Drury Lane Darling by Joan Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

O, an exercise vigorously followed, but one that showed no results. This done, she took up the brush and softened the waves over her forehead, allowing a few tendrils to tumble along her cheek. The rest of her hair was loosely pulled back in a basket with blue ribbons to match her gown.
    Her simple toilette done, she opened the door and hurried along the hallway, past Lady Raleigh and Sir Aubrey’s suite. The door was closed, but Nigel’s piping voice carried through the door quite audibly. His stuttering, apologetic syllables suggested he had confessed his hope of marrying Fleur.
    “…not to say it is settled, you know, but I thought I should just drop you a hint.”
    “Have you spoken to your father?” Lady Raleigh’s voice was as stiff and tough as a whip.
    “I thought you might…”
    “I never want to hear another word of this, Nigel. We shall forget you had the ill manners to speak to your mother about marrying an actress. I’d rather see you dead.” She sounded as though she meant it literally.
    Pamela heard footsteps approaching the door and darted back to her own room, as it was closer than the stairway. She remained there a moment, regretting Nigel’s rashness. Not that she could entirely blame him. Working with Fleur must be a terrible temptation. The editing of the memoirs would now come to a halt. Lady Raleigh would see to that. Dinner promised to be extraordinarily uncomfortable.
    When Pamela went downstairs, all the party except the marquise had assembled in the saloon. Lady Raleigh looked as stiff as an Egyptian mummy.
    Other than that and a certain pallor, she revealed no sign of her agitation. Nigel, of course, was sulking.
    “Pamela, my dear, you should have asked for a servant to help with your toilette,” Lady Raleigh said. “Your hair is all falling down. You must stick a pin in it, or you’ll look a quiz at the assembly.” It pained the dame to see Pamela falling into the snare of competing with the actress, but she could not be hard on her. Had she not herself been tempted?
    Nigel gave Pam a dismissing look. “Nobody will notice. What the deuce can be keeping Fleur?” He drew out his watch and tsk’d at it. Lady Raleigh’s jaws clenched, but that was the only betrayal of her mood.
    Pamela felt as though the room were resting on one of Mr. Goldsmith’s rockets, and that it might go off at any moment and blow them all sky high. Fleur’s dashing entrance at that moment occupied the others, and Breslau stole the opportunity to show Pamela a seat beside him.
    “Don’t frown, Miss Comstock,” he said. “I think your hair looks charming.”
    She ignored the compliment. “He told Lady Raleigh,” she said in a low voice. “Can’t you do something to divert disaster?”
    Breslau’s face froze. “Who told her? Sir Aubrey?”
    “No, Nigel. He wouldn’t dare tell his father. He told his mother he plans to marry Fleur.” Why this awful information should be a relief to Breslau was a mystery, but certainly the effect of it was to calm him noticeably. In fact, he even smiled. “What have I missed? What do you think Sir Aubrey might have told his wife? Has it to do with that argument in the library?” she asked.
    Before he answered, Fleur was with them, and all attention centered on her. Pamela had been looking forward to a display of city dissipation, and didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed at Fleur’s gown. It was a pretty emerald green silk whose cut would have passed without comment at a meeting of the Religious Tract Society. The bodice was cut high, and the favorite paisley shawl covered her arms. The only item worth looking at was an impressive set of emeralds on her ears and at her neck. One might have added that the color of the actress’s cheeks was unnaturally high, but that would have been mere quibbling. Fleur used a very light hand at the rouge pot. She looked respectable, but by no means a suitable bride for Nigel.
    The marquise felt the chill in