Byron's Child by Carola Dunn Page B

most satisfactory, but still more pleasing was the change in Emily and Charlotte. Encouraged by Jodie’s total lack of shyness, they blossomed in her company. After one short week, Emily had two youthful admirers and Roland was so swelled with pride in his wife that Jodie kept watching for his waistcoat buttons to pop off.
    “I am hardly afraid of Lord Thorncrest at all,” Emily confided to Jodie as they went up to dress for Lady Cowper’s ball. “To think that only a week since I dreaded the prospect of taking supper with him tonight! Now I know that if I ask his opinion of something I have read, he will converse perfectly intelligently, without the least sarcasm.”
    “I am waiting for the moment when he asks your opinion. All men appreciate a willing listener, but he is not yet aware of you as an intelligent person in your own right.”
    “He is aware of you, I think.”
    “As an individual, yes.” Jodie laughed. “Intelligent  I’m  not so sure of. Amusing and infuriating perhaps.”
    He could hardly fail to be aware of Emily’s beauty tonight, Jodie thought as they descended the stairs, arms about each other’s waists, some time later. White was de rigueur for a young lady in her first Season, but Charlotte, with an unerring eye, had compromised. Emily’s gown consisted of a daffodil satin slip worn under a frothy frock of white net. The overall effect emphasized Emily’s creamy skin tones, exposed by the low neckline and tiny puff sleeves. Anticipation had brought a becoming colour to her cheeks.
    Jodie was quite pleased with her own appearance too. With Charlotte’s concurrence, she had chosen a gown of amber silk, trimmed with old ivory lace. It flattered the unfashionable tan that gave credence to Charlotte’s oft-whispered explanation of her “Red Indian” ancestry. Dinah had long since given up her efforts with the curling tongs and instead had woven a borrowed strand of amber beads through the black coils of Jodie’s hair.
    Charlotte, in blue, having overseen the last details of their toilettes, led them down the stairs and into the drawing room where the gentlemen awaited their appearance.
    Lord Thorncrest’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Emily. However, his expression held as much smugness as admiration, and his words conveyed as much self-satisfaction as compliment.
    “I see I am to be congratulated on having chosen a diamond of the first water.”
    Jodie almost forgave him when he presented her with a nosegay of yellow rosebuds. He had obviously gone to the trouble of enquiring about their gowns, since Emily’s posy was also yellow and Charlotte’s white.
    Giles was beside her, elegant in black coat and satin knee-breeches.  “Beautiful,” he murmured. “But then I thought you beautiful in denim jeans.”
    Jodie found herself blushing like the veriest ninnyhammer, especially when she remembered that he had also seen her in far less, back in the Waterstock stables.
    She thoroughly enjoyed the ball, just the sort of glittering affair she had so often read about. Their hostess greeted them graciously, and Charlotte pointed out several notables Jodie had read of. Among these was a handsome, redheaded gentleman she named as Lord Palmerston.
    On seeing him, Jodie plucked at Giles’s sleeve. “Lady Cowper’s his mistress,” she whispered, “or at least they’re very good friends. Her mother, Lady Melbourne, on her deathbed tells Emily to be true to him, and she’ll marry him eventually, when she’s widowed and he’s prime minister.”
    “Scandalmonger,” said Giles, amused.
    “How many people have a chance to tattle about the future as well as the present? Lady Melbourne herself had any number of lovers. In fact the future Lord Melbourne, who will be prime minister too, is supposed to be Lord Egremont’s son. He’s married to Caro Lamb, the one who fooled around with Byron.”
    “I’ve heard of her. She was mad, wasn’t she?”
    “Definitely peculiar. She sent