Julia grin — and its brightness hit him like a punch in the gut. He pitied the poor bachelors who would soon be vying for her hand.

“I’m just nervous,” Julia admitted, the self-deprecating grin still on her face. “It’s my first real ball, you know.” The grin crumpled, and she shuffled one of her dainty slippers on the floor. “Even so, I suppose I’ve let myself dwell too much on things I shouldn’t.”

James allowed himself to place one finger under her chin and tip her face up to his. Even through his glove, he could feel the heat of her smooth skin. “I know the feeling you mean,” he whispered huskily.

Her lips parted as if to reply — and of course she had a reply, because she always had a reply — and he drew his fingertip up to cover her lips for a moment. He’d never allowed himself such a liberty before, and he swore to himself that he never would again.

Probably.

“No protests,” he said, using mock seriousness to hide his deadly earnestness. “I simply must have a dance tonight.”

“Of course,” Julia replied softly, her eyes wide and fixed upon his. “As many as you like.”

She blinked and laughed suddenly. “In fact, please watch over me throughout the ball, and come to rescue me with that dance if I prove to be too unpopular. I would hate to be a wallflower, tonight of all nights.”

It was too much. She was actually asking him to watch her all evening and seize her for dance after dance. Good Lord, he wasn’t a magician who could just. . not be made of flesh for several hours. He had obviously gone soft in the head, and how he was going to get through this evening without making an utter ass of himself, he wasn’t sure.

Luckily for his presence of mind, Lady Irving marched down the stairs just then and drew all attention to herself. Her ladyship was resplendent in ruby satin and sporting an unusually garish brocaded, bejeweled, and ostrichplumed violet turban on her head.

“Let’s go,” she commanded, thumping James on the back with an imperious hand. “I want Lady Alleyneham to see me with this. . this thing on my head before my curls are completely crushed.”

Noting her niece’s gaping mouth, she explained, “Ever since we were girls together, Sylvia has copied me in everything, so I must have my bit of fun. I’ll take this off as soon as we greet her, but ten to one the silly creature will be sporting a plumed violet turban for her next at-home.”

James was amazed to see her literally rub her hands together in anticipation, and he couldn’t honestly call her laugh anything but a cackle.

“Will Louisa be ready soon?” James asked smoothly, pretending he hadn’t heard a word.

Guilt stabbed through him. Once again, he knew there was a God, because there wasn’t a mind reader in this house. No one but he would know what a cursed fool he was.

“Oh, she’s not coming. Didn’t you know?” Lady Irving said distractedly, gazing at her reflection in the much-used pier glass and prodding at the arrangement of her ostrich plumes. “Sick headache, or some such nonsense. If you ask me, all that girl needs is a good—”

She broke off suddenly, darting her gaze at James, then meeting Julia’s puzzled eyes in the glass, and said, “Well, never mind what she needs. Anyway, we’re free to leave anytime. Is your carriage waiting, Matheson? Come, Julia, my girl; gather your wrap and things.”

“But I should go to Louisa,” Julia interjected. “I didn’t know she wasn’t feeling well. Maybe I should speak to her, or even stay home with her tonight if she’s ill.”

Her expression was so worried that James’s heart turned over in sympathy. Feeling even guiltier that he hadn’t spoken up first, he, too, made an offer. “Certainly we can spare all the time needed for you to run up to your sister. In fact, I’d like to speak with her myself. She seemed well the last time I saw her. I hope it is nothing serious.”

“Don’t bother,” Lady Irving said, as she collected her wrap and began to walk toward the street door. “Either one of you. She told Simone that she was going to lie down, and she didn’t wish to be disturbed at all this evening. By anyone, and that includes both of you. And she said to have a wonderful time and not worry about her.”

She noticed neither James nor Julia was following her, turned on her heel, and looked expectantly from one face to another. “What are you two waiting for? An order? Very well, I order you to follow me, get in the carriage, and come have a marvelous time this evening. Heaven knows, if Louisa is ill, she will have a much better time here at home than getting overheated in the middle of a crowd of shoving nincompoops. And if she doesn’t want company, which she doesn’t, then you will have a much better time at the ball than you would fluttering around her, plaguing the life out of her, and getting no thanks for it.”

Faced with such logic, James allowed some of his guilt to melt away. Louisa should be here at his side. He knew that. But if she didn’t want to be there, he still could accompany her relatives. It was perfectly proper to do so.

He met Julia’s eyes and shrugged. “Cinderella must go to the ball,” he joked lamely, willing her to agree.

Julia bit her lip nervously and glanced upstairs toward Louisa’s chamber.

“It feels wrong,” she murmured.

James said something sympathetic as he took her arm and led her out to his carriage, but he wasn’t sure if he meant it.

He was too far gone. The only thing that felt wrong, at all, was how right it felt to have her hand on his arm.