Kitty let him ponder in silence for a moment, then spoke softly to him – as the snake might have spoken to Eve, he thought.
‘Your mother is holding a dinner party next week – to which she has invited the most illustrious lords and ladies of her acquaintance. Persuade her to invite me, and I will most surely secure an invitation to the first balls of the Season.’
‘Is that all?’ he said sardonically.
She considered. ‘No,’ she said – he raised his eyes to heaven to ask for strength – ‘at my first ball of the Season, you shall dance with me.’
‘An invitation and a dance?’ he mused. Another silence. ‘This is most irregular,’ he told her severely. ‘And if it in any way poses harm to my family I shall act without remorse to destroy you.’
‘But …？’ she did not seem fazed by this.
‘But I believe we have a deal. I will see to it that you are introduced to polite society. And in return we shall be rid of you for ever.’
She smiled.
He wondered if this was how Faust had felt.
13
After her family and her health, Lady Radcliffe’s next most consuming passion was her long-standing social rivalry with Lady Montagu. It was the competitive spirit between these two ladies that had first given birth to Lady Radcliffe’s annual dinner party to open the Season: Lady Montagu – also a Dowager Countess and having the advantage of two daughters, all older than Amelia – had opened previous London Seasons with sumptuous balls. With Amelia not yet out, Lady Radcliffe could not host her own rival event, but the past two years she had instead hosted an intimate dinner party a few days ahead of the Montagu ball, a night that was no less talked about and enjoyed, for it being a small affair. Indeed, its exclusivity made the invitations all the more precious and it was a coup d’état that Lady Radcliffe performed with great relish. The guest list was compiled months in advance of the invitations being issued, to a very select group of fourteen or sixteen persons, the family’s dearest friends and their offspring – who all belonged, coincidentally, amongst the very cream of high society.
To ask his mother to make such a late addition to the seating plan, then, was not a task Radcliffe expected to be easy. And indeed, the Dowager Countess looked at her son as if he had quite gone mad, when he first suggested that she invite the Misses Talbot and Mrs Kendall.
‘Why, it would be not more than a day’s notice!’ she said at first, quite appalled. ‘It would quite throw out the table to have so many ladies in attendance. And besides …’ she hesitated. ‘I am very fond of Mrs Kendall and the Talbots, as you know, but this is always a most … exclusive event. Mrs Burrell, in particular is such a stickler …’
She trailed off, not liking to put into actual words that Mrs Kendall and the Misses Talbot, as prettily behaved as they were, would not meet Mrs Burrell’s standards of gentility. They were untitled, unconnected and unknown, after all.
Radcliffe sighed. Time to take a leaf out of Miss Talbot’s manipulative little book.
‘The truth is, Mama, that I was hoping to attend the dinner this year, and I thought the addition of the Talbots the easiest way to avoid throwing the table out. I cannot imagine any other members of the ton being unoffended by the late invitation.’
Lady Radcliffe’s eyes lit up. ‘James! Do you mean it? I own I had not expected to ever persuade you to attend – you have said such cruel things about the Montagus and the Sinclairs in the past.’
‘Which I regret,’ Radcliffe lied. ‘If we invited Hinsley, as well as Mrs Kendall and the Misses Talbot, that would make for even enough numbers, would it not?’
Lady Radcliffe considered this for a moment. It was not ideal, of course, to invite three persons who would not add to the evening’s consequence, but to have James and Captain Hinsley there would most definitely make up for it. Lady Radcliffe was an astute enough member of society to recognise that James had only accrued glamour in his absence from London. His surprise return would no doubt add something special to the evening. Only one point of contention remained.
‘And it does not worry you to have Miss Talbot thrown again into Archie’s way?’ she asked. ‘Since I returned from Richmond, Archie has several times hinted that he means to request your approval to address her formally. If you intend to oppose the match, perhaps it would be unwise—’
‘I am no longer concerned on that front,’ Radcliffe said reassuringly. There was no need to mention that Archie had attempted such a request twice already – though Radcliffe had thankfully been away from home on both occasions. ‘I assure you, Mother, neither Archie nor Miss Talbot’s affections are truly attached.’