Dorothy Eden by Speak to Me of Love

objected to a shopkeeper wife. She didn’t have other friends. She had had first her long dream of William, and her dream of Bonnington’s, and now both of them in reality. She didn’t need friends.
    One thing was certain, if there were to be a party in the music room she wouldn’t skulk upstairs this time, out of sight. She would be in the centre of it all, the hostess, the wife. She would shine.
    William was relieved that she was taking it so well. He had been a little nervous when his mother had first suggested it. He had thought Beatrice ought to be consulted. But there had never been an opportunity. She was always out of the house.
    Not entirely true, Beatrice thought. She said nothing, she was too happy that William was being close and loving. He was saying that she must wear the cinnamon lace ordered in Paris. She had had the final fittings at Worth’s Bond Street salon, and the gown had hung unworn in her wardrobe ever since.
    It was snowing a little that night. Some of the ladies arrived in a nervous state, saying the horses had slipped on ice, and there had been near accidents. Hawkins was busy upstairs with warming possets, and smelling salts.
    Laura Prendergast, having shed her wraps, was the first to come running downstairs, her curls dancing. She was dressed entirely in white, and looked fragile and insubstantial as a snowflake. William’s eyes were warm with admiration. He didn’t bother to conceal it. He had always admired pretty women. Besides, as his mother had said, he was starved for gaiety. Could this be a dangerous state for a young man not entirely in love with his wife?
    Beatrice decided there and then to reduce her involvement with Bonnington’s. Money was important for the purpose of showering luxuries on her husband, but personal attention might be more important.
    She could begin now by proving that she could be a good hostess.
    After the first half hour, however, she had the sensation that the guests (damn swells, Papa would say) were sweeping over her, taking possession of the house as if they owned it by right, and as if she were dumb and invisible.
    It was her own fault, she told herself. She should have taken the trouble to get to know William’s friends. But it was Mrs Overton’s fault, too. One suspected deliberate malice in that lady for inviting all the most arrogant people who could be relied on to make remarks such as, “So this is William’s bride at last! Now where have we seen you before?”
    It was easy enough to counter that sort of thing.
    “Behind the counter in my shop,” Beatrice answered one lady composedly. “Aren’t you the person who wanted the Venetian lace? It’s made on the Island of Burano, you know. I am having a special order sent over. Do remember to enquire for it in a few weeks’ time.”
    More difficult was the way William kept disappearing. But then she should not watch him so closely.
    Be polite to people, she admonished herself. Make small talk, if you can. Arrange for the music to begin.
    Soon the carols were being sung lustily, and while the guests were enjoying this diversion, Beatrice took the opportunity to go in search of William.
    She found him in the mirror room, with Laura Prendergast in his arms.
    That beautiful small self-indulgent room of another philandering Overton, with the slender white form of Laura and William’s dark shadow blotting out the reflection of the candles. They were ghostlike. There was nothing ghostlike about their kiss. By its very length it suggested unmistakably warm blood.
    Beatrice stood transfixed until William’s laugh, that short tender husky sound, made her step back hastily into the passage.
    She must not let him find her here. If he thought she were spying on him he would never forgive her.
    She knew immediately that the forgiving would have to come from her. In the space of a few seconds she had to lose whatever complacency she had had, and become wise, far-seeing, disciplined, patient.
    Pressed back