“Lady Russell,” Belle replied with a smile.
“Well, now,” the old lady looked them over with a critical air, but as the woman was so elegantly attired herself, Belle could only hope she wasn’t found wanting. “Perfectly charming,” she said at length, with a satisfied nod. “You should always wear blue, Miss Holbrook, it brings out the colour of your eyes.” She turned to Crecy and smiled. “Well, I can say no more about this one. She’ll have all the young bucks making cakes of themselves before any of us get very much older, I’m sure.” She tilted her head, regarding Crecy, who glanced at Belle with a slight blush at her cheeks. “Grey eyes, too. Most unusual, never seen a beauty with grey eyes before. Though there is a touch of violet there, as well, I think. Most unusual indeed. My eyes are grey, of course, but I was never a diamond of the first water, though I wasn’t short of admirers, I can tell you,” she said with a smirk. She looked back at Crecy, though, obviously intrigued. “Quite out of the ordinary aren’t you, gel?” she said with an approving nod.
Belle elbowed Crecy before she could utter whatever remark she had opened her mouth to vent. Her sister cast her a guilty look and clamped her mouth shut once more.
“Come along, then,” Lady Russell said, waving her walking stick at then. “Not you,” she said to their aunt, who gaped at them in speechless horror and turned an alarming shade of red. The colour clashed violently with her purple gown, and Belle and Crecy had to hurry away, stifling murmurs of shock that threatened to become hysterical laughter. Instead, they contented themselves with sharing wide eyed glances of delight.
Lady Russell caught their amusement and chuckled. “Well, there’s something to be said for being old and crotchety,” she said, with a thin smile. “I can say what I like and upset whomsoever I please, it’s all the same to me. Now, then ... let me introduce you to some of the people you should know.” With that, she walked off, using her stick to cut a vicious swathe through the guests, and sparing no heed for the safety of anyone’s ankles. “Falmouth!” she called to a tall, severe-looking man with a cruel mouth and cool grey eyes much like Lady Russell’s.
“Oh, now he’s handsome,” Crecy whispered in her ear as Belle looked at her in astonishment. Handsome he may be, but he also looked wicked as sin and vastly intimidating. Like a highwayman, or ... or a pirate. Scolding herself for letting her imagination run riot, she took a breath and curtsied as Lady Russell introduced them.
“Falmouth, Celeste, here is Miss Holbrook, as promised, and her sister, Miss Lucretia.” She turned back to them and smiled, her pride perfectly obvious. “This is my nephew and his wife, the Earl and Countess of Falmouth.”
The earl and his wife were perfectly charming and they stood talking to them for a full ten minutes before Lady Russell swept them on once again. The darkly handsome Duke of Sindalton and his duchess were similarly introduced and Belle was flattered and delighted by the duchess, who was far easier to speak with than Belle would have ever imagined.
Once more they were taken up, and spoke only briefly to the Duke of Ware and his wife.
Belle could do little more than stammer in this golden Adonis’ presence, as she thought she had never in her life seen such a handsome man. His diminutive wife, however, was pretty and sweet, rather than beautiful, and made her hold out some hope that her own plight was not so impossible. The way the duke looked upon his duchess left no one in any doubt that it was a love match. The poor duchess was rather pale, though, and they made their excuses as the duke guided her out of the room, the concern on his face only too clear.
“She’s breeding,” Lady Russell whispered to Belle, who blushed a little at her forthright manner of speaking. “Twins, by all accounts. In fine fettle, for the most part, but I think the journey here has worn her out, poor dear. You’ll like her, though. Lovely gel, no side to her at all. No airs and graces, not like some.”
Belle moved closer as Lady Russell beckoned her and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Watch those ones,” she said, nodding towards a plain-looking girl and an ice blonde of perhaps twenty years. The blonde had a pert, turned up nose and a bored expression that suggested this event was perfectly normal and she rubbed shoulders with dukes and duchesses as a matter of course. “The blonde with a bad smell under her pretty nose is Lady Isabella Scranford. A spiteful cat full of gossip and claws, and her mousy friend is Miss Alice Cranton. She’s harmless enough on her own, but watch what you say in front of her, she’ll tattle everything to Isabella.”
Belle watched, fascinated as Lady Scranford caught sight of Crecy and almost choked on the drink she was sipping. Oh dear, there was one nose put firmly out of joint. Belle glanced back at Lady Russell, who gave her a tight smile. “Oh, she’s not going to be pleased by Miss Lucretia stealing her thunder, I can tell you. You watch yourselves. Poor Violette didn’t want to ask them, but the Scranfords are an old and distinguished family in the area, and it would have been a dreadful slight.”
“You’ve been so very kind, Lady Russell,” Belle said with real sincerity. “I don’t know how we will ever thank you for guiding us and ... and introducing us to so many grand people. I’m ... I’m truly speechless.”
“Nonsense,” the old lady said with a snort. “Now my grandson is well established, I can please myself by helping those few who deserve it. I think you and your sister do, and with that dreadful aunt of yours, frankly my dear, you need all the help you can get. You don’t mind me saying so, I hope?”
“Oh no,” Belle replied, feeling dreadfully wicked and enjoying herself enormously. “Though it’s horrid of me, I know, but I don’t mind in the slightest.”
***
Dinner was a lavish affair. Belle and Crecy stared at each other from across the table that was positively aflame with the blinding glitter of silverware and crystal. The meal itself was sumptuous and rather bewildering. Belle felt so overwhelmed that she ate little of the vast array of dishes presented her, though every one of them made her mouth water.
“Rather daunting, isn’t it?” said a soft voice from beside her.
Belle turned to see a rather gaunt, bespectacled, serious-looking young man at her side. Lady Russell had pointed him out as Lord Percy Nibley and informed her in an undertone that he was very wealthy, on the look-out for a wife, and a rather kindly and shy young man. She also informed her to, under no circumstances, get onto the subject of geology if she didn’t want to be talked into a stupor.