Page 1 of The Society Catch
Chapter One
The encounter which led directly to Colonel Gregory being disinherited by his father and to Miss Joanna Fulgrave running away from home in disgrace, took place at the Duchess of Bridlington’s dress ball on the sixth of June.
It was a very splendid occasion. As her Grace intended, it succeeded in both marking the approaching end of the Season and ensuring that any other function held between then and the dispersal of thetonfrom Town seemed sadly flat in comparison.
Joanna did her best to progress gracefully to the receiving line outside the ballroom at Bridlington House, although the necessity to halt on every step and to guard her skirts from being trodden on hardly helped. Her mother mounted the famous double staircase patiently next to her, using the opportunity to exchange smiles and bows with friends and acquaintances caught up in the slow-moving crush.
The delay gave Joanna ample time to reflect on the ghastly row that morning. Her mother was constantly reminding her that her second Season was now drawing to its close and she was still unattached.
‘No-one could hope for a more dutiful, lovely, conformable daughter as you,’ Mama had lamented. ‘Yet not one, butseven, eligible gentlemen have presented themselves to your Papa and you have refused them all – without any explanation, other than to say you did not think the gentleman would suit. And now, today, you have refused even to receive the son of my dearest school friend.’ She had broken off to dab ineffectually at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
‘Howcanyou say you will refuse Rufus?’ she rallied to demand. ‘What can I say to Elizabeth when she discovers you have spurned her son out of hand?’
‘I hardly know him,’ Joanna said. ‘Youhardly know him, Mama. You said yourself that you had not seen his mama for over ten years.’
‘You met Rufus Carstairs when you were six.’
‘When he pulled my pigtails and took my ball.’
‘When he wasten. Really, Joanna, to turn down the Earl of Clifton because of some childish squabble is beyond foolish.’
Joanna had bitten her lip as she searched for some acceptable excuse. To tell the truth, explain the reason why she would have turned down anyone from a Duke to the richest nabob, was quite out of the question, but she hesitated to give the specific reason why she would not have considered Rufus Carstairs in any case.
‘Well?’
‘I do not like him, Mama, really I do not. There is something in his eyes when he looks at me…’ Her voice trailed off. Those penetrating blue eyes were the only clue to something burning inside the polite, elegant exterior which filled her with a profound mistrust. ‘It is as though I have no clothes on,’ she finally blurted out.
‘Joanna. Of all the improper things… I can only hope that your natural innocence has led you to mistake the understandable ardour of a young man in love for something which I sincerely trust you know nothing about.’ Her mother broke off to compose herself. ‘Has he said anything to put you to the blush? No. Has he acted in any improper manner? No, I thought not. This is another of your whims and your Papa and I are reaching the end of our patience with you.’
Pausing yet again on the stairs Joanna closed her eyes momentarily at the memory of her mother’s voice. ‘You could not hope for a more eligible or flattering offer. I suggest you think very seriously indeed about your position. If you believe that your papa can afford to support you in an endless round of dances and parties and new dresses while you amuse yourselftoying with the affections of decent young men, you are much mistaken.’
‘Mama, I am not toying with Lord Clifton’s affections,’ she had protested. ‘I hardly know him. He cannot love me.’ But Mama had swept out, throwing over her shoulder the observation that it was fortunate that the earl would not be attending the ball that evening which would give Joanna a chance to come to her senses.
‘What a countess you would make, if only you would see reason,’ she said now, nodding towards their reflections in the mirrored walls.
Joanna frowned at her own image, lowering elegantly arched brows which only she knew were the result of painful work with the tweezers. Hazel eyes, which changed from brown to green with her mood, stared back.
She did not look too shabby, she decided critically. Her straight black hair was coiled at the back of her head and held by pearl pins and her gown was very fine.
Madame de Montaigne had excelled herself. An underskirt of a pale almond green was covered by a creamy gauze with the hem thickly worked withfauxpearls. The bodice crossed in front in a mass of intricate pleating which was carried through to the full puffed sleeves and the back dipped to a deep vee-shape. Her papa had presented her with pearl earrings, necklace and bracelets for her recent twenty first birthday and those completed an ensemble which, her mother had pronounced, combined simple elegance with the restraint necessary for an unmarried lady.
With a sigh she turned from her own image and began discreetly scanning the throng on both wings of the staircase for one particular man. She had no idea whether he would be there tonight, or even if he was in the country, yet she hoped that he would be, as she had at every function she had attended sinceher come-out more than two years ago.
He was her future husband, Colonel Giles Gregory, and for his sake she had spent almost three years preparing herself to be the ideal wife for a career soldier. A career soldier who would one day become a general and would doubtless, like the Duke of Wellington, become a diplomat and statesman of renown.
She had fallen in love with Giles Gregory when she was not yet eighteen. She was already causing her mother to announce that when she came out she would prove to be a flirt and a handful. Unlike her calm, biddable, sister Grace who had become engaged to Sir Frederick Willington in her first Season, Joanna showed every inclination to throw herself into any scrape that presented itself.
Then their cousin Hebe had arrived from Malta to plunge the family headlong into her incredible and improbable romance with the Earl of Tasborough. As the earl was in deep mourning and had just inherited his title and estates, yet insisted that his Hebe marry him within three weeks, preparations were hurried and unconventional. As groomsman, the earl’s friend Major Gregory found himself thrown into the role of go-between and supporter of the Fulgrave family as they coped with the marriage preparations.
Much of his time had been taken up amusing young William Fulgrave, freeing William’s mama from at least one concern as she made her preparations. Army-mad William had plagued the tall major for stories and neither had taken much notice of Joanna who would enter the room in her brother’s turbulent wake and listen silently from a corner.
Now Joanna moved up a few more steps, her eyes on the black-clad shoulders of the gentleman in front of her, her mind back in the front room of the house in Charles Street. The sedate parlour had become full of vivid and exciting pictures as Giles held William spellbound with his stories of life on campaign. Shehad soon realised that, whatever William’s blandishments, his hero never talked about himself but always about his soldiers or his friends. Insidiously the qualities which meant that his men would follow their major into hell and back, and then go again if he asked, drew Joanna deeper and deeper into love with him.
She understood very clearly that she was too young and that he would not even think of the gauche schoolroom miss that she was now in any other light than as a little sister. But she would be out that Season and then she could begin to learn. And there was so much to learn if she was going to be the perfect wife that Giles deserved. And the wife she knew with blind faith he would recognise as perfect the moment he saw her again.
Almost overnight she became biddable, attentive and well-behaved. From plucking her dark brows into submission to mastering the precise depth of a curtsey to a duchess or a rural dean, Joanna applied herself. Her parents were too delighted in the transformation in their harum-scarum daughter to question what had provoked this miracle, and no probing questions disturbed her single-minded quest for perfection.
And month after month the army kept Major, then Colonel, Gregory abroad. Joanna never gave up her calm expectation that they would meet again soon. It was Fate, she was certain, although every day, as soon as her father put down hisTimes,she would scan the announcements with care, searching anxiously for the one thing which would have shattered her world. It never occurred to her that Giles might be wounded, let alone killed. Nothing would intervene in his predestined path to greatness, she was certain. But there was another danger always present and each morning she breathed again when the announcement of Colonel Gregory’s engagement to some eligible lady failed to appear.
