Amanda Scott Read Free Page A

France was to attempt to persuade him to behave himself, but all Simon would say was that they went there to pay their respects to the First Consul, as Mr. Bonaparte likes to call himself—seeing himself a prime minister, I daresay—and that they went there on behalf of Mr. Pitt. A state visit, in fact. But of course, Mr. Pitt is no longer the Prime Minister, and Mr. Addington is a loose fish, Simon says. So what Simon told me didn’t make a great deal of sense, but then he rarely does when he talks to me of politics. And it isn’t that I cannot understand, for of course I can, but he believes such things are not suitable for women’s ears, or some such thing. In any case, that’s all he told me of the matter. Of course, Lady Ophelia is furious with him—Simon, that is—for having any part of such a nasty piece of goods as that upstart Bonaparte fellow.”
    “I can hear her telling him so,” Lydia responded with a gurgle and a wary glance at the hovering servants.
    Diana’s eyes twinkled, but she waved away the plate of creamed tripe being proffered by a footman and waited until the room was nearly clear again before continuing the conversation. “Her ladyship is not the diplomat in the family, to be sure,” she said then, still twinkling. “She simply cannot conceive of any good reason why her nephew, who ought to be quite puffed up with his own vast consequence, after all, should have anything to do with an upstart commoner. And a French one, at that.”
    “He is Corsican, I believe.”
    Diana dismissed Corsica with a slight gesture. “He is a foreigner, which is quite enough for Lady Ophelia. She has no patience with foreigners. They are so very un-English, you know.” Diana grinned. “The old marquess isn’t nearly so outspoken, of course. I daresay he’s waiting to see which way the wind will blow before plumping for one course or another.”
    “Well, at least he doesn’t disapprove of Simon’s activities,” Lydia said comfortably.
    “No, Simon can do no wrong in his eyes,” Diana said, her thoughts turning inward again as she added musingly, “and poor Rory can do nothing right.”
    Lydia quickly cleared her throat and suggested that Diana might like to try some of the goose liver sauce. Diana refused with a little smile, but she accepted the hint willingly enough and began to relate a harmless anecdote from one of the house parties she had attended. Lydia encouraged this line of conversation, and by the time they had finished their repast, she had caught up on most of the pertinent on dits of the glittering beau monde , including the fact that the notorious Lady Jersey, who had been the Prince of Wales’s inamorata for something more than seven years, since shortly before his unfortunate marriage to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, seemed to be on the lookout for an heiress for her eldest son.
    “Not that Lord Villiers needs to marry money,” Diana said, “but he’s easily the handsomest bachelor on the Marriage Mart these days, so it doesn’t hurt him to look about for the brightest star, and that certainly seems to be Lady Sarah Fane. She is, after all, the greatest heiress the beau monde has seen for many a day.”
    “They say her income will be forty thousand pounds per year when she comes of age,” Lydia said in tones approaching awe. “I have never met her. Have you?”
    “Briefly, the first day we were at Wilton House. She is pretty enough, and certainly her family is as well-connected as the Villiers, but I thought her rather wearisome. She is just seventeen, you know, and her manners are brash rather than pleasing—a schoolgirl drawing attention to herself, I think. You may judge for yourself if she and her stepmama condescend to visit Alderwood Abbey for Christmas. Lady Ophelia invited them, I believe. She likes Lady Westmorland but has no good to say of the earl, and I doubt she’s even met young Sally. The Earl and Countess of Westmorland got married only two years